Marketing Strategist | Social Media

Google’s Glass New Competition is… Telepathy

Cheryl Ceballos — Wed, 08 May 2013 21:13:19 +0000

Telepathy is an innovative device encourages real-time, hands-free, interactive communication by instantly sharing the user’s visuals with individuals from all over the world, enabling the reception of immediate feedback.

Movie of Telepathy

Telepathy Demonstration at SxSW2013

Product Concept Movie

Selected Sotries of Telepathy

Lift! Lift It Now! (From Father in Hospital)

Wow! How Did You Know? （Present for Your Partner）

How do YOU want to use Telepathy? Please let us know your idea NOW!

Source: http://tele-pathy.org

Mil Profesiones del Community Manager

Cheryl Ceballos — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:29:28 +0000

Fuente: Balijuclick

The 21 worst tech habits and how to break them

Cheryl Ceballos — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:32:14 +0000

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2035704/the-21-worst-tech-habits-and-how-to-break-them.html#tk.nl_pcwbest . By: Christopher Null

You bite your nails. Your house is a sty. You never signal before changing lanes, and when you finally reach your destination, you’re 30 minutes late.

We all have bad habits in real life. Why can’t technology help cure them? While technology should help us break bad habits, all too often it makes things worse.

Are you guilty of a bad tech habit? Here are 21 of the worst technology-oriented habits, plus potential fixes for all of them. (And we have a bonus at the end, on mending bad email habits.)

1. Leaving equipment in plain sight

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT CARDIN

Someone can easily take your gear if you leave it sitting unattended.

The typical gadget isn’t stolen by thieves who’ve done lots of planning. No, most gadget heists are conceived and executed in seconds, and probably because you left the item unattended. That cozy window corner at the café is great until you need to run back to the counter for a refill. A thief can pop in, grab your device, and be gone. Gadgetry is also commonly snapped up from airport security conveyers (sadly, sometimes by TSA agents themselves) while you’re waiting for your body scan. Your locked car isn’t safe, either. An eager crook will happily smash your window and grab the laptop bag from the passenger seat, even in broad daylight.

Fix: Don’t leave laptops and other gadgets unattended. Yes, that means you must either take them to the bathroom or leave them with someone you trust. At a café, it doesn’t hurt to ask the staff if you can leave something behind the counter for a minute. In any case, skip asking, “Can you watch this for me?” and pointing at your PC across the room.

2. Oblivious gadget usage

Here’s how street hoods steal your phone. They lurk at the top of the stairs as you emerge from the subway, or sneak up behind you while you’re lounging at an outdoor café. Either way, you have no idea they’re there, because your nose is buried in your smartphone’s Facebook feed. Next thing you know, you’ve been punched in the face, and the thieves are dashing off to a getaway car. Can you identify the suspects? No, because the last thing you saw before it happened was a picture of a puppy.

Fix: Everyone uses phones everywhere, so it doesn’t feel risky to break one out on the train or while walking home in the dark. But electronics remain some of the most easily fenced items on the black market, and it pays to keep your wits about you when using them in an unknown situation. Make it a policy to limit mobile device usage to areas where you’re completely certain you won’t be the victim of a smash-and-grab attack. That goes double for using your phone while you’re driving. Don’t become another statistic!

3. Using your devices with dirty hands

Anyone who has ever handed a cell phone to a child knows that the device will come back covered in a crust of dirt, crumbs, chocolate, and sneeze spray.

But you aren’t much better. Playing Bejeweled while downing a burrito won’t leave your phone looking fresh, and holding your phone against your face to talk may leave an oily shadow behind.

This isn’t just gross, but brings health risks, too: The old adage that your keyboard is dirtier than your toilet applies to your phone, as well. One report last year claimed that a Ugandan thief contracted Ebola from a stolen phone.

Fix: Keep an electronics-cleaning vial on your desk in plain view. Clean your phone, tablet, and other touchscreen devices daily. Add a quick wipe-down any time you see visible grime.

4. Not cleaning your equipment

We covered the problem of filthy touchscreens (increasingly problematic in the Windows 8 era) in the #3 item, above. But what about everything else?

Literally everything in your high-tech arsenal is vulnerable to damage from dust and dirt. Grime seeps in through any crack and crevice, but machines such as desktops, laptops, and even printers, which have air-intake vents for cooling, are the most affected. Dust generally won’t damage electronics, but it can clog fans, optical-drive mechanisms, and other moving parts, which can lead to component failures and overheating if the fans stop working properly. Dust in scanners and printers can affect the quality of your printouts, too.

Fix: Cleaning your equipment isn’t hard, but it’s important to do so regularly before things build up too much. Once or twice a year should do it. Can’t remember? Try cleaning out your PC at the same time you replace the filter on your furnace or air conditioner, or whenever you get the oil on your car changed. A calendar reminder on your PC can help, too.

5. Sitting with bad posture at the computer

The posture lessons, cautionary tales, and ergonomic gadgets of the past 30 years have apparently taught us nothing, and as a result, carpal tunnel syndrome is the most common form of neurological syndrome called entrapment neuropathy, affecting 5.8 percent of the population. The typical treatment, even for moderate cases, is surgery. And all because you were too lazy to sit up straight.

Fix: Fixing this problem requires a proper work environment. Keep your chair at a height so that your knees bend at a 90-degree angle; also keep your feet flat on the floor, your monitor directly in front with the top of the screen at eye level, and your keyboard placed so your wrists are parallel with the floor.

This is easier said than done if, as it is for many, your office is now a Starbucks. ButImak Computer Gloves can keep your wrist at the correct typing angle and cushion your hand—an easy solution that you can drop into your gadget bag.

6. Not taking breaks

Most parents have no trouble limiting their children’s screen time, but they find it harder to put down their laptops or smartphones when work demands action (or Angry Birds chirps).

Breaks are essential to good health. Your joints, muscular system, circulatory system, and eyes all benefit from a change of scenery once in a while. Remaining in a seated position for extended periods of time can cause blood clots (sometimes even fatal ones). And staring at a screen for hours on end can cause eyestrain that may affect your vision afterward and make it dangerous to drive home.

Fix: Fortunately, programs such as Scirocco Take a Break, mobile apps, and Web browser plug-ins can remind you to step away from your gadgets, stretch your legs, get a drink of water, or call it a day on your computer time.

Another easy way to remedy the problem is to keep, at all times, a very large glass of water at your desk (the solution for another bad habit: failure to hydrate). Sipping a gulp from that glass of water regularly will force you to take an occasional break to the bathroom.

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7. Working with your laptop on your lap

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT CARDIN. A laptop on your lap can mean bad posture and problems from its heat.

Yes, they call it a laptop, but you weren’t supposed to take that literally. Using your laptop on your lap can lead to a whole host of problems, many caused by the heat that most laptops spew from their undersides. The maladies can range from simple skin dryness and discoloration to reduced sperm count to—the jury’s still out on this one—cancer.

Heat isn’t the only problem. Placing a heavy object across your thighs for hours on end can cause neurological damage, particularly when coupled with the typical laptop-on-lap posture: hunched over, legs outstretched, neck craned. Arthritis can also develop over time.

Fix: Fixes aren’t easy unless you want to move your desk into the living room so you can watch Game of Thrones while you work. Instead, start with a lap desk that shields your thighs from heat, and follow the break-taking tips outlined in item #6. Periodically shifting your laptop from one leg to the other can help. Avoid working on your laptop with your legs outstretched on the coffee table, too. Your nervous and muscular systems will be in better alignment if you keep your knees bent and your feet on the floor.

Managing Your Personal E-Reputation

Cheryl Ceballos — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:29:21 +0000

Restaurants and Social Media

Cheryl Ceballos — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 04:41:28 +0000

Delicious food, beautiful atmosphere, awesome menu, friendly staff! ….BUT..

For years you’ve been successful on traditional advertising, using printed magazines or newspapers, was a good source of getting customers. BUT maybe a new similar restaurant opened few weeks ago, and is getting lot of attention from locals, plus is getting you nervous?

Guess…New restaurant is using marketing!

Picture Source: http://www.thehousestyle.com/fancy-restaurant-street-zaragoza.htm/modern-kitchen-design-with-beautiful-lights-in-the-restaurant

So customer data base is growing fast and they started to use social media, and have an awesome website. Your result: => you started to lose market share.

One of the common channels is Facebook, but what really works for a restaurant is a marketing strategy, a whole new plan to focus on sell even before you started to cook!

Secrets from restaurants is that in most cases they develop their niche and get more customers when they combine traditional advertising, social media and one promotional strategy. But not only you want to have presence online, you need to know how to use it, how to develop strategies, answer to people search trends.

When business owners use a marketing strategy, and combine with some sales structure inside the restaurant, success comes easily with hungry people for more engaging content from your business, online and offline.

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Online book giveaways raise industry concerns

Cheryl Ceballos — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:38:26 +0000

Publishing industry professionals have expressed concern over a number of online promotions in which copyrighted e-books are being sold for free.

Source: http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn

China’s largest online bookseller Dangdang.com is in the middle of a sales effort that includes almost all of its e-books being sold for free, from Wednesday to Friday.

Rival Jingdong Mall, announced on Wednesday that it also will offer 50,000 e-books for free.

Some leading names in the industry said that someone will have to pay in the end, and a resultant price war between the industry’s main players could be hugely destructive to the sector.

According to local media, Chinese writer Feng Tang has already delivered a lawyer’s letter to the retailers protesting about the giveaways, which he says is costing him a considerable amount in lost royalties.

Zhao Chen, from People’s Literature Publishing House, told Beijing News that the promotion will bring harm to companies.

Wang Qian, a professor at the Intellectual Property School, East China University of PoliticalScience and Law, told China Daily: “It’s legal if Dangdang has the authors’ authorization and paid them for that.”

Dangdang’s senior PR director Guo He said that the promotion had been approved by the company’s legal department.

But Guo refused to confirm or deny whether it gained the permission of all the authors and publishers before starting the promotion.

Guo said that if they got complaints from content providers during the three days, they would pull the relevant free products out of respect.

“Basically, we are doing this because we want to draw more people into reading books, especially copyrighted e-books,” Guo said.

As well as free e-book downloads, Dangdang is also offering 50 percent off printed books, to “celebrate the upcoming World Reading Day”, Guo said, while denying the promotion had anything to do with the possible launch of the company’s own e-reader.

Guo said his company considers there are only a small number of regular e-book readers in China and encouraged publishers to invest more time and money in the future marketing and selling of e-books.

“We share the same ambitions as the writers and publishers — to increase the number of potential consumers,” he said, adding the short-term sales expected by the promotions would not affect the interests of either groups over the long term.

Zhang Hongbo, secretary-general of the China Written Works Copyright Society, the only collective copyright management organization for written works in the country, said the giveaways showed a sloppy approach to copyright if approvals had not been sought from copyright holders to offer their titles for free.

“I think it’s hardly successful marketing if it’s based on sacrificing the interests of copyright holders.”

Zhang said the promotions also raised doubts, and showed a lack of faith in the development of the country’s e-publishing industry, especially from the so-called traditional publishers.

Although the value of China’s e-publishing industry reached 133.7 billion yuan ($21.6 billion) in 2011, Zhang said the share of e-books is still smaller than that of digital games and digital advertisements

Email Marketing Interesting Facts

Cheryl Ceballos — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:46:46 +0000

Email is the most accepted tactic that is often dismissed as being too rudimentary for today’s focus on real-time information.

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Email marketing remains as the most necessary element in the marketing strategies of businesses and organizations of all sizes.

Source: http://www.dazeinfo.com

In a study conducted in the UK, 89% of the respondents surveyed said that email was “important” or “very important” for their businesses. The report, “National client email report 2013” by Direct Marketing Association (DMA) UK sponsored by Alchemy worx says that Email marketing had become the cornerstone for many marketing programs in 2012 compared to 2011.

The associated value of email marketing to the economy is clear, given the UK’s National Office of Statistics estimated website sales at £129.1 billion in 2011 and total e-commerce sales at £482.9 billion.

Interesting facts from the report

Marketers are using email for an increasing range of objectives beyond straight forward revenue generation, including retention, engagement, acquisition and brand awareness. Click and conversion rates are the factors that marketers rate most often as important to achieving business goals.

B2C marketers put at least as much or more emphasis on engagement and retention than their B2B counterparts. However, B2C organizations place less-than-average emphasis on building brand awareness.

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Email marketing, Budget allocations

56% expect their expenditure to increase in 2013. Nevertheless, expectations regarding future budget allocation are not as optimistic as in 2011. While only one in 5% marketers expects their budget to decline, 39% do expect it to remain unchanged, 26% more than said so in 2011.

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Digital revenue contribution

Another indicator of the value of email is its share of business revenue. Email marketing accounts for 50% or more of all digital business revenue.

11% of the respondents polled that they generate 20% of this overall revenue through email marketing. Email claims at least 30% of the budget share for 38% of respondents and produces at least 30% of total revenue for 40% of respondents.

The majority of organisations (62%) produce 30% or more of their digital business revenue through email. Email marketing even accounts for at least as much digital business revenue as all other channels combined.

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Integration of Emails with other channels

Marketers report that the best channels to integrate with email are online marketing, social networks, direct mail and mobile marketing – both for ROI and profitable relationship building.

This correlates with another report which says Email marketing is very well integrated with Social media. That’s why integration of social media with email marketing technology sees hike this year.

It’s interesting to see which other channels respondents feel email best integrates with. In terms of ROI, general online marketing is cited by 65% of marketers. This is followed by social networks (38%), direct mail (32%) and mobile marketing (25%). All other channels were cited by no more than 15% of respondents.

Price increases help PepsiCo. Profit beat expectations

Cheryl Ceballos — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 02:38:19 +0000

By Martinne Geller

Thu Apr 18, 2013 12:37pm EDT

(Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc (PEP.N) posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings on Thursday, as price increases helped margins, sending its shares up 4 percent.

The maker of Pepsi-Cola, Tropicana juice and Frito-Lay snacks kept its full-year forecast unchanged, however, saying it may reinvest in its business and adjust pricing moving forward.

Still, the strong results are a validation of the turnaround strategy of Indra Nooyi, who led the company through a “transition year” in 2012, during which it sacrificed profits to invest in marketing and innovation.

“The business momentum continues to look solid, as PepsiCo delivered its first earnings growth quarter in over a year,” JP Morgan analyst John Faucher said, noting that the company’s stock had been weaker than its peers in the past few days.

Despite the better-than-expected first quarter, Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston told analysts not to increase their 2013 estimates, citing a “volatile world” and a higher tax rate moving forward. In addition, soda prices may not stay as high as they were in the first quarter.

How to get more customers using Event Marketing

Cheryl Ceballos — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 02:25:50 +0000

Working your storefront, website, content management is part of everyday routine. But one way to get in front of prospects and direct sell is using Event Marketing.

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It’s really important as marketeer to promote the idea of having a website, a brand image, and best corporate image for your business. But although all of this is essential, Event Marketing is one of the most powerful strategies that is used for most companies in the world.

What makes a customer to buy, and let people get interested in your services is just the beginning of great sales opportunities in an event.

There are many ways you can use an event to allay customers hesitations, and promote yourself. Event Marketing can be used for local businesses to bring more traffic to your store.

Use All in One Marketing strategy to promote your local business, and bring some fresh leads.

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Search Gets a Mobile Makeover

Cheryl Ceballos — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:02:53 +0000

Mobile requires revamped SEO, SEM strategy

In 2012, search marketing reached an inflection point in the US, according to a new eMarketer report, “State of Mobile Search 2013: Key Trends in Mobile SEO and SEM.” Desktop search volume declined for the first time, while the share of queries from smartphones and tablets reached roughly 20%.

Impressive as the growth has been, the results are more noteworthy: US marketers that ran tablet- or smartphone-targeted search campaigns in 2012 saw clickthrough rates (CTRs) well above desktop averages, while cost-per-click (CPC) rates were below desktop norms. In 2013, eMarketer estimates US mobile search ad spending will top $3.5 billion and represent 18% of digital search ad spending, up from 11% in 2012.

eMarketer estimates there were 121 million smartphone and 94 million tablet users in the US in 2012, a 31% and 180% increase, respectively, compared with 2011. Anecdotal data from several US digital marketers and retailers suggests roughly 20% of total page views come from smart devices.