Future Implications of Social Media

The use of social media has exploded in recent history with the big players  like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest being integrated into everyday life for the majority of the planet.  Companies have been able to utilize social media to connect with their customers on a level that was never before available with real time “face to face” communications.  The brands that have embraced social media as a major factor in their marketing strategy have taken a leap ahead of their competitors who have not.

Being an early adopter requires a company to constantly evolve and adjust their tactics to keep up with emerging social media.  Pinterest seemingly took off overnight and garnered a huge user base and brands that were able to utilize Pinterest for their product were one step ahead of the competition.  With new apps, services and platforms being introduced to the market daily there is a wealth of effective ways to communicate with your customers but also a large number of them will not succeed.  The ability to know which developing social media outlets will prove beneficial as well as being able to successfully utilize them for their brand is a skill that all companies will need to learn master to succeed.

Viral Marketing Initiatives

What do you think makes a marketing initiative go viral? Write a blog post around your choice of top five characteristics of a viral campaign (your opinion).

Having your marketing campaign go viral can be an instant ticket to success these days but it doesn’t just happen for no reason … ok sometimes it does and those are the gems that you need to look out for however there are a few characteristics that can work together to help garner that elusive “gone viral” title.

Content – Content is King!  Without quality content that people are genuinely interested in you will have a tough time getting “everyone” to share it.  The key to content is that people want to feel the need to tell everyone in their social feeds that this is something you have to see.  Some people think their BLT is something that the world needs to see but unless that BLT is jumping over a speeding Aston Martin then I don’t think I need to see it.

Humor – When you have a humorous video or post there is a better chance that it will be shared amongst friends and throughout social media outlets.  I can count how many times people have sent me links and said “hey check out this video, it’s horrible and your day will only get worse after having watched it”  That number thankfully is 0!  You can get lost in the rabbit hole spending time on website like CollegeHumor or FunnyOrDie and if you can capture the attention of viewers with funny content then its off to the races.

Originality – The funniest content in the world will sink like a rock if it’s been done before.  You need your content to be original and something that no one has ever seen.  Although it is not intended to be humorous by the poster, Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday was an overnight explosion due to its . . . uniqueness?  Just the third video on his YouTube channel posted 6 years ago, Chocolate Rain was different enough to get the world to say “you HAVE to hear this song” and 93 million views later you could say it was a viral success.

Excitement – Viewers need to feel excited about your content or they will move onto the next best thing.  The Red Bull Stratos freefall jump with Felix Baumgartner was an event like no other.  Jumping from the edge of space and freefalling to Earth all while the entire planet watched was just the thing to get eye glued to the monitors.

Sharing – The ability to spread the funny, original and exciting content that you’ve created is the single most important mechanic for your marketing initiative.  Creating content that is easily shared across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media outlets is integral to it going viral.  One person shows two people, who show four people, and one of those 4 people shows their 300,000 twitter followers and the sharing pushes your content out faster than you could ever do yourself.  Soon enough it will reach Kevin Bacon’s doorstep in no time flat!

There are the flukes out there that go viral with absolutely no planning such as Charlie Bit My Finger which is just a pair of kids chewing on each other which garnered 535 million views  then there are staged viral videos like the Gillette commercial where Evan Longoria bare hand catches a ball before it hits a reporter.
Either way if you want to go viral and have it be in a positive way the 5 characteristics listed above are a great starting point when you want to infect the internet with your content.

 

 

References

http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/viral-principles/

http://mashable.com/2013/07/09/jonah-berger-viral-content/

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/viral-marketing-cheatsheet/?wide=1

http://www.t2social.com/social-media-case-study-old-spice/#sthash.rRUOcULw.2gBKKRQi.dpbs

Differentiation

Recently a wave of frozen yogurt dealers setup shop in Rhode Island.  Yes I am calling them dealers because this stuff is addicting!  Pinkberry moved in just over a year ago and Orange Leaf has just opened up more recently.  Although Pinkberry got their hooks into me early I want to just to step back and compare the social media presence of both companies to see which would be most effective in enticing an unknowingly future froyo addict into their grasp.

Pinkberry utilizes four of the big social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram.  Starting at their Facebook page which boasts over half a million “likes” which is littered with images of their yogurt in all configurations to try and catch the eye of everyone with a different taste palette.   Each post has anywhere between a few thousand likes and tens to thousands of comments.  This shows they have active followers consistently watching their Facebook activity,

The Pinkberry Twitter feed highlights many of the same images in hotlinks as well as promotions for events and new products.  With just over 46,000 followers the posts are not re tweeted very much so it does not have the same “sharability” as their Facebook posts.

Pinkberry recently ran a promotion with Foursquare and Twitter as people would check into Pinkberry locations with Foursquare and then tweet their location.  The city with the most check ins got Pinkberry gift cards which combined the user base for two social media outlets for cross promotion.

Orange Leaf also takes advantage of the same major social media sites.  One thing that stands out is that they may not have secured “Orange Leaf” for some of the sites as they use the moniker of “MyOrangeLeaf” for their @ Twitter handle as well as their Instagram feed.  Maybe a certain Laura V’s single post as @orangeleaf back in 2009 of “having breakfast and browsing on the internet” was too much for the company to try and follow up!  The other option is they named the sites to match their My Orange Leaf program and if that is the case they are building brand unity across all mediums even if it may take someone a few extra clicks to find them.

Orange Leaf’s Twitter feed is a little more one on one as they are responding directly to a lot of their 9,700 followers.  This gives a more personalized feel to the feed as they are communicating directly with their customer base.  Similar to their Facebook page, the Orange Leaf Twitter page sports info on all of their other social media links giving viewers all of their information within reach.

One thing that both companies have are mobile apps for Android phones and iPhones.   They can be used to locate the nearest store, show what flavors are available and even track your rewards card status for your Pinkberry card and Orange Leaf Ounce Back programs.  Seeing the major increase in mobile phone usage in the United States it is an easy choice to create an application that yogurt fans can have on them at all times to get updates on new flavors or find a new store when they are out.

Overall both Pinkberry and Orange Leaf are utilizing their social media outlets in effective ways but each of them seems to be hitting certain aspects differently.  Pinkberry uses catchy one liners to draw attention to their Twitter whereas Orange Leaf  spends more time communicating back to their followers.  Pinkberry is more established and had a three year head start on Orange Leaf so they are in a better position to maintain their current customer base as well as grow it.  Orange Leaf is looking to expand their footprint as they focus their store on being a fun experience and their social media portrays this with family photos and children running through the stores.  If pure numbers  determine who is mnor successful, Pinkberry has more eyes on their social media accounts as Facebook has half a million likes which is a six to one ratio and their Twitter has a five to one ratio of followers compared to Orange Leaf’s 9,200 followers.

Pinkberry and Orange Leaf both push a great product and they use similar tools with somewhat different approaches to get more people into their stores.  The main goal is to get as much froyo into as many faces as possible and they both are leveraging social media to their advantage to do just that.

The Timeline of Social Media Communities

Virtual communities in the social media landscape will be ever evolving to the point where it is inevitably integrated into the lives of everyone in the modern world.  Looking at the massive growth of Facebook in the recent past shows how the world is ready to be globally connected with information and communication literally at their fingertips.  Websites like Twitter have taken personal communication and made it so minimal to the point where you are restricted to a handful of words or short sentences to get your point out to the world.  Initially skeptics thought this tactic would prove detrimental for Twitter but users proved that the short bursts of information is what they want to send and receive while on the go.

Looking at how today’s social media outlets have evolved and made updates to what they think their user base would find useful, or sometimes in Facebook’s case making changes that the majority of users do not want or like but are forced to use anyway, we can see where these virtual communities are heading.  These social media communities are bound to be an amalgamation of each other and as time passes on they will take each others features and adopt, assimilate or appropriate them into one another and the world will move on communicating even faster.

Being the largest we can see a few trends for virtual communities being developed from Facebook as they added a streaming ticker of friend updates similar to a Twitter feed and recently bought Instagram for a small sum of one billion dollars which already had a built in community for photo sharing.  Instagram now gets absorbed into Facebook and the two communities are linked and maybe one day the features are completely merged into one entity… “Facebooktwittstagram” ?

It is easy to see that the world’s traditional forms of communication are either evolving or dying as we become a global community with more means of easy communication.  This newly forming global community isn’t going to get a cup of coffee with each other but could be on different sides of the planet doing completely different things while they are communicating.  Social media has built new communities based on both small personal bursts of information and widespread communications that anyone in the world can see.

Being able to carry a five  ounce device that can call your next door neighbor or document the movement of a military coup in a war torn country gives anyone on the planet the ability to spread their message to anyone who wants to listen.  The ability to hear someones message from the other side of the globe the very instant that they post it is the amazing ability that these new virtual communities are giving to us.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Likes

A local business in Rhode Island that has managed to successfully take their company into the realm of Social Media Marketing is Heidi Hope Photography.

We first worked with Heidi Gerard from Heidi Hope for a maternity shoot before our son was born but the best part was just 11 days after he was born he had his first professional photo shoot.  Curled up in a ball or hanging (safely) from a tree limb, either way the shots were amazing.  Then came his most recent shoot with Heidi in February of this year with him looking all grown up and on the move and even posing with a canvas from his first shoot that Heidi has hanging in her studio!

Heidi Hope’s Facebook page was a means of displaying previews of sessions like the one above which act as springboards for conversation about the pictures as people post comments.  Facebook posts also linked to Heidi’s Blog which would feature a few images from the customers session as a preview (click either image to view ours).  In the past if you got fifteen or more comments on your blog preview you got a free print which is a great way to motivate your customers to bring people to your site that normally would not see it such as family and friends.  Word of mouth is a very powerful tool with Social Media and every new person you get on your site opens a door to potential new followers and customers.

Since we started going to Heidi over two years ago she has successfully grown her business and aside from her stunning photography of course, Social Media has played a big role in that growth. Today Heidi Hope Photography uses their Facebook page as well as their Twitter account to post previews as well as updates of upcoming sessions for booking as well as news updates about the company.  Heidi also uses Pinterest as her images are exactly the type of media that stands out on Pinterest as they catch your attention even on a screen full of pinned topics.

In a time that Social Media is becoming a primary means of communication for a large majority of the planet, companies must find a way to adapt to the new forms of digital communications or fall behind as the world advances.  Heidi Hope Photography has embraced these new Social Media tools and been able to expertly manage them to share her work with a much broader audience than has ever been possible before.

(all images copyright of Heidi Hope Photography)

The Pulse of Mobile News

Pulse News is an application from  that “takes your favorite websites and transforms them into a colorful and interactive mosaic” which allows you to read those sites anywhere you are via your mobile device. Pulse is available for iPhone and iPad, Android, Kindle Fire and Nook and on the Android Play market has more than 5,000,000 downloads.

It is easy to load Pulse up with your favorite sites by either selecting a pre built category from gaming and technology, food and fashion, music and entertainment or sports and science.  This will build you a page of sites that fall into that category or you can manually select some featured sources or add a specific site not listed by plugging in a keyword or even a direct url/rss feed address.

Those sites will then show together and can be scrolled up and down between them and scrolling left and right on a specific site will allow you to view older and newer news stories.

Tapping one of the stories on the left seen below would expand it into a view that you see on the right and you can read a bit of the story to see if it interests you. If it does there is a link to go directly to that site and read the full article or you can simply click the back button to browse more news.  Stories can be saved for reading later with apps like Instapaper and Evernote or they can be shared directly on Facebook and Twitter.

The ease and simplicity of navigating pulse is only amplified by the minimalism of the user interface.  This allows several stories to be seen with a header block image and title and expanding article gives way to more information and graphics which is a very sleek and effective layout.

Pulse News brings the stories to your pocket in a time where people can’t slow down long enough to sit in front of the television for the six o’clock news to tell them what is happening in the world.

“The Social Spiderweb” – Streaming The Dancefloor

The music industry has gone through some major changes in recent history which has caused the world to evolve in the way it listens to music.  No longer are people going to record stores to purchase a cd to take home and play in their stereo, now you instantly download a song from an outlet like iTunes or Google Play to listen on your phone, computer or home media center.

While I am at work I listen to several different streaming music sites for techno, house, trance etc (keeps me motivated throughout the day) and Ive noticed a trend between them all.  Since traditional means are no longer effective to distribute music, a vast “Social Spiderweb” of interconnected media outlets are used by musicians and DJs to get their music out to the masses today.  Below is an example of one DJ I listen to, “3lau” (pronounced blau) and the list of links on his different sites that he uses to promote himself.

3lau resident DJ @ Frat Music.com: Links on site – 3lau.com Facebook Twitter Youtube Soundcloud

3lau.com : Links on site – Facebook Twitter Youtube Soundcloud

Facebook: Links on site – Youtube

Twitter: Links on site – Facebook

Youtube: Links on site – 3lau.com

Soundcloud: Links on site – 3lau.com Facebook Twitter Songkick Youtube

Essentially if you Google 3lau and end up on any one of his above sites you can re direct yourself to almost every single outlet that he uses to promote his music.  This is a strategy that some musicians are using and it is working for those that normally would not have the means to get a record contract or the type of exposure needed to simply be self sustaining or even make a profit at what they love to do.

I’m sure the record companies are not thrilled by getting cut out of the deal as the traditional middleman and are fighting tooth and nail to hold onto any shred of the monopoly they used to control.  Then you consider the new possibilities that people like Justin Blau have access to seeing that he is just 21 and a junior in college but has been able to propel himself into the spotlight thanks to the help of the “Social Spiderweb”

Social Media Tools

So there is this new thing that just came out called social media, most people don’t know about it yet but I think it might have some potential!
Since about 3 out of every 2 people* use Facebook and they are a larger community than many countries on this planet Social Media is hardly something that can be ignored and it has been changing the way that people communicate in our world.

Taking a look at a few of the more prominent Social Media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter we can see they are used in many ways by many people.  Originally built as a type of student database for colleges, Facebook has become a primary means of communication for individuals.  More recently Facebook has become a point of contact and information distribution for companies reaching out to their current consumers and potential customers.  Becoming “friends” on Facebook is a two way street where both parties need to agree to want to view each others pages and updates but you can also “Like” a page to get their posts on your wall to stay informed.

Twitter on the other hand is a one way street, you “follow” an account and without them having to accept your follow, anything they post is automatically updated on your wall so you have a constant stream of information from friends, celebrities, companies and more.  You can directly communicate with others on Twitter but the majority of communication is public and open to all who want to follow it.  It is a great means of gathering information from outlets that you would normally not have access to directly communicate with like your favorite artists or highly influential individuals in your respective field of work.

Other Social Media outlets I listed are LinkedIn and StumbleUpon.  LinkedIn is basically a business networking site where you request connections similar to Facebook and when they accept you have access to view their work information as well as any contacts that you both may have in common.  StumbleUpon is a website that you select topics that you have interest in from art and archaeology to physics and programming and everything in between and the site randomly shows you a website related to one of your interests.  You can like or dislike the page and StumbleUpon will use that feedback to determine what to show you next.

Below is a simple summary of the Social Media Outlets listed above for those that don’t like the tedious work of reading (although if you’re reading this I guess its too late HAHA!)

*Van Balen, Devin. (2012, April 21). How to make up stats on the spot . Retrieved April 21, 2012, from ww.MakingUpFactsWithDevin.com

Social Media Tools	Focus	Application	Primary User	Content
Facebook Consumer	Interpersonal communication	Communicating with friends and seeing each others posts	All individuals from young to old	Posted by user for Friends to see
Facebook Business	Business promotion	Communication with customers	Marketing rep	Advertising and promotional information
Twitter Consumer	Brief group or individual communication	Posting short announcements to all followers	All individuals both young and old	Personal posts and feeds  from those being followed
Twitter Business	Brief business promotion or customer communication	Posting short announcements to consumers / followers	Marketing rep community managers or celebrities	Posts to consumers and from consumers
Linked-In	Business networking	Networking with contacts from past or current places of employment	Anyone in job field looking for networking or employment	Networking posts from friends and informational updates of certain fields
StumbleUpon	Informational feed of websites	Finding sites based on previously selected interests	Anyone looking for sites they do not already know about for selected topics	Informational feeds from sites via selected interests