I am still looking for help with my survey for my final graduate course. Again, the survey is meant for teenagers, ages 14 – 18. Please pass on the below link to any one you know who is willing to take a quick survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W75JFCZ
Thanks for the help!!
I am still looking for help with my survey for my final graduate course. Again, the survey is meant for teenagers, ages 14 – 18. Please pass on the below link to any one you know who is willing to take a quick survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W75JFCZ
Thanks for the help!!
So I am in my final course for my masters degree in integrated marketing communications. My class is tasked with creating a campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital targeted towards high school students.
As part of the campaign, we have to create a survey to collect market research. Please pass this link on to any teenagers who know ASAP. It would be highly appreciated.
Here is the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W75JFCZ
As part of this nine week emergence into blogs for my IMC 619 class, I have had the chance to read some excellent blog postings from my fellow classmates. Everyone has taken on the blogging experience and provided new and different insights into the topic of emerging media. With that being said, I wanted to share a fellow classmates blog post, Who’s the Boss? Time for Social to Leave the Marketing Nest?, that really gave me something to think about and quite nicely summed up how much social is changing out lives. The post was written by Eric Minor and he the topic discussed the emergence of a new division in the business world, Social.
Currently for most businesses, social is integrated into the marketing divisions of a company. However as I have learned through my time in the IMC program, social is so much more. The use of social media has become a part of the daily lives of human resources, public relations, customer service, distribution, and the list goes on. Consumers don’t limit what they share on social media to just one division so why should companies?
Take a good hard look at the impact social media has already had on our lives in the business world. There is no running from it.
So, why don’t companies find a way to make social media work better for their brands? Is a designated “social” division a way to get a better grasp on this continuous emerging media?
We have spent the last nine weeks staying on top of what was going on in the world of emerging media. This week I want to show how real businesses use new media to reach consumers. Honda is going live today, July 15th, with a Twitter – Vine Campaign to encourage consumers to trade in their old cars for a brand new Honda. Here is the promo Honda released:
Doesn’t seem that different? Well, here is the part that amazes me. The videos that will be used to respond to the tweets will be filmed and uploaded on the same day and will be customized to each user’s feedback. Honda gives this example, “If a user mentions needing a new car to pick up a pizza, that Vine video response may feature a Honda dealer offering a great deal … with a mouth full of pepperoni.”
Check out the Honda Twitter account to see what has taken place so far. Just from a quick glance, it seems like the campaign has gotten off to a great start.
Other companies have used Vine to help with gaining interest in their brands as well as given some not-so-obvious and obvious tips. French Connection shows viewers how to pack for a vacation while Marc Jacobs uses Vine to showcase their latest products and give behind the scene views into their headquarters and stores. Urban Outfitters shows female viewers how to pack their emergency make-up supplies and Nordstrom demonstrates how to tie the perfect tie.
Emerging media isn’t always about being new and creative but using the new media in ways that will help better reach your consumer and give them what they want. Procter & Gamble used YouTube to create a demonstration video that showed consumers how to open their new concealer compacts. The Buti-Bag Company had a blogger create a how-to for inserting wipes in their Pod Cases. Seemingly easy tasks that both brands thought wouldn’t have created issues, left consumers with their hands up in the head. Creating a simple answer to address these issues gave consumers what they needed, when they needed it.
Honda has created a newsworthy campaign that will get consumers engaged and in turn create an exciting brand connection with Honda. Only time will tell how successful it is in terms of social media ROI. But in the mean time, my hat goes off to Honda for creativity in a campaign but also seemingly using social media to engage and create a connection with their consumers.
Some researchers suggest that Twitter is indeed predictable. However, it may not be in the way you are thinking. Three university researchers have found that they can predict just how popular a tweet will be with a simple formula. Tauhid Zaman at MIT Sloan School of Management, Emily For at University of Washington and Eric Barlow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania state that the prediction formula doesn’t focus on the content but focuses more on the behavior of Tweeters and the amount of retweets. The nickname of this formula “Twouija“, a mashup of Twitter and a Ouija board.
These three researchers were quick to point out that the number of retweets between an unknown users and a famous user are going to be different. However, the key is the “consitency between people on Twitter is the fraction of retweets you get after a fixed amount of time”. What happens in the first couple of minutes after a tweet is released will inform the user what will happen the rest of the day. During the first 10 minutes the fraction of number retweets was roughly the same (average of 50%). This meant that 10 minutes after a tweet was sent, one could expect the following results:
Here is a real life example of the Twouija method:
This could mean big things in the world of Twitter. Zaman states that he hopes that this research will be used to develop a more sophisticated way of ranking popular tweets. He is also on the way to opening up the Twouija website to the public so they can analyze tweets in real time for a prediction of popularity. For business users, this sets a deadline of when you know a tweet will be successful or not. If there hasn’t been a flood of action in the first 10 minutes, Zaman reports that it is time to move on and try again. The first 10 minutes are how to judge whether if the tweet will appeal to a broad audience.
What do you think about the Twouija method? How else might it help the world of marketing on Twitter?
But inside the Square.
Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Well not exactly. Last week it was announced that Square, a new online marketplace, was coming the e-commerce world to rival Amazon, Ebay and other already developed marketplaces. The biggest advantage seen for participating on the Square marketplace is that businesses can list their goods and services on the site for FREE. Something that Amazon doesn’t do. While the new Square marketplace might have a while to go before it overtakes Amazon, it could potentially bring new business to the company that is widely known for their mobile payment services.
This seems to be the new way of life for many businesses. It is a daily occurrence for me to hear more and more small businesses are turning to sites like Amazon, Vault, Opensky, and Etsy to create new life into their businesses by attracting new consumers. Below you can see an infographic that compares Amazon to brick and mortar stores. With numbers like these, we can expect to see more small businesses to join online marketplaces.
As a small business employee that just helped one company start selling on Amazon, I can state that the results in less than a month have left us wondering why we didn’t do this earlier. We can only hope that with more time things progress even farther. The fact is that online marketplaces give us a better opportunity to reach consumers we couldn’t before and at a fraction of the cost. The success has started us thinking if it was time for us to back out of the boutique stores and focus strictly online.
Online marketplaces have made thinking outside the box easy for businesses and companies that survive on brick and mortar stores will have to find new creative ways to keep customers shopping in the stores.
I would bet that a majority of readers have “showroomed”at least once in the last month. Don’t think so? Read on to find out if you are right or not.
Imagine a showroom. What kind of business are you thinking of? I would think that for most consumers that idea of a showroom instantly brings car businesses to mind. It did for me. This is an idea I have been researching for weeks and following the impact online. For those who are confused, let me explain. Showrooming is the process of consumers visiting a brick-and-mortar to shop for a variety of products but while shopping they search smartphones to compare prices in store to prices online. The majority then leave the store to make the purchase online. Unfortunately, this is a factor companies must deal with in the face of new emerging medias.
Research states that 67% of consumers are guilty of searching their phones for a better deal and 62% actually leave a store to take advantage of the better deal. With numbers like this, how can brick-and-morar stores survive? Some of the biggest merchants fighting against this new practice are Best Buy and Walmart and the biggest contributor to showrooming is Amazon. More than half of showroomers are guilty of using Amazon to get a better deal and why wouldn’t they? With better pricing, better customer service and free shipping that can get the product to the door within 2 days, it seems like the customer is offered an all around better deal.
So, what does this mean for the traditional brick-and-morter stores? Well, it means they have to get creative to keep customers spending money in-store. Companies have to embrace both traditional and non-tradiotnal mediums in order to overcome the adversity of showrooming. Organizations known to be active using social media platforms such as geo-location apps, e-commerce apps and having an active social media presence has proven to help in keeping the buyer in-store. Providing incentive and benefits to the customer as well as truly knowing the customer and their shopping behaviors will help decided who win the showroom battle.
This infographic highlights just how powerful showrooming has become, the major parties involved and how companies have tried to survive during this shift in power.
With every new addition to our media world, there does come some obstacles for more traditional ways. Showrooming shows us one obstacle but this doesn’t have to mean the end of our traditional shopping days. Coincidentally, the main cause of showrooming will be the same proponent that will shave brick-and-morter stores from dying out. Companies must give customers what they are looking for and this means the utilization of technology. Finding the right combination will be what keeps the buying power away from digital world.
Now, what do you day? Are you guilty of showrooming?
BLOGGERS!
I will admit that I wasn’t a major blogger before my IMC 619: Emerging Media class took me on this blogging journey. I had dabbled in having a blog in hopes of appealing to the masses but could never keep up with the posts in order to truly conquer the blogosphere. I will say however that this term long blog project has brought out the inner blogger in myself. This is all moving on to my point of the new and upcoming blog forum that is currently “invitation only”, Medium.
Medium is a self-publishing forum that is dedicated to providing a “better place to read and write things that matter”. There is no limiting of characters and no viewing only by friends. Medium is an open portal that allows for writers to tell their stories that matter to them and allows for everyone to focus solely on the words alone. Founder, Ev Williams, describes Medium this way, “Medium is a beautiful space for reading and writing — and little else. The words are central. They can be accompanied by images to help illustrate your point. But there are no gratuitous sidebars, plug-ins, or widgets. There is nothing to set up or customize”.
What makes Medium so great?
This site truly believes in the power of spreading high-quality content for readers to view. It allows for the unknown writer or the famous author both have their stories heard. It takes to a simple design, a simple approach and without worry about your blogs never being seen. While it might seem like Medium is going against the grain and going backwards in the way of engaging media, I believe Medium will provide a different approach that will appeal to a certain audience. It will be interesting to see its success as Medium operators open the site up to more and more writers and if it truly can live up to all its listed out to be.
This blog is dedicated to emerging media in today’s world but with the emergence of new media comes new issues and concerns. This week’s post will take on the idea of when social media just goes too far in the business world. One issue a company must be concerned with is the when, how and why an organization is using social media as well as the ethical implications that using social media might have with each of these points.
There is no question that every company, organization and consumer has become a part of the social world. There is really no getting away from being active on social media and has almost become a requirement for organizations. Many companies have developed social media policies to help monitor and control how employees use social media in their job, but this doesn’t necessarily help with how consumers/society will view the social media activity by certain agencies. Recently, the IRS has come under fire for what is deemed “inappropriate spending” on the production of IRS training videos.
It has been reported that the agency spent over $60,000 filming the training videos were spoofs of Gilligan’s Island, Star Trek and the Cupid Shuffle. You can see the three videos in question here:
These videos come after intense budget cuts. The IRS states that the training videos were created due to budget cuts because they couldn’t fly employees for in-person training seminars. Acting Commissioner of the IRS, Danny Werfel, admits that some of the expenses made “were inappropriate and should have not occurred”. So, did the IRS go to far with using new media to entertain employees while at the same time training them?
When using new mediums in the business setting, it is imperative that companies think about how it will be perceived by consumers when it is released. This isn’t the first time that we have heard of inappropriate social media usage. One of most recent publicized “don’ts” when using social media was when Arizona restaurant owners started an intense “discussion” with customers who badly reviewed their restaurant. Another big recent issue has been the teacher-student relationships on social media forums. New York passed restrictions last year prohibiting teachers from having personal relationships with students on social media but continues to encourage educational use of the Internet/social media.
So, where does the boundary lie? What is deemed inappropriate and what is okay? Questions like this is why it is imperative that companies have social media policies in place in order to control how both employees and the company uses social media.
With new media comes new issues that companies and consumers must face. Thinking twice before making a post, uploading a photo, or directing a video might just save a company a lot of problems and help keep the trust of a brand’s consumers. With the good, comes the bad so, just be careful to make sure your social media doesn’t go too far!
Battle of all Battles 