File this one in your web marketing plan and set an alarm for this Friday. Facebook announced on its blog today that it will allow all of its members to select Vanity URLs for their profiles and fan pages starting this Friday, June 12, at 9:01 pm PDT. Vanity URLs are customized web addresses that have long been an integral part of most social media websites like MySpace and Twitter.  I've had http://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterjensen for years, but Facebook fan pages have always had a long string of random numbers instead of a URL based on your company's name, products, or services.  The opportunity to customize your company's Facebook fan page will be a great marketing opportunity for businesses because it will make it easier for current fans and potential customers to find your fan page and remember your web address. “When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you,” writes Blaise DiPersia in the Facebook blog. “We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook username in the future.” This will also have SEO implications as it will be possible to select keyword-rich URLs, which will help the pages rank higher. These fan pages are available to the public (you do not need to be logged in to view them), and indexable by search engines, so expect a mad dash for popular keywords like http://www.facebook.com/pages/sex or http://www.facebook.com/laser-eye-surgery. Customizing your company's Facebook web address will not only increase your searchability but will also give you another opportunity to highlight your company's online brand and image, so be careful in your selection.  Facebook's fine print for this selection recommends, "Think carefully about the user name you choose. Once it's been selected, you won't be able to change or transfer (your vanity url.)" Your company will be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis at www.facebook.com/username/. The turnout for this vanity URL is expected to be high.  If you're happy with your trademarked brand name, you shouldn't have too much of a problem. But if you're looking for something a little more strategic, be prepared to wait in the digital version of the line outside of a Star Wars premiere.

Have you ever transformed your face into an adorable deer? Do you know the satisfaction of swiping over a photo and discovering the perfect geofilter to match your weekend mood? Ever troll your close friends with a series of silly faces? Welcome to Snapchat. Snapchat has become a cornerstone in the social media application world since it was first released in 2011. The app soon amplified its primary function (sending real-time snapshots to friends) by introducing new features, and quickly gained momentum amongst high school students. Snapchat now has 166 million daily active users (for comparison, Facebook has 1.28 billion) who send an average of at least 3 billion snaps in 24 hours. While Facebook’s users are distributed across all demographics, Snapchat’s audience is the highly coveted high school and university student market: Generation Z and millennials. A recent study showed that 88% of students use the application. Despite Instagram and Snapchat being in a tight race for the top spot, an Adweek survey found that 67% of respondents thought Snapchat’s features were better — something that could continue to boost Snapchat’s popularity and market dominance in the future. If you’re developing an app and you haven’t yet studied Snapchat (especially if your target market is Gen Z), you’re missing a prime opportunity to learn from one of the masters. Snapchat introduces a lot of new and seemingly silly features — and not all of them knock our digital socks off — but what makes it one of the most successful social media apps is that it continues to innovate with its users in mind. If you want to tap into Generation Z with your own app, start by looking at what Snapchat does right. Here are the features that have propelled Snapchat to success with its users. Easy Photo Chatting Don’t overlook the first aspect that made Snapchat popular: the ability to send disappearing photo chats. Users were encouraged to share genuine snapshots of their daily activities. This was a refreshing step away from the posed, curated, and edited images often shared on Facebook and Instagram. It met a key consumer need for Generation Z at a time when students were growing discontent with the nature of existing social media, and were looking for a new outlet. The disappearing act is key. Snapchat’s designers anticipated a potential consumer pain point with their product, and solved it in advance. What was the one downside to taking “real” photos of yourself (particularly in the eyes of a teenager)? They show the real, imperfect you. While sharing “real life” photos may feel embarrassing or compromising, users could rest easy knowing their pics would disappear in less than 10 seconds. Potential problem, solved. Snapchat Stories Aside from one-to-one photo sharing, users can also create Snapchat stories to share with the world (or at least, their own circle of friends). Stories are series of individual photos or videos which followers can choose to view any number of times with a 24 hour period. This innovation took something users were already doing — sharing Snapchat photos with all of their friends — and made it much easier. Instead of scrolling through to select each of your contacts, it just takes one click, and your photo is posted for all of your friends to view. Today, Snapchat stories are also shared in the “Discover” section by brands and celebrities, a feature that introduced monetization to the app. With the Stories feature, Snapchat became a true trailblazer. The release of Instagram stories in August 2016 was regarded by most as a near-identical incarnation of Snapchat stories. Facebook, which now owns Snapchat, incorporated a similar stories feature at the top of its News Feed just a few months later, further proving how successful this feature was. Lenses Galore One of Snapchat’s most well-known features is its diverse offering of lenses — digital masks that can turn your face into an animated animal, add fake cosmetics effects, and distort your voice. These lenses (also referred to as filters) are purely meant for entertainment, and are hugely popular amongst Generation Z users. The lenses are regularly refreshed, offering fun new masks for users who want to become someone new. And, guess who followed its cousin by quickly adopting a version of lenses? You got it — Instagram. Geofilters and Stickers Geofilters allow users to easily add stickers to their photos that share their location with followers. By swiping on a photo or video, illustrated filters pop up based on your location — from a glammed out New York skyline, to a custom geofilter a company has created for an event. FOMO (fear of missing out) is a real thing for Generation Z. Geofilters offer a clever and colorful way for users to do something they already do frequently; give their friends more information about where they are and what they’re doing. Businesses quickly recognized this as an opportunity to create branded filters, embracing Generation Z’s love of sharing to spread and strengthen brand recognition. Learning From Snapchat The development of Snapchat is an interesting case study — for reasons beyond the founders’ refusal of an initial $3 billion takeover deal from Facebook. Build for Success, and Let the Money Follow Unlike many apps, Snapchat didn’t begin by focusing on monetizing its features or finding investors. In fact, for the first several years, the application didn’t have an obvious monetization pathway at all. Its founders have said time and time again that they aren’t in this for the short-term gain, and for the most part they’ve done their own thing. That includes starting with a small team and being agile enough to introduce features they thought users would like, without much thought to the immediate profitability. The lesson to those trying to build a new app? Think more about what your users want and need than what will make the most money. If you can deliver a great product to users, monetization will come later. Be Open-Minded and Adaptable Another lesson to learn from Snapchat to have a willingness to adapt to new forms of technology. Snap Inc. (Snapchat’s parent company) recently launched Spectacles, a set of glasses that allow wearers to record 10 second videos. The world will see exactly what you’re seeing. Spectacles sync wirelessly to a user’s Snapchat account and recharge when they’re put back in the case. The technology is still in its initial stages, but at $129.99 a pair, this could be an effective way for Snapchat to rake in more cash. Innovate with Users In Mind Finally, Snapchat isn’t scared to shake up and innovate an established market — for the right reasons. Innovations for your users are much different than innovations for your investors, which may benefit your users. Snapchat’s next feature will likely be the introduction of short video shows, and the company is in talks with Saturday Night Live and comedian James Corden to find a way to revolutionize television offerings for a Generation Z audience. The agility and creativity Snapchat brings to the table is enough to keep app developers on their toes. These traits have made the app both an inspiration and a leader in the social media market, particularly for younger audiences. Above its agility and creativity, though, sits a genuine desire to please, delight, and support users. If app developers take anything away from this Snapchat case study, it’s that building a successful app comes from putting users at the core of what you do. When you cater to your consumers’ interests, ease pains and inconveniences, and make their lives more enjoyable, they will want to use your app. The business success follows naturally. With new features incorporated all the time, we can anticipate Snapchat’s success sticking around much longer than its photos do.

Here we are in 2014 - and the mobile operating system debate is still not settled. Once Apple stomped onto the mobile scene in 2007 and gained a dominant cult following, competition with the hip giant seemed a daunting challenge. But then along came Android, much to the delight of open source fans and those seeking other options. This famously angered Steve Jobs, who according to the 2011 biography lamented, “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product.” Yet destroyed Android isn’t, and is instead a leader viable player in the mobile operating system debate. Some even suggest this isn’t even a debate anymore, as the two have their own faithful following. Perhaps there is enough room in mobile space for everyone?  Personally, ever since I pitched my antique Nokia what feels like ages ago, I began my journey with Apple and only occasionally look anywhere else. It’s like a familiar friend, as with each new phone or update the changes are minimal but ostensibly powerful. I like that I know when the other person I’m texting is an Apple user, given away by our matching blue text messages - ahem - I mean matching iMessages. And that’s what pisses off so many Android users. The lockdown of Apple’s customization pales in comparison to the open source availability of Android. More and more frequently I am finding that colleagues are switching to Android for this very reason. So then, it all comes down to the type of user - right? Maybe, maybe not. With the announcements of changes coming in iOS 8 and Android’s L this autumn, here is a list of some of the differences which may help you decide for yourself:   1) Widgets Anywhere Both systems have apps, both systems have similar basic functionality. Until now, only Android offered widgets to be placed directly on the home screen, allowing users to with a glance know information such as sport scores, weather, even the latest Reddit stories. Apple just announced they too will include widgets as part of the iOS 8 update. They however will only be available in the notification center, which requires the user to swipe the phone and thus adding a step Android doesn’t require.   2) Adjustable Icons I’m not the youngest person in the world, so I naturally can’t see tiny things perfectly. Not as bad as a friend whose text message font is the size of the Times Square NASDAQ scroll, but it’s pretty bad. Therefore both of us as well as other mobile users prefer the ability to increase the size of fonts and features to help our ailing eyes. With Android, a user is able to increase the size of apps and widgets. Yet with iOS the apps are all the same size, regardless if your vision likens that of a bat.   3) Design Given that Apple released some of its more dramatic design upgrades with iOS 7, it’s no surprise that iOS 8 doesn’t come with any major design changes. It maintains the simplicity Apple is known for with a “flat” design, with the ideal outcome that a baby can figure out how it works.  Android on the other hand is attempting a massive shift in the design paradigm with “Material Design,” a comprehensive suite for managing the Android experience. The update includes all kinds of customization such as the ability to create animations, choose themes, and supports drawable tinting. Not to mention Android L overall brings more depth to the design with shadows and brighter, lighter colors.   4) Security Apple has the touch ID fingerprint sensor, allowing users to simply press on the home button to unlock the device. Yet this feature will be expanded in iOS 8 to not only unlock the phone but also to open password protected features like banking or social media apps. Google alternatively added the ability to unlock Android products like tablets and smartphones via the Android Wear smartwatch. Yes with Android you can really have a go-go-gadget watch. When it comes down to it, both mobile operating systems are competitive with features and functionality - and become more so with every update including this one. For example iOS 8’s new “HealthKit” app, poised to both replace some peripheral health and fitness devices, while making others much better by seamlessly integrating with them. Then Android similarly has added more apps to improve TV, gaming, camera, device integration and more. What’s great about this for consumers is that the two giants will continue to critically observe the other’s upgrades - and fight to stay one step ahead. Care to weigh in? What do you think of the updates? Let us know in the comments below.