QR Codes: Good or Bad?

QR codes? What is this the buzz with QR codes? To be honest nobody is about the QR phase anymore. The introduction of QR codes was brought into the picture while RIM's product being the blackberry market sky rocketed. Initially the connection was brought in with BBM to have a specific BBM contact QR code designated that specific contact. 

After BBM launched QR codes were used for promotional activities. Companies were using QR codes as a part of contests, coupon, events etc. Sounds Great doesn't it? At the time is way a great strategy to get any point you need to get across and in certain amount of time.

But now there are so many disadvantages to using QR codes:

1.) The amount of people using devices such as blackberry has gone down considerably with the launch of other smart phones.

2.) Being that the amount of Blackberry users have decreased there are apps that are there to be downloaded to work as a scaner for these QR codes, not many users will use it and take the time to download the apps.

3.) Even the portion that does does the applications to scan these codes, do the websites that generate these codes really work and are they reliable?

So the question is, will QR codes be around for much longer? QR codes right now I don't think is the best promotional strategy that could be used. QR codes out the window, what's next?

#smartidea

Google has done it again.But what's so different this time? Google earlier in the year had introduced the use of hashtags on their search engine way back in the month of May 2013. Initially this introduction was brought in and now has been only improved and proved to be more useful.

What is this huge change you ask? Well initially when using a hashtag in the search bar, the results pulled are those from popular sites and related sites through Google+. Still pretty cool right? Google has taken it that much farther! Now when searching for hashtags google will pull information on that topic from social media platforms (Twitter, Tumblr etc.).

Now the real question is what does this do for google and other websites that use hashtags? I think that with the introduction of hashtags it will make it easier for a user to come to one central location for a headlining story or idea. Bringing in this kind of innovation will also create more traffic for these social media sites. Any ones initial reaction when they want to know about something is to google it. But now instead of searching these social media sites top to bottom for one story or trending topic. I know I am personally excited about this new tool in google and will definitely be taking part of this in my daily search engine routine. Q question I would have and will begin to look more into is if google is bringing in hashtags to route users to social media sites, will these social media sites lose more direct traffic?

Is Social Media Making You Lonely?

Crazy thought right? Initially I thought how could social media possibly make you lonely. With constant connection with current friends, old friends, photo sharing and life updates how does this make sense? After watching this very interesting video from Elite Daily I couldn't believe how much my perspective has changed and now the way I look at all forms of social media is completely different.

The video starts by stating not all people but most may only know about 150 on an intimate level. Now really think about that, if you only have 150 close relationships (on average) who are all these other people that you are Facebook "Friends" with. Even though we are only intimate with a few select people our perception of intimacy is still altered. As stated in the video our base of intimacy is occasionally sharing photos and having online chats with these individuals, and yet it still doesn't stop there.  Even though we are partially able to have intimate connections with these people, are we really showing people what we want them to see or what we think they should see? Social media is an easy tool to edit and delete things about yourself that you don't want visible to those around you. We are all sadly guilty and fall under this form of self promotion.

There are three main things that might be the main reason why social media is being used:
1.) In most cases we get to decide what kind of light and attention is on us
2.) No matter what we will always be heard through statuses, updates and blog posts
3.) We will never feel alone

So what if suddenly weren't able to connect with the individuals around us through social media? Will this change what people think of us, how they will interact with us or even at all for that matter? It's kind of a crazy thing to think of where we would be without social media. Without these connections online will we be able to connect at all?

Enhanced CPC

What is Enhanced CPC?

What is enhanced CPC you ask ? Well to start off Enhanced CPC is also known as Enhanced Cost Per Click. Enhanced CPC is a fast and easy tool that is used to up your ROI (Return on Investment) through an automated bidding feature. Every time a search is done on google based on how highly likely or not so likely your ad is to appear in comparison to the search, the enhanced CPC conversion will increase your bid.

 Highly Likely = Increased Bid

 Not so Likely = Decreased Bid

As an example I created this image to demonstrate how Enhanced CPC works. If your ads states that you sell woman's Nike athletic shoes, when that exact phrase is entered into the search engine your bid will in increase because it is highly comparable to what was searched. If the user searches just the term shoes then your ad with Nike athletic shoes will be less likely to show up decreasing your bid. These bids then connect to conversion, conversions relate to how many sales are made through your ad.

Rich Snippets

Previously we had learned about a term called rich snippets. Rich snippets are defined as, "Provides a small sample of a site’s content on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. They enhance your search listing, making it more enticing for users to click on and easier for search engines to extract information".

I think rich snippets are a very important thing that everyone should have as a part of their 
site. These snippets have the possibility to either show up as a part of the search done by the user or may show up due to key words. Either way will drive traffic to your site. As a daily user of search engines I have came across many rich snippets. These rich snippets as connection to my search come in handy. If a user can receive all the information they need through just the rich snippet and not having the click through your website, it can make it more user friendly. If I am looking up movie times for a movie after dinner time I want there to be less work to do as possible. This will help me to avoid confusion of trying to find the times and ratings throughout the website. Although this is a helpful tool for a website, when creating a rich snippet one must keep in mind what adequate information is needed in this snippet.  Overall I am all for rich snippets. Interested in applying a rich snippet to your site? Click here for some tips.

Scam Scam Scam !

Like anyone else I am initially curious as to what I find late at night on the Internet, but this finding is by far the one i regret the most !

A few weeks ago I was doing the usual late night social media crawl to keep up on the latest things I care about. In doing so I came across this article that sent me to the Woman's Health website.

Yes of course it was a new diet trend.

Green Coffee Bean Extract

Garcinia Cambogia Elite

This duo diet plan claimed to be crazed about the past few months, even used by celebrities like Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian (posted while she was pregnant I might add). Continuing on throughout the article by taking the Garcinia cambogia tablet in the morning and the Green Coffee Bean Extract in the evening it will lead to healthy weight loss. Along with weight loss between the two products it is claimed you will have a boost in energy, promotes cardiovascular and digestive health, helps get rid of gas and bloating, regulates metabolism etc.

On top of all these amazing claims they even throw in a personal journal from an employee of Woman's Health who tried this duo diet."I felt fantastic and my final results were shocking!" and after reading this who wouldn't want to try it out. Just my luck they offered a free sample and I got sucked in. Like I had said earlier this was probably one of the worst things I had decided to jump on board with. After I had received one for the products, I'm still currently waiting for the other one to come in the mail.  All was happy and cheery until I had been notified that my visa had been charged a combined of an extra $200 even though it was a free sample. After an hour on the phone with both companies I was able to receive a full refund or a partial refund.

This is only the tip of the iceberg..

Earlier this morning on Facebook I have came across another article for a new fad diet, nothing new right?  This new article had linked me right to the EXACT same website as the one I had visited before but for a different product. The Raspberry Keytone Fresh product was being featured as the new duo diet with Garcinia Cambogia. Reading into the article something suddenly came across my mind. It was in fact the same article but the words were changed to fit the Raspberry Keytone Fresh product.

Raspberry Keytone Fresh

This finding completely blew my mind ! I pulled up Article one and Article two, they both matched exactly. They used the same success stories, giving a free sample at the end and even down to the comments on the article. It makes me really angry that companies think they can get away with things like this. It makes me wonder if these products will again over charge people the way way they did to me. Nothing but a SCAM !

                                      

Who really does use search?

This Past week in our Interactive Web Marketing class we we're shown a statistic. 19.4 billion searches were done on google alone last year. WOAH! That's pretty crazy. After reading this one might think who were these people searching? What were they searching? Why did they use google? How many pf these searches were done more then a few times by several different people? There are so many questions that can be asked. Lindsey then asked us to research and break down who these consumers are that fall into this statistic.

By typing into google "Who uses search engine the most" I came up with a few different aspects of the consumer profile. 

Based on this chart I came up a consumer profile based on the top two most popular percentages.

The typical user is a white male or female between the ages of 18-26. These individuals are graduates of college and are now earning at least 75,000 and over a year.