#mk405

[pantasticwonder]

Three Small Reflections on Social Media Marketing Perspectives

1) If I had to choose one question to answer, it would be this:

            Why has social media had such a powerful impact?

In today’s world, social media has advanced in many ways. We can now, whenever we feel like it, head onto our electronic device and look up whatever is pertaining to us at a peculiar moment (at least those with outside WiFi assistance). We can make reviews at an instance on whether something was good or bad. Either way you look at it, social media has a powerful impact over how consumers can look up information quicker, and give feedback to other potential consumers. With all of the technological advances that has been made over the last decade, it has been more efficient for companies to promote their ads to their loyal consumers and to potential consumers.

2) I decided to go ahead and ask this question:

      What would you consider to be the best social media campaign ever run?

I got my response via a user on Reddit through the AMA section. Their answer was the 2008 presidential election, and their reasoning behind it was that it rallied a huge number of people and got them to get up and vote by primarily using social media, they were able to send a clear message to a large number of people, it invoked a response that took effort, and people still hold an opinion based on that campaign six year later. Their experience within the realms of social media marketing is more than likely a regular user, someone with actual experience. 

3) If I had to choose one question that was too difficult to think of an answer for, it would be this:

            What will the Internet look like three years from now? Ten years from now?

The reasoning behind this is that there is no limit as to what the Internet can be within a decade. We’ve seen so many changes that we’ve never thought possible could work. They keep on advancing, making connections faster and smoother, and everything is becoming more efficient. Sooner or later, we’ll get to a point in where we have nowhere else to go; it’s a real thought to have. Maybe this is the reason why I cannot come up with a good answer; it’s because everyone is going to have different opinions on where they see the Internet improving over the next decade. It's also such a wide opinion; everyone can have millions upon millions of reasons on what could happen, and to me, it's hard to think of a logical answer based on past successes and failures.

[pantasticwonder]

Moving Forward with the New ROI measure

1) I agree with Hoffman and Fodor’s position on tracking the customers’ investments and not your own on social media to understand whether a campaign is working or not. At the end of the day, you want customers to be happy with your brand so that they spread the good news around to everyone they know. When you have positive news about your campaign transferred through WOM, you’ll have a better chance to attract and gain new customers. When this occurs, see what they are there for – how they were attracted, how long they are attracted to your company, how many times a customer visits, etc.

2) In all honesty, if I had to update the table of relevant metrics, I am not too sure of the new metrics that I would add. It seems as if the table that is already presented covers everything that one would need to increase brand awareness, brand engagement, and word-of-mouth within a campaign. It might be that I am not all too familiar with other social media outlets besides the ones that are already on the table (Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter) – and the one that are present already does a great job at increasing a campaign’s overall awareness to consumers and to potential customers.

3) The metrics that I would recommend so that one could evaluate the effect of their SMM efforts efficiently are:

Keep track of how many times a tweet gets retweeted

See if there is a pattern if certain tweets keep getting retweeted more than others

Same metric can apply to Facebook via likes / share for a post

Same metric can apply to YouTube via views and likes to dislikes ratio

Also see if the video is getting shared via Facebook and / or Twitter

How many people visit the band main page per day

How are they connecting?

Where are they coming from?

Where are they hearing the band from?

How many people tag

Mentions on Twitter and / or Facebook

With these metrics, you can see what is working, and what could be enhanced to make the band stand out to new consumers.

[pantasticwonder]

Heading Onward -- How to make Mobile Marketing successful

1. Identify a successful mobile marketing campaign. Explain how the campaign worked, and what made it a success. Include a link to the article/company that describes the marketing campaign.

One mobile marketing campaign that was successful, in terms of my brand mantra, was the Halifax Home Finder app. The application, which was created by MEC, acts as a research tool for consumers searching for a new house. It helps search for properties, learn more about the properties – including photos and floor plans – along with ways to contact estate agents for more information. You can also get an estimate on how much you could borrow and work out in terms of payments, and find out how monthly repayments are done. More information can be found here:

http://www.halifax.co.uk/aboutonline/mobile-banking/mobile-apps/home-finder/

This application is a success for all new consumers looking for a new home. Any information that can be relevant to getting the perfect new house is done through this app. The article that gave the marketing campaign a success can be found here:

https://econsultancy.com/blog/62971-six-great-examples-of-mobile-marketing-campaigns#i.1jdle3dscgd0ay

  2. Identify an unsuccessful mobile marketing campaign. Why did it not work? Using the three approaches above, what would the company have done differently? What can the company learn from the successful one? Include a link to the article/company that describes the marketing campaign. 

One mobile marketing campaign that was unsuccessful was done back in early 2010, where Papa John’s sent consumers 500,000 unwanted messages – some consumers getting fifteen or sixteen texts messages in a row, even during the middle of the night. What started this fiasco was the pizza franchise sending the text blasts through OnTime4U, a mass text messaging service. In November of 2012, Papa John’s was faced with a $250 million spam lawsuit. More information can be found within the article in the link below:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/13/technology/mobile/papa-johns/

In my opinion, what could have made this campaign a success is if Papa John’s would have attributed data better to find some way to capture interest so that consumers would receive text messages that they wanted to receive, instead of spamming them with messages that they might have not been interested in receiving.

Another strategy would be to focus on the SuperConnecteds and connectors within the POST method, and not to focus too much on the inactives, entertainers, and talkers. If the latter three do not accurately check their texts to see what Papa John’s would send them, they why focus on that part of the method? Focus on the communicators only if they check their IM messages on a daily, and see if they are interested in what you and sending them.

Also, Papa John’s should have focused on good objectives and strategies for the most part, along with the appropriate technologies that will be used within the strategy. Had they known of a better provider than OnTime4U – possible research on the company beforehand, or better research done – along with a rational way to distribute messages, then they would have avoided this fiasco altogether.

  3. As a marketing student, and a millennial consumer, where do you think mobile marketing is headed?

I think that mobile marketing is heading in a direction that will continue to increase the more that it is used. Consumers all have different likes and dislikes; different companies do their best to cater to the crowd who will help them succeed the most. Through our activity on social media, and the world wide web in general – what we search up in our spare time – will trigger certain ads to pop up, whether we want them to or not. That’s one way that general marketers are trying to persuade new consumers; it can be successful, and at other times, it can hurt. I do not see a drastic change occurring with mobile marketing in terms of what was just descripted, since I see that that way is the most efficient way to gain new consumers – through giving out ads based on what the consumers frequently visit or search.

[pantasticwonder]

Individual Class Leadership: Gamification

For the record, I'll be using the powerpoint slides that I conducted to further explain where I went with this. Apologies in advance for the black sides of the pictures; it was the only way I could make it efficient since cropping doesn't want to cooperate with me at the moment. For my ICL, I chose to talk about the subject of gamification.

I broke up my ICL into three sections:

1.) Jean McGonigal's article / TED Talk 2.) Whitney's Cook article on The Top 5 Rules of Gamification 3.) My example using Zynga

From McGonigal's article, I focused on emotional needs:

For each emotional need (the reasoning's are below; refer to the PPT slide for the list): 1.) The desire to be something bigger than the self 2.) Humans love to seek out winning 3.) Feedback is key for growth 4.) Create social fabrics among people all over the world

From this, McGonigal goes on to state the Top 10 positive emotions that gamers feel when playing a game:

I noted that creativity is not a real emotion, according to McGonigal, since "it's unique to an individual, and everyone loves when their personal, creative solution was a right solution to an obstacle."

Moving away from the article, I go a bit in-depth with McGonigal's TED Talk.

The Top 5 Regrets that McGonigal refers to are:

1.) I wish I hadn't worked so hard. 2.) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 3.) I wish I had let myself be happier. 4.) I wish I'd had the courage to express my true self. 5.) I wish I'd led a life true to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.

These regrets refer to gaming in a big way. According to the talk, McGonigal expresses that, by not working as hard, you can spend time with your family, and families that play games with their kids have much real-life stronger relationships with them.

Moving on, McGonigal explains that she had a concussion a few years back (the talk was done in 2012), and for her symptoms to be all clear, her doctor recommended her not to have any brain activity -- in other words, "having no real meaning to live." She then decided to create an RPG, entitled "Jane the Concussion Slayer," and with a few of her friends, she was able to overcome her symptoms. She expresses that, when we play games, "we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we're more likely to reach out to others for help." With that, she uploaded her RPG, and retitled it "SuperBetter." The feedback that she received was astonishing.

McGonigal explains the Top 5 things that people with Post-Traumatic Growth say:

1.) My priorities have changed -- I'm not afraid to do what makes me happy. 2.) I feel closer to my friends and family. 3.) I understand myself better, I know who I really am now. 4.) I have a new sense of meaning and purpose. 5.) I'm better able to focus on my goals and dreams.

She points out that this Top 5 are the exact opposite to the Top 5 Regrets. Moving ahead, she explains that we can contribute to our Post-Traumatic Growth without doing anything traumatic be strengthening our four resiliences. Reasoning's are below:

1.) Your body can withstand stress and heal faster. 2.) Have more mental focus (more determined, focused, etc..). 3.) Promote powerful positive emotions when you need it the most. 4.) Get more strength from your friends, family, neighborhood, community.

For a better understanding on the above TED Talk, the YouTube link is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t3y7EeBhxg

Now getting into Whitney Cook's article, here are a few important facts that I pulled that I found relevant:

Here are the Top 5 Rules:

Better explanation of the rules:

1.) Important for employees to see their leaders support the game, along with the idea of having fun while working. 2.) If they don't know how to engage in a game, they lose interest; fully explain the rules and structures. 3.) Take every opportunity to communicate the objective of the game and how//when/where employees can have access to it. 4.) Reward employees who efficiently use word-of-mouth to inspire others to play. 5.) Feedback is critical to create a great user experience, and will easily provide learning leaders how to better improve to make game offerings better.

My example, Zynga, and the example of gamification through Zynga:

The example is one of Zynga's Current Campaigns. Here is the link that explains the campaign:

http://zynga.org/campaigns/half-the-sky-the-game/

Here is a better link to the YouTube video that was embedded on Zynga's website that explains the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emmCKa-YmDg&feature=youtu.be 

Wrapping it all up:

List of references that I used to complete this project:

Thank you for taking the time to read this (if you did)! :)

[pantasticwonder]

Increasing Social Awareness – One Online Game at a Time

1.) To be honest, I do not know if I participate in online social gaming. I know that I used to be into the gaming online stint back in high school and early college, but it has been dwindling lately. If I can give one example of an online social game that I used to play but stopped, I think my best bet would be Words With Friends – or WWF for short. WWF is a lot like Scrabble, only played online or on your phone, and you can go against your friends or a random opponent to see who can create words that generate the highest number of points to win.

Explaining what WWF is, I can see where this design would work in a non-game context environment. Within WWF, there is a feature to message your friend / opponent. Now, if there was a way to reverse these roles and enhance them – a little computer app similar to WWF while using Google+ or Skype – then this idea could function properly. Talking about strategy within your normal conversation while you’re playing the game can be engaging.

My motivation for playing WWF comes from the simple notion that I am bored, and that I want to kill some time throughout the day. I do not see any similarities for my motivation to play in relation with what McGonigal had to say.

2.) As a consumer, the one good example of successful gamification that I see is FarmVille (https://www.facebook.com/FarmVille -- here is the fan page, since I have the actual gaming site blocked). The game, which can be found on Facebook, was created by Zynga. The gameplay is simple; you run a virtual farm, which you can share with your friends, and ask them for help to achieve points to increase your farm. The goal is simple; create a farm and maintain it by all means necessary. You do this by incorporating your friends – if they too play this game – into giving you gifts to help your farm.

In my opinion, this game creates an experience that illustrates social resilience. By getting your family or friends to help you achieve a task such as maintaining a virtual farm, they are showing their gratitude towards you; if you choose to return the favor, you as well are building social resilience.

3.) From the example that I used above, if my professor was to “gamify” this course to improve students’ learning experience, the one thing that would come out of this in terms of relevance would be that social resilience is an important gain to achieve, and that we would benefit from that gain to use in the real world. From McGonigal’s TED Talk, she claims that gratitude and touch are great ways to boost social resilience – along with getting the strength from your family and close friends. With these qualities, you can begin to build trust within colleagues, and cam be motivated to help each other out. With all that explained, I would welcome the “gamify” change in the course with open arms, knowing that an important life aspect can be grown and harnessed through simple gaming.

[pantasticwonder]

A Competition for Creators -- Featuring a Shower

1.) The brand community that I’m choosing that is crowdsourced by a company is shower products. These brands – Dove, VO5, Tresemmé, etc. – are discussed through community affiliation. One website, CloroxConnects, let consumers give their ideas of cleaning showers via “my Tilex® idea,” a forum within their website. Another website, Unilever, lets an online community submit ideas for a competition – this will be talked about later. Most of these consumers will have the same ideas on how to improve a shower, and how to keep it cleaner.

Community scripts are also formed through the consumers giving out ideas, seeing that they have a deep connection in trying to let others know about their cleanliness routine, or even an inkling of their idea.

Existing community roles are mostly played by consumers within the forum by everyone being a “learner” and a “mentor.” Consumers are giving out their ideas, while at the same time, learning from others.

2.) While looking to find a blog that discusses my brand, I found one blog post that caught my attention. Coming from tutuor2u.net, a blogger by the name of “Ben10” posted back in November of 2012 that Tango – a Britvic-owned fizzy drink – was going to extend the brand into a shower gel, being targeted at supermarkets. Tango hoped in appealing to the audience that they already had through their drink to try this new product. However, this product most likely bombed, seeing as where the blogger got his information – via marketingmagazine.co.uk – has not had that many hits as it would have probably liked.

A better example of a blog discussing my brand would have to go to slate.com and their blog, the XXfactor – What Women Really Think. Back on January 21st, 2014, author Jessica Grose blogged about how Dove introduced a short film called Selfie, explaining that taking non-serious photographs of your face can be a positive thing for teenage girls who are struggling with their body image. As of today, the video has been shared on Facebook over 4,700 times, and has been Tweeted 225 times – the view count on YouTube extends close to 888,000.

In terms of community strategy, Dove did an outstanding job. They knew what their target audience would be – teenage girls, who more than likely all deal with the struggle of trying to get the perfect body. They knew how to relate to them – “selfies” is a concept that has been picking up throughout the last few years, and has become a worldwide trend. It successfully has reached out to many consumers who purchase Dove, and they’ve more than likely shared it amongst their friends, so on and so forth.

In terms of community reaction with the Dove commercial, it received mixed reviews; some were praising, while others were criticizing. In terms of crowdsourcing through this particular blog…well, you got me there. The blog is targeted towards women, so where do the men fit in? Obviously, it’d be a bit tougher trying to get their attention for a specific product.

3.) The one specific crowdsourcing product that Unilever did was back on August 14th, 2013, when they partnered up with eYeka to promote a challenge of finding the “shower of the future.” According to Unilever’s press release on their website dated the exact time of the contest being started, over 250,000 creators – all a part of eYeka’s online community – would have the chance to develop ideas for a number of familiar Unilever brands. The ideas had to follow a few criteria, such as the need to be cost efficient and affordable to the end user, having an innovative design but that fits within a typical modern bathroom, and should use no more than ten litres of water per use. The contest ended on September 8th, 2013, with the results being produced in October. The winner – receiving 5,000 euros and a trip to London to give the idea – was awarded to a creator in France; his entry entitled “Waterfall Shower.”

The form of crowdsourcing that was being used for this competition was, simply, holding a contest and rewarding the Top Five performers. The challenge / problem that were being sought out were finding an environmentally friendly shower idea to incorporate and hopefully try to sell out.

The measures used by the company that went into evaluating the effectiveness of the project was basing it off of the creator’s functions (what someone using the shower expects in terms of sensations or tools) and design, exterior and interior. The most innovative entries and the best looking ideas will be favored for their ideas going beyond the idea of sustainability to propose real sensorial improvements via touch, temperature, etc.

(The following data for measures – the content’s “brief,” to be more precise – can be found here: https://en.eyeka.com/contests/7676-recycling-shower/brief)

4.) The main goal(s) of the crowdsourcing project that was identified above was both solution generation (collected ideas from creators) and solution evaluation (evaluating their work). The approach that the company used to accomplish these goals was outreach – they (Unilever) reached out to a community (eYeka), partnered up with them, and then successfully held a competition. The approach that the company should have used was, in my opinion, additive aggregation. Try to get an average of who used what for their ideas. Only five winners were selected out of 102 participants; it would be fair for all involved to have at least an opportunity for something within their creation be noticed by the eventual consumers.

[pantasticwonder]

JIT 2 - "Social Media Marketing Strategy and Netnography"

The link to my social media marketing plan: http://6degreesms.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/social-media-planning.jpg 1.) The outline that I chose follows four steps – Listen, Plan, Strategy, Tools – to assure that the brand will be seen by those that wish to see it. Solis’ outline goes off of a certain brand with four “halos” surrounding the brand – players, platform, channels, and emotions/sentiment. Tuten and Solomon’s outline is depicted as a circle with four sections – social community, social publishing, social entertainment, and social commerce; each of these sections has little examples.

My outline differs from Solis’ because while it may be similar in terms of following steps (brand, halo 1, etc.), it’s not as precise as it may seem to the likes of Tuten and Solomon’s. While their outline has four sections – same with mine – it also follows a guideline, similar to Solis’; it just doesn’t explain it as similar to the one that I chose.

Under each step is a little guide, giving you questions on what to do and how to approach social media in terms of getting your brand out to the public.

2.) The company that I chose was Frito-Lay and their “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign that has been going on since Super Bowl XLI – the Super Bowl that was played in 2007. Consumers were able to produce their own commercials in the hope of having it played during the run of Super Bowl commercials – the ones that are the most watched since the Super Bowl is normally the most watched American television program, along with it being the most watched sporting event in the world. Whoever wins would have their commercial played, and a large sum of cash given to them. For this upcoming Super Bowl, Frito-Lay is allowing international countries to compete in this campaign, meaning that whichever country that sells Doritos would be able to allow their consumers to enter and a chance to win. This campaign is, in my honest opinion, one of the most popular to take place.

3.) The advantages of netnography over other research methods are that netnography provides useful insight to those that analyzes data. While surveys and focus groups might give you more opinions, they are more than likely far-fetched from the truth, as surveys are normally looked at as something to do within a five-minute span without any effort being put forth.  With netnography, you are given insight that is more natural and uncertain; uncertainty, in my opinion, is much better to have than false opinions. Netnography can help companies out by getting down to the basic grouping of how their brands are being seen, being recognized, and who is purchasing them. I do not see any disadvantages to using netnography, as this method is much more efficient than conducting surveys.

[jcuissocial]

JIT 1 - "United Breaks Guitar"

After seeing the video and reading the article involving Dave Carroll and his smashed guitar by United Airlines -- along with the aftermath -- here are my answers to the questions that you have posted: 1.) United's response to Carroll's video was, in a way, witty. Tweeting the phrase "this has struck a chord with us and we've contacted him directly to make it right" to many people asking over and over again, 'why,' shows two things: a. This was done a year too late. After what Carroll went through, he had every right to make the video and have it go viral. b. To respond to people with that witty phrase, coining terms such as 'struck' and 'chord' just to seem cool really doesn't make it right. Not one bit. So, no, the airline did not handle the situation very well in my honest opinion. They were a year late in dealing with the situation, and to execute the '24-hour' rule when Carroll had to go through option after option was just a low blow. If I give credit to anything that United did, it was donating $3,000 to a music school...but it's very little credit in my book. 2.) Carroll's video was seen by many people so quickly due to the fact that, in this day in age, technological advances made it possible. Thanks to Twitter -- which earlier in the year, moved up to the third-highest-ranked social networking site -- and along with some aid from Consumerist, the video was able to receive 24,000 views in less than 24 hours. Views began to grow within the next few days, allowing Carroll's song to reach out to over 1,500,000 viewers; viewers that probably had the same experience of handling luggage that occurred with Carroll -- possibly dealing with the aftermath of such an event. 3.) Corporations should prepare for the challenge posed by user-generated videos, along with other materials posted on social media, by being alert all the time. In today's world of modern technology, which has advanced rapidly over the course of 4 1/2 years, it would be shocking not to know the next big incident to occur. Especially with the tweens / early teenagers, who use social media on an almost-constant basis; just one tweet with the right hash-tags could damage any big corporation, just like what happened to United after the fact.