NFL Social Media

This week on Mashable, there was an interesting article that related to the NFL draft. The draft gave players the opportunity to pose with teammates and other friends at the draft and were immediately uploaded to the NFL network twitter account. In addition, the draft allowed the fans to discuss the fashion of the prospective draft members. Other than the draft, the article discussed how the accounts are all managed by Duane Munn. He single handedly is responsible for more than 12 million twitter followers!

 Overall, the article was interesting to see how the NFL uses a single person and attempts to keep up with real time tweets rather than scheduling them like others. The fact that the sports league doesn't have a team of individuals to keep up with a dynamic platform like Twitter is astounding. I wonder if this will change as the season draws closer and more real time responses may be wanted during game time.

Twitter Music App

This week, rumors are buzzing about a new release by Twitter of a music app. It comes just in time as Coachella started last Friday and (closer to home) many UGA students witnessed an amazing concert by Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, and Jake Owen in Sanford Stadium. The app was set to launch on Friday, but I have yet to hear anything over the weekend about the release.

Ryan Seacrest has been tweeting about the unreleased app. Apparently, it will allow music lovers to share songs, follow rising artists, and see popular songs among your friends. This app would be monumental in Twitter gaining more artists and giving them the ability to spread their music via word-of-mouth. This new app may cause trouble for Myspace as it begins to focus more on entertainment.

Overall, it is very interesting to see how Twitter is considering joining many other social platforms and pursuing music. Many users enjoy music while surfing the web or are looking for new songs to listen to at the gym. It should be interesting to see if that application surfaces & whether or not it gains traction in the social media world.

Vine Using #hashtags

This week, I read an article on Mashable about Vine. The social media platform is slowly taking after Twitter by launching the use of hashtags to allow users to find more relevant content. With this addition, Vine is hoping that the short 6 second clips will be able to gain more of the recognition that they deserve. One thing that Vine is doing to make sure that things are relevant is that the trending hashtags are those that are growing the fastest in popularity. It helps to keep the trends real time and give the users a better experience. In addition, it will help bring focus to more content and users.  

Overall, I think the addition of the hashtags will help make the content more searchable for the users which could help retain and gain more users. In the future, I am sure that Vine will focus on having promoted users and content similar to Twitter. It should be interesting to see how marketing teams try to use a 6 second window to capture their audience compared to the normal 30-60 second TV advertisements that many of us are used to.

Ever heard of Luvocracy?

This week, I read an interesting article on Mashable about a site similar to Pinterest. Luvocracy is site that launched in the fall based on the concept that most products are bought because of recommendations by others. 

The site is constructed similar to Pinterest where each individual can create a board filled with items that they recommend to their friends. In addition, they can use a plug-in to add any items from sites around the web to share with their friends. Another key aspect of the site is that all the products posted on the site must be available to prevent outdated products from being posted. Lastly, the site is working on a program that helps give users a small percentage of the sales that their followers make based on recommendations. 

The concept is quite interesting and I think Pinterest may need to watch its back. Pinterest almost seems more like a site for window shoppers while Luvocracy is for people in the market for a product. Overall, I think the site has a lot of potential to succeed. 

A True Underdog Story

Being that the past week has been all about March Madness, I found an article that epitomizes the story of a true underdog. The story was published on Mashable entitled How this Mom Ussed Gogle To Build  A Global Fashion Brand. We all dream of starting our own company and becoming successful similar to Julie Deane. You may even be asking who is this woman?

Julie Deane started her own company named Cambridge Satchel Company in 2008 with a mere 600 English pound. Essentially, the website was built by Julie after using Google to search for the knowledge and resources. In addition, she was able to research competitors to see if the business would be viable. Following the release of her satchels, she immediately tried to market her product on every free channel available on the internet. In particular, blogs and word-of-mouth become huge sources of accreditation for the company. 

After about 3 years, buzz began to give the brand more prominence. She was asked to produce more vibrant colored satchels for a fashion by a fashion magazine named Elle Uk. These bags were able to make it to bloggers attending New York Fashion week where they really caught the eyes of many people. As a result, the company grew even faster.

Following word of the story, Google Chrome sponsored a story about Deane's idea because of her use of their tools to make the company what it is today. The story aired on Google 2011-2012 allowing the company to increase sales and internet traffic. Overall,  today the company makes over 8 million pound annually with one brick and mortar store that has one floor dedicated to the company's roots, bloggers.

This article from Mashable definitely deserves a read. Cambridge Satchel Company

Oscar Buzz

As we all know from reading Twitter and Facebook feeds last night, the Oscars were being aired on ABC. I am not particularly interested in watching prolonged TV award shows to hand out a couple trophies, but I thought it was interested how ABC and the Oscars tried to capitalize on streaming of the show. It was discussed in an article on TechCrunch.com by Sarah Perez entitled ABC's Handling of Oscars' Online & Mobile Streaming May Set Precedent for Future "Event TV" Airings. 

The Oscars were able to sell out of their ad inventory for almost $2 million dollars per advertisement; however, the interesting part is that the Oscars became available on many online sources at 6 AM this morning. In addition, the streaming contains 15 and 30 second advertisements throughout. In addition, it was not able to be streamed live, but attempted to appease the online audience with video highlights during the airing at Oscar.com . This shows how many marketers are experimenting with how to captivate audiences without cannibalizing either market. It definitely shows how the future could influence marketing of major events on the television and online.

Personally, the Oscars experiment to see how to capture the online audience and the television audience is interesting. They understand that during this day and age many more people are using the internet, but want to stick to the tradition of airing a television event similar to the Superbowl. This idea to stream the following day helps to create more advertising funding; however, it will have to be assessed which way is the most effective. In the long run, I think shows will deviate more towards the internet because of changes in culture and how age groups function. As a result, I think the target audience during award shows would be families and middle aged men and women. As generations progress, I think the internet will be a better distribution channel of information based on the lifestyle’s that my generation has become accustomed too. I can see why ABC and the Oscars would be interested in testing how audiences react. I look forward to reading about future development or trials. 

@Twitter #JudgeMe

This week, I came upon an interesting article on Mashable called Twitter Will Decide the Value of Your Tweet by Sam Laird. The article illustrates how Twitter is changing its API to decide the value of personal tweets. Twitter is hoping to introduce this value system soon as tweets will be deems of low, medium, and eventually high value. They are hoping to improve the engagement of individuals that have high follower counts. This is very similar to the trending section on Twitter; however, they are hoping to eliminate and improve one’s Twitter experience.

In regards to this article, I think Twitter is definitely trying to improve the quality of the tweets that I could stumble upon. I think the company is striving to provide the users with a more satisfactory experience and invoke my interaction. It only makes sense right? On the other hand, I am not really sure that this new coding structure will actually help siphon out a substantial amount of the unwanted content. This definitely might be the case when companies can pay to have their tweets valued as “high”. This problem might perpetuate causing unhappy users to seek a new social media outlet. Overall, I like where Twitter’s head is to make the experience for end users better, but I am not entirely sure this is the best way of going about it. 

SnapChat Revolution

This week, I thought it would be appropriate to write a topic close to my phone. … SnapChat. This weekend, I was able to convert 3 of my friends to users of the popular application. It gives you the ability to send pictures to friends and limit the amount of time they can see it with a 10 second maximum. Also, the application allows you to add captions and draw on the pictures with limited colors. Essentially, it allows for a bit of humor while sending goofy faces or awkward pictures that you don’t want people to receive via SMS; however, it can be screenshot... BEWARE!

The article I ran across on TechCrunch by Semil Shah discusses how SnapChat is a widely growing application that many had misconceptions about.  The founders were unlike most startups and actually graduated college (for the most part). The application proved that it could become popular without Twitter or Facebook, but it reached the consumers directly on their most used product, smartphone. Although it is based on pictures, Snapchat is definitely different from Instagram or Pinterest.  I am interested to see how the idea continues to launch.

Recently, they have even allowed for the sharing of videos. I think this adds a new facet to the game.  Thankfully, these are deleted after viewing or it would be social suicide. It should be quite interesting to see if there is SnapChat revolution or if it is just another fad. For the time being, I know that many of my friends think it is fun and it has spread like wildfire, so we are going to enjoy it until a new app comes along to steal their thunder.

 Best of luck SnapChat.

Show Me the Way

In an article i read this week entitled turning social media follows into content marketing lead, i was able to understand and see how many people view the unpredictable nature of social media. The article by Jonathan Crossfield draws  an interesting parallel between social media leads and DJs attracting prospective audiences to bars.

Throughout the article, Crossfield discusses how people focus too much on pointless information such as return on investment; however, the real problem lies in lead acquisition. The need to try get results because a simple "like" may only take a few seconds. Companies need to keep in mind the effort put into social media marketing directly corresponds to the results. This can be understood in his analogy of DJs attracting people to bars. 

DJs may play a gig at a certain venue, but it is not their job to sell drinks. They are solely bringing in people that might be converted with drink specials. Although, if the bar and dance floor were located in different buildings then there would need to be a definite, clear path between the two to ensure drink sales. As a result, companies need to have a strategy that allows the followers to be motivated along each interactive step. This would allow numbers to become more relevant as you can understand each person's journey and where followers are lost. 

I think this article definitely hinges on the focus that strategies are so crucial to achieve goals. Also, i definitely agree that hard work pays off. A prospective customer, follower, or fan can tell when a company wants to interact with them. Hitting like on facebook doesn't necessarily mean that you are doing well. You need to get me to subscribe to a newsletter or read news about your company. Keep them on my mind so i spread the word to my friends. Social media has so much potential and companies need to capitalize on it while they can. Who knows what is right around the corner?

Social Media Marketing Consultation

This week, I read an article entitled Never Mind PCs, Dell is Getting Into Social Media Consulting on Mashable. Interestingly enough, Dell has tried to help boost its revenue by exploiting the increased margins that services prodive. Many other companies like Oracle have already started to acquire social media marketing firms. This transition leaves Dell optimistic about its future growth and profit.

I think the article definitely illustrates how social media is allowing companies to expand and consider new fields or services that can be valuable to consumers. For example, Clemson and the American Red across have recently used the consulting by Dell. It definitely strays from the original hardware that Dell is known for, but potentially it could help turn the company around. Also, I think it is kind of ironic based on the poor reputation that Dell gained via social media in the past. Maybe it is a poor decision?

Overall, social media marketing is a rapidly growing field for most companies and Dell could be a pioneer in providing their expertise to companies. The real question is... Are they experienced enough or providing value? I personally think that this project could help Dell, since their hardware is not providing the company with the desired numbers. As a result,  I look forward to being about to find out more about this service opportunity for Dell and how other competitors compare.