Secret Ingredient for the Perfect Marketing Recipe: Jelly
Jelly, a new mobile app created by Twitter’s Biz Stone, is helping businesses and consumers worldwide ask and answer.
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is all about helping people across the globe connect. With the introduction of Twitter in 2006, Stone and his fellow co-founders facilitated a unique form of communication that was quick, concise, and immediate. In 2014, the social media pioneer has changed the way people are communicating in a whole new way—again.
Imagine being at the supermarket and noticing a new type of cookies that you have never seen or tried before. They look delicious, and you want to buy them, however, you don’t want to waste money on something you might not like. You’d feel more confident about making the purchase if you knew more about them, but there’s nobody around who can help you out and provide some information. Where should you turn?
The new app, called ‘Jelly’, allows you to share photo-laden questions with an extended social network. In other words, if you are a Jelly user, you can share pictures of something of interest, accompanied with a question about it for your audience. Any follower within your network can respond to your inquiry. Essentially, your most spontaneous and random curiosities can addressed at the touch of a button.
According to the company’s blog, “Jelly is designed to search the group mind of your social networks—and what goes around, comes around.” Although skeptics have questioned the purposefulness of the engaging new app, companies have recognized Jelly creates a platform for branding, marketing, and customer service.
With Jelly, you can receive instant answers and feedback about certain brands or products from other Jelly users, as well as individuals within your personal network. Your extended network can also browse and view questions and answers.
Though the free mobile app was not created with business in mind, certain companies have recognized the excellent branding and customer service opportunity the app presents. According to a Nielsen survey, 84% of global respondents trust recommendations from friends and family most when making purchasing decisions, followed by opinions of worldwide consumers. By providing access to both trusted and public opinions, Jelly helps consumers gain confidence and trust in previously unknown brands, thus promoting sales and revenue for those businesses.
The opportunity for businesses to take advantage of Jelly does not stop there. Businesses that set up accounts with Jelly can use it as a way of receiving customer feedback and opinions on future products, and even as a promotional tool. Companies will be able to post pictures of products both new and old, and ask followers what they think or what changes they would recommend. Furthermore, Jelly allows customers to ask companies questions about their products. Increased interaction through Jelly should help to strengthen the relationship between the company and the consumer, and drive revenue from increased customer loyalty.
Companies to test the waters of Jelly include Kenneth Cole, Toms shoes, Travelocity, and General Electric. “We’re just trying it out a little bit,” said Katrina Craigwell, global manager of digital marketing at GE. “We’ll continue to play with it in a light way over the next few weeks.”
How does the mobile app king see Jelly’s influence on the world? Biz Stone had this to say after announcing his newest venture:
“Beyond being a very useful search engine, like I said before, it creates this circle of empathy, where people realize that ‘Oh, there’s other people who need my help and I can actually help them and they’ll feel good about it and they’ll get trained to thinking about helping other people. And, maybe that’ll even jump outside of the app and just into the real world and they’ll start looking around and helping people and wouldn’t that be great?”
New social media platforms and mobile applications continue to bring people together and make the world smaller. Companies and consumers alike can work together to address mutual concerns.
Think Jelly might be the secret ingredient to strengthening your business’s online and mobile campaigns? You won’t know it until you try it.
