In class, we discussed how brands were finding it more difficult to reach users with purely organic content on Facebook. There has been a huge decrease in traction for organic posts, with one study finding that it was halved over the course of four months. This is especially evident for Facebook pages with a larger following (500,000+ likes), where many of them saw their organic reach plummet to just 2% in February of this year.

Facebook has recently announced that it intends to crack down on overly promotional posts from brands. Starting in January, updates that are deemed “too promotional” will no longer show up in users’ News Feeds as often, even if they had “liked” the page.

What constitutes as “too promotional”? Facebook defines this in three ways:

1) Key messaging that pushes users to buy a product or install an app
2) Posts that push people to enter contests/promotions without proper context
3) Posts that reuse the exact same content as existing ads.

This indicates that Facebook is pushing brands to buy ads if they want to make any sort of significant impact or reach with their messaging. This can be of concern to smaller brands or start-up companies, who may not necessarily have the budget to put money towards their social media marketing.

Overall, in my opinion, it will improve both the user experience (by de-cluttering their feeds from overly promotional posts), and will force brands to write more engaging and relevant organic posts. This will, in turn, improve consumers’ relationships with the brand, and give them a reason to keep following and engaging with brands on Facebook.

Whether you love her or hate her, everyone knows who Kim Kardashian is. I personally view her as a reality star and businesswoman: she has many different product lines, a hugely successful mobile app that has raked in $43 million, and several different reality shows. While some may counter that Kardashian is simply famous for being famous, or may question her choices or values, there is no denying that she has built up a hugely strong, influential brand that has made her business ventures very successful.

Most recently, Kardashian teamed up with Paper Magazine in a mission to “Break The Internet”, starring in their Winter issue in a series of risqué cover shots (link is NSFW).

Backlash and controversy aside, and just focusing on the digital marketing side, the partnership and magazine covers generated staggering traffic stats for Paper. According to a rep from the magazine, Paper’s traffic hit 6.6 million page views with 5 million unique visitors as of November 12th. This is just direct traffic to the website, and not including the billions of impressions generated via social media or news channels.

Considering the fact that Paper Magazine was not all that well known before the article, I would say that their mission to #BreakTheInternet was a success. They chose one of the strongest, most famous brands in existence (both online and off)- a brand that knows exactly how to work social media to her advantage, generates a frenzy just by leaving her house, and represents the pinnacle of fame and stardom. So while there may have been more modest ways to achieve virality, there is no question that their campaign was effective.

If I wanted to extend my brand’s reach, gain virality, and make an unforgettable impression, I would also have chosen Kim Kardashian as the person to do that with.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 2 weeks, you’ve heard about “1989″, Taylor Swift’s much-anticipated new album. In its first week, it has sold nearly 1.3 million copies– breaking not only her personal sales records, but was the highest sales week in music history since 2002. It was also the first album to go platinum this year.

While her popularity and talent has taken her very far, she owes a great deal of her success to her digital marketing and social media strategy in promoting this album. I have been closely following her promotions for quite some time, and have been very impressed by the innovative tactics she’s used in promoting her new album.

Social Media

Taylor understands exactly how to build a social presence- from creating worldwide trending topics such as #TS1989 and #taylurking, to creating a Tumblr page about a month before her album launch (and maintaining it with unique, channel-specific, heartfelt content!).

The physical copy of her album contains 13 polaroids, each with hand-written lyrics, which she released one by one leading up to the album launch. And after the launch, she tweeted out song lyrics along with photos of fans who have sent her photos of themselves with her CD. It’s that kind of personal touch that builds loyalty and resonates with followers.

Strong Connections

Taylor is very well-connected in the industry, and has cultivated genuine friendships with many other big celebrities, many of which have showed their love and support for 1989 through social media- further helping her build her credibility, extended her reach beyond her own fans, and generate more hype.

Showing Appreciation

Perhaps the most creative aspect of her campaign were her “1989 Secret Sessions”– in which she invited 89 fans to her home (in five different locations), and they got to listen to her album in its entirety months before the launch.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these fans, during which they got to meet and hang out with Taylor, take photos with her- and she even baked treats for them! It was a unique and personal way of showing her appreciation and thanking her fans, one that many marketers can make an example of.

In E-Marketing, we learn so much about the importance of real-time marketing and staying relevant. Some of the best-executed ads of all time are the digital, real-time reactions to live events unfolding at that exact moment.

Let’s take the Super Bowl as an example. The average cost of a 30-second TV commercial for the 2013 Super Bowl was $4 million. But last year, the infamous Super Bowl Blackout occurred, within a few moments, Oreo put out one of its most clever tweets of all time:

This is a prime example of real-time digital marketing that was clever, timely, and engaging- it became one of the most talked-about ads of the night. It had both quality and speed. Best of all? It was free.

John St., an ad agency based in Toronto, just released a humorous new parody video about the ridiculously fast pace of marketing today, and how every brand feels the need to react to breaking news within minutes, and sometimes quality is compromised for speed.

In the video, the agency is pretending to be running a new unit called Reactvertising™, where it goes to crazy efforts to make sure clients are engaging and reacting to current events around the clock, in “hyper real-time”. It even goes so far as to helping clients “react to events that have not yet happened”.

Take a look at Reactvertising™ here:

Of course, while this video is satirical, it raises a good point for all digital marketers to consider: How can we stay timely and relevant without sacrificing quality? How do we pick and choose which events to react to? And how can we work with clients to ensure their brand is advertising in the right context?

Hats off to John St. for yet another satirical piece that hits the nail right on the head.

If you have any sort of social media account, then you’ve probably heard of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that has been going around for the past couple of months. In the summer, I would see Ice Bucket Challenge videos pop up on my feeds every day, created by both friends and celebrities alike. The social media campaign directly helped the ALS Association to raise $15.6 million in 3 weeks, nine times what it normally makes in the same time frame.

Another major news topic in recent months has been the Ebola crisis in West Africa, which is just starting to gain awareness in North America. During the past summer, five people from Sierra Leone started a website called EndEbolaNow.com, which aims to raise awareness and money for the Ebola crisis.

EndEbolaNow has teamed up with Emergency USA to create a new video dance challenge called #ShakeEbolaOff. Essentially, it is the same concept- you film yourself dancing, post it on social media, and nominate your friends to do the same and to donate to Emergency USA.

In my opinion, while I feel that there is potential for virality, this campaign just doesn’t have the shock value, the simplicity, and the comedic effect that the Ice Bucket Challenge did. All it did was require you to dump a bucket of ice water over your head- simple and funny, no matter how many times you watch it. But the #ShakeEbolaOff challenge requires a lot more thought and and creativity, and not everyone is comfortable with dancing AND posting it on social media for everyone to see.

However, the campaign has already attracted celebrities such as Kevin Bacon to take up the challenge, and their goal is to raise $1 million for the fight against Ebola- so if the Ice Bucket Challenge could raise $100 million within a month, let’s see how much we can raise to end Ebola.

Snapchat, the hugely popular messaging app famous for its vanishing photos, is introducing disappearing news “snaps” and advertisements in the next two months.

This new service, called “Snapchat Discovery“, will push videos, news articles, and ad content to its audience of an estimated 27 million users. People can simply hold down a finger on their screen to view daily publications, video content, or TV and movie clips.

The company is capitalizing on its huge ad revenue potential by attracting marketers who want to cut through the cluttered digital ad space to reach a younger, more tech-savvy audience. 50% of Snapchat’s users are between the ages of 13-17.

As a marketer, I think that this move by Snapchat is brilliant, and an essential next step to drive ad revenue. But as a Snapchat user, I am not looking forward to seeing advertisements dilute the organic content posted by my friends.

Earlier last year, Snapchat introduced “Snapchat Stories”, a way for users to send out multiple messages (hence “story”), and is available for your contacts to view for 24 hours. I’ve also noticed on my own feed that Snapchat has introduced “special’ Snapchat Stories, where events such as music festivals and sporting events are showcased.

The above screenshot is from my own feed. For example, “College Football” is a series of snaps from people attending football games across the United States, although representatives say that this was not a marketing collaboration. It seems as if Snapchat is slowly easing its users into seeing paid promotions and longer snaps on their feed.

Snapchat Discovery is said to be rolling out this November, so I will be tracking this developing story as it unfolds.

Ello, the self-proclaimed “Anti-Facebook”,  has gained much virality over the past few weeks. After discussing this new social network in class, my curiosity was piqued and so I decided to do some research myself.

There are several things that are helping the site generate buzz:

1. It is currently invite-only, and exclusivity breeds curiosity. Ello is reporting 40,000 sign-up requests coming in per hour.
2. Its manifesto promises zero ads, no data-mining, and most of all, no turning users into products. It aims to be “simple, beautiful, and ad-free”.
3. The site will be free for basic users, with one-time costs for premium features that can be added at the user’s discretion.

My biggest concern isn’t with its interface, its exclusivity, or its functionality. My problem is with Ello’s value proposition. What is Ello’s competitive advantage over other social networks? Its promise of being an ad-free experience. But can it stay ad-free? Where is the revenue going to come from? According to Gawker, Ello secured $435,000 in venture capital funding earlier this year. There will certainly be pressure from their investors as well as internally to make money.

It is near-impossible for a digital entity to remain 100% ad-free, as this makes up the bulk of the revenue streams for most companies. At the end of the day, it is a business, and every business has a bottom line, and stakeholders to keep happy. Their introduction of new premium paid features demonstrates their intentions to keep the site ad-free, but can one-time costs by an unknown percentage of users really generate enough money to keep the site afloat?

This is a story in development- the digital world will most certainly keep its eye on Ello to see what it’s next moves are.

The neatest thing I have come across recently is a Canadian app called Checkout 51. It is, in essence, an application that allows you to save money on everyday purchases and your favourite brands in a simple, one-step process.

Every week, a number of offers are released and are ready to be used for a week, until the following Wednesday at 11:59pm. They can range from your favourite cereal to haircare to nail polish- anything you could find in a grocery and/or drug store.

Should you decide to take advantage of a deal, all you have to do is retain the receipt, and upload a photo of it through the smartphone app or through their website. And that’s it! Your cash back dollars will accumulate in your account until you collect $20 or more, which then you can request a cheque.

In addition, Checkout 51’s business model allows it to enter into digital marketing partnerships with companies. For example, Mondelez International has partnered up with the company to create a loyalty program. Checkout 51 now has a dedicated “Christie Corner” where users can sign up, and it will keep track of when shoppers purchase any of the Christie brands. It can help companies understand how and when shoppers engage with their brand, derive valuable consumer insight, and create targeted promotions to further drive sales.

To me, Checkout 51 embodies innovation and strategic thinking in an age where mobile technology is king, and is a clever way to drive engagement among consumers of all kinds to enable them to save money, capturing those that are price-sensitive and/or risk-averse. The future of retail is here, and I look forward to seeing what Checkout 51 has in store for the future.

Every Canadian who has been living here for at least a few years recognizes the iconic Canadian Tire paper currency. The original “Canadian Tire money program” launched in 1958 in five denominations, and has since found its way into consumers’ hearts and wallets, being referred to as “Canada’s monopoly money” and “second currency”.

On Tuesday September 9th, the company announced that it would be taking its currency to digital: customers can now collect rewards through its mobile app, or register for a card/key fob in-store. However, the traditional paper currency will still be accepted, and will not be discontinued on the new future.

This move will be highly beneficial for Canadian Tire. Expanding in the mobile space has become a necessity for many companies in order to stay relevant in their consumers’ minds. By tracking their loyalty program digitally, Canadian Tire will be able to extract and data-mine valuable insight and information about customers’ purchasing habits, preferences, and tailor their marketing and promotions accordingly for effective upselling. It is a win-win for both parties, as consumers will now receive suggestions and targeted promotional deals that are relevant to their interests.

Canadian Tire recognizes the importance of user testing, as they have spent the past two years piloting the program in Nova Scotia to test the program’s usability and design, and it has finally launched for the public. As a frequent customer, I am looking forward to trying out the new digital rewards program myself!