For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Gartner’s hype cycle is a tool used by marketers to visually depict where a new technology stands on its journey to a “plateau” period of productivity. Gartner’s hype cycle has 5 stages total, they are: The innovation trigger, the peak of inflated expectations, the trough of disillusionment, the slope of enlightenment, and the plateau of productivity. Each stage represents a different period in the life cycle newly introduced technology. An example of what the hype cycle looks like is pictures below
So where on this curve might we find Planoly? Well I did some research and, unfortunately, I couldn’t find any Gartner’s hype cycle analysis data on grid/theme planning apps like Planoly specifically, so instead, I decided to take a more macro approach and do some research on emerging technologies involving analytic and social media analysis in the industry. I felt that this could at least give us an idea of where Planoly could fall on the curve.
Ready, Set, Research!
Brands in this day and age are paying very close attention to social media. Social media is no longer just a leisure tool but one that can give extremely viable marketing insight and act as a fertile ground for brand/business growth. Brand’s are becoming increasingly more interested in their analytics; things that give them insight about how their customers are interacting with their online content. According to an article on netbase.com, 72% of U.S. and Canadian marketers use social tools for things such as community management and engagement (are you seeing how Planoly could come into play here?).
Many popular brands are already becoming leaders in the Instagram community. An article from inc.com says some of the biggest players in the space of social media marketing right now are Nike, Sephora, and National Geographic. Each of these brands is commended for their unique visual branding that they’ve curated from using the power of social analytics. Take a look at these screen caps of Nike, Sephora, and National Geographic’s instagram profiles and see if you notice a visually identifiable aesthetic for each
An article, from ClickZ.com, further discusses benefits brands receive from investing in the usage of social media analytics tools. The article states that using social media analytics tools on an ongoing basis can lead to content your brand is sharing being “…more refined and better-tailored towards the content consumption and general behavior of (their) followers…”. The article also mentions how insight from social media marketing tools can help in figuring out posting patterns to make sure your brand is maximizing the amount of people seeing its content by posting closer to its “ideal” post time (again…are we seeing how Planoly fits in here?)
Now, as I stated at the beginning of this post, I couldn’t find any hype cycles with data on apps like Planoly specifically, but, after a fair amount of digging, I found a Gartner’s Hype Cycle curve from 2017 covering the hype cycle for digital marketing and advertising technology (below)
I’ve indicated which technologies on this curve relate most to Planoly and apps like Planoly. Most of the technologies relating to Planoly are over the peak of inflated expectations, with some making their way out of the trough of disillusionment and up the slope of enlightenment. So where do I believe Planoly specifically to be on this curve? Well after all of the research and data I have compiled and shared with you here (this hype cycle included), I think it is safe to say that I believe Planoly and other feed planning applications to probably be somewhere on the bottom or mid-way point of the slope of enlightenment.
The use of social media analytics in fine tuning a brand’s marketing strategy is not new, as we can see from the positions of some of the items on the previous hype cycle curve. However, it is increasingly being used in new ways and I believe brands are continuing to figure out these new ways in which to implement this kind of technology into their marketing in a more productive manner.
If you’re just joining us for the ride about all things Planoly, check out some of my earlier posts about other feed planning tools, and how to use Planoly
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