February 11, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
So you have set up your Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn page, either through an agency or in house community manager, and you have the likes. What’s next though? What was the strategy to having some social media presence to begin with?
Last year, around March, Facebook updated their brand pages to adopt the more general Timeline look, and with these changes came a lot of strategic changes on how businesses changed the way they approached social media marketing. Gone were the days of landing pages, and therefore creating impressions through tab apps default.
Now you sitting there thinking, well I got a million Likes, means I’m successful and my million fans see my posts right? Not with Edgerank playing double dutch with your pages.
EdgeRank is the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what articles should be displayed in a user’s News Feed.
Like Google, Facebook now wants more engagement/content from users on their product, to differentiate fake accounts and brand pages with inflated likes, from real pages that are actually getting in touch with their fans and actually provide necessary content to use. The strategy is to have your website as your online HQ’s, your social media pages become your promotional stalls that need to direct leads or interest to your brand and HQ. With Edgerank making sure unpaid posts reach only 10%-15% of your fans, over inflated dormant likes become Reach suicide.
The key is constant, consistent presence that “draws” your fans in. If you create generic, once in a while posts, disappear for huge stretches of time – your followers might just get bored and forget about you completely.
Brands need to understand Total Likes != Success any more online, it’s how you translate your Insights and how to leverage those likes to conversions, be it leads, traffic or just general interest in what you have to say or sell.
Just like everyone else, businesses need to make sure they stay abreast of their social media etiquette. Use social networking sites the way they were made to be used and your business will butterfly.
January 11, 2013 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Inspiration? Coincidence? We created this concept for various football clubs in South Africa (the other concepts can be viewed in our earlier blog entries with Orlando Pirates & Mamelodi Sundowns). We create our proposals as samples to provide such solutions not to inspire our competitors to create something without knowing the vision or thought process why we created the website that way to begin with.
Moroka Swallows Old, New & Concepts Comparisons
Please be aware that we are not accusing client “stealing” our designs, it could be a coincidence that the new website (on the right) could just be designed that way just exactly after we proposed our vision to the said “client”. We work very hard, sometimes throughout the night because we are passionate about what we do, when there is a possibility of clients dismissing our work and concepts just to selectively pick and choose what they want from said proposals for their own agencies is a no go.
We leave it to public opinion at this point, you can visit the old website at www.thebirds.co.za and the new website at www.morokaswallows.co.za. We’ll update our users on this story as it develops and if the said agency is willing to credit or dispute this “inspiration”.
The Purple Online Media Solutions Team
November 19, 2012 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
We think even our less successful web presentations should get some limelight because of the great work our team does that’s not really recognized. So give us your comments on what you think.
Note: All images contained in this post are owned and copy written by their respective owners. Purple Online Media Solutions in no way indicates that images or brands contained within these presentational elements are owned by Purple Online Media Solutions or its affiliates. If you have any complaints please email info@purpleonlinemedia.com.
All designs and ideas below are the property of the designer, Purple Online Media Solutions. Designs or ideas are not to be copied or manipulated in any way for sale or profit.
October 18, 2012 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Access to the Internet has virtually sprung up overnight to some people, and we understand why it seems this way in that South Africa has a technologically driven, albeit trend driven, society.
The internet has been accessed by a select few, those with the pockets to afford it (I remember my 56k dialup at home notching up a 1 grand bill and getting the shock of my life), and the net has progressed since those days. Once those prices started dropping, adoption became higher as more affordable options (BIS being one of the main motivating reasons the youth can afford to access the net at a very low price entry point) became evident.
People started moving from just accessing from work, but now at home, on their phones and even at their favourite restaurants (and most recently on planes and taxi cabs). But most businesses have lacked innovating the adoption specifically for their needs.
Below are just a few reason’s I can just list that alone should persuade businesses to go online, (you can view our infograph here):
- At the end of 2011, South Africa had 8,5 million internet users, with an expected 10 million end of 2012, this is up from 6.8 million in 2010.
- 7,9 million of those users also access their internet through mobile devices.
- On social media alone; Facebook has 5,3 million users, Twitter 2,43 million and 1,93 million on LinkedIn. Twitter last year only had 1,1 million users.
- E-commerce revenues are widely tipped to climb more than 30% a year for at least the next five years [1]
- R135 billion is the projected online turnover by 2015.
This from a country only 10 years ago still had dial up internet as it’s primary form of internet access. With this explosion and influence through connections, brands without proper online strategies are left to their own devices, no PR campaigns, no influencing users on your brand over a competitor, no online customer service, and eventually no leads or potential online sales. We suppose to some that’s something they willing to be content with, but remember competitors are aware of this too. Next month marks 3 years we have been in business, and in that short time we have been able to have well known brands on social media that people have some use of (found the gap and started earlier), and our own clients also have been happy with their online growth. We understand that:
- A strong online presence draws in new clients. Today’s consumers search for exactly what they need by using keyword searches online, Google making $36 billion of their total $37 billion turnover from advertising. It’s a reality in today’s market!
- A strong online presence strengthens customer relations. Interacting with your clients through social media sites is both efficient and effective. It also allows customers to access you immediately without having to go through the brouhaha of a customer service team.
- You can become an industry authority. Like ourselves we started as 2 young entrepreneurs with passion and dedication. Now we charge for consulting and support services because people know we know what we talking about, and they just need to search to find that. We have distinguished ourselves from our competitors in that we care and understand small business needs because we are in their shoes too (we think of it as if we believe in selling you these products we naturally would be using those methods and platforms too right?). If it’s not good enough for us why would it be good enough for you?
So what are you waiting for? Develop a reasonable strategy for your company’s online marketing growth, and then get your business out there. If you can’t take our word for it, ask market leaders like FNB and Nedbank about their online platforms and strategies and see how much of a success adoption has been for them vs the other 2 okes.
We’ll see you in another 3 years.
October 15, 2012 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
This review is more like a combination of the consumer preview and the final version. We look at what we have used and whats in store for the average South African consumer with the final release of the new Windows just around the corner.
Note: The review is revised for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview with some noted RTM features, we’ll be updating it as we learn more about the Windows 8 apps and also about Windows RT for ARM devices.
This is our first ever review of anything, and we decided let’s review Windows 8, but with a very different South African take. How we so used to Microsoft Windows products in South Africa, some people have used Windows before Windows 95, but the general consensus is most users remember Windows with a Start button on the bottom left, everything after that has basically been a performance and aesthetic face-lift.
Not Windows 8 though! I personally took a fresh outlook when I installed it, like how you don’t expect OSX to be like Windows? Well don’t expect Windows 8 to be like “Windows”. It took me a few hours to grasp the new features and functionality (especially when I clicked the Internet Explorer icon instinctively thinking it’s the the Start Menu). The experience was very jarring, but once you finish installing, you get a little tutorial giving you tips on what to do. The set up screen starts switching between various different colours – presumably to show you the other colour choices as well as reassuring you that it’s still working.
Now once thats done, you asked to either sign up for a Windows Live account or use your previous old accounts (I used my old tried and trusted xxxx@hotmail.com account I setup while I was still in college) or just skip it, this links all your Windows services altogether and makes the experience much more pleasant (especially syncing to and from skydrive automatically). From here on you thrown to the new Start screen with a default background based on your previous colour selection. The RTM version gives a selection of whacky and colourful “tattoo’s”, but you still get to have custom backgrounds for your desktop, like old Windows. By hovering on the right side of the screen you get a roll out (which I’m seeing being called a “charm bar”) with the following options: Search, Share, Start, Devices and Settings.
Search is the new Start Menu Button from what I gathered, if you want anything from Windows or within an app or programme, this is going to be your 2nd home. Share is similar to your phone share options, this is where you’ll be able to share webpages, articles and so on with your email contacts, social media friends and followers or whoever you think might use the kind of content you want to pass around. Start allows u to quickly go back to to the Start Screen or switch between desktop and start screen. I haven’t checked out Devices just yet but will update you once I do, and Settings are general settings (not to be confused with the old Control Panel, that can still be accessed via Search).
Swipe over on the left and you get another “charm bar” with a list of open apps and programmes that are running including the Desktop, these are nifty little features for quick access and with more use you start to instinctively use the charm bars more and more, you will also start using the Keyboard Windows icon more and more as it’s a pretty quick way to switch between desktop and start screen without using your mouse.
On the Consumer Preview you still get the Aero look and feel, and thats been ditched on the final retail version, with a more flat UI that is consistent with the new Start Screen and Tiles look. The Desktop Interface still maintains the same look and functionality as on Windows 7, except for the Start Button ofcourse. You can still pin programmes to the taskbar and preview, so not much change on that front, and you won’t feel too frustrated with more new features you’d have to adapt to. Explorer has the ribbon look hidden and ready to roll out (if you’re not familiar with ribbon, use Office 2007/2010 products), and that can be rolled back in if you feel it fills up your screen too much.
Now for my biggest worry with Windows 8, the new “always online” philosophy for a South African market, it is in line with the current mobile philosophy of having apps always keeping you in touch, so the experience without internet rather becomes flat and takes a lot away from the Start Screen functionality. This is no fault on Windows or an actual flaw in the OS, in South Africa the current online market is at 8.5million users, which isn’t much considering we a country with 50million+ strong, and from there 7.9 million access from mobile[link], therefore not many have or mainly access “full” home internet access, but mostly mobile access. We personally hope that this will push Telecoms to lower the the price of entry and make internet far more affordable in SA, as this will make the experience for South African users 10 times more better.
The OS is faster, better (depending on how well you willing to accept the new learning curve) and much more stable and efficient than previous iterations. Gone are the facelifts to the pre-existing foundations, what you getting here is an entirely new philosophy, direction and look with the OS, which I think should be approached like you would when making a change from Windows XP/Vista/7 to OSX/Linux or something else out there. Some are not happy about it and would rather stay on Windows 7 and thats perfectly fine, but it shouldn’t take away from what a great step forward Windows 8 is to the “new Microsoft” approach to the industry. With mobile platforms already using this cross synchronization approach to their OS’, it would only be a matter of time before a desktop tried it too. Still feels a bit cumbersome using the mouse and key for Windows 8, but with time you start adapting to it, and in a few years touch screen desktops would hopefully be affordable and widely spread. You’ll be able to use one file across multiple desktops with Skydrive and the new Office 2013 features (which we’ll hopefully review in future too).
Our Rating? I’d give it a 4/5 because it could use some improvements here and there, but it does what it does well for a new OS, and Windows in this guise is a hate it or love it kind of product, but it sure is certainly here to stay.
Pros:
- With the right hardware it’s sleek, fast and hip for 2012.
- Huge security improvements.
- Substantially better battery life, faster boot, with reported speeds of 21-40 seconds.
- Windows 8 plugs the cloud into almost everything you do. The Microsoft cloud, of course; you need to at least have a Microsoft account to make the most of Windows 8 (not a must but makes it a great experience).
Cons:
- Will take some getting used to especially for many non-technical users.
- Boots by default to the Start Screen not the desktop, for some this “forces” users to learn Start Screen features.
- To make the experience even better, you’ll want a touchscreen/trackpad gestures/Touch Mouse.
- The Windows 8 “always plugged in” feature won’t be accessible to most South Africans from home unless internet becomes drastically cheaper and more widely adopted. Defeats the whole cloud benefits.
- Modern UI already annoys those who expected a facelifted Windows 7, not happening unless you cook up some hacks.
- Not enough apps, I love apps, ask Google Play.
Next month we will try to get the final Windows 8 version and give you a review of the new features in full as well as a breakdown of apps and how they work for users.
Kagiso is co-founder and creative director at Purple Online Media Solutions. He assumes the roles of Project Lead, Web Designer and Front End Developer, among many other things, and heads the creative direction for the company and its clients products
September 26, 2012 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
To Our Beloved Bhakaniya,
Usually at Purple Online Media Solutions, when we see something we don’t like we view it as an opportunity to propose a solution and hopefully solve the problems through private and constructive feedback. But in this case there’s literally been a year’s worth of back and forth involved and not too much progress from us even being heard.
The current website, seesh
About this time a year ago we came up with this awesome pitch (well we thought it was awesome) which we tried to pitch to Orlando Pirates (with initial correspondence having been made with Ntate Shoes Makati, RIP) and after his passing we eventually got through to the club CEO. We were pretty excited partly because we really wanted to work with a major South African footballing brand (after the most awesome World Cup yet) and partly because at the time our entire team was made up of Orlando Pirates supporters.
So today we decided to have another look at Orlando Pirates’ current web presence, hoping more as a fan, that they’d finally overhaul it and their online marketing would surpass Kaizer Chiefs’ (yeah we know we know, we are kind of obsessive at beating Chiefs at everything lol). So there we went, huddled around a PC and entering our beloved clubs URL again, www.orlandopiratesfc.com… Hai around a year later still sucks big time. Now we were left scratching our heads. Were our ideas that bad? Does the marketing team at Orlando Pirates follow more than they lead? Do they think the current website looks great? We just did not understand the reasons why the website still looks the way it does. Believe us we respect our team and the current marketing teams talents at Orlando Pirates, we have seen them being one of the first clubs in South Africa to create platforms to market their brand on an unprecedented platform. From their deal with Adidas and Vodacom to being voted a Super Brand when most teams were still hand washing their uniforms for their next match. So why does such a powerful marketing force lack abysmally online? Is it not important perhaps? Not viable? (This would be pure ignorance considering Kaizer Chiefs has more than double the online market that Pirates’ does). So we figured this can’t surely be a marketing problem, that team must be one of the best if not thee best in South African Football. Who is to blame? Who is too afraid to go to their online supplier and give them a little roasting ala Steve Hofmeyer style?
Below are suggestions, yes we being very open about what we proposed, not because we feel we are better (we know we are :p), but because even if Pirates doesn’t use us to develop their new online direction, ATLEAST IT GETS DONE! As fans first and foremost, we want to see a proper website (and mobile site), proper push content, proper social media integration, marketing and engagement as well as proper industry leading online marketing strategies. I don’t want us to follow Chiefs/Sundowns etc, but they must follow us. For all the wonderful heritage Orlando Pirates chooses to focus on in their marketing, isn’t it also time to integrate that part of history into building the future of the brand?
So from proud Bhakaniya’s, please guys UPDATE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE & CONTENT (even if it’s not by us, although we’d put passion into it lol)!
Love,
The Purple Online Media Solutions Team
Once A Buccaneer, Always A Buccaneer
Note. All designs and ideas below are the property of the designer, Purple Online Media Solutions. Designs or ideas are not to be copied or manipulated in any way for sale or profit.
A simpler more forward thinking website that focused on simple and modern aesthetics. Everything within eyes view (depending on user resolution), but kept the colours the same and the direction new and fresh.
(more…)
September 25, 2012 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
We excited to announce the launch of our newly designed Web site, www.purpleonlinemedia.com, which went live on September 10th 2012. We have incorporated much much more into the design and functionality than ever before, and wanted our product to look less generic and be representative of our philosophy and design principles.
The website got a refreshing new look that welcomed visitors with a clean uncluttered design, and moving images with themed featured content focused on our products and missions, as well as easy to access news stories to provide our clients and potential clients with recent news and branding and online marketing related information, partner relations and expertise in our field.
The new website still retains the old navigation sections, but with an improved aesthetic look and a tweak here and there. By moving to a more client-centric layout, we allow visitors to access information based on what they want to access rather than sift through everything to decide what is of interest to them. As we gradually evolve, we will incorporate more media rich contentand hope to establish this as a portal of information, and fore runner in brand and online marketing solutions in South Africa.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the website, we encourage you to do so today. You can even bookmark it as one of your favorite sites, since we will be updating it regularly with industry news, social media integrated content, and career lisings! You’re just one-click away from seeing what’s new, www.purpleonlinemedia.com. Come join us online, today. We’ll see you there!
If you experience any problems using the new website or if you have any suggestions, please contact us at info@purpleonlinemedia.com
Sincerely,
The Purple Online Media Solutions Team
August 23, 2012 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
On online platforms we constantly hear about jumping onto social media, but without the appropriate “why” answered. I suppose everyone figures as long as they on social media, the people they interacting with will eventually buy their products right? The bottom line is all these people that like and comment on your pages posts will eventually buy into that shiny new vacuum cleaner that has all the bells and whistles.
Now what if I said engagement shouldn’t be your only goal? What about influence?
Influence? What Do You mean?
Remember that social media platforms were created to initiate conversations and links between friends/connections. Most page admins, especially in South Africa, look at engagement only as a primary objective to having the page. The best way to leverage anything in life, as I have learned, is how we affected by influencers, whether offline or online. You always ask your friends opinions and advice on what they know right? Why don’t you ask other page’s for their content and opinions? Why aren’t page administrators asking people who know better than them about something to promote their product? You might be selling a fancy vacuum cleaner, and keeping everything within your “page likes”. How about liking a page of a product that sells cleaning products, and sharing their content with your audience and theirs with yours? You getting a far wider reach from sharing your insightful content about your product with people who are interested in pairing their “new magic” carpet cleaner. Your influencers help leverage your engagement to other markets while you focus on your own. Sounds simple right?
Build brand relationships so that eventually you can have advocates who will drive your online marketing socially without you having any direct influence. Having important influencers guarantees that a brand is driven by word of mouth, endorsements and recommendations, and isn’t that what we want at the end of the day? Let other people talk about your brand not just yourself. Talk to your audience about other brands, instigate conversations not push marketing. Focus on the bigger picture we say. Provide customer services, provide advice, provide your opinion to types of services and products so that other people who can use your content “share” it.
If you are a brand that could use being influenced or wants to influence any of our brands, you can visit our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Student Commune Facebook, and Twitter pages
August 11, 2012 / Kagiso / 0 Comments
Student Commune was created as a social networking service that provided accommodation listings for students across South Africa and with the launch of this product we wanted to create a fun, intuitive product that will compete on the world stage in a dynamic and inspiring way.
The website allows users to be able to do the following:
- Uploading, viewing, updating, deactivating and deleting accommodation listings. (i.e. Landlord excluding viewing which is available to every user type);
- Requesting an accommodation listing using COMMAgent, if the criteria in accommodation searches are not returning any targeted properties;
- Viewing campus communities with My Campus feature as well as events near student campuses courtesy of Gig Central.
So wherever you are, Cape to Turflop, Student Commune will provide suitable accommodation listings where ever we possibly can.
View the website
August 2, 2012 / Kagiso / 1 Comment
We’ve read these articles countless times, “Third Suicide of First Semester”, “Student Kills Herself Due to Failing”, but what are we as students and parents doing about it?
The following excerpt is from a WITS Vuvuzela article titled “Third Suicide of First Semester”, and covers a certain portion about an incident that can also happen to you, be it directly or indirectly.
“ Wandile Mashinini, 2nd year BComm marketing, was found in his room at South Point’s KSI residence. According to a friend, who asked not to be named, his girlfriend became worried when he didn’t respond to her knocking. She and the building manager then broke through the door and found he had hanged himself . It is believed that he left a note.
The friend said his Facebook updates had shown he was suicidal. “He said: ‘I will kill myself and die’ and ‘I’m tired of all of this and am sorry to my family’. We thought he was joking.”
She said Mashinini had been struggling academically and reportedly had not met the requirements for two of his courses. “
Worryingly, this all ends with comments where you honestly think someone was joking. Depression, especially from academic pressure is as real as you and me, it can affect anyone, doesn’t discriminate and the end result is usually a loss of life. Student Commune will commit itself to trying to link up with trained counsellors and organizations to link up our users with, if ever the need arises. We constantly try our best to publish as much necessary information to students as we can, and sharing University of Johannesburg’s PsyCAD (The Centre for Psychological Services & Career Development) page is one way we have been trying to raise student psychological matters with our own users.
If you need any help, you can contact:
UJ PsyCAD on (011) 559 4441, or their Twitter @PsyCaD and Facebook PsyCaD@UJ.
WITS Career Counselling and Development Unit on (011) 717 9140.
The South African Anxiety and Depression Group between 8am-8pm on 0800 567 567 or by SMS 31393 or on Twitter @TheSADAG.
Post your queries anonymously if you must, these are just avenues to help you guys. Please take care and all the best with your studies
#Share4Awareness.
