With the appearance of new technologies like Cherple and the growing popularity of social media sites like Facebook, one big question to arise has been, “Can they make money?” A completely valid and important question!
Not making money has been a big issue with angel investors and venture capitalist of late. In fact, second-quarter investments from venture capitalists into San Diego’s technology sector is well off pre-2008 figures, with millions of dollars less being provided for start-up tech companies. With a protracted recession partly to blame, many new technologies and social media sites have not generated satisfactory profits to investors, making them more inclined to refuse funding.
Even Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site and funded by investors, operated for years without profitability. Even with its impressive growth in users, it has repeatedly been held under scrutiny for not deploying a truly efficient business model aimed at generating revenues. That all changed the other day when Facebook revealed numbers showing it earned enough cash to cover it’s operating expenses, support further growth, and has even projected $500 million in earning revenues for the fiscal year. So yes, they can make money!
Now to the question, “Can we make money?” While not being plainly evident, a number of people and businesses have figured out how to make money-using Facebook. With tools for guerilla marketers, advertisers, application developers, and webmasters, social media has developed some viable ways to make viral marketing worthwhile and maybe even profitable.
Technology like Cherple, that provides straight two-way communication from web to wireless, is proving to be another viable moneymaker for businesses. With the ability to white label the solution and send marketing messages and promotional offers to end-users, Cherple technology can be monetized in ways still to be revealed. Being able to connect people to people, people to businesses, businesses to people, in the most efficient and cost effective way is Cherple’s monetizing strength. So yes, we can make money!
Its no surprise the power of mobile marketing is being tapped into more and more in today’s challenging economy. The unique combination of marketing and technology platforms like Cherple provide cost-efficient ways to implement what are otherwise costly marketing campaigns, yet they reach the consumer, deliver the message, and get the results.
“We realize how important it is to tap into a younger tech savvy segment of the market for growing our brand in the coming years,” explained Carlos Budet, president and CEO of The Taco Maker, a Florida based fast-food company, when discussing the impressive results of utilizing a mobile marketing strategy with Quick Service Restaurant Magazine. “Our goal was to combine both traditional and cutting edge media strategies to reach out to a specific demographic and motivate them to visit the stores. The results, I’m proud to say, are nothing short of spectacular.”
In fact, over 2,200 customers, with a 50 percent redeem ratio, have responded positively via their mobile phones to The Taco Make’s free burrito promotion, according to Budet.
The promotion utilized a unique SMS (Short Message Service) service like Cherple to deliver uniquely targeted mobile marketing campaigns to consumers in key demographics.
“We knew in a slowing economy that our marketing approach had to be focused on value for the customer,” explained Budet.
Thanks to “Cherple-type” technology, value for the customer no longer has to come at the expense of the business. Its no wonder why business owners and corporate execs like Budet are shocked at the impact their new, and possible free, marketing strategies are having on the bottom line. In fact, Budet and TTM are showcasing their new one-pound burrito “The Maker” through this innovative marketing approach.
“This allows customers to satisfy their hunger without the premium costs.” Cherp on!
If to communicate a few simple words freely, “I love you honey” via text message is said to be an act of love and an expression of kindness, then Cherple is some sort of Casanova.
Much like the SMS service provided by Cherple, the need to connect and convey quick messages anytime and in anyplace is growing in popularity. The Miami Dolphins and University of Miami Hurricane Football programs have realized this demand and are utilizing the power of mobile connectivity to solve a problem that has left many fans perturbed.
At Land Shark Stadium, home of both football programs, fans now can report improper fan behavior immediately without needing to leave their seats by sending a text message to stadium security. Known as the Fan Conduct Textline, the service is a great example of the power and efficiency of SMS technology and how it can be adapted to almost any need.
What’s the result of all this connectivity and shared communication? Social media. Social media is not only changing the way everyday people connect, but also the way businesses bridge their brands with their consumers. With social media you can have an actionable conversation, create a connection, develop a relationship, form a tribe, most importantly, you can build a brand all using social media.
Instant communication sustains the strength, and goes hand –in-hand, with the development of social media. It’s the not-so-secret ingredient that makes social media powerful. Much like the football teams from Miami, Cherple is a powerful agent for creating a much smarter use for this kind of media. But here, instead of making a greater social connection between people and business, its making an easy, fast and always available connection between people – the people you need to stay in contact with. If its good enough for the Miami Dolphins and Hurricanes, its good enough for us!
One of the reasons Cherple is so effective is because it specializes in a useful and core technology, SMS (Short Message Service) that enables PCs and Mobile devices to exchange information in a fast and easy way. The beauty of today’s technology and media landscape, despite the overwhelming variety of products and services, is that there’s room for all, or at least room for the best.
Sometimes certain tasks are best served with products or services that specialize in that area. For instance YouTube is known as the place to go to for streaming video, Flickr is synonymous with sharing photos with the world,; its now common to download RSS feeds onto your mobile for quick updates and news content and Facebook is the place to connect with friends and family.
The idea of one-stop-shopping for a place that can meet all our technology and connectivity needs just won’t suffice. It’s like making a claim that a certain restaurant serves the best food, therefore there’s no longer any reason to go anywhere else because it’s not as good. The great consideration that supports the idea of room for multiple players is best described by the word “convenience.”
With no usage fees and being able to bridge the gap between PCs and U.S. cell phones, Cherple is all about convenience. It fits the time and place need of sending messages from your PC to your friends or acquaintances holding their Blackberry, iPhone, Palm pre, or pretty much any phone with a U.S. carrier for that matter. How’s that for making room for another player!
Do you remember the days when you were watching your favorite show on TV, when you would get a phone call right in the middle of all the drama and suspense? The phone conversation would turn into a quick “call you right back.” Once commercials hit, you picked up the phone, returned the call and found out the latest news. No one watched commercials then, so it did not really matter, but as soon as your favorite program was back on, you were back to “call you right back.”
In this day and age, society is not behaving in a “stop everything, my show is on,” manner. With the invention of email and Internet chatting, receiving a direct response is a thing of the past. People no longer have to respond immediately and things can be put on hold or rushed if needed.
We don’t have to any more. If you want to continue your conversation with your friend during your show, chat online and respond after Mr. Smith picks the case for a million on Deal or No Deal. You are already online anyway during your favorite program checking out airfares, getting on Cherple and texting your buddy that just saw some hit premiere.
In an article by Mike Vorhaus in the June edition of the Ad Age, the third most popular activity online to do while watching TV is using social networking sites. We all check email and online discounts at sporadic times during the day, but when we are relaxing and watching TV is when society findings the time to gossip online, read blogs, send Cherple messages to friends and read the news. Yea, haven’t you heard? Carrying a paper is over rated.
With new discoveries in usable technology, new words were added to the English language and there is no longer a concrete divide between computer languages and spoken languages. Advancements in communication created an entirely new language in and of itself, examples of such being words and phrases like “Call you on your cell,” “mobile,” “I’ll google it,” and “I can GPS the address.” In other words, the “verb” is becoming the “noun” of the sentence when we are referring to technology. When did this happen? What are the limits?
My friends and family agree that with development of technology, new words are used. Laura Cowan, an Indianapolis native and close friend of mine, says that eventually people will learn new technology and turn the technology into an action, like a verb.
“It is almost like Americans are getting lazy with their speech,” says Cowan. “With constant use of terms, people are no longer going to FedEx, but they are FedEx-ing their mail.”
With the acceptance of “American” idioms into the English language, anything is possible. Nonetheless, I think “text, ” “cherp” and “tweet” are here to stay.
Way back when, news was only available through local newspapers, word-of-mouth and snail mail. Fast-forward to today where news is available instantaneously via Twitter, Cherple or Facebook and presented in an “infotainment” format that is both informative and entertaining. Who could have thought that in the 21st century, the main function of our beloved social networks would be protected by a clause within the most important document in U.S. history – the first amendment of the U. S. Constitution.
Thanks to our founding fathers, today we have a free exchange of ideas that has gone to a whole new level, in part by the Internet. People are dating online, Cherpling with family members overseas and connecting with new friends over obscure shared interests.
Word-of-mouth today is no longer restricted to a small community of people or even the spoken word. For example if there is kidnapping in Jacksonville, Florida, at this very moment, it is now possible to send out a mass text message notification to people’s cell phones in the immediate area with descriptions or even photos of the victim and suspect. Being linked into a social network on your mobile phone could also be a lifesaver. What if there was a robbery in progress at your bank and you got a text message about it right before you walked in?
People are pouring their thoughts and ideas into a space that millions can access in a selective manner. Ideas are flowing in more ways than our founding fathers could have ever thought imaginable and it’s no longer just the pen or spoken word that people are using to share thoughts. It’s the tweets, cherps and posts that have become the fabric of our nation’s speech. So if you haven’t heard anything inspirational lately, maybe its because you are on the wrong channel. Instead, sign on, join a network, follow a blog, send a Cherple and participate in your national right of freedom of speech.
The seemingly endless debate for the last four or five years could be finally over – which social site is more popular? MySpace or Facebook?Many have been closely watching the total user numbers for both communities, and trying to predict the date that MySpace’s last stronghold will fall – No. 1 among U.S. social networking users.
According to experts, a year ago Facebook had tremendous growth around the world, but U.S. growth was flat, and real value of all these worldwide users was seriously questioned.At that time it would have taken Facebook more than four years to catch up to MySpace in the U.S., based on growth trends. In January, the numbers were re-calculated and the trend suggested Facebook would catch MySpace in January of next year. Today that has all dramatically changed – MySpace is up from 70 to 71 million monthly U.S. unique visitors, less of an increase achieved a year ago. Meanwhile, Facebook has jumped from 61 to 67.5 million U.S. users and is adding a few million more every month.The tables have officially turned, the debate appears to be over.
MySpace user number growth has stalled out, and in the past, no worthwhile company has reversed this trend.But MySpace may have a much bigger problem on its hands than losing the popularity debate to Facebook.Its real issue is that page views are in rapid decline. That means people are still visiting the site, but for much less time than they used to. This means less advertising impressions, which in turn means financial declines for MySpace.
Statistics show that worldwide monthly page views for MySpace have declined from 47.4 billion a year ago to 38 billion today, a 20% drop.In that same period, Facebook has doubled from 44 billion to 87 billion.And the U.S. data isn’t much better for MySpace.It has seen a 16% year over year drop in page views, from 41.6 billion to 34.8 billion (Comscore, 2009).Facebook, on the other hand, has grown from 13 billion to 20 billion page views per month in that period.Even though MySpace still claims significantly more page views than Facebook, trends indicate eventual domination by Facebook, and it may be sooner than anyone could had previously estimated.
A large part of MySpace’s funding is from Google and, in about a year from now, MySpace will receive its last check from its sugar daddy, and then it will be on its own. MySpace executives will have a social network that costs $500 million a year to run. With page views decreasing, and the Google money gone, it is probable that the once mega-social network will be unprofitable a year from now. Revenue over $800 million last year is estimated to easily decrease to well below half a billion dollars.
All of this is not surprising to me.In the last few years, many people have moved away from checking in on both MySpace and Facebook, and simply communicating and interacting on Facebook.Facebook has done a great job of introducing new applications, interacting with its users, and teaming up with other successful social communities like Digg to offer a one-stop shop for education, news, trends, friends and everything Facebook.It seems that in the world of social media, if you are not on top, you are vulnerable to go under and slowly begin to fade into the vague afterthoughts of the hundreds of millions of total social media users worldwide
It appears we have stumbled on a new niche marketing strategy in the realm of social media for Cherple. In an attempt to spread the word and grow Cherple’s online presence, several social media profiles and communities were set up back in January. In those communities, the Cherple marketing team posted articles, videos, photos, press releases, events and news-worthy happenings related to Cherple. We have recently expanded those efforts internationally and now have six international Cherple fan pages on Facebook. This allows the Cherple application to reach consumers that we feel would benefit from this technology, which connects online PC users all over the world with cell-phone using friends and family in the U.S.
The international social media marketing team translates blogs, press releases, relevant articles, status updates and anything in the world of social media, texting, mobile media, and technology and shares the information with their fans. Cherple is being promoted heavily in France, Spain, Austria, Germany, the UK, Italy and Mexico. They make daily updates and maintain the page with continuous conversations between themselves and the growing number of fans. For our specific target market, this is a great way to bridge the international gap and show what our application can do for them today and well into the future. Each one of the international team members have been to the U.S. and often use Cherple themselves to stay in touch with friends from the states. It sure is nice when you are doing something you believe in.
Is anyone else doing this? It is hard to say, but Cherple’s strategy is setup specifically to focus on our applications strength, which is to connect people all over the world and their PCs to any U.S.-based cell phone and back for free. Our international contacts get that. They use it, they love it, and they spread the word to their fans and friends in their home countries. It has worked very well so far, and every day more and more fans around the world are finding out about their expanded international texting capabilities. Cherple is innovative and all about combining things that people already love like the cell phone and PCs. I guess we are revolutionizing texting through social media, because so far, it is working as planned. For more on social media marketing, visit www.jsimmsagency.com.
