Tag: josie rogers

- by Josie Rogers

Solving the multi-device challenge with HTML5

The multi-device user experience

Users are more demanding and expect a high quality experience. We are now working in a constantly connected environment where people access the internet from a number of devices via desktop, tablet or smart phone. Many people own more than one internet connected device. In fact, Cisco predicts that by the end of 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth.

The difficulty to overcome is that mobile users expect a web browsing experience on their phone that is comparable to a laptop or desktop PC. With multiple mobile O/S platforms to support, this leaves developers with a challenge – creating a website that will provide an engaging experience across each and every platform and browser. With so many constraints to think about, what is the best solution?

Enter HTML5

HTML5 techniques help bridge the gaps between desktop, tablet and mobile experiences however, many have been unsuccessful in their attempts.

The original HTML was invented over twenty years ago. It has gone through a number of updates, but it’s been more than a decade since the last one.

The web is accelerating – over time the internet has got better and now has a better degree of dependability. With modern browsers, we are now seeing more developer issues being solved. Updates to HTML standards and specifications bring a number of key benefits:

  • Rich and dynamic creative content e.g. videos, graphics and audio can be added into a webpage more easily without the use of plug-ins
  • The video experience is superior, as it is native to the browser
  • Location can be tied into your web applications
  • Load speed times can increase. In a world where every second counts, this has a positive effect for reducing page abandonment
  • HTML5 runs across mobile devices including all smart phones and tablets giving a consistent experience for all, thus helping developers solve the multi-device challenge

Let’s see it in practice

We’ve recently launched a new digital interaction application for Zebra Technologies built using HTML5. In browsers that support HTML5, you really experience the difference from Flash-based solutions. The site uses HTML5 video which enables the video to be viewed across a number of devices, without having to use plug-ins (that relies on the user having plug-ins installed) leading to a better user experience. Take a look at the Zebra Virtual world for transport on your mobile, tablet or desktop now and let us know what you think!

The latest addition to the Virtual Zebra world has been built in HTML5


 

- by Josie Rogers

Turn up the Volume!

Festivals are a great way to enjoy live music and with many festivals popping up all over the UK, festival organisers are always looking to raise the bar in festival quality. Technological innovations have always played a part in improving the festival experience for example, the introduction of festival radio meant that people could listen to live music from different stages, as well as hearing all the backstage gossip. More recently, silent discos have proven to be massively popular at many UK festivals such as Brownstock, Vfestival and Creamfields. Part of the popularity has come from being able to listen to what you want, wherever you are. What if you could take this a step further by listening to live music being played on another stage via your mobile? This could help you decide whether you want to go and watch it live and also ensures you don’t miss a thing. Also, wouldn’t it be great if you could also check out what the line-up is and see which of your friends are also at the festival?

This got us thinking about how we could enhance the festival experience. The result was a state of the art mobile phone app, which will bring cutting-edge technology to the Caversham Festival, an annual community festival organised by Reading-based charity, Readipop.

 

Festival Enhancing Features

  • You will be able to check the in-built festival guide to discover the band line up for each stage
  • Plan your own entertainment itinerary
  • See what food stalls have to offer and find out where on site they are
  • See what/when workshops are happening
  • Redeem special discount vouchers for money off purchases from stall holders
  • Tell your friends about what you have been doing using Facebook and other social media integration

And the best bit

Most impressively, the mobile app will enable you to ‘Turn up the Volume!’. Through your smart phone, you can listen to any of the music being played on any of the stages with its radio-like live-streaming functionality. This means you could be with friends at the main stage and quickly check out what is happening on the floating stage. Of course all of the content will be recorded as it happens and instantly uploaded to the Caversham Festival website, where you will be able to listen and even watch your favourite bands, or the ones you missed, when you get home.

Go on, take a sneak peak!

Here’s a few snaps of how the app will look, we will let you know when it’s ready to download!

At Volume we’ve created other trend-setting mobile apps and so it is great to have been able to turn this expertise to charitable use. We specialise in delivering projects totally in-house from the creative concept, design, digital execution, software development, social media management and marketing strategies through to market analysis. This made us the ideal people to deliver this gift to Readipop, as creating a mobile app includes most of these processes.

Volume’s Chief Executive Chris Sykes is thrilled to be involved with the festival:

“We were impressed with the passion and hard work Readipop puts into the Caversham Festival and the local community. The least we could do was to try and help to enhance the festival experience, whilst utilising the very latest mobile technology. We’re all looking forward to the 8th of July. It promises to be a fantastic event.”

The Readipop Caverhsam festival is in its 14th year and is a way for the local residents of Caversham and wider Reading to celebrate the place we live. The festival will feature live music, an arts trail, fairground rides, children’s workshops, good food, over 40 stalls. Most of the content of the festival is made up from local bands, groups and clubs and showcases much of the work that Readipop helps to create throughout the year.

This year’s Caversham festival will certainly be something to look forward to with the added experience from the innovative Smartphone app, hopefully see you there on the 8th July!

- by Josie Rogers

What are the top five organisational concerns with social media? How can you deal with them?

When talking about social media with clients, there are a number of questions that commonly come up. Many stem from the challenges of adjusting to using social media as a new way of reaching customers and advocates. I have highlighted the five key concerns we get asked and how we help alleviate them.

The five most common concerns organisations have about using social media are:

1. Brand damage
2. Compliance issues
3. Lack of expertise
4. Difficulty in measuring ROI
5. Resource constraints

Brand damage

No one wants to be the next #McDstories gone sour or be the next brand caught deleting negative comments. On a less viral level, no one wants customer-retention issues stemming from slow responses from those in charge of running the social profiles.

One way of avoiding brand damage is to educate your staff through professional social-media workshops and clear social-media guidelines. This should help avoid situations that leave the profiles open to brand damage; it will also open doors to would-be brand advocates among your staff, who can represent the company, the brand and the products and services via their own social profiles.

Compliance issues

Have you ever seen a brand with myriad social-media accounts that all seem to do the same thing? How do you control the setup of new and random profiles? By putting policies and processes in place, there’ll be a clear process for account setup, which will avoid the proliferation of new accounts that serve no purpose or duplicate effort.

Develop clear and concise social-media policies, and ensure that employees contributing to social media have read and understood those policies. They should provide guidance on setting up and running accounts, and engaging with stakeholders.

Policies are great, but how can you ensure that they result in socially-savvy employees representing the brand in a productive way? Training, of course! Face-to-face or online-based training sessions give practical guidance on social-media activities, and on combining activities to engage an audience and generate leads. You can find out more about the benefits of training in one of our earlier blog post: Is training the answer to the social dilemma?

Lack of expertise

Are you planning to start social-media initiatives? How do you plan to integrate all of your planned social-media activities to ensure you’re driving value for the brand? Do you know what to do in order to achieve your goals?

When choosing to partner with an agency or consultancy, it is important to look for a proven track record of tangible success in social media – campaigns that deliver value and ROI. At Volume, we work alongside brands and provide expertise (from a number of social-media tactics to a fully integrated strategy supported by best-of-breed social tools) to ensure that our clients get the best return from their social media activities.

Difficulty in measuring ROI

How do you actually measure return on investment. What do you count as a success?

Start by setting measureable objectives you are looking to achieve. For example:

  • Site traffic generation
  • Interactions and engagement
  • Re-syndicated content
  • Event registrations and attendance
  • Leads

It is possible to use social media mapping tools such as SociView™ to understand your social media real estate, assess and rate your social instances to see how well they are performing. Each topic area is given a score based on the following:

1. Visibility
2. Influence
3. Relevance
4. Activity

Armed with this information, you can see how well your accounts comply with set score levels, and from there, ensure that accounts continue to perform well in a valued-added way.

Resource constraints

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has searched a brand’s social-media pages, groups and feeds eager to find specific information, only to discover that the last updates were a few months ago.

All too often, accounts are set up by keen but busy people – a few months on, the realisation hits that the resource needed to maintain the profiles negatively impacts their day job and primary objectives. Or people move on leaving accounts dormant.

We help minimise the time and resource needed to manage clients’ social media real estates by using a managed service. We monitor mapped social-media presence through SociView and ensure that all accounts comply with predefined target scores. Alternatively, we offer a range of social media support services to help  build and manage social media presence to ensure that clients gain maximum value from social media activities.

Do you face any other challenges when dealing with social media? How do you deal with them?

If you are interested in finding out more about our social-media services or SociView, get in touch: info@volume.co.uk