This year’s 2016 World Series had Cubs-Indians fans on the edge of their seats, waiting for a hero to arise. Even people who did not care about sports were eagerly watching the series. The craze of anticipation had Americas cheering for players, not to score a run, but to steal a base for a free Doritos Locos Taco at Taco Bell.
The “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” campaign was presented on Twitter with the following Tweet:
“If a player steals a base in the #WorldSeries, America gets a free #DoritosLocosTocos. Who will be our taco hero?”
And thanks to the Indian’s player Rajai Davis, America can now head to any Taco Bell on November 2nd to receive a free Doritos Loco Taco.
Being that Taco Bell is an official sponsor of Major League Baseball, gives the brand leverage over other fast food restaurants. And through promoting their campaign on Twitter, not only encourages social sharing but also influences new consumers to try a free Dorito Loco Taco.
When it comes to Social Media Marketing, one of the most effective ways to advertise a product is through a celebrity or expert. This is using the concept of affinity and authority, which both state using a figure to gain trust or exemplify the product. To begin with, the concept of authority states using an expert in the field to back the product which builds trust with the person and gains their confidence in said product. Moreover, affinity believes in utilizing people or characters that are often attractive or likable by the general public. Essentially, you want the product because if you see your favorite celebrity endorsing it, it influences you to get one as well relying on the logic that if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for you. For example, brands who want to reach out to a large population of people use celebrities to market their product. Airbnb is a vacation home rental service, where users can rent out their own homes to other uses for their stay. They partnered with Kim Kardashian to both build reliability and attract users to the service. Kim Kardashian is very famous, so the fact that she uses Airbnb will attract users. Being famous touches the affinity aspect, whereas the authority aspect is built since she travels a lot and is experienced in staying at various vacation homes. Through this, Airbnb’s popularity is multiplied by utilizing these concepts.
As an aspiring nonprofit organization owner, I aim to learn how to make my organization thrive. Social media marketing has been my organization, Rooted in Motion’s main form of communication with our fan base. RiM currently uses Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube as its sources to release content, however just because we have these three outlets, does not mean we are guaranteed success. To succeed on these outlets I have done research to discover ways to make RiM flourish. An article I found on Entrepreneur.com refocused my current state for my organization. This article gave me 10 rulings to aim to abide by for a successful company. Those 10 laws being…
“1. The Law of Listening
2. The Law of Focus
3. The Law of Quality
4. The Law of Patience
5. The Law of Compounding
6. The Law of Influence
7. The Law of Value
8. The Law of Acknowledgment
9. The Law of Accessibility
10. The Law of Reciprocity”
For more detail on each of these laws, one can visit the article at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218160
These laws reminded me that RiM cannot be an overnight success. Consistent time and effort is necessary for RiM to prosper. Consistency being a major key, and effort being a necessary function for engagement with potential fans/clients/participants. An issue I have now is being a busy college student, I post inconsistently throughout the social medias, and engagement throughout the social medias is sporadic. For a successful follow through on the creation of RiM, and relevance in the Chicago Dance Community, I will have to pick up habits to maintain these laws so RiM can become the organization I dream it to be.
How The Walking Dead is Staying Alive: An Insider Look into a Successful Social Game
With Halloween coming around the corner, that means our favorite zombie thriller, The Walking Dead, is back for its 7th season! Ever wonder what makes this franchise so popular and successful? Well, it’s got to do with the compelling story and gory theme of zombies of course. However, The Walking Dead is also known for its highly popular mobile game, No Man’s Land.
No Man’s Land is a social RPG mobile game that allows users to take part in the story-line of the show and engage with other players and fans. What makes this game so successful are the social elements ingrained within. It includes achievement badges where if you complete certain tasks within the “episodes” (which are pretty much levels), you can earn rewards to help you in the game. You can also join other players in weekly challenges and PvP combat that will earn you more rewards and enable you to chat with other players.
An interesting element that the game has added recently is the ability to earn exclusive weekly content that directly connects to the live show. An article by Marketing DIVE mentions how this is beneficial in connecting the cable series to the gaming experience to keep fans more engaged. This is a clear example of brand integration with players being able to unlock content, such as new characters from the show and behind-the-scenes video, with the live-viewing of the episode.
This new marketing trend of social games has proved to be effective, at least with No Man’s Land it has. So far, there are 15 million active players. There’s no doubt that many fans love this game and consequentially, The Walking Dead and if we’ve learned anything from this, it’s that social games have great marketing value.
With the rise of social media, companies have come to rely on influencers such as celebrities, bloggers, vloggers, radio personalities, social media stars and so on, to promote their products and/or services. These influencers are the marketing strategy; their influence and following has granted them power within the marketplace. Before, the go-to influencers were celebrities and those with millions and millions of followers but now, those within the digital marketplace are utilizing a different strategy. The micro-influencer strategy!
Here’s how influencers are classified:
Celebrities - 1 million+ followers or subscribers
Top Influencers - 500,000 to 1 million followers or subscribers
Middle Influencers - 100,000 to 500,000 followers or subscribers
Micro Influencers - 1000 to 100,000 followers or subscribers
As you can see, micro-influencers have the smallest following. I know you’re thinking, why would companies want to utilize those losers when they can have celebrities promoting their brand? Here’s why! Because celebrities have so many followers, (and are busy with their careers and most likely have hired someone else to manage their social media) they are unable give consumers the attention they need and they can’t reply to every message or comment they receive. On the other hand, micro influencers are able to engage with their followers and have authentic conversations.
Let’s say you have a company. What kind of company? A hair vitamin company. You decide to hire Rihanna to pretend to eat your product in order to promote it to her 100 trillion fans and followers. But you must consider that an overwhelming percentage of her following may not be interested in hair care. They may be interested in music and fashion but not so much in the vitality of their hair. Instead, the best thing to do would be to hire micro influencers who vlog or blog about their hair on a regular basis because their audience already has an interest in the content that they post. These individuals are also trusted more then celebrities and require less money.
When implementing this strategy it’s important to think about the audience you are trying to reach and to make sure the particular micro-influencer you hire is aligned with the direction of your company (in terms of mission, knowledge, career trajectory, motivation and etc.). With all of that in mind, you’ll be set!
Read the full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lyda-mclallen/micro-influencers_b_12643266.html
Chipotle has been known for their clever marketing tactics, and during the month of October, they were nothing short of brilliant ideas. For Chipotle consumers, October was all about buy one get one free burritos. At the beginning of the month, Chipotle offered consumers to participate in an advergame that consisted of matching cards together. You probably guessed right as to what players were matching; Chipotle’s fresh ingredients! If you completed the matching game within a minute you were rewarded with a buy one get one free coupon (Thrillist.com).
As a consumer this may seem like a great deal but in reality Chipotle is gaining more rewards out of it. Firstly, social interaction is extremely important for successful marketing strategies. Getting your consumers involved in connecting to the brand is putting an interest and desire on their minds to consume. Secondly, as for the ingredients used in the burritos, Chipotle is actually overpriced in the first place, allowing them to make a lot of profit off of one burrito. Chipotle can afford to let go of a few ingredients, in return for service. While many people may not have visited Chipotle in the month of October, the limited time coupon drew them into the restaurant, meaning more unexpected business for Chipotle. Lastly, while you are brainwashed to believe you are getting twice as much in the buy one get one free deal, chances are that you are actually receiving smaller portion sizes. When price goes down, so do the goods. Price and quality will almost always be equivalent. Don’t let this “treat” trick you.
A Guardian article titled, “Vine video-sharing app to be shut down by Twitter,” describes what many would call an unforeseeable situation. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/27/twitter-vine-video-sharing-mobile-app-shut-down-costs) While the Vine website is to stay active so as to not completely delete all user videos, Twitter has announced that it will be shutting down the Vine mobile app over the course of the next few months in order to cut down on their number of employees and overhead as they are experiencing some financial trouble. Earlier today, October 27th, 2016, Twitter announced that there would be hundreds of layoffs. The Vine app was apparently seen as unnecessary in the eyes of Twitter administrators attempting to cut costs because of Twitter’s recent video-sharing integration to the site.
This is extremely shocking to me for a multitude of reasons. I supposed it makes since when cost-cutting to first remove the dwindling aspects of your company. Vine app membership has been steadily declining for months…but why? And furthermore, why is Twitter in this situation in the first place? The one area of the economy that I think of as more than stable right now is the social media sector. It seems to be booming and on the up-and-up now more than ever. Twitter is the last company I would have expected to announce financial problems in this economy, and it makes me wonder about the future of social media. Does it truly have a lasting place in our society?
Samsung’s recent blunder with the launch of the Galaxy Note 7 and the following recall has already had a huge impact on the company’s quarterly sales, Gizmodo reports. The company announced the approximate total cost of recalling the phone will be around $3 billion, and the net profit loss was nearly 17%. This is the lowest for the company in over six years! It’s not just about the money either- perhaps more importantly, the Samsung brand identity has taken a huge blow from the “exploding phone” recall, since the whole situation has been a PR disaster.
The good news is that the Samsung brand is very likely to survive, according to… Samsung. They also announced an optimistic vision of fourth quarter sales for the year, which project net gains across the board. The writer of this Gizmodo article took a rather skeptical approach to Samsung’s projections of the future after this disaster, but I think the Samsung brand will actually be just fine despite this blow to their reputation. People forget things amazingly quickly when it comes to embarrassing blunders by huge name brands. Remember the time Toyota recalled 4 million cars because they forgot to put working brakes in them? No? Exactly! Brand loyalty and the initiatives companies take to cover up their blunders make large brands almost impervious to completely ruining their brand. I mean, BP is still around after wrecking an entire gulf, so Samsung’s chance for survival is looking good. And after all, Samsung benefits from having an intensely loyal brand fanbase, which when combined with a generally apathetic consumer base ensures Samsung’s survival.
