True Beauty

      Dove's mission is, "imagine a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety." Recently, Dove has launched a campaign called Dove Real Beauty Sketches. This is a video where an "average" looking women sit with a sketch artist with a curtain separating them. The women do not know what is happening. The sketch artist is asking questions about their appearance and begins to draw the women based on the descriptions provided. Then another sketch is drawn by the same artist of the same person but this time based on what another person who just met the person described. Finally, the two sketches of the same person are shown side by side. The sketch in which another person who just met the person being sketched truly looked like the woman being sketched. The video ends with the phrase "You are more beautiful than you think." This coincides with Doves mission of natural beauty and self esteem. Dove had a lot of activity with this video, with 26,717,985 views on YouTube. The amazing part was that Dove did not mention their product or name at all during the video. The brand logo was shown in the last second of the video. Dove does not push content but wants consumers to engage with their advertisements. For instance, on Facebook focuses more on the mission by having comforting and supporting comments that engage consumers. Dove's Facebook page has 13,690,443 likes and 301,899 people talking about this. They posts twice daily. I would recommend Dove to continue what they are doing with their social media platforms but also make a Pinterest profile. Doves demographic is 1 man to every 2.67 women buyers. Therefore, it is smart for Dove to make a Pinterest profile since Pinterest has five times more women utilizing Pinterest  compare to men. Also, there are 48.7 million users on Pinterest.

Harlem Shake

         The Harlem Shake has recently gotten popular, not just in the United States but worldwide. The Harlem Shake is a form of a video, where a group of people dance a comedy sketch accompanied by the "Harlem Shake" song. There are thousands of "Harlem Shake" videos on YouTube. There are videos from all across the world like Tunisia, Egypt, Japan, etc.

         Advertisers have really ran with this video concept that can have the potential of going viral. Hot Pockets, Pepsi, Red Bull, and many more brands have Harlem Shake videos. Why are brands exactly taking part of this? One reason is that brands are under a lot of pressure to have 24/7 trending ideas. Just like Oreo, for instance, did the quick twitter response during the blackout on the Super Bowl. After this case, brands have been emulating the 24/7 social marketing response time.

         In 2012, the phase was "Call Me Maybe Videos," and now "Harlem Shake." What do you think the next phase will be? Also, what do you think about this 24/7 social marketing response time?

#DWTS

           Dancing With The Stars, is one show compared to few others that actually does social media right. During the show, the announcer reminds the audience to be active on their social platforms and states which hashtags to use. It did not surprise me that the official DWTS Twitter website has 283,979 followers and 444 people following. In addition, DWTS has 4,416 tweets. There is a lot of activity on the page, where performers are connecting with their followers on the same platform.  Last night on April 2nd, it was the results episode of who would leave the competition. The themed dance the judges critiqued was Prom Night. The dancers who had the most tweets on Twitter would be safe from elimination. Another perk was that the two top dancers would be crowned as Prom King and Prom Queen. Zandaya and  Jacoby were crowned last night. What else do you think DWTS should do to engage more people and receive more activity from their audiences?

Protect your Social Media Platform

              On Monday, February 18th, Burger King's Twitter account was hacked. The hacker changed the appearance of the platform where the Burger King name was replaced to McDonalds and the background contained images of Fish McBites. Indeed, it surly was a comedic hacker. The hacker than sent out funny retweets to many Burger King followers. It took almost a whole hour for Burger King to regain control to their Twitter site. In order for a company to not fall in the same fate as Burger King and many other companies in the past, here are a few tips. First, have a password that is not your cat's name or personal detail. Instead, have a password that is hard to predict, like the first letter of a song lyric. Another tip is to centralize the social media channels. In order to receive full control is by consolidating all the social media accounts under one single social media management system. Next, is to authorize who can post messages. Do not give the key accounts to entry-level employees or interns. Lastly, offer social media education to inform employees.

More Madness to March

       It is that time of year again, the NCAA men's basketball tournament tipped off this Thursday, March 21st. Social media, particularly Twitter, has changed the way we watch the basketball tournament. Twitter has you covered if you missed out on the basketball game. The official March Madness Twitter account, @marchmadness has scores posted, photos, and much more. In addition, Twitter is posting 15-second videos of big plays that had just occurred. Twitter partnered with Turner Broadcasting and Snappy TV, coming up with the short video replays. You can check out the videos using your phone, tablets, and even PCs. Mobile news consumption is on the rise. What new innovation do they have coming up next ? Do you believe video promotion is where the ad dollars are?

Tweet Tweet

              One of the fastest growing social platforms is Twitter. It has grown tremendously from the second quarter to fourth quarter of 2012. It has increased 40% during that period. In addition, Twitter has 21% of the global internet population. The number one position is Hong Kong and United States is in second for the increased usage rate of twitter. Other countries that are utilizing this social platform include Italy, China, South Korea, etc. Moreover, a fun fact about Twitter is that the fastest growing demographic are over 55 years old!

              Twitter can help or damage your companies brand. There are a few companies in particular that I believe do a successful job with their Twitter. American Airline had a small focus on a large campaign called "Deal 30".  This was a way to attract new Twitter followers. The end result was retweets on Twitter increased 43% and there were about 27,000 entries. Another example is UNICEF India. They utilized an Indian actress's, Priyanka Chopra, tweet about supporting the organization on their Twitter Page.  This resulted in 1,525 mentions.

Grammys#

                    The Grammys are just one day in a year. How does one create excitement and buzz throughout the year? Evan Greene, the Recording Academy's chief marketing officer, was getting ready for the one day event, airing on February 10th. People's attention span are short and that is the biggest challenge for Evan Greene. He seeks to keep the conversation going throughout the year. In order to do so, the foundation of a community needs to be created. Therefore, when it's time for the Grammy there is already an active community with active conversations.

                   Grammy's social reach has grown tremendously since 2009. On January 2009, on twitter there were 829 followers, on Facebook 478 fans, and on YouTube 14,548 views. More recently, on December 2012, there were 542,199 followers, 809,707 likes on Facebook, 975,738 followers on Google+, 72,640 followers on Instagram, 22,482, 068 views on Youtube, 3,248 followers on Tumblr, and 1,635 followers on Pinterest. Therefore, social media plays a pivotal role with the Grammy's. I believe  next year the numbers will grow even more, especially the new social media sites like Tumblr and Pinterest.

Super Bowl Ads

                         The Super Bowl is like the Grammy's for advertising companies.  Companies spend millions and millions of dollars for these 30 second ads that might not even make any contribution to sales or brand awareness. Have advertising companies finally realized that maybe the Super Bowl is not the grand central place to spend majority of their budget?
                         Oreo twitted a post on Twitter immediately after the Super Bowl's black out. The ad was saying "Power is out? Don't worry. You can still dunk in the dark." This tweet was re-tweeted over 10,000 times within an hour! This exposure was so fast and went viral so quickly. Now this is the new advertisement that doesn't cost much and can instantly attract numerous people at a short amount of time. Calvin Klein and Walgreens also used twitter to advertise during the Super Bowl.    
                       Will social media replace Super Bowl ads? I say no. But companies are now thinking twice of where they want to invest their money into. Super Bowl may have at one time been the prime way to target your audiences. Now companies are venturing into different avenues that directly attract their audiences and less costly. Advertising companies are becoming more wiser with their money.  

11 inch Footlong?

           It all started with a teenage boy, Matt Corby from Perth, Australia, who started the Subway Footlong controversy. Before eating his footlong sub, he took out a measuring tape and wanted to confirm that his sub was truly 12 inches. However, he discovered that his sub was one inch less of a foot. He posted the photo on Subway's Australia Facebook page and quickly got over 100,000 likes. Now all across the world people were measuring their subs and expressing their thoughts on being cheated by the false advertisement. There were many lawsuits being filed by angry customers.  Subway Australia posted on Facebook that the "Footlong" is just a creative license and doesn't designate measurement. That "Subway Footlong" is merely a trademark as a descriptive name not for measurement of length and that the fresh bread may not always be assured of the length.
           If this incident happened 10 years ago, it would not be such a big deal because it would not have the ability to attract so many people. It most likely would have just stayed in Matt's neighborhood. Instead, because of social media the word did not just spread in Australia but all across the world in the speed of light. There were so many angry customers, Subway had to do something. Social media plays a pivotal role now in our lives. Social media gives power to the consumers that they never had before. People can voice there opinions.

One Pound Fish Around the World

              Social media is everywhere. There is no point of ignoring it or hiding from it. Either it will come and taunt you or it can seriously destroy your business. Therefore, you better not ignore it! Whoever said old is gold was definitely not referring to social media. The new is the new gold. I wish I could come up with a better phrase. But it is true. Social media has evolved through many means. From email, AOL, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest , and so on have significantly changed peoples’ lives. These are the medias in which it contributed to our technology era. Without them it would be hard to survive. For instance, if I were to open up a bakery shop in Athens, GA, what ways could I attract customers? I could have a big plastered sign in front of my business saying now open. Or I could pass out flyers at the corner of my store. These methods would bring in some customers. A way to bring awareness to many customers is you guessed it social media! I could easily type on my Facebook status for others to come eat dessert at my newly opened bakery. The best part is it only took 5 seconds of my time, didn’t cost me anything, and the results of getting people’s attention is way better. I would highly recommend that if you are a business owner and are not active with social media. I would seriously rethink your marketing tactics. So get on the bandwagon buggy and get with it. 

 

               One recent example of how social media can make a person and his/her business popular instantly is the One Pound Fish song. Muhammad Shahid Nazir is a thirty-one year old Pakistani fishmonger in London's Upton Park. His boss asked him to attract attention to his sale of fish (one per British pound). So Nazir made a very catchy song to attract customers to buy the one pound fish. A customer recorded Nazir's performance on Youtube and from then on Nazir has become a celebrity. His Youtube video went viral and attracted millions of viewers, he got a record deal, appeared on Pakistani channels, and went to twenty-nine on the British pop charts. His overnight-fame demonstrated how powerful social media can be. If you type, “One Pound Fish” on Google the first result is Nazir's song. He has made a digital footprint on Google so quickly. His goal now is to do a song release in France. Therefore, social media is something not to take lightheartedly but take it into serious consideration for your business. You never know you could be the next sensation after One Pound Fish!