Mobile gaming has emerged as a strong disrupting force in the global app market. It is a well-known fact that both the Play Store from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) AppStore receives a large portion of their revenues through gaming apps and in-app purchases. A new report from Flurry analytics, which was recently acquired by Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), is based on a global sample of successful games on 1.1 million devices and has revealed surprising results. According to the report, female gamers are more loyal than their male counterparts when it came to spending time on games, and they also make more in-app purchases. This is good news for advertisers, since it means brands have a clear indication that they have a wide reach in terms of gender as well, when they select certain games to tie up with for their ads.
Mobile Gaming Is Not What It Used To be
The average mobile user in the U.S spends a total of 2 hours and 42 minutes a day on mobile devices in 2014. 86% of that time is spent on apps, mostly mobile gaming. Yet the industry is quite small, and represents just 14% of the US$93 billion gaming industry. The overnight success of the Kim Kardshain Hollywood game which generated a total of US$1.6 million in revenue during the first five days of its release mostly through in app purchases, stunned most observers. The success of the game challenged most preconceived notions that the mobile gaming was mostly skewed towards males and teenage boys.
The statistics from Flurry report revealed that women were 31% more likely to make in-app purchases and 35% more likely to spend more time on gaming apps than their male counterparts. When retention rates for a game were measured over a 7 day basis, it was found that women had a 42% higher rate than men. The data clearly shows how the mobile gaming market is broadening as more mobile phone users begin playing games on a regular basis.
Hardcore Mobile Games Still Appeal More For Men
A total of 19 categories of games were analysed on the iOS Platform for a week. Here again, it was revealed that women spent more time than men on nine different categories of games including social turn based, bingo, casino poke, solitaire and management simulation games. A total of four categories, including racing and arcade, were skewed equally towards males and females. Males spent more time than females on six categories of games such as tower defence, sports and strategy. This shows that most of the hardcore gaming categories still appeals mostly to men.
Flurry analyst Simon Khalaf explained the findings in the report and why it is good news for advertisers.
“While the fact that females invest more time in gaming apps, especially in management and simulation games, has rarely been disputed, the fact that females also outspend males in In-App Purchases came as a surprise to us. The broadening of the mobile gaming base may not be welcome by hardcore male gamers, it brings good news to advertisers seeking to reach their audience. In fact, advertisers are shifting billions of dollars in advertising to the mobile platform with the hopes of reaching the audience that is glued to smartphones and tablets 24/7/365.”
Advertisers Still Lagging Behind In Mobile
In the US, the mobile advertising industry still accounts for less than 5% of the US$162 billion advertising industry. The gaming segment is currently the most sought-after for advertisers since it accounts for 32% of the time spent on mobile devices. This segment is attracting females as well as males of all ages, and hence makes it all the more appealing to advertisers and agencies alike. Although mobile advertising spending grew by 100% in 2013, mainly due to rich advertising and video ads there is still plenty of untapped potential in this sector.
We are living in the super technological era. There were times when kids used to sleep with their teddy bears, but today smartphones have replaced everything else. It is not merely an object for them now, but a life companion. According to recent figures revealed, one in three children start using tablets and phones before they can even talk, so just imagine how the phone can leave an impact on the rest of their life. This addiction to smartphones can also affect their eating and sleeping patterns according to psychologists.
But it’s not just the kids. According to Mobile Mindset Study conducted by Lookout, 58% of smartphone users don’t go 1 hour without checking their phones.
You can say that it’s the increased smartphone obsession among parents that has resulted in addiction among kids. Well, as a kid we were told that too much of everything is bad. Too many candies can hurt your teeth; too much exposure to TV can damage your eyes, so how much of a smartphone can affect kid’s life?
Consultant Adolescent Psychiatrist Dr. Richard Graham and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Jay Watts based in London say that technology addiction can affect a child’s behavior and sleeping patterns.
Dr Graham said “Yet when electronic devices start to have more influence over behavior than anyone else or anything else, when children become very distressed when technology is removed from them, that is the moment when you really need to start changing things.”
So, it is again up to parents how they can overcome their kid’s obsession for smartphones.
You are not quite clear how much time your kids spend on texting or browsing the internet. What if I tell you that you can monitor the time your kids spend on smartphones? Moreover, you can also see whether they are using smartphone safely or not.
A monitoring app can provide solutions to all your worries. You just need to install it on your kid’s smartphone and you are ready to monitor their every single activity along with its date and time.
The next question is what monitoring app you should choose. There are many apps in the market that are reliable and are helping parents a lot. For example StealthGenie is the one that is 100% undetectable and falls in your economic range.
Your kids might be spending more that required time on texting using WhatsApp, Viber and Skype chats, but if you would be given an option to monitor the chats, then you can put the limitations on them accordingly. You can check all the details of chats, including time and date stamps to know when each chat took place.
Spending too much time on smartphones is one aspect, but how you are going to monitor that they are safe? What if some stranger has started interacting with your kid and your kid is unaware about his evil plans? With monitoring you can make sure that they are not talking to strangers. You can look at their call logs and check all incoming and outgoing calls with date and time stamps.
Moreover, I am listing down some symptoms that can tell you that your kid is tech obsessed and needs your help on a serious nod. May be your teen could not feel the difference, but excessive smartphone usage can have detrimental effects on them. Some symptoms could be
Lack of interests in other activities
Mood swings and argumentative behavior
Rise in devious behavior
Pediatric psychiatrist Dr. Theodote Pontikes at Loyola University Health System advise that parents should discuss with their children and set limits together. Furthermore, they need to help them understand why the limit is needed. A monitoring app can help you best in knowing whether they are following your defined guidelines or not.
No doubt smartphone has become a must now for kids, but they also need smart parents.
So see, ultimately you need only one thing at the end and that is to monitor your kids. If you are doing it silently, then you can better organize your kid’s life. Install it now because they need it.
The exploded growth in smartphone industry has helped worldwide smartphone shipment to achieve a new milestone; first time in the history, Smartphone shipments crossed 300 million mark in Q2 2014, totaling 301.3 million units. While Samsung and Android played a key role in this growth, sub-400 price smartphones fueled the demand, which resulted in 25.2% industry growth as compared to the Q2, 2013, according to the latest data from IDC.
Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Q2 2014
Two leading smartphone operating systems (OS) Android and iOS, together, captured 96.4% of the smartphone OS market, leaving almost no room for other operating systems. 255.3 million Android-powered smartphones were shipped in Q2 2014, resulted in a 33.3% yearly growth. The growth of the Android OS is commendable, as the OS has nearly doubled its market share in just three years. Meanwhile, iOS also closed the quarter on the positive year growth of 12.7%, despite the fact that Apple didn’t introduce any new iPhone during the first half of the year. In Q2, 2014 Apple shipped 35.2 million iPhone, capturing 11.7% of the smartphone market. The growth of Apple iOS and Android both came at the cost of all the other smartphone operating systems, whose market share declined during the same period.
It’s been an incredible upward slog for other OS players – Windows Phone has been around since 2010 but has yet to break the 5% share mark, while the backing of the world’s largest smartphone player, Samsung, has not boosted Tizen into the spotlight. The biggest stumbling block is around getting enough partnerships in play – not just phone manufacturers but also developers, many of which are smaller outfits looking to minimize development efforts by sticking to the two big ecosystems.” said Melissa Chau, Senior Research Manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
The growth of smartphone in Q2 2014 was reportedly driven by low-end and mid-range smartphones who controlled nearly 73% of the shipments. 216.25 million units of smartphones that were shipped during the second quarter of 2014 were price tagged with $400 or less. Interestingly, smartphones with less than $200 in price emerged as the main drivers of this growth. Nearly 51% of smartphones, shipped during the Q2 2014, belong to sub-200 USD price category. Three out of every Android and Windows Phone OS smartphones shipped in the quarter fall under USD 200-price category, while mid-price segment smartphones, priced between US$ 200 and US$400, captured 21.52%, 15.4% and 24.90% of Android, iOS and Windows OS shipments.
The gigantic market share of Sub-400 USD price smartphone is largely pegged to the emergence of local players in two of the world’s largest mobile markets. While US smartphone market is almost stagnating, China and India are holding a key of the future growth. Local vendors like Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE, Micromax, Karbonn are the challenging the long-haul dominance of Korean smartphone giant Samsung. While in China Smartphone market, Xiaomi dethroned Samsung for the very first time, Micromax forced Samsung to meet the same faith in India. The smartphone market share of Samsung, who is facing the music for the last few quarters, synced to 25.6% in Q2, 2014 from 32.6% in a year ago quarter.
Start-up companies have been a part of just about every business conversation for the last 20 years since the concept became popular in the late 1990s. By combining the reward of working for yourself and the growing statistics of people who’ve had success, the recent surge behind small businesses, both domestic and international, has reached unprecedented levels. Because of this, it’s worth taking a look at all the key elements that have contributed to the rise of many of the great startups and how they can be implemented in the up-and-comers.
Personalization
One of the first and most important strategies utilized by successful startups is creating a product where each experience feels custom-fit to the consumer. While they’re not so much a start-up anymore, Pandora has done an amazing job of turning a widely available product into a customizable, one-of-a-kind experience for each individual user. We all love Pandora because of how well it caters to each of our tastes after only a few short plays, some careful thumbs up and the occasional “Don’t ever play this again”. So well in fact that it’s spawned a number of look-alikes such as iHeartRadio, the newly formed iTunes Radio and even implementation in Spotify and Beats Radio that are all great attempts, but still fall a bit short of the original.
Specialization
A lot of startup companies these days are content zeroing in on niche markets, or offering an incontestable degree of master in a very specific field. When thinking of restaurant reservations, people have slowly moved away from contacting the restaurant directly and going through the easy-to-use service provided by OpenTable. OpenTable focuses specifically on table reservations and have achieved the highest level of affirmation which is being incorporated into the day-to-day function of an entire industry irrespective of competing brands within that industry. Add to that, they’re recent acquisition of Priceline travel services which already specializes in booking hotel, car, and air accommodations and you have a shining example of one brand completion, realized by Priceline who is now able to curate an entire trip for you.
Observation
Another tool to implement in the business of startups is observing trends and meeting needs as they arise. Healthy lifestyles have evolved far beyond the Atkins and South Beach Diets of the early 2000’s, and people are really beginning to be more considerate of the things they put into their bodies. Taking note of that, wholesome snack company NatureBox, realized that even in their conscious dining, people would still be interested in satisfying a sweet tooth between meals. By offering healthy, organic snacks deliverable by mail, NatureBoxis capitalizing on what’s popular right now in the healthy lifestyle category.
Renovation
Sometimes, getting a win is as simple as redesigning and improving on something that’s already in play. Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Hastings and a collection of other smaller stores had the VHS/DVD rental industry in a chokehold until a little red package came along called Netflix. Offering the same movies butat a subscription service, removing those dreaded late fees and making it easier to pick-up and return (which caused the late-fees to begin with), Netflix entered the market guns blazing and, well….that’s how the west was won. Taking it a step further, Redbox borrowed from Netflix’s design aesthetic, provided conveniently located kiosks and rentals at a much lower price-point and agreeable rental policy and created an offset lane from a path cleared by Netflix. Another important lesson here is don’t wait too long to jump on the bandwagon. Blockbuster, who originally passed on the Netflix lead, later tried to implement their own rental kiosks, and I’m banking on the fact that you’ve probably never seen one in real life.
Innovation
Nothing beats a well-planned and actionable idea. Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) was innovative. And while Twitter and Instagram arguably toe the line with their overlaps, the fact still remains that the impact they’ve made on our current generation and on the way we share information is an indelible mark in history. When you have an innovative idea, nurture and invest in it because that’s the difference between successful and iconic.
It’s worth noting that while all of these successful former startups may focus on one of these pillars, you can find bits of each of them throughout all of their business models. The important thing to remember here is we no longer live in a time doing one thing is well. You specialize and master one particular area, but in order to be marketable and competitive, it’s essential that you have supporting services/products that make you stand out against your competitors. Keep that in mind and you’ll be on your way to working out of a cooperative space and arguing with investors in no time.
The post is written by Anna Gale, a regular contributor to Dazeinfo. She is a tech enthusiast, who like to profile tech companies. He is an editor at Fueled – an iPhone and Android app development company based out of Chicago.
The contemporary era of advertisements is not just limited to the promotion of goods and services to the folks, but is now moving on for giving a fling to impact and persuade their purchasing cognition, and active user base on Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), which is now reaching to 1.28 billion including more than 1 billion mobile users, what better dais the endorsers can get than this Zuckerberg’s inception. According to Sean Bruich, Facebook’s head of measurement platforms and standards, 70 percent of advertisers got back three times as many dollars in purchases as they spent on ads, and that’s really a whooping margin of profit one can expect after campaigning on a social platform.
A recent study by G/O digital, a Garnett company which is a leading provider of integrated digital marketing solutions, Facebook is the most preferred social avenue for checking out a local enterprise with 62% of virtual commuters relying on it. The Next in line is Pinterest with 12% people adopting it followed by Twitter with a share of 11%. The reason for the above stats is not very arduous to guess because Facebook accounts for 72.4% of global data traffic hence the best promoter as well as influencer. The G/O digital’s report surmised that 84% of the young mob out of those polled acknowledged that they visited the endorser’s page at least once before going for its emption. Also, 59% of them approved that they visited the desired brand’s Facebook page once in a week before going for purchase of its product, and adding to the survey results, 58% hooked on to a Facebook ad with a business firm once a week.
The study was based upon very well-connected young age 1,000 adults in the US, who owned either a smartphone or tablet along with a computer and expressed their interest in doing shopping through a local business establishment.
Why choose FB as the promoter and its expansions
Recently, Facebook announced its collaboration with the four big global guns of corporate data brokers, Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai, for the very reason to improve upon the ad discernment for the users. These allies would aim at collecting the stats and information of the users through various offline and online modes and by making use of these collected figures the companies would be able to offer the Facebook users with their advertisements as per their stipulation. Also by taking into account how many times a customer purchased a merchandise of a particular brand and accordingly modifying up its frequency increased the ad revenue by a decent 22%. Hence a reduced risk and a higher yield therefore mitigating the fear of marketing expenses.
The influencing criteria’s
The following figure shows that the most persuading ads on Facebook are the ones which are focused on the users’ own interests and the preemption i.e. 36%, almost one-third of the total buyers. The rest percentage is divided among the factors like locations, age, gender etc. Another important factor contributing to the increased sales is the feedbacks of the users. G/O Digital’s study suggested that 41% of users confirmed that choosing a particular brand was deduced upon by referring to the reviews and ratings of clients, and additionally 80% of the people accepted that they were more inclined to buy a product if they saw positive user feedbacks on the brand’s Facebook page. Not to forget, the promos and discount offers aggravated 38% of buying stimulations and the product images/videos proportioned 12%.
The further scope
Facebook has been working hard to improve the efficacy of its ads. One of its recent accords is the finding of sweet spot for the ad commercials which boasts of scheming the favorable number of times an ad should be displayed to a user before it turns out to be a cliché. By adapting to this methodology Facebook has been able to increase the dividend yields by 40%.
The continuous enhancements of the Facebook advertisement is mainly intended to appeal to the audience through various modes of communication like videos, pop-ups and the most innovative one of recent times the “missed call ad” because the well they’ll make us gel, the more they’ll be able to sell.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is apparently facing tough time in world’s largest smartphone markets as its market share has declined for the last few quarters. The second quarter of this year took Apple into a double-digit loss with the company’s smartphone market share declined by 11% and 11.9% in the US and China, respectively. In the US and China, Android smartphones ate into the iPhone’s share. The strong marketing campaign by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005930) for its latest flagship device, the Galaxy S5, drew level with Apple iPhone 5S in the race to become the top-selling handset over the second quarter in the US. In China, it was Xiaomi that not only hurt Apple the most but also leapfrogged Samsung to become the leading Smartphone vendor in the country with a 27% market share.
In the major European smartphone markets, Apple iPhone did fairly well as compared to the other markets. Apple iPhone recorded a marginal decline of 0.4% i its market share, capturing 15.3% of the smartphone market in EU5. The list of EU5 countries includes Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and Spain. In the world’s two largest smartphone markets, the US and China, Apple lost a sizable iPhone market to Android smartphones. Samsung and Xiaomi Smartphones caused the greatest damage for Apple iPhone in the US and China, respectively.
Apple Struggling on Home Turf
Android continues to power 62 percent of smartphones shipped during the second quarter, which is an increase of 20.3 percent from 51.5 percent in a year ago quarter. This is largely credited to the success of several smartphones. Android devices manufactured by Samsung, Motorola, LG, Sony and others were well received by the people. However, Apple was not fortunate to enjoy such growth and its iPhone market share declined by 25.9 percent, from 42.5 percent in June 2013 to 31.5 percent in Q2 2014. Surprisingly, despite the introduction of multiple variants of Nokia Lumia series, Windows Phone OS failed to grab new market and closed the quarter with a marginal decline of 0.2 percent in its market share. The steady market share of Windows Phone OS is attributed to their association with Nokia and the Lumia series smartphones. After a long haul of rough patch things are looking better for Blackberry as they managed to secure 2 percent of the smartphone market, up by 0.9 percent from 1,1 percent in Q2 2013. This may be due to the release of different smartphones in the market across various segments and the introduction of the new Blackberry 10 OS.
Blackberry has 0 % market share in China, Apple Slides Down
The Chinese smartphone market is growing rapidly, and this has created a huge opportunity window for smartphone manufacturers. In the second quarter of 2013, Android managed to capture 69.9 percent of smartphone market in China; in a gap of mere one year Android’s share grew to an astonishing 84.3 percent, resulting in a growth of 20.6 percent. Xiaomi, also known as Apple of China, took over Samsung to drive the growth of Android in the country. In Q2 2014, Apple’s iPhone share in the China declined by 11.9 percent, down from 24.7 percent in June 2013 to 12.8 percent in June 2014. Windows followed a similar trend by losing 2 percent of their market share, controlling just 0.9 percent of the China smartphone market. Unfortunately, the partnership of Microsoft with smartphone vendors failed to create any impact on the Chinese market. Blackberry, however, had no market share during the three-month period ended in June 2014. It would be very interesting to see what kind of actions would be taken by Blackberry to make its presence felt in one of the largest smartphone markets.
Microsoft and Blackberry Cannot Looses Hopes in Australia
The expansion of Android in Australia was not as explosive as what we have witnessed in the other regions during the second quarter of 2014. Android’s market share grew by just 3.2 percent to 68 percent. We can say that the growth of Android in this country will be pretty slow in the future. Apple lost 1.9 percent of shares from 27.4 percent in June 2013 to 25.5 percent in June 2014. The Australian smartphone market looks promising for Blackberry and Microsoft as they gained a market share of 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively. Blackberry controlled 0.5 percent of the market during the second quarter of 2014. The introduction of the new devices running on Blackberry 10 OS seems to impress a section of the Australian smartphone users. During the same period Microsoft controlled 5.3 percent.
Windows Expands Silently in Europe
The big five European countries, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have done their part in assisting the growth of Windows. Android continues to grow in the European Market which was fuelled by Huawei and Wiko. Apple managed to gain a few percentage points as well as lost in certain cities. European market showed mixed responses to the Apple devices. Blackberry continued to lose its market share in Europe as well.
In short Android is the King
Android continues its growth in all the large smartphone markets at the cost of Apple. However, for both, Blackberry and Microsoft, It was a mixed market responseas they gained and lost market shares in certain regions.
Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) spans around 30 million small business pages to target its massive user base. A previous report mentioned that 9 out of 10 SMBs planned to invest in social media for marketing. Facebook’s earnings for the last quarter indicated that, the average ad price rose by a staggering 123%. Facebook also reduced the number of ads it displayed by 25%, may be as a result of its new ad page design that took up more space, reducing the number of ads that could be displayed. But reducing the number of ads did not result in a lesser revenue, instead, rose by 67% to gain $2.68 billion on ads. If you wondered how, the compensation came from increasing the cost of each ad to be spent by the SMB owners. Along with bottle neck competition to make the highest bid to gain an ad publication on the Facebook page, cost-per-click (CPC) almost quadrupled over the quarter. Shelling out too much on ads resulted in 83% of small business owners taking a decision to invest zero on Facebook ads. However, around 14% of SMBs were still ready to spend less $5000 and only 1.3% of SMBs took a step ahead to spend between $5000 and $10000.
Facebook, however, claims that spending more on ads is directly related to the fact that those ads are prioritized and reflects the value that it creates. Fewer number of ads may provide Facebook’s users with fewer options, the targeted ads would be the only ones the customers would go for giving no place for confusion.
While the increase in price on ads give Facebook an added advantage, it is not so for the cash strapped SMBs, who have a limited budget to carry out all functionalities. Spending more than half of their budget only on ads might not be their first choice. Sometimes it may also become fatal if their ads are not targeted properly. For instance, in India, if an SMB is supposedly dealing with insurance policies or maybe real estate, the SMB might not get the attention that it requires as 50% of people aged 18-24 are the only active users of Facebook and that SMB needs to target their ads at a more matured audience who might not be actively available on the social network. Needless to say, a number of SMBs’ investment on Facebook ads has not been so effective and sometimes have incurred losses by depending solely on Facebook ads. Before spending on ads on Facebook there is a vital need to analyse if the customers, the SMB is looking for, is actually on Facebook and must also be ready to take the burden of churning out money as required on such ads.
Facebook planning to increase ad revenue in India
India is home to over 50 million SMBs and over a 110 million Facebook users. Facebook plans to focus on Indian SMBs to increase their ad revenue. Facebook also has a success story of one of India’s SMB startup called Chumbak which is gaining wide popularity. Chumbak, a startup which sells artsy Indian accessories went ahead to target audience with Facebook ads alone. The result was an enormous success with Facebook generating 5x return on ad spend. Chumbak grabs a total of 35% online revenue through Facebook. Facebook also signed its first ad agency deal with India’s GroupM wanting to reach the 100 million user base to improve customer satisfaction. Facebook also announced a new feature for ads in India called ‘Missed call ad’ When users clicked on the ad, they get a ‘missed call’ button which would place a missed call to the advertised brand. In turn, the advertisers call the customers and discuss about the products or give reviews. One after the other, Facebook is devising new strategies to draw attention of the huge user base in India, which in turn will boost their ad revenues in the coming years.
Samsung’s market share has risen steadily during the three months ending June 2014, due to its new flagship model, the Galaxy S5. Interestingly, Apple is still gaining smartphone market share in the US, almost a year after the release of the iPhone 5S and 5C models. The top smartphone operating system, meanwhile, continued to be Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) owned Android OS, with a market share of 52.1%, compared with iOS market share of 42.1%.
Samsung And HTC Could Be Run Over By Apple From September
The US is still considered as the forefront of the global smartphone market, despite increasing signs that the growth could soon stall to 0%. The country’s mobile market penetration stood at 71.6%, with a grand total of 173 million smartphone users. Apple continues to be the leading smartphone vendor, solidifying its market share to 42.1% in June from 41.4% in March. These figures are all the more impressive, given that both Samsung and HTC Corp (TPE:2498) launched their flagship devices during the three months before June 2014. Apple has not only survived with the lead position in the competitive US market, but has continued to solidify its commanding position despite no new product releases for the last eight months.
All the other leading firms, including Motorola, LG Electronics Inc. (KRX:066570) and HTC have all lost market share by 0.5%, 0.3% and 0.6% respectively. Samsung was the only other vendor besides Apple in the top five vendors, to increase its market share from 27% in March to 28.6% by June. The Korean electronics giant is struggling to retain market share globally, but its US market is still sturdy for the moment. Samsung is expected to introduce two more devices, which include the Galaxy Note 4 and the full-metal Galaxy S5 variant, before Apple launches the large screen 4.7 inch screen iPhone.
Android Market Share Is Still The Largest in The U.S
In Q2 2014, Google Android reached a market share of 85% among smartphone operating systems globally. In the US, however, the decline of Android market share against Apple iOS – only for smartphone – is hurting Android directly. The market share Android dropped by 0.3% point to 51.9%, while those of Apple iOS surged by 0.7% point to grab 42.1% of subscribers. Although several low and high-end products have been launched in the US such as the LG G3 and the Moto G, still Android failed to gain significant market share during the three months ending June 2014.
Microsoft Corporation. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone operating system market share also rose by 0.1% to reach 3.4% during the three months ending June 2014. The decline of the other operating systems such as BlackBerry OS and Symbian OS, has turned the U.S smartphone OS platform into a clear iOS vs Android battle. The second half of 2014 will see the release of several new powerful products powered by the latest versions of both operating systems.
Apple iPhone 6 Could Shift the U.S market Considerably
Except Samsung, all other Android OEMs have struggled to match Apple between March and July 2014, despite introducing their new and best smartphones. Things could get even more difficult over the next few months, as Apple unveils the 4.7 inch iPhone 6 on 9 September 2014. If Apple manges to create a radically new device, it could fundamentally alter the phabletmarket, which is currently dominated by Samsung, HTC and others. This could have a direct impact on the future of Android and its OEMs in the US. Even after eight months since the launch, Apple’s iPhone 5S is still the best-selling device in the world, and there is no reason to doubt Apple’s iPhone 6 could top the sales to an even higher margin.
What impact will the iPhone 6 have on the U.S smartphone market? Could Apple really alert the U.S and other markets globally with a simple large screen device? Do let us know in the comments section below.
In recent times there has been a gigantic increase in the number of videos in the Facebook Newsfeed. This new digital mode of dissemination in a post increases the click-through rate by 96%, which clearly depicts its lucrativeness. But the performance measures of these videos are not simply restricted to the number of times they are being clicked instead for how long they are able to cling their viewers and this is what Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is working on to help its traffickers.
The length of a video is an imperative factor for grabbing people’s attention. It wouldn’t be arduous to understand that the shorter and compact a video on Facebook’s Newsfeed is, the ideal it is. The average length of a video is 44 seconds on Facebook which makes them quite commensurate when compared to the below graph that depicts that the videos of length less than 21 seconds managed to have the highest retention of viewer.
Why keeping them short?
The shorter a video is, the more is the probability of its being completed due to the very fact of conciseness and hence utilizing less of the viewer’s precious time. Withal to concision, the dispensers and the retailers need to keep in mind that in that competent time they should be able to fully bespeak the viewers about their main motif as there is a great contingency of them getting oblivious if the content is not able to cut the bone.
A short video can be as small as 8 seconds, but it can be more appealing and more compelling than a Choate story giving more scope for innovations and creativity. This doesn’t imply in any sense that a short video is prepared also in those fractions of minutes only as their length. Rather, putting everything in a closed nutshell is more tedious; nevertheless the marketers find them a better bet because of the odds of success in these shorter versions are tremendous.
The Number Game between length and retention of videos
According to a study, 20% of the viewers click away from a video just after 10 seconds or fewer. And the aggravation continues with the elapsing of sand of the hourglass with another 33% viewers moving away in 30 seconds, 45% by 1 minute and almost 60% in 1 minute.
Also, considering the credits and addons, Facebook does a canny preferential of considering a video completed if the user views 95% of it and by looking at the trend of the above chart it seems sensible too.
Strategy to increase the video viewership
Facebook has devised a strategy to personalize the Newsfeed based on people’s choice of videos. The earlier considered factors of likes, comments and shares have one more addition to it, which is how long someone has watched a video. In the current scenario about 57% of people complete a video once started viewing and working on this trend the number of videos to be displayed on the top of News Feed is being decided upon. The early results of this algorithm have improved the relevance ratio of individual video viewership choices.
The optimization tactics
The content of the video should strike the audience instantly and should be compelling so that it is able to captivate them before the ignited spark cools down. Also, anything of high gravity should not be left impending for the last moment, which includes even the credentials or endorsements all together at the end, because the most interested lot would also have a high potency to quit at the end. The increased acknowledgement of the Facebook user base towards the brand ad videos is proving to be a great exposure in the Newsfeed and the marketers need to cash upon this window of opportunity. According to a research conducted by Jun Group (2011), the videos of length 15 seconds or shorter are shared 37 % more than those of length between 30 seconds to a minute and finally videos exceeding that length also are just restricted to 18% of sharing pointing out the paramountcy of their brevity.
Facebook is consistently working on the inclusion of ads as videos and has been extremely successful even in pulling the audience towards them yet the scope of dispensing the ideas in a compact and comprehensive way is still a great challenge for the brands because at the end the crisp it is the better it gets.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd (KRX:005930) is taking some tough fight in India from homegrown smartphone vendors such as Xiaomi and Micromax. The Korean smartphone major needs some really great products to keep up with the competition. Samsung has already sent out a press invite to a big event where it is expected to announce a bunch of new products during IFA 2014 including Galaxy Alpha, Gear 3 and Gear Solo smartwatches as well as the GearVR headset but the star of the show would be their flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 4. But considering Samsung is going through some rough patches for the last few quarters, Can the Galaxy Note 4 be its saviour and bring their position back to their glory days?
As Expected, Galaxy Note 4 Will Be Stuffed With High-End Hardware Internals
Samsung is known to stuff its high-end smartphones with the latest possible components. The hardware specifications of Galaxy Note 4 have been confirmed via various leaks from trusted sources like SamMobile. According to various reports, the Galaxy Note 4 will have a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED screen with QHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution and covered by Gorilla Glass 3, resulting in a pixel density of about 515 ppi. It will be powered by a brand new 64-bit octa-core Exynos 5433 processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The Exynos 5433 SoC will combine four ARM’s (NASDAQ:ARMH) Cortex A57 CPU cores, four ARM Cortex A53 CPU cores and a newer Mali-T760 GPU. Samsung’s Exynos 5xxx processors are based on ARM’s big.LITTLE HMP – heterogenous multi-processing – architecture which in theory should have higher processing performance when the need arises but saves more battery under lighter tasks. But in reality, there have been reports that Exynos chipsets aren’t as fast in real life situations as most of the tasks are executed using low-power ARM Cortex A7 CPU cores. It needs to be seen if Samsung has fixed issues in their previous chipsets and improved the performance with Exynos 5433.
Although, in some markets, Samsung is expected to use a Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ:QCOM) Snapdragon 805 processor with powerful Adreno 420 GPU. Going by the set of initial benchmarks that were leaked on the internet, it seems that the Exynos 5433 chipset will be powerful than the competing Snapdragon 805 SoC.
The Galaxy Note 4 is expected to be equipped with the same 16MP ISOCELL camera sensor (1/2.6 inch), which was used in the Galaxy S5. The ISOCELL camera sensor was praised by various experts for its ability to capture images with low noise and high amounts of detail, even in low-light conditions. This camera sensor has an ability to record 4K videos at 30 FPS. The camera sensor might also be from Sony (TYO:6758) if Samsung doesn’t manage to produce enough ISOCELL camera units. It will also feature a 3.68MP (~ 4MP) front-facing camera for improved selfies but Samsung is still not going overboard with the front-facing camera similar to that of an 8MP autofocus camera which is used in the Gionee Elife E7.
Just like the Galaxy S5, it might most probably be equipped with a fingerprint sensor for an additional layer of security. It might also feature a retinal scanner for future proof device security, but take that possibility with a pinch of salt. The device might also be IP67-certified for water resistance. Connectivity features would include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, Miracast, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, NFC, IR Port, GLONASS A-GPS and MicroUSB v3.0 port with USB OTG and USB Host functionalities. As usual, Samsung will include a bunch of necessary and additional sensors in the Galaxy Note 4, such as an accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, gesture sensor, heart-rate monitor, pedometer and a UV sensor. The industry-first UV sensor in Galaxy Note 4 is supposed to integrate with S Health application and provide users with UV readings in their area, so that users can save themselves from premature ageing of skin and skin cancer.
Samsung is unlikely to go the HTC Corp. (TPE:2498) way by using an all metal design due to their focus on ergonomics and removable back. But as per the leaked images, it looks like the Galaxy Note 4 will feature a faux-leather back similar to the Galaxy Note 3. Also, it will feature a metallic frame instead of a plastic one, thereby improving the in-hand feel without compromising on ergonomics.
Will Samsung’s Bloated TouchWiz Continue To Be The Weakest Chain In The Link?
Even though Samsung provides one of the most powerful hardware internals, their devices tend to get slow over time. TouchWiz, which is a combination of Samsung’s feature packed, extremely customisable UI and a set of additional applications are quite resource-intensive and makes the UI equally heavy, clunky and unnecessarily bloated for the user as well as the processor. With the Galaxy S5, Samsung had introduced a completely redesigned version of TouchWiz with flat UI elements, but you can still find some lag while using the device, especially when switching to home screen.
As opposed to TouchWiz, HTC’s Sense UI and Sony’s custom UI design are often praised by experts for being resource efficient. When Motorola (NYSE:MSI) launched the mid-range Moto G, Puneet Soni literally compared the speed of their UI with that of high-end Samsung Galaxy S4. He stressed on to showcase how their mid-range smartphone was faster than Samsung’s high-end flagship in day-to-day tasks due to Motorola’s software optimization techniques.
Apparently, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) had any closed room heated discussions with Samsung’s top management to tone down their UI customizations and limit the bundled software applications that come with Galaxy range of smartphones. If Samsung doesn’t manage to optimize and dumb down TouchWiz, it will be quite hard for Samsung to provide satisfying user experience for consumers. Also, it is unclear whether Samsung will adopt the new Material UI design from the upcoming version of Android, dubbed as Android L.
Better Pricing Strategy Is Necessary To Compete With Chinese Smartphone Vendors
As per the latest report from Strategy Analytics Samsung’s smartphone market share dropped by a good margin in Q2 2014. China and India are the two biggest smartphone markets in the world and Samsung has lost their market share in both these markets. Xiaomi dethroned Samsung from the position of Top smartphone vendor in China, while Micromax did the same in the Indian market.
One of the most important factors that is causing the decline in sales is Samsung’s steep pricing. The Samsung Galaxy S5 was launched at $699 that later declined to $499 within a span of two months. The scenario is no different for the company in largest and fastest growing markets; In India Samsung Galaxy S5 was intriduced with a price tag of of Rs 51,500 (US$850) but it is now selling for as low as Rs 36,000 (US$600), which calculates into a price drop of Rs 775 (US$13) per week since its launch 20 weeks ago. On the other hand, Sony’s flagship device, the Xperia Z2 was launched at a price of Rs 49,990 (US$830) and is now selling for Rs 43,000 (US$715), which is a price drop of just Rs 492 ($8.2) since its launch 14 weeks ago. Launching its devices at steep prices and then drastically dropping the prices will not help Samsung as such strategy is bound to attract negative feelings towards Samsung brand among consumers.
Device
Launch Day Price (Approximate, In INR)
Current Price (Approximate, In INR)
Weeks Since Launch (Approximate)
Average Price Drop Per Week (Approximate, In INR)
Samsung Galaxy S5
51,500
36,000
20
775
HTC One M8
49,900
45,500
16
431
Sony Xperia Z2
49,900
43,000
14
492
Apple iPhone 5S (16GB)
53,500
41,000
40
312
Nokia Lumia 1520
46,999
37,500
30
316
LG Nexus 5 (16GB)
29,999
27,000
38
79
Some other brands like Motorola, Asus, Gionee and Xiaomi are launching their smartphones at extremely low prices. Xiaomi has launched the high-end Mi 3 with a mid-range price tag but claiming to use the quality components under the hood. This injects a thought in consumers’ minds that Samsung is unnecessarily charging ultra premium for its smartphones. In an interview with DazeInfo, Manu Jain, Head of Xiaomi India, revealed how Xiaomi was able to provide a high-end smartphone tagged with an almost unbelievably low-price. To tackle this, Samsung needs to launch its smartphones at sensible prices, without dropping them heavily in the near future.
When Samsung launches the Galaxy Note 4, it will have a direct competition with Xiaomi Mi 4, Sony Xperia Z3, HTC One M8, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 6 and Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) Lumia 1520. Besides, Motorola is supposed to launch a 5.9-inch screen equipped Nexus 6, to fuel the competition. Samsung needs to understand that they can’t preserve their market share if they keep on releasing small iterations to its previous generation devices. If Samsung wants the Galaxy Note 4 to be its savior, Samsung should make sure that it comes with quality hardware, responsive and intuitive software at a sensible price.
More than ever social media platforms are changing the way we live and do things. Social media has a strong impact and influence on customers. More importantly, brands are using up social platform to engage users as their customers. Brand advertising in social media is now the ground zero to build a bond between the customers and the brands. In 2006 YouTube arrived at the spectacular video advertising platform for marketing brands. It not only honed creativity, but if the ad is good enough, it is shared, commented on and popularised it. In the Q2 2014 report of YouTube Insights, the bottom line was, brands that are hell-bent on identifying customer’s passion are the ones who influenced more purchases than others who didn’t.
The report states that 66% of beauty product buyers were influenced by YouTube advertising to make purchases as they felt they could relate it to their lifestyle. This comes naturally when beauty conscious people are on the look out for make-up and hairdo how-to’s, tips on accessorizing and beauty expert advice videos. Brand advertising of beauty products on such user base is definitely attractive. Also, 62% of Smartphone buyers were reported to have been influenced by the Smartphone review videos on YouTube. Well, we all love to watch the live comparison of Smartphones and exclusive Unboxing of Smartphones, based on which we decide which one to buy. You could look for channels called Unbox therapy, Marques brownlee, android authority. On a similar note, influenced by the teaser campaign, in-action videos of auto vehicles led to 72% vehicle purchases.
YouTube videos: People of age group between 18-34 most influenced
The global Smartphone shipment units reached 1.2 billion in 2014, which is a take away fact that 98% of Smartphone users between the age of 18-34 watch YouTube videos on their Smartphones. The young YouTube audience accounts for the fact that the most viewed or popular video channels are about gaming, music, make-up, fashion and life-style.
Just like that, TikTokhas blown up as a huge hit, especially with the younger crowd who live on their phones. It’s all about quick, fun videos – think everything from dance challenges and funny clips to DIY projects and cooking tips. This shift shows how we’re all starting to crave short, catchy content. TikTok fits right in with the YouTube vibe, offering even more ways for the smartphone-loving generation to find stuff they love to watch
9% of this young audience participate actively by sharing and commenting on YouTube videos, which the report says is 10x the social engagement by all other video sites combines. Another astounding figure revealed that, YouTube reaches out to the young audience between 18 and 34, more than any other CABLE NETWORK!!
Top videos: most viewed and most subscribed on YouTube
The YouTube Insights of Q2 2014 report stated that, the most subscribed video channels were about learning and education, whereas most viewed were brands related to entertainment and food & beverages. To educate oneself through YouTube videos, it becomes necessary to subscribe to the channels so that viewers are always up to date with the topics covered. Whereas the entertainment section is very volatile, one does not have the need to subscribe to every respective channel showcasing entertainment, but only the availability of the video matters irrespective of the channel. Here are the top 5 viewed YouTube channels of the last quarter.
The awesome Pewdiepie is the most viewed channel. Pewdiepie is famous for its video game commentaries as he plays through it. The channel has a record viewership of 22 million subscribers in 2014. The channel is followed by YouTubeSpotlight, which is a channel for everything on the go that is happening all over the world.
64% of consumers are influenced by videos to make purchases
YouTube prevails to be the most influential social media for consumers who make purchases. YouTube influences 64% of purchases made which is the highest when compared to other popular social media like Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. People influenced by media further influence others around them. Brands that are up to the mark create influence on consumers by catering to consumer’s passions and interests.
The overall impact of YouTube ads is massive to both the consumers and the brands. The brands are required to tap into the interests of customers and produce creative video ads. Consumers are always on the look out to build and hone their passion, especially on social platforms like Google and YouTube. Consumers tend to purchase with the same mindset they consume the media. So, it is up to the brands to penetrate this psychology of understanding its customer’s passion to urge them to make purchases that will match their purpose and passion.
Take Aways:
Brands indulge in creating more video content for their product/services.
Marketers and advertisers must focus on video advertising and promotion to make sure the greater sales return to their clients.
Publishers must focus on creating more video content to make sure the higher engagement and response.
For video content YouTube must be treated like one of the most important social networking platforms. Businesses, Marketers, Advertisers and Publishers must make sure to have their YouTube property active and updated.
As the gap between iOS and OS X is narrowing, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has started visualizing the impact of common apps that could satisfy its mobile and desktop users. The latest patent finding details reveal that Apple has kicked-off the development process to bring the enhanced version of Siri experience to Mac users with improved functionalities and features. The image from the patent filed by Apple, highlight how Siri for Mac will look like. Few earlier reports had also claimed about the Mac version of Siri though, this is the very first time when the information holds substantial evidence about the Apple’s initiative.
The patent has been filed under the claim “Intelligent digital assistance in a desktop environment” and lays out a basic framework that pretty much similar to Siri for iOS. It would have voice-assistant that would act based upon your commands for few basic tasks, search and so on. Besides, it will also have a self-learning capability and use the context clues to understand what you mean.
However, Siri for Mac will still use the same server being used for mobile version. It will likely be available as a desktop app and could be activated by a single click or it would hum in the background, and could be invoked by a simple voice command like “Hello Siri”.
Among all the feature the most important one seems “Using Digital Assistant as Third Hand”, which is really helpful for those who are constantly involved in multi-tasking. For an example, a user is allowed to work on a single window at a time despite f having multiple apps open required to execute that one task. While drafting a document you may need to have an access to a web-image or may want to embed a video. At such particular moment, Siri for Mac becomes more handy as you can save mouse clicks and add images/video without moving away from the editor.
Siri for Mac would differ, rather advance, than its mobile version by performing tasks that could be executed only though keystrokes or mouse clicks. With the help of Siri for Mac, users would be able to copy-paste, arrange files by date and time, shut down and restart the Mac, command browser and more. But, all of these intelligent features may not be available in the near future with Siri for Mac considering Siri for Mobile is still far from performing tasks in desired way.
With the evolution of technology, we are getting surrounded by a number of smart gadgets, which are eventually taking over many of our jobs. Though these developments are only making people more deliverable and acquaintance, the interference of these gadgets and devices have reached to our home and personal life. And, with the addition of this new family member you can not only add another device to the fleet of your gadgets, but will also add a new member to your family; Meet JIBO – the world’s very first robot specially designed and developed to make your busy life easier.
JIBO has got everything that could make you rethink about smart objects and how you would picture them in your home. This is probably the first ever masterpiece of Artificial Intelligence for home and personal lives. This 11 inches tall and 6 – 7 pound robot is ready to take all of your stress, starting from reminding about important tasks, helping with education, self-clicking images of special moments of your life and much more.
Powered with skills like intelligent hands-free assistance, emotionally connected photography, storytelling and messaging, JIBO could fit into every part of your life. It can see, hear, speak, learn and relate to things happening around it.
However, the product is still in the concept stage and the Cynthial Breazeal, Founder and CEO of the company, is looking forward to raise $2 million in total to get the JIBO into reality working to full capacity. Through the on-going crowd funding campaign on Indigogo, JIBO team has already raised close to $1.5 million and the product is now at the advanced stage of production and testing.
Here is the video that that Briefly demo JIBO and talks about the development progress, developer editions and personal edition of JIBO along with the future road of JIBO.
All said and done, the question still looms that, do we really need such an interference in our life, especially when a device doesn’t need your approval before executing tasks. Yes, you may be thinking about AI, but then it would be interesting to watch how advance AI could become. Many of us may be thinking that will this be a robot people would actually like to keep at home? We don’t know yet, but seeing people’s response to its crowd funding campaign at Indigogo, we could say it has got a great chance to live upto the expectations.
Currently, under the pre-order, you can buy a JIBO robot for your house starting from $499 as only 100 units are up for grab. Below is the concept video of JIBO that tries to emulates few of the scenarios with JIBO at home. Enjoy !!!
Most businesses have jumped on the bandwagon of customer loyalty by issuing customer loyalty cards, ignoring the growing tradition of Loyalty app programs. You’ve probably seen these before. You walk into a business, they start asking you all of this irrelevant information about your personal life, and then they pitch it to you, “we can save you 10 percent off of today’s purchase.” It’s enough to get most people to hand over their name, number, and address.
Once that’s done, the customer receives an endless number of emails and advertisements in the mail. Guess what? Customers have become anesthetized to your advertising. But, it’s not just your advertising. It’s everyone’s. That’s sort of how marketing goes. When one company figures out what works, everyone jumps on the wagon and beats it into the ground until it no longer works.
Belly has more than 4,000 merchants in their database, so it’s not exactly a small operation. Basically, with this app, when users come into your store they check in. They can also use an old-school Belly plastic card, but let’s ditch the card concept for a moment and go digital. Users check in and, when they do, you can then send them emails, mobile texts, and connect with them via social media.
Do you see the possibilities with this? You can offer them special deals on products and services periodically or if they happen to be in your area one day when they ordinarily wouldn’t be stopping in. So, for example, let’s say you run a coffee shop. You could run a special for regular customers, and then track the result of your ad campaign. Meanwhile, your promotion benefits customers, and they’re happy to keep checking in with your store because they actually want the emails you send out.
FourSquare
The popular check-in game, FourSquare, isn’t exactly a loyalty program, but it can help you engage with customers that check into your business. This company is brilliant. It’s been collecting data from users playing its check-in game for years. Its reach is almost 45 million people, and it contains 1.6 million businesses. You can advertise on the merchant platform, and you only pay when someone acts on it by tapping on it to see the details of your offer.
Front Flip
Front flip is one of the neatest rewards systems. When users download and use this one, they can “boast” the promotions they receive from you. They can also share them with friends via social media. Like many other rewards programs it offers merchants advanced analytics so you can track and interact with your customers.
GetOne Rewards
GetOne Rewards is simple, but don’t let that fool you. That’s its secret. One of the main features of the system is that it doesn’t use plastic cards and there’s a low barrier to entry. All users have to do is enter their phone number and they are part of the loyalty program. There’s no real way to cheat the system since there are no “check-ins” which means that people can’t check in, not do business with you, and rack up “points” for perks that they really shouldn’t be entitled to. While there are iPhone and iPad integrations, the system tends to work best when you have an iPad POS cash register software system set up and tied into GetOne Rewards.
That way, all customers have to do is enter in their phone number while they’re making their purchase. You don’t have to rely on them doing anything else, since you control the POS system in your business.
Perka
Perka is designed to reward people based entirely on the transactions they make, like GetOne, as opposed to check-ins, like Foursquare. There’s a $50 monthly fee to be in the program, but you also get really good analytics with the program. Plus, users don’t need to have a smartphone to participate. Perka works on older phones via the standard text messaging interface (SMS).
This is one of the few loyalty programs that mimic what larger corporations are switching to, so you can punch above your weight.
Jess Anderson is a retail entrepreneur with a passion for technology. When not putting devices and apps to the test for her small business, she enjoys blogging about the tips and tricks to a successful venture in the modern market.
All of us are aware of the droning customer care service provided routinely by almost all enterprises. There is a huge gap between what customers want and the service they actually get. IMMEDIATE is what the customers want, no matter how bad the situation is, we want an immediate response to our queries from the concerned brands. The crystal clear solution to tackle customer’s problems at this stage is through social media as nearly 75% internet population are involved in social networks. But it is unfortunate that most of the brands have not taken into consideration, the idea of providing customer service by interaction through social platforms.
A recent report by SocialBakers, a social media analytics firm, mentioned that over 9 million questions were put up on Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) combined, by customers so far in 2014. Facebook and Twitter prove to be the best choice for contacting customers and interact with them to resolve issues as 54% of brands prefer marketing through Facebook, followed by Twitter. Although few in number, there are brands that are actively providing service to their customers through social platforms, its effectiveness is yet to take its full swing. The SocialBaker report deduced that although Twitter leads with 7% of socially devoted brands (with telecom and airlines industry being the most devoted) as compared to Facebook with 5%, brands on Twitter responded to only 63% of total questions while Facebook leads with 75% to the total response to customer queries.
But, according to SocialBaker, a brand is socially devoted only if the brands’ responses to customers surpass 65%. It is evident that brands on Twitter stand back in being a complete ‘socially devoted brand’. The percentage of brands of a specific industry on Twitter was reported to be very low with highest of 27.75% in the Telecom industry.
It’s all about Time
For social media customers, time is a critical factor. Customers want speedy addressing of their issues, 65% of the customers on Twitter want their issues to be responded as soon as possible and expectations from Facebook is not much different. This has apparently noticed by brands on Facebook, consequently the response rate by Facebook brands has been growing quarter over quarter for last few years, reaching to 67% in the last quarter.
As the social media is a real-time platform, customers expect a very quick response rate with most of them expecting replies within half an hour. Undoubtedly, this is a hard task at hand, but the brands on social networks must ensure to work their way to respond as quickly as possible. There are industries that are heavily dependent on social media response rate and response time due to the nature of their business, Airlines Industries being one of them. While most of the Airline companies are taking no more than a day to respond to customers’ queries on Twitter, there are few, like American Airlines and Malaysian Airlines, that are actively and almost immediately responding to customers.
Here are few of the top companies worldwide that have achieve the fastest response time to customer queries on social channels.
Customer support would be beneficiary at both the ends as social networks are public and easy to connect to. The brands or enterprises can reduce the cost of its customer support by shifting towards the active social platform and avoiding or reducing the long procedural telephone calls. The customer queries can be used as a long-term tool to analyse the user requirement and the intensity of the problem in hand, then effectively deduce a solution. Also, it is very easy to interact online with the customers and discuss the issues. Social platforms can be made best use of, as one can monitor a page quite easily and still be able to respond to all the queries. This claim could be well justified by the fact that socially devoted brands receive 2.5 times more interactions on an average. The customers can be provided with regular updates via tweets and Newsfeed so that the customer is always up to date.
The customers on the other hand need not have to jump from one line to the other to go to the right technician to solve the issue. Instead social platforms tend to provide a one stop solution. Also the customers’ queries and comments can be used by others facing similar issues to work out a solution. A community of customers together at a single platform and continuous interaction with the brands will pavé way for a greater understanding of the needs of customers and will also provide a vital feedback for the concerned brands.
