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Media rooms: a benefit or a con for journalism?

Hi-

This week we’re focusing on the Media room that is a part of the Whistler’s website. In case you didn’t know - Whistler is the most popular winter resort in North America, located in British Columbia, Canada. 

So the PR team of this winter resort decided to be ahead of the time, so they made a Media room. Through this room they make news releases about current events in Whistler, and they write about literally everything - some of the categories are accommodation, community, culinary, hiking & sightseeing, lifestyle, technology, sustainability, etc.

So now, we can suppose that I’m a journalist and I want to make a story about Whistler. The first thing I’m gonna do is visiting their Media room. There I can find everything I need. They post about every event that happened or is going to happen, they describe where it will be, for whom it is intended, what is the purpose and why you should come. And of course, as they are a winter resort and they make money of tourists, they include some details about accommodation or the things you can do while you’re there.

So my guess is, the journalists can take this as a benefit. It’s hard to keep up with all the events going on each day. So when the most popular resort decides to post their news it makes the job for journalists like 10 times easier.

Also, it gives credibility to the resort, because they’re being transparent and they show that they care about their customers by sharing all these things with them.

So as we learned, good PR takes time to gain, but once you do it, you become the most popular winter resort in North America!

You find the Media room on this link, and you can read about what’s going on in Whistler: https://media.whistler.com/ 

[sara-medjic]

Who’s Target’s target?

Hi, welcome back to my new post!

This week we’re focusing on defining buyer persona’s for Target - Target’s target.

I did some research (okay, I just Googled it) and according to Query Sprout site, Target’s main target audience are women aged between 18 and 44. Of course there is many other audiences, but this is the main one. 

So targeting young women - why? Because most of the time women do the groceries. Mom’s, grandmothers, students, employed, unemployed etc., if you look closer, you’ll realize that those are the women you’ll mostly see at Target.

I am not from the United States, and I’ve been to Target once only. But when I went, I spent over $100. When you go inside, they trick you with all those colors and smell’s, you can’t resist but buy. So Target markets women psychologically, they make sure that everything is in order, that it is arranged nicely, they put some nice smell, and Voila - you feel safe, you feel you’re at your own home.

I went through their social media channels - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. It is obvious that a young woman, aged probably between 20 - 25, is their social media manager. How did I got to that conclusion? Well, on their TikTok account you can mostly see women in the videos, and it’s mostly about some DIY tricks and supplies you can find at Target.

On Twitter, the main point is humour. While on Facebook and Instagram, they make sure to provide info about programs for families (the mom’s always keep an eye open for that).

I really feel that Target is doing a great job. They are successful in their mission to attract younger women to buy. Their social media channels have a lot of followers, which proves that they’re doing the job right.

I think that they mainly target women, because they influence other people around. You know, a mom will always buy clothes for her children and she’ll do the groceries because she keeps up with the list; a teenage girl is going to love the clothes section (and probably the makeup one too) so she’ll always go with her mom; so, it always begins with women. We can say it’s the “word of mouth” marketing.

[sara-medjic]

How to create a content-rich website

 Hey ya’ll,

This week’s post is focused on content-rich websites. Before we start, I want to clear what does content-rich mean; according to Scott (2020) no matter how you choose to present your web content to attract buyers, the place that brings everything together in a unified location is a content-rich website.

So, in order to have a content-rich website, you have to unify the design (colors, navigation etc.) and the content (blog posts, portfolio, podcasts, photos etc.)

For example, this is one of my favourite websites: https://jovanarikalo.com/

It’s a website of a photographer from Serbia. She is doing fine-art photography. I love her webpage because it is very eye pleasing; it has nice colors, and it is easy to navigate. Her website is content-rich - she provided information about herself, she explained all the services she does and she has a category for each. Of course, she provided photos for evidence of her amazing work. And as we all know, photos speak a thousand words. 

If I ever need a fine-art photographer, I would definitely hire Jovana. She attracted me as a potential customer, because she provided enough information about herself and her work, and it didn't feel overwhelming for me.

I think she did a great job by making a simple, yet so pleasing website.

Another example of a content-rich website is the website of Harvard University.

When you first open the page, the home page will be covered with information on current world trends. So today when I opened the home page, it showed me info about COVID-19. Harvard linked their scholarly articles about covid to this topic. So they want to show me, a potential student, that they care about what is happening in the world. 

Also, the design is amazing. They provided all the information that I as a new student would need - academics, programs, how to visit them, history, campus culture, etc.

So we can say that Harvard is a prestige and content-rich school.

In conclusion, these may not please other people, because everyone has different taste, and as Scott (2020) said, there is no right or wrong way to make a website, you just have to be appealing to your target audience. So make sure to express your creative side while making a website, but also always think about your potential customers and what info they want from you. 

Everything starts with empathy, even a website!

[sara-medjic]

Artificial intelligence: a scam or a call for action?

Hey ya’ll,

This week I am sharing with you my own experience with AI in marketing and how it affected me so far. One funny thing is, I didn’t even know that automated emails and sponsored ads are considered AI. So I learnt a new thing in my Social media in PR course, and I want to share with you how some ads that popped up on my Instagram stories actually affected me.

A long time ago, social media platforms existed without this many ads that we encounter today. It is really annoying to scroll your stories, or to watch a music video and all of a sudden some ad that you’re not even interested in, pops up. But, as a hater of sponsored stuff, I have to admit that I had some times when I actually looked at the ads and clicked on it.

Do not judge me, but I mostly click on fashion ads that come from brands like Shein, Zaful etc. As I am someone who doesn’t like to go shopping, because I hate the idea of a crowd of people being around me, and it is always too hot in the malls, I can say that I am a slave of online shopping. So, while I scroll my social media, of course sales on online fashion stores drag my attention. 

But, I like the fact that when I google about Shein, or when I watch/listen to some stuff related to fashion, my algorithms work so good and they show me stuff that I actually like. 

And I think that is the good part of AI - collecting your data in order to show you preferences. 

Of course, there was also some other time when I reacted to an ad, I mean I actually react to them all the time, and that is why I can’t think about a specific time I did an action, because I do it all the time.

Even though I think ads can be annoying, I think we need to give them a chance. As I’m learning more about creating ads and using social media, I realize that brands really take a lot of effort to create them. And as someone who is studying Media studies, my future job will probably involve that creative part. And I certainly don’t want to spend money and time to create things and then see people just scroll past them.

So, if you have an example of how an ad or an email made you make a call to action, please reply to this post, I would be glad to read about it!

[sara-medjic]

Modern customer service: Interactiveness through social media

Hey ya’ll,

It’s been almost two weeks since I wrote here. Got a little stuck up with my assignments, so I just took a rest from writing for a bit :)

But, I’m back this week, and I’m gonna give you examples of some brands and services that have been doing a great job lately, by accomplishing good customer service through their social media platforms!

Some brands that I’ve been following and that are doing really great jobs are Duolingo & Ryanair.

One of my favourite TikTok profile’s are Duolingo & Ryanair. I think they do an amazing job by engaging with their audiences through interactive platforms. Their social media manager is doing an awesome job by posting videos daily, answering comments and stitching to customers' videos and keeping up with what their target audience is writing about them.

Duolingo, for instance, became very popular lately, because of their mascot on TikTok. So that is basically a person who dressed up as an owl and who is threatening you to start your Spanish course or else they’ll find your house. Well, it’s not as bad as it sounds, for legal reasons I have to say it’s just a joke! 

Also, Duolingo uses Facebook actively. Their latest post is just about asking their Facebook followers did their like a certain service. You can check the post here: https://www.facebook.com/duolingo 

Ryanair also became very popular on TikTok. When the pandemic hit in the beginning of 2020, a lot of the airline’s very on the edge. But Ryanair joined TikTok, so they created a lot of videos, mainly funny ones, that show people how cheap they are and why you should fly with them. I love how they respond to each comment on their profile. It really shows that they care about the customers.

Also, on Twitter they’re very active, posting a lot of threads, and they constantly remind their customers to contact their customer service support if they have any questions or problems.

I used these two companies as examples because they created a strong brand image by updating their customers through social media. They embraced the creative and funny side, and joined the apps where they could engage with their customers. For companies, it is very important to keep every step they make in track by posting a thread or a video or a story. 

Personally, if I find a service I want to pay for, and I go to the company’s social media profiles, and I see that they’re last post was created 2 weeks ago and they still haven’t replied to the comments under it - I’m not buying the service.

I think we all need to settle for companies that use social media daily, because if they can commit to creating good content, they will also provide a good customer service.

I think with companies like these two, we can see that it is possible for everyone to engage with the audiences, and all that with just a little bit of humour and creativity.  

Modern problems require modern solutions. So instead of using traditional PR and marketing, Ryanair and Duolingo decided to use the real - time marketing, and they gained popularity and credibility over just a few months!

Here are the links to the TikTok profile’s of these companies. I think you’ll enjoy in their content as much as I do, and hopefully you’ll learn something new:

https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo

https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanair

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Crisis management: how important is social media in a crisis?

Hi,

Welcome to my #2 blog post! I hope you enjoyed my previous post in which I wrote about creating your brand image and identity through social media. :)

This week, we’ll refer to crisis management. Crisis management is a part of public relations and it’s a process of dealing with some emergency situation. An important part of dealing with the crisis is social media.

Actually, when you think about it, many crises occur because organizations/companies don’t respond to the negative reviews and comments that people leave them on their social media accounts. I certainly think that a marketing team of a corporation thinks that it’s not a big deal when someone writes a rude comment about the products and services the corporation provides, so they do nothing regarding that question. And before they realize, they’re a step forward into downfall.

One good example of how to provide a customer service in an emergency is the situation when Sephora handled a crisis with the singer SZA. In April 2019, SZA tweeted that a Sephora employee called the security on her to stop her from stealing. She gained a lot of support, and people started tweeting how Sephora employees are rude and racist. Then, the official Sephora profile on twitter answered SZA’s tweet, and they let her know they are doing everything they can at the moment in order to clear the situation. A month later, Sephora posted on Facebook that all stores will be closed for an hour, because of a training of diversity. Clearly, SZA’s tweet encouraged whole Sephora’s team to do something about the customer’s service, which was, as we can see, terrible.

Sephora handled this situation pretty well, and they did the crucial things everyone needs to do, in order to get out of a crisis:

1. Value the customers' comment and give them a feedback ASAP,

2. Imply that you’ll fix the situation ASAP;

3. Post about further steps taken in order to improve the customer service and satisfy every individual who comes into the store.

If every brand checked their social media multiple times a day, they would be able to prevent crises. With social media, “The customer is always right” upgraded to a new level. As a customer, if I’m not lazy to criticize a brand, then the brand should not be lazy to respond to me and give me feedback what will they do to improve the things I criticise.

After all, we all just look for some juciy drama on the Internet. And if we can’t find it, we create it ourselves. And companies should be aware of that!

References: 

“3 great examples of crisis management on social media” https://prconsultancy.org/3-great-examples-of-crisis-management-on-social-media/

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Brand personality: can people be brands?

By reading and learning the materials I needed for my course, I learned a lot about brands. One thing that I realized now and that I have never recgonized before is that people are brands.

When I say it like that, it sounds obvious. But people being brands means that they trully represent their work. When an ifluencer/blogger pops up on your feed on Instagram, and advertises something, you'll buy that special thing just because of the person who's advertising it, not because of the producut itself. The people and the product blend together. So the posts influencers post on social media, blend with their personality and soon they become a walking brand. So, when you see a certain person, you recgonize them by the things they do.

In this post, I'll do my best to give you two examples of how people can be brands and how they represent themselves throughout social media channels.

The first person - brand is Kristijan Iličić. Kristijan is a travel blogger, from Croatia. Few years ago, he decided to leave his 9 to 5 office job and started traveling. He captured his journey on his Instagram and Facebook profiles, and he gained a huge audience that is excited to watch his stories and scroll the photos from the places he's been to. Through his social media channels, Kristijan gained trust to his audience. He always represents the countries and cities that he goes to, as objective as possible. He connects with local people and tries to live like them for a few days just so he could explore the culture. While he gained huge audience, he realized that he can use his profile professionally. He started doing marketing services, and one year ago he started a travel agency.

On Balkan, when you mention Kristijan's name, he is the synonym for leaving your comort zone, and starting your passion. He made himself a brand and people recgonize him as a motivation and inspiration. He delieverd thousands of stories and made a lot of content for social media. Today, he is a successful content creator. If you want to leave your comfort zone and travel the world, contact Kristijan.

The second person is Erna Saljević. She is an influencer from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has a Communications major, and she does marketing through her Instagram. Erna's pseudonym on Instagram is @divaisback. Through her Instagram profile, she created a lot of campaign which turned into brands. The most popular campaign is #ŽenaJeŽeniDrug, which means that woman to woman is a friend. Her campaign reached thousands of women of agreed with Erna, so she decided to take her campaign to another level. Erna conntacted a textile company, AlmaRas, very popular in Bosnia. AlmaRas sells lingerie, which we all can agree to, is a part of every woman's intimacy and something women carefully choose. Erna decided to create a special collection, and she included all sizes, from biggest to smallest. She designed lingerie and pyamas, and called it DivaisBack × AlmaRas = #ŽenaJeŽeniDrug.

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Back to basics: new Tumblr edition :)

Hi dear Tumblr community,

I am back! But this time, I’m going to write some blog posts inspired by a course I am taking at UMSL this semester. The course is Social media in PR, and I’m thrilled to learn new things and explore the diversity of the social media we use every day.

Stay tuned!