We presume(and excuse us for that), that many of us still do not know what a QR Code is! So first and foremost in this post, we will try to explain what this thing is. Then we will see, how you may see them for your benefits finally ending up this small post on how it fits in social media.
We all are very familiar with our old linear friends that we often see people at the shop and malls PoS (Point of Sales) scanning to let the systems know the price and other details of the items that yo may be buying from the shop. If you haven't guessed it yet, we are talking about the Bar Codes. They are still very popular among us at all the PoS and sit pretty nicely on nearly all of the products/items that you buy, online or otherwise.
What quite a few of us are not aware of it that our this old friend now has a sibling (and a pretty advanced one).
QR codes, a short form for Quick Response codes, is a 2 dimensional code (also known as matrix code). They were born in Japan, where they are very common, in fact people were using them there before the rest of the world became aware of their existence. They may include information like; plain text, links, a whole contact card with name..number and other details, a URL. In short a whole lot other and more information that their other sibling can hold or store. They are a scan-able image that you may scan with your smartphone apps. The apps are generally referred to as QR code readers. The one that we are really fond of on or iPhone is this. For your information on how a QR code may look like, here (on your left) is a QR with our simple details. Feel free to scan it with your smart-phones.
So now that we have a little info on what a QR code is, lets move on to the next part; what good they are anyway?
Slowly but surely, they are gaining momentum. People are getting aware of them and since they could hold more info than a bar code, you could not only store more information in them but information of different kinds. For example, now a days you will find these on paper media (promotion), business cards(promotion), products(promotion). Like you see here on the left image(purposefully blurred), the idea is a different kind of promotion. So while people never cared about reading anything more than the type of ingredients and mfg date on some edible items, companies have moved on to introduce the QR codes on their product wrappers, with a marketing idea of guiding users to scan them and thus taking them to a different promotion page on their smart-phones. Another example (not shared here) that we fond was of a online portal that had QR code accompanying their newspaper advertisement. Again, a very good marketing idea.
So how do you as an individual can make use of it? For a start, QR are very rarely but smartly found on business cards. That way your business card will have all contact details printed, but also a QR with the same details so if someone wishes, they may scan the code and store you as a contact in their smart phones without them typing anything. Oh yes, we are aware that there are some smart phones card reader apps available; but hey did't we mention you could store different type of information in a QR? So why only the contact details. Feel free to put down your blog or website URLs which once scanned will take the user to your site. Also, if you have a website that you maintain, QRs are a good way to put some fresh content on your site. Sooner or later the search engines will see and read them. Which will benefit your pages.This just broadens the marketing ways.
So what else do you think you may put down in a QR code? Let us know the interesting ideas in the comments!
Our Views
We did mention that QRs could be used to put down on a business card with different details, or on ones website pages in a way to provide both; a way for your users a ease of info retrieval and fresh content for search engines to index/crawl. But there is also a very interesting use that the social media may put the QRs to!
If you were attentive in the post, you must remember that we mentioned a professional portal using them in their paper media Ad. Good idea yes, but why not use the QR codes on the important pages. For example, on a professional media platform like ApnaCircle, where the public profile pages are really important due to the nature of the platform, you could always put the QR codes on the respective profile pages with a URL to that user's public profile. Before you think what use it may be, here is a scenario:
A recruiter carrying a smart-phone (very likely) may scan and save the QR for some profiles that may suit the job profile(s) that the company may be head hunting for. Thus he/she always carry the shortlisted profiles with them which provides a way for them to refer or go through the profiles when not near their workstations or laptops. This however, is just one scenario. And yes don't forget that this is a good way to ask Google to come back and re-index the profiles since you will provide fresh content on the profiles(by changing the QR as necessary from time to time).
Give it a thought and keep Crunching!!
We all are very familiar with our old linear friends that we often see people at the shop and malls PoS (Point of Sales) scanning to let the systems know the price and other details of the items that yo may be buying from the shop. If you haven't guessed it yet, we are talking about the Bar Codes. They are still very popular among us at all the PoS and sit pretty nicely on nearly all of the products/items that you buy, online or otherwise.
QR codes, a short form for Quick Response codes, is a 2 dimensional code (also known as matrix code). They were born in Japan, where they are very common, in fact people were using them there before the rest of the world became aware of their existence. They may include information like; plain text, links, a whole contact card with name..number and other details, a URL. In short a whole lot other and more information that their other sibling can hold or store. They are a scan-able image that you may scan with your smartphone apps. The apps are generally referred to as QR code readers. The one that we are really fond of on or iPhone is this. For your information on how a QR code may look like, here (on your left) is a QR with our simple details. Feel free to scan it with your smart-phones.
So now that we have a little info on what a QR code is, lets move on to the next part; what good they are anyway?
So how do you as an individual can make use of it? For a start, QR are very rarely but smartly found on business cards. That way your business card will have all contact details printed, but also a QR with the same details so if someone wishes, they may scan the code and store you as a contact in their smart phones without them typing anything. Oh yes, we are aware that there are some smart phones card reader apps available; but hey did't we mention you could store different type of information in a QR? So why only the contact details. Feel free to put down your blog or website URLs which once scanned will take the user to your site. Also, if you have a website that you maintain, QRs are a good way to put some fresh content on your site. Sooner or later the search engines will see and read them. Which will benefit your pages.This just broadens the marketing ways.
So what else do you think you may put down in a QR code? Let us know the interesting ideas in the comments!
Our Views
We did mention that QRs could be used to put down on a business card with different details, or on ones website pages in a way to provide both; a way for your users a ease of info retrieval and fresh content for search engines to index/crawl. But there is also a very interesting use that the social media may put the QRs to!
If you were attentive in the post, you must remember that we mentioned a professional portal using them in their paper media Ad. Good idea yes, but why not use the QR codes on the important pages. For example, on a professional media platform like ApnaCircle, where the public profile pages are really important due to the nature of the platform, you could always put the QR codes on the respective profile pages with a URL to that user's public profile. Before you think what use it may be, here is a scenario:
A recruiter carrying a smart-phone (very likely) may scan and save the QR for some profiles that may suit the job profile(s) that the company may be head hunting for. Thus he/she always carry the shortlisted profiles with them which provides a way for them to refer or go through the profiles when not near their workstations or laptops. This however, is just one scenario. And yes don't forget that this is a good way to ask Google to come back and re-index the profiles since you will provide fresh content on the profiles(by changing the QR as necessary from time to time).
Give it a thought and keep Crunching!!
0 comments:
Post a Comment