Sure there are already more than 400,000 in the iTunes store, but there are so many good ones that have made our life easier, and will, like 360 clients'
Allrecipes Dinner Spinner Pro App and
Peapod App, which lets you build grocery lists and place your grocery order on the fly. You'll never forget toilet paper again!
One of the best services yet for conducting virtual events,
Livestream makes it easy to extend reach to audiences everywhere. It's reliable, affordable, lets you create a customized brand channel and easily roll-in video and archive events to share and share and share.
Used to be that brands did a lot of pushing to pull in consumers. But savvy brands today are going where the conversation is already taking place and figuring out how they can truly add value.
It gave Justin Bieber his start and has leveled the playing field for not only bands, but brands that have something useful to share. As YouTube grows, the trick will be finding ways OFF of the video mega site to let audiences know how (and why) to find your video.
They've forced us to think more like the audience. What will they want to know and see more about? It starts with less text and more clickable links and video.
The cell phone is no longer a phone or even a PDA, it's now a "remote control for your life," says Twist Image's Mitch Joel and we couldn't agree more. How will that affect your communications strategy over the next several years? If you are not engaged in a constant two-way dialogue with your influencers your relevance will fade quickly.
With roots in the video game industry, 360 has our share of gamers roaming our halls. Perhaps that's why we're so excited about the gamification of communications. Brands far-flung from the video game aisle are using games as part of their communications strategy to build community and more.
As consumers look to work, play and shop for family closer to home, the labyrinth of location-based resources offering connections to local events, merchants and entertainment will continue to reshape the way consumers spend their money. Tools like Foursquare, Shopkick and Groupon are going to stick around for a while, though they need to be more than deal-driven to be part of a sustainable marketing strategy.
With more than 500 million active users, the growth of Facebook has fundamentally changed the way that brands communicate with consumers. Recent surveys show that a large percentage of consumers look for coupons, discounts and deals from brands on Facebook and other social platforms. It's not clear yet if F-commerce will replace brands' e-commerce sites, but F-commerce is at least an incremental opportunity.
Sure we still tap an array of experts to bring context to a brand's story, but more and more the advice that matters comes from friends and co-workers. Our communication strategies are based on finding the zealots and influencers and letting them do the hard work of "word of mouth" marketing.
