Looking for some great social media blogs to add to your daily reading? Here are 10 that are worth your time! Our eighth-annual social media blog contest generated hundreds of nominations. A panel of experts carefully reviewed the 20 finalists based on their content quality. Here are the top 10 social media blogs you should [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
Packaging has a profound impact on how we relate to particular products.
In a consumer taste test for 7-Up, participants reported tasting more lemon flavor when they drank the soda out of cans with 15% more yellow coloring in the package design.
The colors, textures, fonts, and compositions on the products we buy can really change how we feel, taste, and experience a brand.
Even in the age of social media, product packing and "shelf-presence" is still important for brands to get (and remain) in the consumer consciousness. For your inspiration, we've dug up the stories behind a few of the most iconic and recognizable packages, taking a look back at some of the surprising influences on their original designs.
If you've bought honey in the last 60 years, chances are it came in one of these friendly bear-shaped plastic bottles. It seems like the majority honey manufacturers today choose to package their product in the instantly-recognizable shape, but have you ever wondered where the idea originated?
Ralph and Luella Gamber, the founders of Dutch Gold Honey Inc., first imagined the bear-shaped container while having dinner with friends in 1957. Winne the Pooh creator A.A. Milne had died just a year before, and there was still a lot of publicity surrounding his honey-loving protagonist, Pooh Bear. "We just figured a bear likes honey, why not a bear of honey?" Ralph Gamber told the Los Angeles Times in 1997.
The Gambers never actually patented their now-iconic design, due in part to concerns that it would resemble Winne the Pooh too closely and lead to a lawsuit. "We made it look as different [from Pooh] as possible. We thought we'd be sued ... We didn't know about franchise rights or whatever," Ralph Gamber said.
Image credit: Amazon
The Kikkoman soy sauce bottle is a stylish staple at restaurants, and despite its sleek, modern appearance, the teardrop design has remained completely unchanged for over 60 years.
The man behind the bottle's unique form is Kenji Ekuan, a Japanese industrial designer who dedicated his life to creating positive, useful things after witnessing the atomic devastation of Hiroshima -- where he lost both his sister and father.
Inspired by the simplicity and elegance of classic Japanese design, Ekuan and his team created over 100 prototypes for Kikkoman before arriving on the quintessential bottle we all know and love today: a refined, transparent dispenser with a neck inspired by an inverted teapot spout. 300 million bottles later, the design is still an integral part of the Kikkoman brand.
"For me it represents not the new Japan, but the real Japan,” Ekuan told the New York Times in 2012. "The shape is so gentle. Of course, during the war, we were forced into acting differently. But for a long time, some 1,000 years, the history of the Japanese people was very gentle."
Image credit: WebRestaurant
Since their first appearance in 1878, Tiffany & Co.'s simple blue boxes tied with white ribbons have become an international symbol of luxury and sophistication. Adweek even called the decidedly minimal packaging, "the most recognizable and most desired retail container in history" -- and we aren't inclined to disagree.
So what made Tiffany & Co.'s founder, Charles Lewis Tiffany, decide on this particular shade of blue back in the 19th century? No one really knows for sure, but it seems like more than a coincidence that this hue was desirable among wealthy women at the time, due to the popularity of turquoise jewelry.
Image credit: Tiffany & Co. on Instagram
Love it or hate it, LaCroix's kaleidoscopic design certainly stands out in a sea of otherwise minimal seltzer containers. With its jazzy font and vibrant splashes of color, you'd be forgiven if you thought this sparkling water brand hadn't changed their logo since the 1990s. In reality, the current can design -- which one designer described as "swirling hangover puke" -- didn't burst onto the fizzy beverage scene until 2002.
In an effort to differentiate themselves in a crowded market, LaCroix hired Lyle Zimmerman, the head of Alchemy Brand Group -- the branding firm behind major campaigns for P&G and Coca-Cola. Zimmerman's team mocked up a few branding options and presented them to LaCroix's parent company, National Beverage.
Of the options presented, the folks at National Beverage most disliked the splashy, colorful design we all know and love today. But market research showed a completely different story: Comsumers overwhelmingly preferred this abstract neon monstrosity/masterpiece, so LaCroix ended up running with it. 15 years later, their unique design is partly responsible for their meteoric rise to the top of the seltzer space.
Image credit: LaCroix
In a very literal example of outside-the-box thinking, Toberone's original creator, Swiss chocolatier Theodore Tobler, decided to manufacture his honey and nougat-studded bars in a triangular mold back in 1906. Tobler and his production manager, Emil Baumann, were supposedly inspired by the Matterhorn, the Swiss mountain best known for its nearly symmetrical, pyramidal peak.
There is however an alternative theory about where Tobler got his inspiration. While visiting the Folies Bergères in Paris, Tobler witnessed a cabaret show that ended with the dancers forming a human pyramid. According to his sons, this acrobatic grand finale was the real inspiration behind Toblerone's iconic shape.
Image credit: Ashley Pomeroy
Nearly all salt comes in a round package with a pouring spout these days, but did you know that Morton Salt was the first to use this design back in 1911?
At the time, most salt packaging didn't allow for easy pouring -- especially in damp climates. If the weather was humid or rainy, salt exposed to the air would clump, making it difficult to pour neatly into salt shakers. The folks at Morton Salt designed this round package with a closable spout as a way to keep the product safe from humidity, and allow consumers to pour salt in a precise stream.
To introduce this new concept to consumers, Morton brought on advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Company, who suggested the now-famous girl with an umbrella image to illustrate that the salt would always pour -- even in rainy weather.
Image credit: Morton Salt
Around Valentine's Day, you'd be hard pressed to find a chocolate manufacturer that doesn't sell heart-shaped boxes of assorted truffles. But where did this tradition begin?
British chocolate company Cadbury is widely credited for introducing the heart-shaped candy box to consumers back in 1861, when Richard Cadbury was seeking a way to use the pure cocoa butter extracted during the drinking chocolate manufacturing process. He devised a completely new product: "eating chocolates," which he packaged and sold in colorful, heart-shaped boxes he designed himself.
Among the Victorian elite, chocolate was frequently given as a token of affection, and Richard's romantic boxes -- covered in illustrations of cupids and flowers -- became a popular way to give the gift of chocolate, plus a lovely keepsake box. For their major part in the commercialization of Valentine's Day, Cadbury's company experienced explosive success, and continues to sell heart-shaped boxes today.
Image credit: Cadbury
The Campbell's tomato soup label that Andy Warhol popularized in his series of famous pop art paintings wasn't always red and white. In fact, when the condensed soup first launched in 1897, the cans were wrapped in blue and orange.
So what caused the brand to switch their color scheme so dramatically? It turns out it was a football game. In 1898, Herberton L. Williams, the company's treasurer at the time, attended a college football game between the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell. Williams was so inspired by the red and white uniforms worn by the Cornell team, he proposed Campbell's change their packaging to match. Today, it's difficult to imagine Campbell's cans with any other color scheme.
Image credit: NBC News
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Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention. What’s New This Week Pinterest Introduces Search Ads: Pinterest rolled out search ads with “a full suite of features, including Keyword and [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
It's official. We live in an era when we can speak commands to machines -- without the push of a button -- and, most of the time, they will acquiesce. On top of that, we have access to more than one type of such technology and our choice of devices. As my Dad might say, "What a time to be alive."
But like anything else that's in high demand, there's competition in the realm of personal home assistants. Take Amazon Echo and Google Home, for example. What makes them different? And is one really "better" than the other?
The answers to those questions depend largely on an individual's lifestyle, and what's most important to each user. We had a look at each device, and selected five key differentiators that can help you decide which one is best for you.
Amazon describes Echo as a device that provides “hands-free convenience with voice-control”. It’s designed to play music from any number of streaming apps, like Spotify, Pandora, or iHeartRadio, among others. But its capabilities go beyond music -- while your tunes (or audiobooks, which it can also read aloud for you) are playing, you can interrupt it to ask a question, and should promptly receive an answer.
Amazon Echo can be used the same way you might use any other type of voice search, and ask for things like news, weather, and information about what’s nearby. It’s powered by Alexa, Amazon’s voice recognition technology, and it's built for the Internet of Things -- or smart home -- making it able to control things like room lighting.
Google Home is described as “a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant.” That’s the same technology used to answer questions in the search engine’s Allo app, which is configured to respond to search queries, set reminders, and engage in everyday chit chat. Here’s a look at how the app functions:
But the Google Home device has far more capabilities than Allo. First, you can ask the same questions that you might ask of the app, but in a hands-free, voice-activated manner. Like Alexa, it’s also built for smart home technology, and can control things like lighting or temperature.
What really seems to differentiate Google Home, however, is the fact that it’s built by Google. That changes the way it execute searches -- after all, it was created by a company known best for its search engine -- and can integrate with the technology you might already use for day-to-day management. Read on -- we’ll explain.
Raise your hand if you use Google Calendar. Or Google Maps. Or any of Google’s other apps. While we can’t seem to find the total number of users for each of them -- and by all means, please let us know if you’ve got ‘em -- there’s a good chance that you use them. After all, we use Google Calendar here at HubSpot, and we’re a company of over 1,500.
For that reason, it makes sense that people might like a personal assistant device that readily integrates with the technology they’re already using to manage their schedules and daily routines.
“The real benefit is how it integrates into my Google life -- my trips, my calendar, my shopping list,” says HubSpot’s Web Team Tech Lead, Dmitry Shamis. “All the things that I already used Google for, I can now tell Home to maintain.”
Source: Google Home Help
But that technology isn’t perfect. According Google Home support, the device can only support the main calendar of the Google account used to set it up. (Google Home only allows one user, which we’ll get to later.) It doesn’t support any other calendars, or those that are shared or to which the user might subscribe. That said, if you use Google for your day-to-day schedule and tasks -- and you live alone -- the technology is more than ideal.
Shamis, for his part, admits that Google Home is not without its cons, even though it was a “no brainer” for him to switch from Amazon Echo. His biggest lament? With Google Home, “You can't buy things like you can with Alexa.”
That technology recently made headlines when a news anchor uttered, “Alexa, order me a dollhouse.” It was rumored to have been recognized as a voice command by several Echo devices within earshot of any TV showing the news program, causing multiple unintended orders of dollhouses.
Again -- the technology isn’t without its cons. The story illustrates that Echo can’t exclusively recognize one voice or another, and can accept commands from pretty much anyone within its “far-field” range.
Still, the convenience seems to trump any potential flaws. The ability to seamlessly reorder regular necessities, says Shamis, with commands like, “‘Alexa, buy more dog food’ was extremely helpful.”
Source: PC Advisor
I imagine how my grandparents might respond to any grievances around this technology -- "Are you really complaining about a machine that can turn on the lights when you ask it to?" And maybe they’re right. But as long as we can be picky, let's discuss the distinctions between the smart lighting features of Amazon Echo and Google Home.
With the Echo, Shamis explains, you can create any combination of lights and assign a group name to it. His living room was one example -- coming home to a dark apartment, he says, was made more convenient when the command, “Alexa, turn on the lights,” was limited to the living room.
But now, “‘OK Google, turn on the lights,’ turns on every light in my apartment,” he explains.
That’s because Google Home requires lighting commands to be assigned to individual rooms -- so unless users specify, “Turn on the living room lights,” every light in the home is illuminated.
Instead of assigning lighting to each room, Amazon Echo allows users to combine any group of lights and give it whatever name you like. A combination of the front hallway and living room, for example, might be named, “Evening commute lights.” For that reason, it might be a more convenient option for people with larger homes, or unique home layouts.
Source: RouteNote
Are you someone who can hum the tune of any song, but never remember the name of it? If so, Amazon Echo’s music-streaming features might be a better option, especially for Spotify users.
The Echo, Shamis says, has a more user-friendly integration with Spotify. The command, “Alexa, play Spotify,” would pick up where the app left off on his phone -- whereas “OK Google, play Spotify,” plays a song at random.
That’s not to say Google Home is completely unresponsive when it comes to music. If you know the song and artist you’re looking for, Google responds and plays it immediately. Plus, some reviews -- like this one from CNET -- say that it "responds more flexibly to language” than Echo does.
Source: Techno stream
As we mentioned earlier, Google Home can only support the main calendar of the Google account used to set it up, and only one user is allowed per device. That makes it most convenient for people who live alone, or for families that have a single Google Calendar with everyone’s appointments and commitments. Even then, you'd have to specify who those appointments belong to -- for example, “Maggie’s birthday party,” or “Mike’s doctor appointment.”
The Echo has Household Profiles, which allow multiple adults to use and modify shared features like shopping lists. But there’s a small catch -- those separate profiles don’t always come with separate payment information. In fact, according to Amazon Device Support, “When you add a second adult to your Household, you are authorizing the other adult to use credit cards associated with your Amazon account for purchases on Amazon.”
There is the option to require a four-digit passcode to make those purchases, but if you’d rather be safe than sorry, make sure your Household Profiles belong to people you trust.
“So,” I asked Shamis, “would you recommend that someone get both Echo and Google Home?”
“No,” he told me. “It’s one or the other -- there’s enough overlap that you don’t need both.”
He’s right. Both have smart home features. Both can play music. Both can answer questions on a whim. So when one outweighs the other, it’s typically limited to personal preference.
Figure out what your priorities are, and why you chose to invest in a digital assistant like this one in the first place. From there, use this list to help determine which one fits into your life better, and how it’ll actually make things easier.
Which device do you prefer -- Amazon Echo, or Google Home -- and why? Let us know in the comments.
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Do you have a local business? Want an effective way to market to people who are near you? To explore how to reach your customers with mobile marketing, I interview Rich Brooks. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
If you're a B2B marketer who isn't investing in content creation, you're in the minority -- 88% of B2B marketers surveyed by Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs said their organization used content marketing to further their goals in 2016.
Developing a sound content marketing strategy is worth it: We found that B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X the traffic as companies that blogged only once per month.
Digital Marketing Philippines created the infographic below to highlight other trends to expect from the B2B marketing world over the course of this year. Read on to learn about the challenges, priorities, and growth opportunities on B2B marketers' minds as we continue to ease into 2017.
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Whether you're a fledgling startup agency about to announce your grand opening, or a growing firm with some big news to share, one thing is certain: You need a way to get the word out -- and fast.
But there's more to a big announcement than firing off a press release and hoping it somehow reaches the intended audience. Sure, it’s easy to look at other successful campaigns and feel that they somehow just came together with a few clicks of a mouse and the help of a social media whiz, but don’t be fooled.
Successful PR campaigns require work -- and lots of it. If you’re hoping to spread the word effectively, then you’ll need to put in the hours pre-launch to ensure everything runs smoothly.
No matter what your budget, or how much time you have before your launch, there are a few things you’ll want to do before your big reveal to help make your PR launch a success.
More than crafting a bunch of articles and firing them off in every direction, content seeding involves taking a more strategic approach to content distribution -- one that always produces better results. With content seeding, your goal is to spread content to various websites and social media platforms where it will be read, and more importantly, shared.
Your secret to success with this approach pivots on two main things: Creating top-notch content, and tapping relevant influencers who are willing to use their own networks and connections to share what you've created with a broader audience.
While many companies share content from their own branded account, getting key influencers to share your content can add more authenticity to your message. Research has shown that recommendations carry far more weight than corporate ads or sponsored content.
Even having just one influential person share your content can result in a significant jump in shares. Research from BuzzSumo found that having one influencer share a post resulted in an average of 31.8% more social shares. Having three influential people sharing their content doubled their number of social shares.
Data from Buzzsumo
One of the best ways to find influencers who are willing to share your content is by looking for opportunities to submit contributed content. If you can land authorship accounts, or submit guest posts on well-known publications (such as well as industry-specific publications and blogs) you’ll be able to extend your reach even farther.
Remember: content doesn’t have to be written. Supplement your articles with infographics, videos, and even photos of your agency to generate interest. And while you’re at it, start building relationships with other contributing writers and help promote their content. As you grow your network, your credibility grows, which leads to more opportunities to get exposure for your agency.
Case studies are boring -- we get it. But there’s no reason you have to stick with the overdone one-paragraph blurbs. Give the monologs a rest and go straight for the Emmy by creating an intriguing and must-share video based on a real-life success story, like this one from HubSpot.
With your client’s permission, craft a fun and lighthearted take on how your product or service made life better for someone. Keep it short and sweet -- five minutes or less is usually adequate. When done right, case studies can be valuable content you can use to generate interest in your agency's services. They’ll also help to lend credibility to your brand, which is essential -- especially if you’re a startup agency that’s still relatively unknown.
Encourage your people to become regular contributors to popular publications, podcasts, and even radio shows, and have them create content for your agency's blog. Getting exposure for your team is a great way to add some personality to your company, and a give face to your brand.
Rallying your team to participate in content creation is also an effective way to get your message across. Instead of one person talking to the camera, there’s a whole team backing your services -- which can't hurt your agency's credibility.
Need some inspiration? Check out this tongue-in-cheek video property management company Renters Warehouse created to introduce their team to the world.
To be truly impactful, strategic alliances need to go further than the typical approach of, “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” Instead, your goal should be to create meaningful and long-term relationships.
Look for opportunities to create co-authored content, or hold co-hosted events. Your trusted ally could be your business partner, a team member, or even someone from your network that you can team up with for a united cause. This will also help you to expand the extent of your outreach, since they’ll be able to share their work with their followers as well.
Your partnership could also be with another business or professionals in a different field. You could even get some willing customers or prospective customers involved. Get creative and find new ways to showcase your product, or create a promotional video that features people using your product in a fun and unique way. Who knows? The right partnership could even end up forming the cornerstone of your launch campaign.
Ah, the good old fashioned press release. While often companies use press releases as a chance to announce mundane facts and events, don’t fall into this trap.
The press release isn’t the place to talk about your move to a new building, or your newly renovated break room. Instead, reserve the traditional press release for the really exciting stuff. This means making a big deal about exciting new products, fascinating breakthroughs, ways that your agency has made a difference, or causes that your company’s involved with. This is the kind of news people actually care about and will take the time to read.
Your Facebook page is your secret weapon. Take advantage of Facebook Live to host a live event to address issues that your prospects care about, or answer questions about things they’re interested in. Not sure what to cover? Get inspiration from the top ten queries that most prospects ask you about your agency's services.
At Onboardly, we recently ran a Facebook Live to answer the often-asked question, “What are some ways I can get our service offering out to the public that helps us to stay on brand with no PR budget?” Facebook Live is a great tool to address questions, while helping spread the word about what you do.
As you can see, there’s more to a PR launch than hitting publish and hoping for the best. Instead, it’s up to you to generate publicity for your campaign, and you’ll want to put in the hours behind the scenes to help build interest for your big day. You can do this by creating plenty of great content, and sharing it far and wide.
Finally, keep in mind that generating publicity isn’t a one and done event. It’s important to keep the momentum going after the launch as well. Post-launch, continue to create winning content and share amazing press releases and case studies. Look for opportunities to form partnerships, make yourself available for interviews, and spearhead co-hosted events. Keep looking for ways to drum up publicity for your agency -- and word will continue to spread.
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