At Flow we work hard, but we also like to keep up to date with what’s happening in the world around us and in our industry, by sharing content.
Topics most recently shared include: why branded content doesn’t work, how young Africans are using Twitter, modern teens’ reaction to old software, getting the best out of website design and a slew of advertising ideas.
Here’s a brief summary of of these reads:
Selling is not about relationships. Say what? People in sales know how important it is to build a good relationship with their clients, but this article in the Harvard Business Review takes it a step further. It promotes challenging your clients and taking them out of their comfort zone to get results. There is no denying the importance of building a solid relationship but, apparently, when all you do is to try and maintain the relationship without pushing a little, you won’t sell anything.
Twitter has given millions of people around the world a voice, and the article Politics and activism are driving Africa’s Twitter conversations to new highs illustrates how Africans are using theirs. Read how young Africans are using Twitter to challenge governments from Cape Town to Bujumbura. In comparison to youth in America and the United Kingdom, African social media conversations are way more politically orientated.
Social media is not just for politics, of course. Brands also use Twitter to reach out to potential customers, and this is where branded content comes in. In Branded content – why is it so difficult to make it work?, Holger E Metzger shares tricks on how to use emotions to evoke a reaction from potential customers instead of simply pushing a product. A good question to ask, he says, is: “What’s in it for the consumer?”
Building websites is what we do at Flow and we like keeping up with what is new and current with articles such as digital design company Lilo’s The ultimate web design checklist. The checklist covers the basics of what one needs to create a successful website, from meta data and titles for great SEO results, to proofreading content, carrying out functionality checks and keeping user experience (UX) in mind.
Speaking of experience, does the rapid advance of technology sometimes leave you lagging and feeling totally out of synch? This video clip (8:26) won’t make you feel much better as it captures the baffled reactions of modern-day teenagers to the archaic functioning of Windows 95. Watch and weep … with laughter.
We are at a stage where television sets can fast-forward through adverts and we can kill adverts on YouTube, which makes the job of selling products even tougher for advertisers. But there are still ways to grab the attention of potential customers. Find out how in the Bright Side’s 18 ingenious ideas which took advertising to a whole new level.