Category: Social media

How our retail marketing campaign tool knew there was something #UnderTheBed

Countdowns with gin advent calendars and wish lists a mile long bring joy to adults and children each year for Christmas. Tis (almost) the season to be jolly and take care of last minute good deeds to secure your place on the Nice List. Although, John Lewis’ London Canary Wharf store may have bought themselves a few pieces of coal this year having revealed the creature under the bed three days early.

John Lewis leaked #UnderTheBed toy

Christmas ad campaigns have become a highly anticipated part of Christmas cheer. Marketing departments spend the whole year and multi-million pound budgets to get a moment like Buster the Boxer. Buster took the social world by storm last year with his droopy eyes and trampoline, engaging families beyond the screen and into the hearts of millions.

Creating a retail marketing campaign to build excitement, and then keep fans excited after the ads drop is a mammoth task in the competitive retail market. With the latest #UnderTheBed campaign we wonder if John Lewis will be able to track where the creature, and their customers who will come flooding into their department stores looking for it, have been. At Purple, we know which particular corner the creature favours under the bed, how long it’s been there waiting and even if it’s a return visitor.

But how did we know something was under the bed?

Heat mapping analytics and proximity marketing tracks the movement of customers as they move through retail stores and shopping malls. By using the free WiFi throughout the store to overlay analytics software, brands can draw invisible lines around specific areas of their venue and identify behaviour patterns within that space, effectively allocate business resources and gauge what purchases they are considering.

As part of a retail marketing campaign tool, brands can also design a fully branded splash page and redirect customers to landing pages and social media accounts while they are in-store to grow online followers.

How to use heat mapping in your retail marketing campaign

John Lewis could have heat mapped their store to find the hotspots in each department where lots of customers walk by to place a colourful bed with a small pair of eyes peeking out from under the duvet.

With the proximity marketing tool, customers could be sent a real-time update of the advert while they are in-store, including exclusive additional clips of the cuddly creature with a splash page to direct them to a competition to meet or win a cuddly toy.

When customers leave the department store they can be sent a follow up survey of how they found their experience in-store and gain rich, timely feedback about the campaign. Or, an email about a particular product they hovered by for more than 10 minutes considering their purchase.

So not only are visitors entertained by being connected to the Internet, they would remain engaged in the story beyond the screen, and learn to anticipate next year’s campaign before New Years has come to pass.

Read more about Purple’s WiFi marketing features:

• Optimize windows displays
• Validate product placement
• A/B test new store concepts with clear visual actions

27th June 2017

Bond location shakes up its WiFi offering by partnering with Purple and Unico Data AG

Purple, the intelligent spaces company, today announced its collaboration with Unico Data AG as part of a guest WiFi and analytics deployment at various locations on the cableway and mountaintop of Schilthorn, Switzerland.

The famous Swiss peak can be reached by boarding the longest aerial cableway in the Alps and offers panoramic views of over 200 peaks. The summit is also home to Piz Gloria, the world’s first revolving mountaintop restaurant, which was also a James Bond film location in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’.

Purple’s cloud based platform was installed at five cable car stations, Piz Gloria and the other restaurants on Schilthorn and Allmendhubel. The solution adheres to the customer’s core requirements as it complies with regulations around data security and allows them to gather more information about their visitors.

Prior to the launch of the WiFi, a fully branded splash page was developed featuring imagery, logos and a weather widget. This splash page appears when people want to access the network and allows users to log in via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or a short form.

Using Zyxel hardware, Purple was officially activated back in January 2017 and the team has already seen thousands of visitors access the WiFi.

In just six months the network has received a significant amount of visitor traction, with almost 18,000 people logging in. 51% of individuals choose to do so via their social media profiles, with Facebook proving to be the most popular platform.

Commenting on the value of the WiFi to visitors, Alan Ramsay, Sales Manager at Schilthorn Cableway, said: “We receive many comments about how great it is to have high speed WiFi at 3000 metres above sea level. In terms of the level of users, we aren’t surprised by this figure as we knew connectivity would be popular at a major tourist location like Schilthorn.”

Visitors typically use the WiFi to upload pictures, post on social media sites and easily communicate with friends and family worldwide.

When customers access the network, they are prompted to ‘like’ the official Facebook page for Schilthorn-Piz Gloria. Since implementing the solution, the Facebook page has received an additional 2,522 likes which is a 28% increase on the total figure before using Purple.

Alan adds: “Free WiFi is a standard offering these days in the tourism industry, by enabling visitors to access social media and post about their experience it helps us to advertise Schilthorn through various social platforms. WiFi also provides our international clients with a way of keeping in touch with home and friends, which in turn improves the customer experience.”

Gavin Wheeldon, Purple’s CEO comments: “I love hearing about the weird and wonderful sites that Purple has been deployed at. As a James Bond location which is also home to one of the world’s longest cable cars and the world’s first revolving mountaintop restaurant, it is no surprise that visitors flock to Schilthorn and that thousands are using the WiFi. It gives me great pleasure to know that our solution is helping to improve the visitor experience and increasing social engagement.”

2nd October 2016

The effects on children and the internet

Like it or not, children and the internet go hand-in-hand and the digital world plays a massive part in most youngsters day-to-day lives. Most kids know how to answer a question by completing a Google search instead of asking their parents and most toddlers know how to swipe a screen on a smartphone.

This may add to the age old problem that parents have that their children think they ‘don’t know anything’, especially as the younger generation are getting more and more tech savvy.

The internet makes us smarter

In an earlier article we looked at the effects of the internet on the memory of older participants and found that searching the internet could make us smarter. We cited research that showed us how the internet may be beneficial to improving brain responsiveness.

We concluded that with today’s internet savvy young children we could be looking at a much smarter next generation. This is certainly the view of Don Tapscott, who suggests in this BBC article that the brains of children, born in the age of computing, are actually different to the current generation.

The effects on children and the internet

Children are now so active in their use of the internet that it raises many questions about what this effect is having. Some of these are asked by Emma Carr on the same article.

Sharing too much of our lives
Being constantly recorded and analysed
Vulnerability to cyber-bullying
Lack of privacy or understanding about privacy
Being asked to hand over social media passwords in job interviews

It is suggested that we need to explain issues are children and the internet and educate our youngsters.

No need to be worried about being online

Don Tapscott says we shouldn’t be so concerned. With all the technological devices children have access to, they don’t learn the way we learnt. He also says that children do understand privacy and they will ask whether a picture is going to be uploaded to Facebook or not, for example. They understand that it’s private, if it’s not posted.

Currently there is a lot of research and debate into whether it’s good or bad for kids to use mobile devices. Kaufman, who is the director of Babylab, (Australia’s first infant cognitive neuroscience lab) explored the impact of the internet use on children aged 2-5 years. He explains that when scientists and paediatricians talk about the dangers of screen time, often they are including TV. Kaufman questions whether this is fair. Should we assume that iPads and tablets have the same effect? He also disagrees that tablets inhibit creativity and points to the instructions given in a lego pack, which tell us exactly how to make it and even suggests that tablet exposure in babies too young to pick up an object themselves could in fact provide a kickstart to learning.

Quite rightly, he suggests that as research is in its early stages we don’t know what is going on the the minds of children when they are using tablets. They might be too young to sit still whilst researchers try to measure brain activity. Interestingly, Richard Graham, who treated the youngest ever ‘iPad addict’ at 4 years old, doesn’t think that they are bad for children.

Sensible choices

Tapscott suggests that it’s up to parents to make sensible choices about when to allow technology. If a child doesn’t want to go out or to go to school, and uses the internet from morning till night, most would agree that this is a problem. Children shouldn’t be coming into to school too tired to concentrate because they have been using the internet late into the night. So, the solution is to limit usage. For example, never allow it at mealtimes or instead of doing a social activity. Neither should it be available before or beyond a child’s bedtime.

Allowing the of internet at appropriate times will teach the children about boundaries and limits, which they also need for everyday life choices. Indeed, the late Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, set sensible limits on his children’s use of iPads, iPods and iPhones.

Will other skills be lost?

One of the big debates is the loss of handwriting skills. Should we still insist on children learning the skill of joined-up writing, when access to computer keyboards makes ‘writing’ much quicker in some cases?

Ageeth Hup is a former primary school teacher and a handwriting expert who helps children with writing difficulties. She argues that handwriting is still an important life skill – even though some children are struggling with it due to increasing use of internet. She says that although keyboard skills are extremely important, writing precedes it. By forming a letter with a pen you are gaining a multisensory experience of what the letter looks like and this helps with recognising the letter, and in turn with learning to read. Keyboard letters (which are in capitals and not usually the first letters learned) can be learned later. And, without writing skills we wouldn’t see some of the hilarious notes that children make and stick in various places around that house like the amusing ones at the bottom of this article.

Children and the internet in schools

Remarkably, Computer Studies, that are more like coding lessons, are finding their way into the curriculum from September 2014. Would you be able to answer a child’s questions on:

What’s an algorithm?
How is an algorithm implemented as a programme on digital devices?
How do you create simple programmes?
How do you debug simple programmes?
How do you use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs?

These are the topics to be covered by the time a child reaches seven years old in the UK.

By age eleven, the hope is that children will be able to to create basic animations and simple websites. Valerie Thompson of the E-Learning Foundation pointed out over a year ago that to ensure that these skills are developed, WiFi is essential. Not just in the classroom but all around the educational buildings. She suggested that to enable children to use digital technology to its full potential, WiFi would give the pupils the ability to continue to learn over lunch or in the sports hall.

The smartest generation?

Today’s youngsters are already very tech savvy with 6 year olds having the same level of knowledge about technical devices as the average 45 year old. Children are overtaking us with their technology abilities.

Tapscott concludes: “There is a lot of cynicism about net addiction, losing social skills, being an army of narcissists only interested in Facebook and selfies. I found that none of that is true. They are the smartest generation ever.”

Children and the internet – Should we be afraid?

The author of this article for the Guardian asked for a lesson on tablet use from their son and debates whether “Perhaps the tablet was secretly designed with children in mind as much as – or, who knows, more than – adults. Perhaps that would explain why children enjoy, unintimidated, all its potential – and instinctively understand its limits too’’.

After a lengthy lesson on the iPad from their then 6 year old in how to use games, videos cameras they enquire “So you can basically do whatever you want to do on an iPad?”

“Ye-es’’ came the hesitant reply, with a consoling “But you can’t make it come alive. You can’t make the iPad come alive.“

The world's strangest WiFi locations - part 2

17th August 2016

The world’s strangest WiFi hotspots – part 2

The strangest WiFi locations are everywhere.

It’s almost a year since Purple published one of our most popular blogs – the Top 6 Weirdest Places with WiFi. Think donkeys, the moon, cemeteries, the North Pole and mountains.

With that in mind, and a collection of our favourite WiFi headlines to hand, we thought it would be great to revisit the world’s strangest WiFi locations and see what’s new.

The Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

This puts the ‘hot’ in hotspot! The Masaya Volcano, located in Managua, Nicaragua, is getting WiFi. Researchers are installing it in the hope of improving predictions for the volcano’s eruptions. We don’t envy them the task of installing 80 wireless sensors inside the country’s most active volcano, also known as ‘The Mouth of Hell’. The rare lava lake in the crater is certainly a natural wonder, but one that’s best viewed from a distance!

The sensors will gather real time data about Masaya’s atmospheric pressure, temperature (feelin’ hot hot hot!), gravity and gases like carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. Volcanologists can put this data to great use, and there’s even a user friendly website that simplifies the results for those of us who aren’t as familiar with the science.

Deploying WiFi at the Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

2. The International Space Station

If we can get WiFi on the moon, then the International Space Station has to have been an easy project, right? Hmm, perhaps not!

The International Space Station (or ISS for short) is a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. You might have seen it pass overhead – in fact, NASA have a website called ‘Spot the Station’ that’s dedicated to sightings and even tells you when the ISS is near you!

The internet connection on the International Space Station uses Ku-band, a satellite communications systems that also allows airplane passengers to access WiFi in-flight.

An astronaut using one of the many WiFi enabled devices on the International Space Station

3. Sarahan Village, India

I know what you’re thinking – what’s weird about WiFi in a village? Well, for a start, the village is in the middle of a desert. AND the village didn’t even get electricity until 2005!

In that same year, a 20 metre WiFi tower was built, giving Sarahan’s 2000 residents instant access to an entire world of information online. Pretty neat, huh?

A Hindu temple in Sarahan, India

4. Val D’Isere, France

Ok, so it’s not that unusual to have WiFi at a ski resort, but what about in the ski lifts?

At Val D’Isere, a popular ski resort in the French Alps, visitors can connect to WiFi from the dizzying heights of their ski lifts and post scenic selfies straight to Instagram. To be honest, I was sold at the mention of heated seats.

WiFi available in cable cars at Val D'Isere Ski Resort, France

5. National Parks, Canada

Canada is in the process of introducing 150 WiFi hotspots in up to 20 of its national parks. That’s no mean feat in an area stretching from the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic coasts, across mountains, plains, forests, glaciers and the Great Lakes – essentially as far North and South as Canada goes.

Tourists can stay connected even in the most remote locations whilst they soak up the scenery and splendour of the Canadian wilderness. From a safety perspective, it’s also really handy that the WiFi hotspots can connect you to GPS. That could be a lifesaver when the possibility of getting lost is very real!

Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

As advancements in WiFi technology march on and hotspot 2.0 is rolled out, it’s inevitable that more and more weird locations get online. So Purple will be watching the connected volcano’s progress with interest (we know it’s nerdy!) and can only imagine what the WiFi landscape will look like this time next year.

Sources
The Verge
The Atlantic
www.onthesnow.com
National Geographic

25th November 2015

5 key takeaways from Bob Willett’s ‘Presenting to Retail’ global partner webinars

We recently invited all of our global partners to an exclusive webinar with Purple WiFi investor and former CEO of Best Buy International, Bob Willett.

“Bob Willett is an example of an executive who started on the shop floor.He began at Marks & Spencer in his native United Kingdom in 1968 and would leave that company a decade later as a store executive. Before taking on the role of chief information officer of Best Buy, he had been the CEO of one company, head of Merchandise Operations for another, and then global managing partner of the Retail Practice and a member of the executive committee at Accenture. He advised many of the best retail operations around the world about matters of strategy.” Forbes Magazine 2013

Bob was on hand to deliver his own insights on how to position your products or services to the retail industry. If you weren’t able to listen to the webinar, we recorded the session which you can view below.

For those who prefer to read the summary, our Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Eric Lawhas given us his five key takeaways from the webinar.

1. Thinking through the customer experience.

Consider the mindset of a business operations leader, understand that they will centre all of their plans around the customer.
Anything which will directly enhance the customer experience will make you immediately relevant to those business leaders.
Before you meet with the business leader, you should visit the premises and experience it as a customer. Eat at the restaurant, shop in the mall, understand how it works and as a result, consider how you can enhance it.

2. Use the language of the retail outlet.

Do your research. Lots of suppliers will visit that same customer and you need to stand out from the crowd. Demonstrate- just like an interview – that you’ve read up on them, and that you understand them.
Understand the metrics and language the business tracks, by talking in their language. Your solution will become immediately more relevant.

3. Make comparisons between the online and offline experience.

How can your solution make the offline and online shopping experience work together seamlessly?
Online you have a better idea of stock and choice, so think about how you can provide the same level of engagement for the offline or ‘in store’ experience.

4. Provide actionable insights.

Every company has data and insights but how do companies use them to differentiate themselves?
Make sure you are using any data that you can provide or access effectively, providing positive actions and outcomes for the business.

5. Connect an IT process to a business process.

It’s very easy to lose a customer, so anyone working with a retailer needs to make their product or solution an intrinsic part of that retailer’s business, so that the customer becomes reliant on it.
Once an IT process becomes integral to the business process, the solution is a highly attractive opportunity.
If you are able to make that connection, the relationship will become a longer and more productive one for all involved.

29th October 2015

How to Properly Secure Your Smartphone

If you’re like me (and a lot of other people), you keep a lot of your personal information on your smartphone—things such as Social Security numbers for your family, passwords, financial data and more. Obviously this isn’t information you want just anyone to have access to, but it’s incredibly easy for your smartphone to be compromised, even in ways that you might not realize, such as viruses. Here are five ways to help you maximize the security of your phone:

Set a Passcode

If you accidentally leave your phone sitting on a table or somewhere else in public, you don’t want someone to be able to pick it up and start going through your messages or notes, right? But if all a thief has to do is swipe to access everything, you’ve just made it really easy for them. Instead, make sure you set a passcode—even if it takes you that few extra seconds every time you need to access your phone. And don’t use a swipe code; your finger will leave behind a trail on the screen that’s easy for thieves to figure out.

Encrypt Your Disk

Something else you should do in case your phone is ever lost or stolen is to encrypt your disk. This means that all the information on the disk ends up scrambled and indecipherable to thieves. Even if someone can’t get around your passcode, this will prevent them from just plugging your phone into a computer and accessing your phone’s contents that way instead. Most phones have some sort of encryption software built in. Check your ‘Settings’ menu, but otherwise, you can find apps that will encrypt your data for you.

Be Careful Grabbing New Apps

Believe it or not, apps can be a source of problems on your smartphone. We’re pretty familiar with adware in the free versions of some of our favorite apps—ads that will be removed if you upgrade to the paid version. But a malicious developer could also slip in some malware that will infect your phone. This could take the form of spyware that shares your personal information with a third party. This is especially dangerous if you’ve purchased apps or anything else using your phone since your credit card information might then be compromised.

So make sure you’re only downloading apps from trusted sources. Look for plenty of other downloads and, most importantly, reviews and ratings. If you have an iPhone, you don’t have to worry quite as much since Apple vets any new apps being added to its App Store, but a little caution never hurt anyone.

Download the Security Apps

Regardless of the type of smartphone that you have, a look through the available apps should yield plenty of security apps. Do your research, and make sure you’ve got the best security apps for your phone. A lot of them are free, and even when it comes to paid ones, you’ll often find that the price of the app is a small price to pay when it comes to protecting your personal information. You can use these apps to clear off viruses, check new apps and more. Beyond that, make sure to keep all your apps up to date. A lot of the updates are meant to patch up known security issues.

Use a VPN

When you’re accessing WiFi on the go—whether at a coffee shop, around town or anywhere else—you should make sure you’re using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to get the most secure internet connection possible. Normally when you access the internet, you inadvertently send massive amounts of information from your computer to the servers of the sites that you’re accessing. In addition to the issue of the company compiling and potentially selling off this information, there is also the possibility that a hacker might intercept it, which could include passwords or other sensitive data. A VPN will keep your information out of sight of anyone except you and the server you’re accessing so that you can access public WiFi networks without having to worry about who else is connected to them.

Are there any other methods you use? Let us know below!

Caroline Black is a tech security expert working with Secure Thoughts. As a freelancer who relies on her phone to help her keep in contact with work when she’s on the go, properly securing her smartphone is a topic near and dear to her heart.

28th August 2015

Funny WiFi names – Our favourites

WiFi is a necessity, it’s everywhere and it’s hard to imagine a world where we aren’t connected 24/7 now. So it’s no surprise that people have found funny wifi names to christen their network!

Personalising your SSID and setting up a funny WiFi name is just one way of making your WiFi network stand out whilst having a little fun. Here are a few of the best funny WiFi names we’ve seen around, ranging from the hilarious to the casually passive aggressive.

1) The patient son

^{Source: Facebook user Paul Keesing}

2) One for all the Harry Potter fans out there. Just magic. I’d log in to Hogwarts, obviously.

^{Image Source: Instagram user tmloree}

3) Grammar noobs.

^{Image Source: imgur.com}

4) The funny internet thief who mended their ways. But still didn’t feel like being nice about it.

^{Image Source: imgur.com}

5) Another grammar queen using the wifi name as a means to educate her neighbour. FIGHT!

^{Image Source: buzzfeed.com}

6) Anyone remember the commandment “Love thy neighbour”? Nope, didn’t think so.

^{Image Source: mandatory.com}

7) Next up, my hat goes off to the person who recreated the entire Fresh Prince rap with multiple networks. Behold this masterpiece.

^{Image Source: mandatory.com}

8) Those meddling kids.

get off my LAN

^{via landapple}

9) Not sure whether I should be more disturbed by the Zelda nerd or the person who thinks zombies ate their neighbour.

^{via CSFirecracker}

10) This techie is clearly having a lot of fun.

^{via Beaverbrown55}

11) Umm, ok. We understand that WiFi’s names are important, but this person should probably get out more.

^{via gingerianfalcon}

12) This person really needs to see a doctor. Is this really number 12 on the list of funny wifi names?

^via

ImTheSmallOne

13) …. and there’s definitely no free WiFi here!

^{via freemake.com}

14) Well, this sounds ominous.

connect and die

^{via hexjam.com}

15) Maybe the person who thought zombies ate their neighbour wasn’t so crazy after all. Press cancel on the impending zombie apocalypse please!

^{via hexjam.com}

Here are a few funny WiFi names I’ve found that unfortunately didn’t have screenshots…or screenshots not featuring some other very NSFW (Not Safe For Work) WiFi names that I DEFINITELY can’t mention here. Google if you must, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

– The Silence of the LANS

– The LAN Before Time

– Drop It Like It’s Hotspot

– Lord of the Pings

– Routers of Rohan

27th August 2015

Top 6 weirdest places with WiFi

In January this year, there were more than 50 million public WiFi hotspots across the world – that equates to one WiFi hotspot for every 150 people on the planet!

But where are the world’s most unusual WiFi hotspots?

1) Mountains

In July it was announced that visitors to Japan’s Mount Fuji would be able to access WiFi right at the summit. Now that’s an eye-catching location for your Instagram updates. Actually, there are hotspots in eight locations around the mountain, including three cottages, the management centre and a tourist resort.

Mount Fuji wasn’t the first mountain to get WiFi either. The world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, has WiFi hotspots at various points along the arduous climb. It’s worth noting however, that the last WiFi hotspot on the mountain is Everest Base Camp, which stands at 17,598ft. Unlike Mount Fuji, there is no WiFi right at the top of the mountain, so you’re better off saving your summit selfies and uploading them after the trek back to Base Camp.

2) To infinity and beyond

Scientists were able to beam a WiFi signal all the way to the moon last year. Yes, you read that right, the moon. The idea was that if future generations of humans end up living on the moon, they’ll be able to keep in touch with people back on Earth.

Those lucky enough to fly to the edge of space on VirginGalactic (with their pockets feeling $250,000,000 lighter) will have WiFi access on SpaceShipTwo. Just imagine all those smug selfies showing an out of this world view.

3) Ummm …. donkeys?

Back down to Earth with a bump. In Kfar Kedem, Israel, WiFi is available in the most humble of places – on the backs of donkeys. Donkeys in a local amusement park have a small bag around their necks which contains a router, so tourists can document their journey. But what’s the catch? Well, it turns out that the amusement park is a historical-themed resort, which attempts to give guests a taste of life in the first and second centuries AD. Pretty sure they didn’t have WiFi then.

4) Cemeteries

It’s probably not the cheeriest WiFi hotspot in the world, but visitors to San Jose Cemetery in Granada, Spain can enjoy free internet access. It was introduced two years ago by popular demand – from the visitors, not the occupants I’d like to add!

Surprisingly, San Jose isn’t the only cemetery with a free WiFi hotspot. A spokesperson for Oak Grove Cemetery in Paducah, Kentucky, said “It does sound strange to have a hotspot at a cemetery. But the purpose behind it makes sense. It is to help visitors with genealogy research.”

5) Beaches

Sun seekers flocking to the white sands at Waikiki Beach in Hawaii have access to free WiFi should the urge to check emails and social media become too much to handle. It’s probably best not to answer any work emails after a few pina coladas though. There’s also WiFi access at hundreds of beaches around the world, including Britain’s Brighton beach, Rainbow beach in Chicago and West Palm beach in Florida to name a few.

6) The North Pole

Well, almost. In 2005, a pair of Intel employees set up a WiFi hotspot in what is ironically one of the coldest places on Earth. They were located at the Barneo Ice Camp, which is just 80 km from the North Pole. We’ll let them off for not quite making it there, it’s close enough.

It seems there’s just no excuse for not being online in today’s connected world.

Related Links

Why we love selfies

How important is WiFi in daily life?

19th August 2015

Why we love selfies

8 things we’ve learnt about selfies

1 ) A picture tells a thousand words

Thanks to connectivity and being ‘always on’ we can take a picture almost any time, any place, anywhere and immediately post it to one of many social media accounts. Hence the current fascination and trend for taking selfies:

‘Selfies are immediate, personal, and authentic. Selfies are fun, participatory and transient. Selfies capture a moment. Selfies are playful’. Dr Pamela Rutledge

2) A million selfies every day

Selfies are on trend right now. We can’t get through a social media check in without seeing a selfie. According to research, there are a million selfies taken every day.

3) Selfies have created new trends

“Selfie” itself is a relatively new term, but it’s created some even newer words and trends that have become popular at a phenomenal rate. Take “photobombing” for example – these two commonwealth hockey players certainly hadn’t expected to see a royal face in the background of their selfie!

On a practical level, the ‘selfie stick’ craze is still going strong. A selfie stick was designed to enable a much wider reach to take a better shot. But is it just me, or would it make you feel silly holding one? Selfie sticks have already been banned in a number of venues, including Walt Disney World Resort – apparently guests were using them not just in the park, but on the rides too.

4) Will selfies ever die?

Dr Rutledge reveals that as a society we are still experimenting with selfies and predicts that several things could happen:

1) When EVERYONE is posting selfies then the cool people will have to find something different to do.

2) Only the meaningful selfies will stand the test of time.

3) A new technology will arrive to replace the current selfie phenomenon.

5) Selfies are ‘normal’…… and normalising

Social media has redefined what is normal according to Dr Rutledge. It is difficult to persuade people that selfies are bad when celebrities post them: Madonna, David Cameron, Hillary Clinton not to mention the Kardashians. Actor James Franco has been called the “selfie king”.

6) Selfies can boost self confidence

Selfies actually celebrate normal people. Even supermodels like Cara Delevingne have posted less than perfect looking selfies. Another great example is the Dove campaign where, in aid of Cancer Research, we were encouraged to post make-up free selfies. Who didn’t have a news feed cluttered with make-up free faces at that time?

7) Even Obama does it

Dr Rutledge even defends the selfie of President Obama at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. She argues that selfies are quick, unplanned and capture a personal moment. Although Obama didn’t need a selfie to document his attendance (the media would have done that for him) the moment was one shared with remarkable people, from a worldwide audience, who gathered to pay tribute to an extraordinary man.

8) Tips for making your selfies meaningful

What type of selfies will ensure that they capture attention in the right way? According to Dr Rutledge, meaningful ones include:

– Inspirational selfies to document beautiful things and places.

– Memory selfies showing a diary of selfies.

– Best Friends Forever selfies, with those close to us as a treasured memory.

– Thank you selfies holding a present that has been posted to us.

– Big moment selfies such as The Oscars selfie taken last year. Taken by Bradley Cooper and featuring Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and Kevin Spacey (amongst others), the Oscars snap has been dubbed the most famous selfie of all time, reportedly being retweeted 2.5 million times within a couple of hours.

That’s the power of the selfie.

More from the The Psychology of Social Media series.

13th August 2015

12 tips for successful social media

Social media is an amazing platform for both individuals and businesses alike and there are so many to choose from. However, after posting our blog on the language of email, we really got thinking about how we may come across when ‘writing’ on social media sites and decided to investigate.

We found that there are many common mistakes that can be made. Posting too many pictures, saying annoying things and using too many hashtags are amongst some of the things that people find the most irritating.

Here are our tips for making sure social media is used wisely!

1) Be aware

Ask friends and family what they think of your posts, look at who comments and retweets you, see what you think of their posts too.

2) Don’t try too hard

No one wants to be ‘that’ person on social media. Just as an article by Kate Taylor suggests, ‘that’ person is just trying too hard. Try working out your level on The Social Effort Scale.

3) Hold back on some of those statuses (and hashtags!)

For businesses a minimum number of tweets is recommended. An article about how often should businesses tweet suggests 3-5 tweets per day for newbies and beyond that you can’t tweet too many times. However, individuals #hashtagging too many #selfies #alldaylong could get slightly annoying. Especially if they are about #whattohavefortea.

4) Don’t lie

You will invariably get caught out by someone somewhere. A great example of this is illustrated by the man who got sacked because he was off work ‘ill’, but didn’t seem to have a problem when he posted pictures of himself at a party.

5) Don’t post everything

When you see a post that says ‘some people should bore off’, have you ever considered that they might be talking about you?

6) Watch your language

Don’t forget who is viewing your profile. If you put something out there it could get seen by your mum … or your boss. Even you aren’t friends with someone, that post could get around quicker than you think – your friend might show her mum, who then shows it to your mum. Or a work colleague who’s in for the same promotion might let slip to your boss! It’s simple – if the post isn’t something you want everyone to know, think twice before you post it.

7) Don’t act like a candy crush invite

In other words, don’t use social media as a platform for your latest venture/ interest/ job application/ life guru.

8) Drop the jargon

Don’t be tempted to use big words to try to sound intelligent. You probably won’t make sense.

9) Don’t ‘like’ yourself

This includes retweeting a compliment, adding ‘Please RT’, ‘liking’ something you wrote yourself and worst of all, liking your own ‘selfies’ – in the words of Damian in Mean Girls, it’s ‘social suicide’.

10) Avoid too strong opinions on every single one of your dislikes

Hating a political party may alienate half of your followers, disliking people who dress a certain way may alienate some more, and calling certain groups ‘losers’ may just leave you without any ‘friends’.

11) Don’t call yourself an ‘expert’

If you do (say on LinkedIn), then the chances are you are probably not one. If you can’t demonstrate it instead of stating it then you may look desperate. At the same time you could get hired for doing something that you are not capable of actually doing.

12) Definitely don’t ignore social media!

It really is fabulous when used in the right way ……

You might want to take on some of these points, or check out what kind of sharer you might be by looking at this article What type of social media personality are you?

2nd July 2015

What not to post on social media – our top 5 tips

Yippee I’m off on holiday for two weeks, my car is parked on the drive and I’ve just changed my money at my bank (the branch that’s two doors down from my house). My mother’s maiden name is Jones and my first pet was called Floppy!

These are just some of the things that we shouldn’t even think about sharing via social media sites. It’s surprising what some people will disclose over the internet given that 40% of people have open access to their accounts. So, posts should be written with caution.

In The Psychology of Social Media, Chris Lee says ‘behave as if you were with your friends but with your mother in the other room!’ Your family or boss could see it like the case in 2009 where an employee was seen at a party via facebook whilst off ‘sick’, subsequently leading to his sacking. Disclosing too much information could lead to other unpleasant consequences such as people getting your personal details, encouraging trolls or people finding out where you live.

Emotions online

Emotions are often shared via social media and emotional posts can increase the likelihood of videos and content being shared with others. Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychologist, found in her research that if video content is emotionally arousing, either positively by something very sweet/ cute, or negatively so that it may elicit anger or disgust, it is more likely to be shared and go viral. Does this mean we should share negative emotions more often, or just keep adding in a cute cat photo with everything we post?

Are we being manipulated?

Of course we are! Last year, Facebook was criticised for manipulating the emotions of users without their consent. The results of their ‘experiment’ had some very interesting findings indeed.

However, critics of the experiment suggest that because a small number of emotional expressions were missing from user’s timelines (with the intention of testing whether moods of Facebook users were affected) that this was a direct manipulation of people’s thoughts from personal lives.

We are manipulated all the time via the media by adverts and on television where we are being sold a product. But we can choose to turn off the things that we don’t like.

On Facebook, however, we ‘choose’ the people who we want to hear from and interact with online, by accepting them as ‘friends’. Facebook is an arena for friends and family rather than the views of a media company. So, would you say yes if Facebook asked if they could hide some posts from you for an experiment?

Facebook have apologised (with a mixed reaction from users) and probably won’t do this again without the permission of their followers.

So what things shouldn’t be shared on social media sites?

There are the obvious things and these are banned from Facebook and other sites. They include nudity, threats, violence and hate speech.

Here are our top five things to avoid posting on Facebook

Complaints about your boss – you could get the sack!
Dramas
Your daily schedule – keep burglars away
Extreme views – you may offend someone
Don’t link your personal sites to professional sites

The golden rule: if you aren’t comfortable with it ……. then just don’t share it!

It’s always a good idea to check your privacy settings from time to time to ensure that only the people we want to are seeing what we have posted. Remember that updates can auto-alter our settings and allow more people to view us than we think.

1st May 2015

The Internet of Things – are we at the tipping point?

The definition of the Internet of Things is “intelligent interactivity between humans and things to exchange information and knowledge for new value creation.” Try saying that after a glass of wine!

There’s been a lot of talk about the IoT in the business world, and with good reason. It’s chock full of potential to improve performance, reduce costs, drive innovation and create new revenue streams. Of course, we’ve now reached the point where the talk is turning into action – technology is adapting and businesses are planning IoT strategies.

Forrester Consulting say: “We are at the tipping point for broader IoT adoption with 53% of organisations planning to implement an IoT solution in the next 24 months. Organisations in Asia Pacific and Latin America are more aggressive with 69 and 60 percent respectively, planning to implement over the same time period.”

Four examples of the IoT in action

The Internet of Things is exciting to talk about but, as is often the case with technological advancements on the cusp of becoming mainstream, it’s hard for us right now to imagine day to day practicalities. So let us help you visualise how the Internet of Things will make a difference:

1) Transport and Mobility – in downtown San Francisco, 20-30% of all traffic congestion is caused by people hunting for a parking space. This congestion could be reduced in an IoT- enabled city, as wireless sensors in the parking lot could direct connected cars to an available space and initiate payment. If needed, the smart car could use the parking details to call a mobile mechanic to change the oil whilst the driver is away for the afternoon.

A connected transport system means that traffic can be effectively routed when there is a change in conditions. Users of public transport services such as buses, trains and trams could be instantly notified with service updates and receive relevant information about their journey. The IoT could also make a huge difference in the packing and shipping industries, making monitoring and logistics seamless.

2) Healthcare and Smart Homes – due to our ageing population, it’s estimated that 40 million people age 65 and over will be living alone in the US, Canada and Europe. The IoT means that elderly people will be able to retain their independence and live at home for longer, whilst their families can be instantly reassured of their safety and wellbeing. This can be achieved by having wireless sensors throughout the house, which monitor things like activity levels, sleeping patterns and medication schedules. Alerts can be automatically sent to healthcare services and family members if there is cause for concern.

Better connectivity in hospitals means that patient care can be vastly improved, as doctors will be able to view test results and notes instantly using their own devices or even bio wearables. Cleaners can be alerted when an area needs attending to, improving hygiene standards throughout the building. Equipment can monitored and therefore allocated to the correct department according to demand.

3) Smart Buildings and Mobility – energy used by commercial and industrial buildings in the US create almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions for the whole country. With this in mind, businesses are under pressure to improve energy efficiency of their buildings. The IoT could help to achieve this using sensors which automate usage of lighting, water and gas according to the number of people in the building and their precise location, as well as the weather conditions.

4) Cities and Industry – Smart Cities can significantly reduce their impact on the environment by making services more efficient. Resources like electricity, water and gas could be distributed according to use and maintenance services can be alerted instantly if there are any problems on the network. Connected cars could also alert maintenance services when they pass a pothole, or a streetlight that needs fixing. The alert would automatically be sent to a staff member closest to the problem that needs attention, saving time and money spent on fuel.

How can the IoT create revenue?

The key to answering this all-important question is this – streamlining. The IoT is a catalyst for making services smarter, better and more efficient.

To illustrate, it’s been said in an article by telecomreseller.com that the IoT could generate:

– $100 billion by reducing energy consumption in public buildings and therefore lowering operating costs.

– $108 billion in the gas and water monitoring industries, simply by reducing meter reading costs, improving accuracy and providing real time updates on use and status.

– $42 billion with the introduction of smart parking, identifying availability of spaces and introducing demand-based pricing.

The Internet of Things will clearly save people both time and money.

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