The Latest in LinkedIn
LinkedIn is taking users’ ability to “connect” to the next level. This week LinkedIn is rolling out new profile features that will empower a whole new segment of users with the opportunity to become content creators and professional influencers. The professional networking platform announced the unveiling of a new “Creator Mode” to build their voice and audiences.
Social Platforms Taking a Cue from One Another
These new features are the latest of many social media shifts, as we notice a trend of social platforms taking cues from one another. Especially following almost a year of exclusively virtual networking, the media landscape is rapidly expanding to include a number of opportunities for professional and personal success. The rise of micro-influencers on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Clubhouse, etc. has earned the trust and loyal following of their audience members for a particular subject. There is no shortage of creative innovation on these platforms, with professionals having to develop unexpected use cases. For example, did you know personal finance TikTik was a thing? Yes, there is a growing community of young professionals offering personal finance and investment advice to followers of #FinTok or #StockTok. This just serves to show that social media platforms have much deeper opportunities for content creators than showing off their latest recipes and dance moves. With rising competition from emerging platforms, such as the audio-only app Clubhouse, or viral sensation Tik Tok connecting niche interest communities, LinkedIn is debuting similar features to remain the mainstay for professional networks. Users can now create stories (taking cues from Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat), weigh in on trending topic hashtags (#thankyou Twitter), and now become content curators with “Creator Mode”.
Creator Mode & Influencer Opportunities
The new “Creator Mode” for LinkedIn allows users to pin specific hashtags to the top of their profile to signify the themes they frequently post about. With creator mode enabled, the presentation of profiles is altered to emphasize the hashtags directly under job titles. This moves up the “Activity and Featured” sections to highlight posts and links that a user shares before the “About” bio boxes. This shifts the content hierarchy from a self-written bio, to a curated collection of user-generated content. This allows users to focus their profiles on niche genres and topic areas to own a small space as thought leadership. In a nutshell, “Creator Mode” offers users an opportunity to connect on a more meaningful level to targeted audiences, therefore promoting themselves to influencers amongst their community.
Additionally, users can “Follow” these influencers rather than adding them to their personal networks. Now instead of feeling uneasy sending network invitations to a complete stranger, users can follow their favorite thought leaders just as easily as on other social networks.
What else is included in this update? LinkedIn users can upload video cover stories, creating an interactive introduction to their profile. Much like a Facebook or Instagram story, the cover story can be initiated to play on the click of a profile photo with an orange ring. The uniquely new aspect of these cover stories is what is known as the “Harry Potter effect”, where the video will autoplay silently in the profile photo frame to signify available video content. These new features will help propel the already growing importance of video-based content on social platforms. Many users see this new video feature as an opportunity to promote themselves with a personalized pitch of their skill sets. Almost like a precursor to a job interview, it grants users the opportunity to conduct a virtual elevator pitch with all of the personality and zest of in person.
What Creator Mode Can Do For Companies
These new updates will be big for companies of almost any industry, but especially in B2B technology, cyber or complex services. Many of whom have been prioritizing thought leadership of leadership and SMEs through whitepapers, research, and media opportunities as means of generating industry attention to their brand. “As our ecosystem has been growing, and as we’re seeing the world of work changing, we’re seeing that content is now a core part of how professionals interact with not only their own jobs but their industries, their peers, and their communities,” Keren Baruch, group product manager for creator strategy at LinkedIn.
Last year 62.1 million LinkedIn users reported logging in at least once a month. This statistic is expected by researchers to jump to 64.7 million in 2021 and reach 70.9 million by 2024. The popularity of LinkedIn is expected to grow significantly, especially as users realize the unique opportunity to take control of their professional success and promote their achievements like never before. The barriers of entry for powerful brands and thought leaders have been lowered, which levels the playing field for companies of any size to become influential industry leaders.
Are you the next micro-influencer of your professional space? With the support of social media and PR agency, Bluetext, you could be! Contact us to learn more about our digital marketing and PR services.
Software as a Service (SaaS) companies often run into a problem when they launch a new product or unveil updated features: they find it hard to secure the outstanding press coverage they expected. There’s a reason for this: the SaaS market is extremely crowded with tons of capable competitors, and, as a result, the media landscape for these technologies is heavily saturated.
To add to these challenges, SaaS technology is intangible. It is, as the name implies, a “service.” Unlike physical products that can be examined, physically held, or even photographed, SaaS is software delivered via the cloud.
So, when looking to drive media coverage, the biggest question SaaS providers need to answer is how do they differentiate themselves from their competition? Looking to PR agencies as a resource is a great way to solve this dilemma. The PR agencies that are most successful in the SaaS space are the ones with a deep and wide understanding of the competitive landscape. An experienced B2B PR agency brings an informed third party perspective to identify where market gaps and needs exist, and how your particular solution can fill that gap. As an agency, these PR professionals have an acute awareness of industry competitors’ voices and most sought-after media outlets. The agency can lock in on your company’s niche, cultivate creative solutions to bring the organization’s message to the market, and understand the media landscape in order to capitalize on what storylines are driving coverage.
Finding SaaS Providers’ Niche
The first responsibility of any PR agency working with a new SaaS client is to determine what differentiates their client’s product from the competition. As the client, you have expert knowledge of everything your product has to offer, but may be challenged to find that one angle that makes you unique. For example, is the solution a scalable, cost-effective offering that enables organizations to deploy it quickly? Or does the technology excel by delivering top-level security automated backup to facilitate easier user management?
Whatever the case may be, in order to secure media coverage in the desired tech-media outlets, PR organizations must hone in on what makes that SaaS provider’s technology noteworthy. Once this differentiating factor is identified, the next step is to come up with creative tactics to highlight the benefits of this technology to intended prospects.
Cultivating Creative PR Solutions
Given the SaaS marketplace is so crowded, core PR components of strategic news announcements, conducting media outreach, and authoring thought leadership contributed pieces hold value, but there is more that needs to be done. As such, it’s crucial to experiment and be as creative as possible to create the most engaging content.
One potential alternative solution is hosting webinars. Webinars enable SaaS organizations to bring their message directly to digital audiences. It’s a strong engagement tool that can be leveraged across social channels for multiple months and on your website after the live premiere, initially as gated content and then for open viewing. Inviting key members of the press to attend is a great way to cultivate relationships with reporters as well.
Creating testimonials of past customer success stories is another way to demonstrate how SaaS providers’ technologies drive key wins. These can take different forms – videos, print/digital case studies, or even a dedicated page on the organization’s website – but the goal should always be the same: draw attention to how your SaaS solutions have succeeded in the past and what made them successful.
Finally, social media is a critically important tool that can not only promote how SaaS providers’ solutions work but also serve as another way to engage with reporters and news outlets by sharing past coverage pieces that are informative, engaging, and well-written primers on topics that matter most to the SaaS organization and their customers.
Capitalize on the Media Landscape Momentum
“Newsjacking” larger PR stories with relevant SaaS messaging is also crucial to driving media coverage. In fact, the most successful SaaS PR pitches often leverage stories or trends happening in specific industries related to how the as-a-Service model meets organizations’ pain points.
For example, when COVID-19 hit, government agencies were forced to reexamine how they work in an unfamiliar setting while school systems and students had to quickly adapt to remote learning. These rapid shifts demanded new technologies for workers and students to succeed that could be deployed quickly and cost-effectively. Both situations drove significant media coverage in the early months of the pandemic.
Leaning into the stories that are resonating most with the media at a given time enables technology providers to emphasize trends they’ve seen work best for their customers and contribute to meaningful conversations. Newsjacking is where you should especially lean on a PR agency’s expertise. While your company may have subject matter experts in technology, think of your PR agency as your subject matter expert of the media landscape.
How to Choose the Right PR Agency Partner
For SaaS providers that are feeling overwhelmed when it comes to dealing with the media, PR agencies like Bluetext can serve as a valuable resource. But these technology organizations should be wary of who they enlist as a partner.
SaaS organizations should be sure to ask for agencies’ past client work and case studies. Feel free to ask questions that test the agency’s knowledge of the SaaS space. You want to be confident that your PR agency partner features individuals who have successfully worked in this industry previously.
To drive the most success with PR agencies, it is essential that SaaS providers feel they are incapable and knowledgeable hands. Embarking on partnership with an organization you do not trust will simply lead you back to where you started: unsure how to drive media coverage that features your product.
Want to know more about Bluetext’s past success with SaaS PR clients? Get in touch with us.
It’s no secret that after a year of virtual, well, everything, people have entered into a phase of “digital fatigue”. Dr. Alexander Aizman, a New York-based physician and surgeon has coined this term to describe “the physical discomfort that is experienced after prolonged exposure to a digital screen”. Ever been shocked when your iPhone sends your weekly screen time report? It’s no wonder people are growing weary of the time spent on digital devices…
When COVID-19 forced the world online a little over a year ago, device use increased as many calls, events, and other in-person interactions became video conferences. Everything from professional networking, to personal tasks like ordering groceries, quickly pivoted to digital platforms. With people rejecting increasing screen time and looking to alternatives that allow them to avert their eyes, designers must establish a way to create enticing experiences in the midst of digital fatigue.
Cut Down on Blue Light
One way to switch things up is to create an alternative, dark mode experience for users. Dark mode isn’t just a trendy aesthetic, it is actually backed by UX research and health studies to benefit users. The majority of websites we interact with on a daily basis leverage white or light color-dominant backgrounds and excessive exposure to this can cause eye strain, dry eyes, and even disrupt our sleep cycles.
Allowing users to choose their experience, or programming a design that is time responsive, and will automatically update to dark mode for evening and nighttime hours based on the user’s location, can provide a break from all of the white space.
To learn more about ways you could incorporate dark mode into your designs, read our previous blog post.
Break Up the Monotony
Spending the majority of the day on screens and devices of various sizes can become exhausting for a number of reasons. Particularly if you are reading large amounts of online text content. When designers approach a new interface or even just a new landing page, it’s important to always keep the audience, and the environment, in mind.
Think of a trip to the museum…it can be a great outing until the initial excitement wears off when each exhibit feels the same. Walking around and reading long content labels, in every roped-off section can only retain attention levels for so long. Yet when there is an interactive exhibit, the interest returns, and the learning and engagement experience offers a higher reward. The same concept applies to online businesses, websites that receive more engagement and interest offer a higher ROI.
Utilizing interactive content, whether it be diagrams, comparison tables, or even simple graphics, can break up long walls of text. Inviting users to interact with content and bringing in visual elements that convey information in easy to grasp and easy-to-understand ways will improve the users’ overall experience.
Introduce Motion and Movement
One notable way to make sure your users connect with content and accompanying design is to create experiences that introduce motion. Static content requires the user to continue scrolling or navigate to other pages and can quickly become repetitive and uninteresting. Incorporating movement into your design as users interact with the page can create a unique experience that will build interest and encourage interaction.
All of the techniques mentioned above bring exciting alternatives to custom designs, and avoiding digital fatigue will ensure users have positive online experiences.
If your website could benefit from a boost in online engagement and website interaction, you’ve come to the right place. Contact Bluetext to learn about our services in UX design, motion graphics and interactive website development.
Picture this: You’re a cybersecurity expert with a next-generation product or service, and you’re looking for a way to get your message into the market uniquely. The industry landscape is crowded with companies with similar offerings and limited ways to stand out. You’ve been researching for hours and finally come across the perfect blog post – one about why brand storytelling is critical in cybersecurity (hint: you’re reading it). Now that you’ve found a blog post that answers your branding questions, you’re wondering where to find a cybersecurity marketing agency; in that case, I have some good news for you.
Sit back, enjoy a warm cup of coffee, and keep reading to learn more about the importance of brand storytelling through some of our favorite examples in cybersecurity.
Why Is Brand Storytelling in Cybersecurity Important?
The cybersecurity market is growing by approximately 10% every year. As a cybersecurity marketing firm, Bluetext has witnessed this growth and know it’s becoming harder to stand out in the cyber arena. These days, saying you solve your customers’ problems, and that your solutions are the best, simply isn’t enough. B2B buyers are tired of the same experience and are looking for authenticity and some sort of a connection. Even in a highly technical industry, it’s important to recognize your customers are still human! This is where brand storytelling comes in to help. Stories are an incredibly powerful tool in human connection and research shows the human brain positively responds to the impact of stories. Reading, seeing, and hearing a story is a way for users to enter the experience and connect with the subject of the story. By connecting with a story, user’s will pay attention longer, will want to learn more, and will be more trusting of your brand.
By instilling trust with storytelling, over 50% of B2B buyers are more likely to consider making a purchase, over 40% are more likely to share that story, and over 15% are more likely to buy a product/service immediately.
So now that we know why brand storytelling is important, let’s take a look at some of our favorite examples of brand storytelling in cybersecurity.
SonicWall
When SonicWall was looking for a cybersecurity marketing firm, they approached Bluetext to help them communicate their unparalleled business values across a variety of industries. Knowing the importance of standing out, Bluetext and SonicWall worked together to create the boundless campaign. The campaign was focused on floating imagery, which served to visualize the liberating feeling of breaking free from cyber threats. The campaign ads depict a series of end users, set in their specific industry. This creates a connection and familiarity with someone within that industry. Imagine seeing someone just like you, in the same industry and roles, facing the same challenges and use cases. This person was liberated from traditional cyber restraints by SonicWall, just as you could be.
To further bring the boundless story to life, Bluetext and SonicWall worked together to promote SonicWall’s Boundless 2020 Virtual event. In the end, this event ended up as the largest virtual event in SonicWall history and drove a 135% increase in attendance over their previous events.
HP
Hewlett Packard’s “The Wolf” campaign is one we often refer to as a masterful example of a company turning a mundane topic into a captivating story. Over the course of this series, Christian Slater infiltrates a company from the mailroom to the boardroom and exposes poorly secured devices on the company’s network. By creating this series with all of the components of a Hollywood box office hit, HP was able to effectively educate users on the importance of device security.
Norton
Another great example of brand storytelling is Norton’s The Most Dangerous Town on the Internet. In short, to quote the film, they visited “some of the most dangerous places on the internet to find out where cybercrime goes to hide.” In the film, the documentarians are able to interview small-time scammers and well-known cybercriminals who’ve infiltrated Google, the US Army, NASA, and more. By creating this documentary, Norton wanted to share an honest look at data havens and the secrets they hide. The authenticity shines through as a refreshing take on cybercrime that not many competitors are willing to share. With over 6 million views on YouTube and awards from Cannes, it’s safe to say this story got the brand’s message across. The story is dark, ghastly, brutally candid, and impossible to forget.
To help create a strong connection with users, as a top brand development agency, we’ve worked with many cybersecurity firms to help them tell their stories in a unique and captivating way. These stories have helped demonstrate that their businesses aren’t just faceless entities; they’re real people working to solve real problems.
Are you interested in working with a top cybersecurity marketing agency to help tell your story? Contact Us!
In a year when in-person events and meetings aren’t possible and Zoom-fatigue has set in, you need a way to virtually interact with your audiences in an engaging way. Here at Bluetext, we’ve spent a lot of time perfecting our digital experience platform to help you connect with your audience. Keep reading to learn more about our briefing centers.
Targeted Audience Experience
As with any experience, you’ll want to tailor it to your specific audience. Whether your goal is to disseminate thought leadership or acquire leads, your messaging and resources should support your goal. While it’s difficult to create a custom experience for each user, our Digital Briefing Center platform supports creating custom virtual experiences for different audiences. This empowers you with the option to create a one-size-fits-all experience or multiple tailored experiences.
While we understand many tailored experiences sounds great, that can easily turn into a lot of content creation and maintenance. That’s why we work with every client to provide experience-based recommendations for your Briefing Center. Ultimately, we recommend leveraging your existing content alongside some tailored content for your audiences. Bluetext has plenty of experience creating content, see some of our work here. As a full-service marketing agency, we will help you create a content marketing strategy to ensure your content is valuable, engaging, and worthwhile for your audience.
User-Approved Design
As with any virtual event, it’s about the experience for your audience. From inception to launch, we’ve worked with our in-house UX experts and our clients to come up with the best design with the end users in mind. That means regardless of the content you end up using, our design will help it shine and push users to convert.
As a user visiting a Briefing Center for the first time, you can expect a welcoming and straightforward design. Here at Bluetext, we prioritize user experience design and go the extra mile to emulate a live in-person experience. For example, what would a user expect at any traditional event? Perhaps to enter a conference center lobby and be directed with agendas and introductions. So why not replicate that across a digital platform? A streamlined user journey is something we provide in any virtual experience, website design, or platform. With the ability to gate the experience for new users, you can capture key contact information for your CRM. As a return user, bypass the gate to access the experience with ease.
Connecting With Tailored Content
Every Digital Briefing Center uses tailored content specifically to meet your audience’s needs. From custom 3D environments to professionally recorded stakeholder briefings, your Briefing Center will convey key messaging in a personalized way. When you can’t meet your prospects in person, at least create the illusion of an in-person experience. Additionally, implementing live video and text chat capabilities can have your team on standby ready to talk with them.
Don’t let custom content intimidate you. Our team has mastered the remote video recording process. Using a comprehensive recording guide and video chats, we walk you through how to professionally capture any speakers you want to host in your experience.
A Partner You Can Trust
So you’ve decided on creating your own digital experience. What comes next? Bluetext has the industry knowledge to guide you step-by-step from discovery to video capture to launch. Want to learn more? Watch our video and contact us today to learn more.
There was a time not so long ago when organizations could navigate the ebb and flow of the 24/7 news cycle to maximize how and when they shared important corporate developments. Much of the traditional news cycle ended in March 2020, as COVID-19 took over the news like nothing we have ever seen before. And rightfully so, as it’s affecting millions of people around the world in myriad ways.
For B2B technology firms – a market category Bluetext frequently works with – a status quo media relations strategy will not cut it. Between the pandemic and the media domination of the Trump Administration, one could argue we’ve operated in a relentless “breaking news” cycle for the past 4+ years – creating an unprecedented challenge for B2B brands to get their message in front of the right audience at the right time.
Here are 4 considerations for your B2B PR strategy during the pandemic:
Find your story, but don’t chase it
Ambulance chasing is never the right PR strategy. But throughout the pandemic, many B2B firms are playing a role in protecting citizens and workforces – or helping businesses and consumers adapt to the world we now live in.
Whether your work involves efforts to deliver advanced data analytics being used to inform health and economic decisions, technology to improve contact tracing efforts, or cybersecurity solutions to protect the ever-expanding attack surface brought on by near-full remote work, there are stories to be told and people who want to hear them. So, find your story; but don’t chase it. Your voice during extended crisis events like the pandemic must be authentic and focus efforts on contributing to the conversation, not the bottom line.
Don’t wait long for news cycle gaps
If you are waiting for the news cycle to slow, give it up man. The pandemic will remain the prevailing narrative for months to come. Stay committed to your PR strategy, but depending on the nature of each news announcement, ensure the messaging is relevant to the current environment businesses, workforces and consumers face. Even in today’s news cycle, there is room for stories that are about things other than COVID. Product launches, funding news, survey data, and company milestones will all continue to be covered––and it’s possible to share this news without being tone-deaf to the economic realities of today. While it may not receive the broad coverage typically expected before the pandemic, if it’s a good story and important to your business it’s likely that there is a publication that’s open to writing about your news. This leads us to the next tip…
Know your beats and boundaries
Journalists have been dealing with the same work and life challenges as the rest of us. With so many working remotely, some PR flacks are blurring the lines between business and personal communications profiles. If you find yourself dialing a reporter’s cell phone number to pitch them on your client’s new product, first ask yourself which reaction is more likely: will they answer the phone “Hi so and so, great to hear from you” or will the retort be “how in the heck did you get this number?” And if it’s the latter, don’t say you lifted it from a 2015 RSA pre-registered media list. Hitting them up on social media? Maybe. Again, it depends on the nature of your relationship with the reporter and the type of social network communication.
The pandemic has also undeniably shifted newsroom structures and beats. Some reporters have shifted partially or fully to cover various aspects of the pandemic. This requires keeping your finger on the pulse of what reporters are covering – as these shifts may create new challenges and opportunities.
[Almost] Always Be Closing
Within B2B tech yes, reporters still want to hear about groundbreaking technologies. But there is also an awareness by journalists of the broader challenges that organizations face achieving growth, positive company culture, and workforce productivity in a pandemic. In other words, reporters also want to cover the human side of business.
Don’t be afraid to look for stories in new places. Are there employee stories you can highlight? How about the way in which you are keeping employees connected virtually or new ways that work is getting done? These stories may not drive sales but they can help with positive brand awareness and talent acquisition.
Want to find your story? Get in touch with Bluetext.
Large-scale, in-person events have all but vanished since the pandemic rocked our world just a year ago. It seemed that nearly all hope was lost for event marketing ― but then came virtual events.
Over the past year, virtual events have provided companies and organizations the opportunity to host their events in the digital sphere, often attracting far more attendees than their in-person events. These virtual events provide hosts and attendees with opportunities that physical events simply can’t.
No venue, no problem
Virtual events are exactly what they sound like ― virtual. This means that attendees don’t need to travel to attend a virtual event as they can enjoy them from the comfort of their own homes. No venue means no geographical constraints and the elimination of travel expenses. Attendees can join from all across the country, and all around the globe without costing their companies a dime.
See how SonicWall successfully garnered a 135% increase in attendance over their previous high-mark partner event.
High-quality production for higher retention
Virtual events allow companies to shift their budget away from venue fees and reallocate it toward production costs for their event. High-quality production captures and sustains attendee attention. If your event is lacking in production value, your attendees will be more inclined to spend time on their email instead of participating and actively listening to your hosts and guests.
Equipped with Citrix brand assets, Bluetext designed a fully-customized virtual event experience for Citrix Boot Camp, marked by live video playback, a resource center, and extensive tracking to provide an interactive and enjoyable online UX. See how Bluetext worked with Citrix to bring their networking event to the digital sphere.
The restriction of in-person events was once seen as an obstacle, however, the recent success and advantages found in virtual events have brought new opportunities and exposed flaws of previous systems. Virtual events aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Even post-covid, the virtual event will continue to be a key component of event marketing and management where nearly all events will be hybrid, and many still fully virtual.
Watch Bluetext founder, Jason Siegel, discuss the future of virtual events with Travelocity Founder and keynote speaker Terry Jones in this week’s Virtual Marketing Minute.
So, you want your business to get in on the latest next-generation social platform? Stay relevant and be at the forefront of the top trending tech? Join the club. Quite literally, join Clubhouse.
In the last few weeks, Clubhouse, an audio-social app emerging from Silicon Valley has captured attention nationwide. So what is Clubhouse? Well, it’s not a dance club, and it’s not associated with Mickey Mouse, but it is the next social media sensation. It’s all the buzz of celebrities, tech investors, and digital marketers. In the first week of February alone, the app reached 2 million installs.
After many brands made the mistake of dismissing TikTok as a short-lived, tween app for dance trends, they are paying attention to the promising potential of Clubhouse. New social media apps come and go. Many fail when their UX features can’t stand up to the mainstream social giants or are acquired only to be killed (rest in peace video app Vine, which was bought by Twitter). The routine rise and fall of social media fads just prove how difficult it is to achieve adoption, capture attention, and establish habitual use of platforms.
This leads branding and digital marketing agencies, such as Bluetext, to wonder which platforms will be “the next big thing” among digital users? Where should businesses focus their attention and become social pioneers? Bluetext breaks down the rising app, Clubhouse, for its digital marketing potential.
What is Clubhouse?
Clubhouse is a free, voice-based social media app with “rooms” to discuss various topics. It capitalizes on the familiarity and comfort mass audiences have found on Zoom’s “chat rooms” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many describe Clubhouse as being on a Zoom call with the cameras off, a scenario that the remote workforce still in their pajamas at 2:00 PM knows all too well. While there is some benefit to this familiar user experience, there are also some drawbacks. Much like an overcrowded Zoom happy hour, the networking rooms can be difficult to identify the speaker and become unstructured. But maybe that’s the intent. Clubhouse has been described as a hybrid TedX talk and podcast where spontaneous conversations between strangers offer an invaluable perspective. It’s an app built for all audience types; from the passive listeners looking for entertainment, to the content creators with voices that want to be heard.
Clubhouse has taken efforts to provide a sense of order. For one, the “rooms” have a moderator with the power to mute and unmute audience members. Moderators are often thought leaders, influencers, subject matter experts, or even A-list celebrities. Users can follow their favorite moderators and have a chance to listen and participate, almost like a live two-way podcast. The app is invite-only, and the recent appearance of major celebrities and tech industry leaders has only heightened people’s curiosity and desire to adopt. Invitations are sent by current users, who receive two invites at the time of joining and the opportunity to earn more with app engagement. After news of big-name celebrities, such as Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, guest-starring in Clubhouse rooms there has been a surge in invitations and adoptions. The app combines psychological desires of group belonging, the curiosity of mysterious and exclusive events, and fear of missing out (or “FOMO”) once you’ve achieved membership status to hook and sustain attention.
What Do Digital Marketers See in Clubhouse?
There once was a time when no one believed social media and business would overlap. But the lines of personal and professional have blurred over the years. Almost any industry can benefit from social media digital marketing, whether in paid or organic formats. Digital marketing campaigns from brand awareness to direct sales and conversions have proven successful on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Instagram. Any and every social media platform is subject to malleability. People will inevitably create their own use cases that meet their specific goals, which may or may not align with the original design. Platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, have evolved powerful marketing tools with robust targeting and analytical capabilities to reach worldwide audiences who have ingrained the apps into their everyday routines. We expect the same in time from Clubhouse.
Clubhouse has a unique marketing potential because of the niche topic “rooms” and audiences. Users can select the topics of interest to them, and join “rooms” where influential moderators facilitate discussion on those topics. There is an educational element to the app, much like podcasts. This is where industry thought leaders can shine, and host “rooms” to share insights and discuss trending topics with partners, customers or competitors. Think of it as a thought leadership article turned interactive audiobook. It is a golden opportunity to spread brand awareness and strengthen reputation with an interested and interactive audience.
Digital marketers everywhere are eyeing the Clubhouse app for the potential access to exclusive audiences and marketing opportunities. Unique elements, like the invite-only exclusivity or completely live no-playback content, have users eager to join and addicted once a part of the group. In time, we expect the opportunity to share your brand story or your founding story, connect with customers, get product feedback, run focus groups, and generate awareness will only grow. And the early adopters will have a competitive edge.
Ready to be at the forefront of new technology and social trends? Get in touch with Bluetext for expert branding, digital marketing, and social media strategies.
Bluetext’s public relations client SAS has long been a trusted partner of colleges and universities around the world, leveraging their advanced analytics capabilities to provide safe, effective learning environments for students.
This year, the task of providing a safe and effective learning environment is much more challenging as an abundance of COVID-19 makes gathering in tight quarters like dorms, classrooms, and campuses without spreading the virus next to impossible. As a result, many universities have taken detailed measures to plan for student safety in the event of new outbreaks upon their return to campus.
One of these is Oklahoma State University (OSU), where administrators are leveraging SAS technology combined with unique campus data to track the spread of COVID-19 using contact tracing and data analytics.
To be ready for the return of students, faculty, and staff, OSU has integrated different data sources to create inferred links between people, places, and times. OSU connected institutional data such as time and location-based information from its extensive campus Wi-Fi network with over 5,000 access points. This data is then combined with other location-based information such as campus store purchases, card swipes, class schedules and more, which can be linked directly to individual students and provide a more complete picture of anyone who has been in contact with a confirmed case of COVID and anyone who has been in the same location for more than 15 minutes.
These OSU data models generate alerts if the data indicates quarantines or isolations are broken, or if a super-spreader is suspected, and provides general alerts for faculty and students. The data will also be used to help identify areas in need of increased cleaning, social distance monitoring, and other education efforts.
The Today Show recently visited Oklahoma State University and followed a freshman student through a day in his campus life amid COVID, illustrating how the university is leveraging its campus data to track where students have been in the event that new cases of COVID are identified.
Watch this segment of The Today Show here.
So you’re a top technology company who wants to be seen as modern and ever-evolving — much like the rest of the industry! To stay ahead you’ll need a modern, eye-catching design. Perhaps you want to redesign your logo… Where do you start? A memorable logo can ensure your brand stays top of mind and up to par with big-league competitors. Updating any aspect of your corporate visual identity can be intimidating, especially when making changes to one of the most identifiable features. There are many considerations: How can you establish or maintain your brand identity and form a strong connection with your audience? Do you want to fit in or stand out? How can you modernize your existing design?
One way to begin the process of redesigning your logo is by identifying some “zigs” and “zags” in your industry. Digital branding agencies define “zigs” as companies that follow industry standards and recent trends when designing and marketing their brands and “zags” as designs that opt to stand out in the crowd by moving against the latest trends.
Tech Industry Zigs
Gradient
Using gradients in web design emerged as a hot trend as early as 2016 and has since grown in popularity with no signs of slowing down. There are several companies that have successfully incorporated this trend into their CVI, for example, Stripe, an economic infrastructure technology company. Stripe’s gradient style has become incorporated throughout the brand and website, creating an ethereal and futuristic feel to its services, Instagram can be seen as one of the OG trendsetters, debuting gradient design into their mobile app icon in 2016.
Minimalistic
Another recent trend has been the simplification of logos and website design. Many brands have adopted this trend to streamline their CVI. This branding trend aims to provide a clean and clear brand vision, which is ideal for smaller screens as users continue to shift to mobile browsing. As we shift away from decorative and intricate details that look great on a billboard but cluttered on a mobile device, simple logos stay relevant and readable for modern consumers.
Many major global tech brands have already opted to use multiple iterations of their logo design – DropBox, Atlassian, and Android all now include a single image or letter logo option within their design range.
Illustrative
One way to establish a connection with your audience is by designing a unique illustration to accompany your wordmark. A key advantage to this trend is that when done successfully, brands can use the illustration as an identifier without the wordmark. Take Mailchimp’s Freddie as an example. In 2018, Mailchimp simplified their mascot’s design and gave him an established spot next to the logo.
Tech Industry Zags
Fine Line Detail
While many tech companies are moving in the direction of simplification, some are going against the grain. One example is cloud migration software company Cloudreach, whose finger-print-like logo detail denotes security and reliability at first glance. Using fine detail has its advantages. Detailed designs can speak volumes about your brand value and tone. Especially in the technology industry rich with complex products you may want your logo to symbolize unique detail and features of your products. In contrast, simplified designs may be preferred to make complex technology more approachable to everyday consumers.
Anti-Marketing
Most technology-oriented marketing campaigns inspire the target audience to use the advertised product or service as much as possible. This statement holds true for most companies looking for customers to download and use their mobile apps. This is also where you can differentiate your campaign to stand out amongst the rest. For example, the newest campaign from the popular dating app, Hinge, inspires it’s the target audience to delete their app. Yes, you read that right. That may sound counterintuitive, however, it guarantees a different approach from their dating site counterparts, who focus on their service being the best at finding love for its users. Hinge’s campaign, instead, inspires its users to find love and delete the app.
Of the campaign, Hinge CMO, Nathan Roth, said “It’s quite common for apps to optimize for time in-app, whether it’s to maximize subscription or advertising revenue. We are purely focused on our users’ success and that’s helping them find someone worth deleting the app for. That’s our single focus,”
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