Beginning this weekend, Coffee News of Central Arkansas, with two editions serving Saline County, will distribute their free, weekly publication to local restaurants, coffee/donut shops, and other waiting areas. However, this week there will be something very different and currently unique! It's called Microsoft Tags.
Tags are very similar to QR, or "Quick Response", Codes and have been ever-increasing in their utilization within various marketing mediums. If you have a smart-phone, you can scan Tags from your mobile phone for instant access to information, websites, videos, reviews, and more.[more]
“In fact, not only will you see Tags within some of the ads from our sponsors” said Stephen Kincaid, local distributor of Coffee News, “but within the ‘What's Happening’ section on the front page, thanks to our wonderful relationship and good friend, Rob Patrick, you will be able to scan a tag that will direct your smart-phone's browser to BryantDaily.com in order to get the latest local news and event information. The Benton edition will have a similar link to MySaline.com thanks to Shelli Russell.”
Coffee News isn't another news publication, Kincaid said. “We will never replace the service that local news publications provide. Coffee News is really more like the ‘Twitter’ of print publications that puts a local business in a trusting and exclusive view of our readers that live and shop within a few short miles of their business location.
“It’s that fun little one-page brown weekly newspaper you see in restaurants, coffee shops and waiting areas everywhere,” he added. “Why is it so popular? Because Coffee News® offers readers family friendly, upbeat, entertaining, news, trivia, jokes, and community events they can’t live without. It’s the ‘fun’ side of the news — and perfect to read while waiting for a friend, a table, your food — or anything for that matter, since it only takes 8-10 minutes to read.
“Coffee News has always provided fresh weekly content allowing you to interact with others while you wait,” Kincaid said. “Now, more than ever, though, our readers can interact with our local business sponsors, engage in our contests, scavenger hunts, etc. The capability and creative utilization of these Tags is really limited only to one's imagination.
“Coffee News is provided free each week as a result of the generosity of our business sponsors,” he related. “Coffee News provides the ability for a business to be seen in a credible, trustworthy, and fun light each week by our readers since our content provides them with smiles and laughter. Now, as a business, you can extend that credibility by providing more information and by leveraging your digital assets. The State of Arkansas has had tremendous response with their marketing initiatives using QR code technology. Many large corporations and even international magazine publications have had tremendous lift in their responses using it, too. Coffee News of Central Arkansas just enables that technology in print to be utilized where it matters the most: our local community.”
Readers will need to download a free app to your smart-phone in order to scan. Open your phone's browser and go to www.GetTag.mobi to download the app. In fact, once you download the app, you scan the custom tag in the picture attached to this article.
“So have fun this week scanning and visiting all of the great places our business sponsors will be taking you,” Kincaid mentioned. “And remember, Tag!, You're It!”
For an overview of Microsoft Tags, visit http://tag.microsoft.com/overview.aspx.
For more information on getting Coffee News each week in your waiting area or to become a sponsor, you can either scan the Tag or contact Stephen C. Kincaid, The Coffee News Guy, via phone at 877-653-JAVA (5282) or via email at stephen@coffeenewsarkansas.com. You can visit, also, Coffee News of Central Arkansas on the web at www.coffeenewsarkansas.com or on the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CoffeeNewsAR.
