Anissa Zamaro

CSULA student trying to make it in the real world with a blog about marketing

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Getting Rid of Photoshop Leads to Sales Increase

Aerie, a lingerie brand from American Eagle, launched a campaign back in 2014 where they would no longer photoshop their advertisements  to “challenge supermodel standards.” To have images of models unairbrushed is almost unheard of in the fashion industry, especially in lingerie. This ad campaign was ground breaking and paid off for them.

Since becoming a champion of body positivity in 2014 the company has seen their sales grow 20 percent by the end of the fiscal year of 2015. And there seems to be no stopping to this sales increase. For the first quarter of this year Aerie’s sales rose 32 percent, this greatly surpasses what their analysts figured.

Aerie decided to forgo airbrushing images when looking at “what’s happening today with millennials and the next generation,” explains President Jennifer Foyle, “and we really felt like girls today are just more independent and stronger than ever. We just knew that it would really resonate with this generation.” So they launched their campaign with a great hashtag, #AerieReal.

#AerieReal has been used in their print ads as well as on their social media platform accounts. The campaign features women of all ethnicities and body types, they are not the typical model type. All of the women have a girl next door look. Aerie has women that we see as our friends, the women we see and interact with in our everyday lives. These are real everyday women. When women view their ads they can see themselves in the place of the model.  This really resonates with women today with the increasing movements of body acceptance. Today’s generation is increasingly rejecting the mainstream ideals of what is beautiful.

Aerie has great posts on Instagram that at all times tie in the idea that they are real. All posts have #AerieReal incorporated directly in the caption sentence or at least just as a regular hashtag.  Instagram posts are all about showing the real you, they say “Why retouch beauty? The real you is sexy.”  Their social media posts focus on body positivity and welcome followers using their hashtag. They even use some of those posts on their own accounts. 

With their #AerieReal campaign they have seen much positive feedback on social media.

I’m completely OBSESSED with this whole #AerieREAL from @Aerie! Let’s continue to lift each other up and be PROUD of our bodies! 💪🏼👙

— Stephanie (@sweetsmileSTEPH)

May 17, 2016

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Is Anything Private These Days?

Social media has become so immersed in our daily lives with people documenting almost every little and big event in their lives. The lines between private and public moments is becoming so blurred that for some it does not exist anymore. An ever increasing number of people are posting their private milestones for all the public to see. And this includes the life changing experience of having a baby.

Just over a week ago a husband, Kali Kanongata'a, from California live streamed his wife, Sarah Dome,  giving birth to their son on Facebook for all the world to see. The whole video lasts forty five minutes and in one hour garnered 2000 views. In total the video has racked up more than 120,000 views to date. But at the time the man did not know he was sharing the birth with the rest of the world, he thought he was just sharing it to his family and friends. He had mainly shared the video so that family members in Tonga could be a part of the moment. He did not know it went out to everyone else until he saw the viewer count on the video and thought about ending the live stream but then decided to just keep going with it.

The video has seen its share of criticism, or perhaps cynicism, and many saying that the live stream of a birth is an overshare. But Kanongata’a explained, “There’s a lot of negative stuff on Facebook and so I thought this would be positive, I figured as long as I kept it PG- this is a birth- it’s something to be happy about.” Where he is from in Tonga they would have “water births in public…our culture has done this for thousands of years.”

Personally I would never want any childbirth of mine to be put out there for the rest of the world to see nor would I want to view a live stream of another person giving birth, but that’s just me. I think it is a little weird that this man live streamed the birth when finding out about his cultural background it makes sense. He is from a culture where births take place openly in a community, so when you are far from that community sharing it with them via social media seems like the next best thing.  To each his own. Everyone has their own thoughts and limits on what they want to share and what they  choose to keep private.

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A Match Made in NFL Fan Heaven

The NFL made a deal with Google that will have NFL news and video show up in Google’s search results. This will make it so that when you search a specific team, video, information and news about that team will show up in a “box at the top of the search results” which will also include game start times and what channel the game will air on. The Senior Vice President of the NFL said that this “will make it easier than ever for the millions of highly engaged avid and casual fans on YouTube and Google to discover and access an even greater variety of some of the most valuable content in the sports and entertainment business.”

Also part of this deal will be increased footage on the official NFL YouTube channel. For each of the leagues teams, a  total of 32, they will add three “memorable games” and highlights during a game in progress. This is sure to make fans happier.

In just one year since the launch of the NFL’s YouTube channel, they have garnered 900 million views of their videos.  So this new deal is a smart move for the NFL and will only get them more views and strengthen relationships with their fans. The highlights from games in progress will be in addition to the game previews, post-game recaps, and NFL related content that the NFL already has on its channel.

The NFL really understands the importance of using social media. They have recently made a deal with Twitter. The NFL’s deal gives Twitter the exclusive streaming rights of a total of 10 Thursday night football games during the upcoming season. This allows people across the world to view these games for free which will expand the NFL’s reach and gain them more fans outside the US. They don’t even have to be actual users of Twitter since the games can be viewed without logging in to the social network.  In addition they will tweet in game highlights. Also the NFL  has their teams and players use Periscope. The content that will be seen on Periscope will be pre game live streams.

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Facebook’s Trending Topics Artificially Created

This week the Guardian did a report on the actual way Facebook's trending topics come to be. They also published a 21 pages of Facebook documents that had been leaked detailing the guidelines for their news editors. This even included ways that they could "inject" articles into the Trending Topics. Facebook has responded in saying that these are old guidelines and released their current guidelines, although parts had been redacted. The social network site also had a blog post on the "editorial process works." This news is sure to change views on the validity of trending topics, not only for Facebook in the future but for other social networks. 

On Facebook trending topics are described as topics that are currently popular on the site. No where do they say that any humans are involved in the creation. But why would they? That would only lead to users questioning if the topics were actually trending or just what Facebook wants or possibly brands paying to be trending. Users may no longer see any value in them. 

What makes this news even more controversial for Facebook is that just days earlier Facebook Vice President said that " we do not insert stories artificially into trending topics, and do not instruct our reviewers to do so.” He couldn't have imagined that documents telling editors how to do exactly that would come to light in a matter of days. This just leads to users and the media taking what Facebook says with a grain of sand, their has been continuous weakening of trust.

So what's the big deal? Any news platform has editors that decide what is worth writing about, that curate and form public opinion on what is news worthy. However, they are upfront about who these people are and what their job is.  Facebook isn't however and that is the core of the conversation. Not telling users they have editors that refine trending topics is why this is seen as a problem. They could at least be upfront about it.

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What actually changed with Instagram that no one noticed

How can we end this week without talking about the new Instagram logo that has everybody up in arms. I myself prefer the original, the new one loses the charm and seems basic. And when people are upset they must express their outrage on Twitter and start to petitions to change the logo back. But perhaps the logo change was just a distraction from the othe changes they made. 

Instagram pulled a bait and switch and began to roll out their new algorithm change to some user feeds the very same day of the logo change.  The very same algorithm change they proposed in March that made everyone, particularly brands and influencers, fearful and calling for Instagram to keep things the same. At that time their CEO promised they would "take it slow and not make any unannounced changes" but I guess they decided not to follow that directive and use this new logo to test things out under the radar. An Instagram spokesman said that the company has been testing out an algorithm with some users but that it wasn't done in correlation with their new logo.

If Instagram does decide to implement the algorithmic feed many brands and influencers will need to figure out how it will affect the way they reach their audience. This will lead to a drop in the value of their social capital. This algorithmic feed may also lead to further monetization for Instagram. They may charge influencers and brands to boost their posts.

A quick tip for if the new algorithmic feed comes to fruition is to go back and view your Instagram pics with the most likes and levels of engagement. These would be the types of posts that would work with the algorithm.  

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Livestreaming is coming

Livestreaming is the next big thing in social media so marketers need to be ready and get ahead of the rest. They do not want to be the last to the table when it comes to livestreaming because this is the future of social media.  So here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Viewers value exclusivity- The content being streamed needs to be rare, useful or exclusive

2. Try new things and be patient- You have to experiment before you find what clicks with your viewers, as long as you learn from your mistakes

3. Get to know your channels- There are many options for brands to use- such as YouTube, Facebook Live, Kanvas, and Periscope- so you have to know what channel will work best for your brand. Some marketing activities you want to put on all your channels others on just one platform.

4. Authenticity is key- This is what makes or breaks any social media account. Users will see through “branded phoniness” in a heart beat

5. Influencers needed- Capitalize on livestreaming stars to grow your brand’s reach and push your message. At this point in time livestreaming users are not going to branded channels, so these stars can increase your reach and help to build your audience

6. Podcasting and talk radio count too- It’s not all about digital, podcasting offers its own opportunities and alternatives. Good content is what users look for and they will support those brands that help that “content exist.”

7. Events 2.0- Livestreaming as an experience is where it counts to spend for events marketers. This takes things to a new level when those who are not able to make it to a brand event now can through the digital realm.

adweek.it/1OfnLeo

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Depression Over False Reality

Social media platforms were created with the idea of connecting people by creating communities  but it seems to be causing more problems than it is worth. A new study coming out of Britain says that 20% of users of social media have depression. That 20% amounts to 6.9 million people who feel the weight of keeping up a certain image with their followers. Users might not even realize that viewing social media maybe causing their depression but only that they feel worse after having viewed their “friends’” posts. Then these people have feelings of guilt if they are somewhat resentful for others’ achievements.

Here are a few not so surprising findings to me from the people surveyed.

 25% of users won’t upload a picture if they look ugly in it

1/3 of users surveyed feel they have to “like” statuses of friends even if they don’t really like it

 Almost 25% of people feel they have to accept coworkers friend requests

25% of users have had arguments with other users on social media

 For me I think that actually more than those numbers of people feel all of those things. Almost everyone I know will take multiple pictures until they feel they have one that they look good in and if not they just won’t post anything. I know I have been guilty of this. You constantly hear people saying to their friends, “ don’t post that pic unless I look good in it.”

But those that are depressed, and really all users of social media, should realize that what is put on social media is not actually the full reality of a person’s life, it is merely a persona that they create so others see them positively. What you see of others on social media is really the best aspects of their life. For every perfect Instagram picture from your favorite celebrity they probably took 100 others that ended up being discarded.

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Social media and depression

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Snapchat kills?

Why do people feel that it is ok to snap and drive?  Or maybe the better question is why do they feel a need to post on Snapchat while driving? Personally I do not get it. I know I get upset whenever I see any of my friends’ Snapchats where you can tell they are driving, especially on a freeway. Like do you really need everyone to know what song you are listening to or how fast you are going?

How do people even do this when it is so clearly dangerous? I believe that people do not think that it really is all that dangerous. Talking to friends they say it is easy and everyone else does it, how cliché can they be. The speed filter on Snapchat seems to be what is spurring most of this. So when an accident happens because someone was trying to Snapchat and drive at once, will Snapchat be seen as having any fault?

That is the question being brought by a new lawsuit. A man who suffers from permanent brain damage after being in accident where the driver who hit him was using the Snapchat speed filter while going almost 107mph is now suing the other driver as well as Snapchat. The driver who hit him in Georgia was an 18 year old girl, who is part of Snapchat’s primary demographic. She even Snapchatted the aftermath with a selfie of her bloody face on a stretcher in an ambulance. How strong is the validation impulse when you post mere moments after being in a horrific car crash that you caused?

So it remains, should Snapchat be put at any fault for this and future accidents? I mean they do have a warning message of “Do not Snap and Drive” that could potentially rid them of any fault, but let’s be honest nobody follows those warnings. The bigger question to be answered is whether the validation impulse among users is so great that it outweighs all the risks.  

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Social Media isn’t for every Business

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Snapchat over Everything

New digital marketing statistics have shown some interesting facts about social media usage.

Snapchat has kicked Instagram off its’ thrown of being teen users most important social media platform. Though they only beat them by 1% with teens from 14-19 saying they preferred Snapchat 28% compared to Instagrams 27%. I think Snapchat’s numbers will only grow from here as it becoming even more popular with teens and young adults. I myself just got a Snapchat a few months ago.

So with Snapchat and Instagram together being the most popular social media platforms among teens why is it that “ 85 cents of every dollar spent in online advertising will go to Google or Facebook.” Is the general population of all social media users using these platforms more? I get that companies would spend more money on Google because the search engine is how most people find things they are looking for. It’s surprising that only 15 cents of online advertising is spent on the other platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and Tumblr all together when these platforms seem more popular than Facebook. I guess it just depends on who companies’ customer target is.

Other stats included relate to mobile usage. Out of the 131,437 16-64 year olds 42% of Instagramers use a mobile device to access the platform, which make them the most mobile social network users. Desktop viewing is more popular than mobile for users of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.  For streaming music on Spotify they found that millenials which make up 72% of their listeners use a mobile device to listen less than the rest of the users with 62% to 67% respectively. I found this really surprising, I would have thought that millenials would use a mobile device more than other aged users.

Here are a few more interesting facts. In just the first quarter in ad tech and marketing there were 108 deals made in big companies acquiring “smaller digital players” which came to $2.4 billion. In 2016 its predicted that money spent on social advertising will increase to 18%. And that 78% of YouTube ads that are skippable showed growth in offline sales but only 61% of them had a “ ‘statistically significant’ increase in sales.” https://t.co/DHOiR9Quzn

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Are Websites Dead?

The reason I say this is because companies are moving in the direction of focusing on social media rather than their own websites more and more. Well this is true if they’re targeting a younger technologically savvy customer segment. Why put time and money into a website if that isn’t the primary way customers/followers access your company. Most people I know keep up with brands primarily through social media platforms. So are website homepages a thing of the past?

Take the March 2016 launch of Obsessee from LA based Clique Media Group. If you go to Obsessee.com all you will find is a plain webpage with just links to their social media accounts. The platforms include Spotify, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+ and Periscope. They have essentially reversed the strategy of digital publishers that have websites first that are then supported with social media activity.

So how do they do this? Obsessee has four people that focus on posting pictures, stories and videos on all of their social media platforms. The content they upload is of the ever popular lifestyle brand including beauty, shopping, fashion, food and home. They also have social media influencers take over their accounts. One of them is digital beauty editor from Allure Magazine,  Kristie Dash, who every Sunday  chronicles her morning to night activities on her take over of Obsessee’s Snapchat.

Obsessee is not the only one doing this. Popular launched on Instagram and Twitter in 2015 before their website and print publications. Insider, coming out of Business Insider, started on Instagram and Facebook gathering thousands of followers to lead to a website launch in May.  Lifestyle publication Sweet launched on Snapchat’s Discover feature.

I believe emerging businesses will follow this new strategy to launch ventures because to me it’s less risky and can save money: gain followers first, see what works and what doesn’t, see what can be improved. Why create a website or print publication if there is no one interested? 

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Getting Your Blog to the Masses

Today bloggers are a dime a dozen, which makes it tough to stand out. With so much content people rely on search engines to find blogs to follow. Because of this if you are a blogger you need to know SEO, at least the very basics.

1: Focus on Content Quality

Your blog should create “fresh, unique, high-quality content” which helps search engines rank you higher. This means your blog can’t have stuff that everyone else does. This will “also attract more traffic and incoming links” which in turn leads to higher rank as well.

2: Who is your audience

You have to know your audience and be able to predict and answer questions they have. Keyword research is so important and can make or break a blog.

3: Optimize titles

Your title must include a keyword and have that keyword in first few words of the title. Optimize titles for your readers; it has to be something that will make them want to read what you have to say.

4: Keyword Optimization

Use your main keywords in your first and last paragraphs. Everything in-between gives context that a search engine can find meaning from.

5: Internal Linking

In the body of a post use plug-ins from related posts to get readers to see previous posts and relevant content you have on your blog, this will help them find what they want. For popular content have images or links in the sidebars. A search engine can understand your blog more because of internal linking.

6: Inbound links

These are just links from other bogs to yours. What this does is tell a search engine that other bloggers like your blog and recommend it to their visitors because your blog contains valuable and quality content. The more you get the better your rank.

7: Internal SEO

The theme you’re using needs to be high quality with fast load time and no appearance problems that make it easy for search engines to scan your blog. Free themes don’t always have this.

8: Navigation

All navigation links from page to page should be direct routes that are working and marked clearly.

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Blogging necessities

Social media is becoming more entwined with business every day. A strong social media presence is a must now if you want to have a successful business. Any marketing strategy these days has to include marketing on a social media platform. Successful ones have accounts on at least a few different platforms. And blogging is becoming a crucial part for business’ to gain attention for their site, which more visits means a better ranking on Google. Blogging offers a way for businesses to share their message and connect directly to those that use and will potentially use their products or services.

If you want your business’ blog to work for you this is what you should do according to https://t.co/3oasNbrvPk

1.       Simply not having one or making one that you don’t keep up with. Blogging takes a lot of time and even research. I’ve just learned this in the last few weeks when starting this blog for a marketing class. A blog won’t give you overnight success so be patient and persistent.

2.       Don’t keep it all business sounding, it should be somewhat informal and personal.  It needs a personality. Basically it needs to be the human incarnation of your business.

3.       And please do not just keep shoving whatever your selling in our faces. I know I ignore blogs and posts from companies, celebrities, and even friends starting their own business when they nonstop post products they endorse or sell.

4.       Pictures are a must. I think this is the most important tip, personally if there is an image that really captures my attention I will look at it longer and read what goes with it. When there isn’t a pic or it’s something boring I will just move past it. This goes in hand with tip 3. Example above:  the pic subtly sells clothes and if I like it I will go to the site and possibly buy it

5.       Finally you have to keep track of the results on a consistent basis, because what’s the point if you don’t. You created a blog for a reason, you wanted to see something increase

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SEO, what does that even mean?

Honestly I had never even heard of SEO until maybe a month ago when I was being interviewed for a social media marketing internship when they were explaining to me what the company did and that included SEO. They told me SEO stood for search engine optimization and that was all my knowledge of SEO until reading about it at https://t.co/XyrqKfYsqj. (Oh I got that internship by the way)  It is sad to say how naïve I was, not knowing how much goes into the results we see on the first page of a search engine like Google.

So basically search engine optimization is a fancy way to say ‘getting your website to be on the first page of a search engine.” And let’s face it; everybody wants to be on that first page and preferably on top of that page, because we all know nobody really goes past the first page of a search. Heck, most people click just the first two or three search results. Now I will get all technical and give you a statistic to back up what I just said. So here it goes, 75% of Google users won’t click past the first page and 18.2% of users visited the site in the #1 ranking. 

So how does one get their site to the top of say a Google search? Your site needs to have the top keywords that they are looking for. Companies do a lot of research to find what keywords will give them the best chance of getting a high ranking on a search engine. When ranking websites for search engines the most important spots they look at are title tags such as the website’s title and links, the more other websites link to yours the more popular you are. The overall content of a page, the URL and headers are also important in SEO.

Basically search engines are one big popularity contest, just like Miss America. The prettiest girl in an evening gown or  swimsuit, that is from one of the more appealing states (sorry Alaska), is the most well spoken and says world peace the most will be number one.

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More than just a prank

April Fools Day has basically become a marketing holiday. It seems a little weird to me that companies actually spend money on a marketing campaign for one day and for fake products and services. But if done right they can end up with a viral hit and create a lot of buzz for their company.  Through these publicity stunts their brand recognition will increase and they attain free press.  Most of the time the pranks and hoaxs deal with things that are popular in the current culture. For example this year Google created Google Cardboard, which is an actual reality headset, with an accompanying YouTube video. I thought it was a good take on all of the hype of virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift. Also loved how they are making fun of all those people using virtual reality technology that say things like “it looks so real” or “it feels like I’m really there.” Google took that and said well we will give you something better, what’s more real than real, so now we give you actual reality. I thought it was a clever way for Google to be like you people want to buy technology that gives like real life experiences so here we give you a clear plastic headset  and you will see things as reality like as possible, you can’t be any more immersed in reality. What made  the ad even better was when they were telling the features it had such as it was waterproof, 20/20 resolution, worked with any app, and wait for it, had 360 degree sound. Another ad I liked very much was the Quilted Northern Rustic Weave. These marketers perfectly  capitalized on the hipster culture and the increasing popularity of artisanal products and made fun of it all at once. Love how they described it as authentic, hand-crafted, hand-perforated, raw, artisanaly crafted, and genuinely tree to toilet. The marketers further dug in the artisan market by adding that it was available in small batch and even extra virgin birch. They did a good job of marketing off the growing  group of consumers that are focused on having the organic, natural, “authentic”  experiences in all aspects of their life. So I think it is safe to say that April Fools day will keep growing and creating opportunities for companies to show their humorous sides all while directing more attention to their brand. https://t.co/YSMSMEqrgv

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Angering the Beyhive

Beyonce announced her new athleisure line, Ivy Park, this past Thursday and immediately had everyone talking about it. And being Queen Bey, she has enough publicity for anything that she does; she doesn’t need to create more or to spend a lot of money on marketing. But soon after the announcement Ivy Park was trending more than before, and all because of a competitor. That competitor happened to be lululemon. All of this talk was created from one tweet where they responded to someone saying that Ivy Park sounded like lululemon. Their responding tweet was “They do say imitation is the best form of flattery. Maybe Beyonce is so Crazy in Love with our brand, she made her own.” And that one tweet caused a twitterstorm and negative tweets from Queen B’s loyal fans, the Beyhive. Lululemon in one tweet had made Ivy Park more popular and made them look bad. Whoever runs their Twitter account clearly was not thinking about how crazy it was to go after Beyonce. If they meant to just have some fun they should know that Beyonce’s fans do not take kindly to anyone saying anything even remotely negative about their Queen. For heaven’s sakes she is called Queen Bey for a reason, she can do no wrong. She and Jay-Z are looked at as American royalty, it’s the Obamas and then the Carters, actually they might be ahead of the Obamas to some.  Lululemon made a huge mistake that the Beygency would not let them forget, the company was on damage control all day. If you’re a company and want to tweet about any celebrity you need to consider how big and how strong of a fan base that person has. Certain celebrities like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber have very loyal fans each with their own specific names and those fan armies will not lie down if you say something they don’t like about their favorite star. The will make it their mission to ruin you on social media and they do not forgive easily. And this is not just limited to companies, if another person or celebrity says something negative the fans will go after those people too. Social media has created a space for fans to unite and create communities and if you make them mad you better be ready for what they will unleash on your social media accounts.  In the future companies need to think twice before they tweet about a celebrity. I’m sure lululemon is kicking themselves for going after Queen Bey now that her Beyhive has spoken

 https://t.co/7V5YMFJb2d