In June of 2013, eMarketer  released a report that estimates in 2013 almost a quarter of the world’s population will use social media.  That is a large audience that marketers can’t afford to ignore when designing their social media strategies.

There are three main types of media Owned, Paid, and Earned Media.  Paid media is advertising that companies pay for. Owned media is the media a company owns an online website or a physical store.  Earned media is like word of mouth but online.

One interesting dynamic is the relationship between Owned and Earned Media, and how they complement and reinforce each other.  When used together, they have the power to turn interested customers into long term brand advocates.  For example, initially when Coke launches a new product like Coca-Cola Life the company receives a lot of buzz on social media channels.

However, this spark of interests is often short lived.  Over time users will become bored of a new healthier alternative to regular Coke.  Consumers constantly need to receive quality content that is related to their own personal interests from companies in order to remain engaged with a brand.

It’s like my marketing professor once said, “I don’t want to receive email.  I want to receive email”.  One interesting product is hardly enough to transform a customer into an advocate. However, Coke has reinforced its brand with Owned Media or media created by the company that aligns with the interests of many of its customers and engages them with Coke’s brand.  An example is Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl ad campaign that occurred in 2012 involving two polar bears who reacted to events on the field in real time.

Coke 2012 Commercial: “Arghh” featuring NY_Bear

Another example is Coca-Cola’s drive to create a safe haven for polar bears in the Arctic by raising over $2 million for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

These examples of Owned Media maintain user interest for longer, get more people talking about the brand in a positive way, and engage users on a deeper level.  Owned Media can take many forms like humanizing a brand by illustrating that Coke employees like football as much as the rest of us or that the company cares about the environment.  However, the real power of Owned Media is to retain the interest of users who were initially engaged by short lived PR Campaigns and turn customers into long term advocates by engaging them with content that is relevant to customer’s interests.

In the new age of social media, the rate that individuals and companies share information is increasing exponentially.  Previously, if a customer had a bad experience they would tell a few of their close friends around the water cooler during coffee break at the office and that would be the end of it.  Not a lot of damage was done to the company’s brand name.  Fast forward to today where negative customer experiences are tweeted to social media websites while they are happening.  Moreover, once these incidents are posted, other unhappy customers add their experiences making the problem bigger.

Consumers aren’t the only people following companies on social media outlets.  Social media outlets allow companies to gather real time information about competitors.  This allows companies to identify opportunities to launch micro marketing campaigns and get ahead of competitors by outperforming them on a global stage.

For example, back in 2012 Samsung flew two tech bloggers to Berlin, Germany to cover the product launch of the Samsung Note 2 and then threatened to leave them with the bill if they didn’t pose as Samsung employees.  The reporters believed that they were going to be guests at the event and were free to enjoy the day as they pleased.  However, when they arrived Samsung informed that they were going to pose as Samsung employees and man a booth at the event.  If they refused they would be left with the bill for the cost of their hotel and return flight.

Lucky for competitor Nokia they were closely monitoring the situation developing on social media.   Before weighing into the situation Nokia monitored and listened to what people were saying about the incident.  Nokia realized that these two popular tech bloggers had influence over a large number of followers.   As they watched the situation go from bad to worse, Nokia identified an opportunity to send a message to people following the situation.

Nokia reached out to the two tech bloggers and offered to cover the cost of their hotel and return flights.  This created a huge amount of positive publicity for Nokia.  By monitoring their competitor’s social media channels, identifying opportunities to talk and initiate small marketing campaigns, and acting in a smart and timely manner Nokia was able to create a massive amount of positive publicity for their company using relatively very few resources.  The massive amount of positive publicity was due to the fact that Nokia’s good deed was amplified over social media channels.

With the Twitter IPO approaching, Twitter is looking for different ways to justify their large evaluation of $1,000,000,000 given that Twitter did $317 million in the most recent full year, according to TechCrunch.

Advertising for television shows is one way that Twitter hopes to draw in advertisers.  According to CNBC, “Nielsen is launching Twitter TV Ratings, the first measure of the total activity and reach of TV-related conversation on Twitter—to help identify who’s really engaging in real time and to better target ads.”

The new rating will measure the number of people tweeting about certain television shows and the number of people who actually read those tweets.  Twitter is trying to partner more with traditional media companies, which is one of the growth areas they have identified during their S-1 filing in preparation for their IPO.

However, this may just be a distraction from the real problem that compared other tech companies who have done an IPO; Twitter doesn’t stack up very well.

Taken from WSJ.

According to Eric Jackson of Forbes, “Twitter is supposed to have 100 million “active” users — although, 40% of the “active” users never tweet but just read tweets.  That means Twitter is able to generate a buck thirty-nine for each of its active users.  If it’s true that Facebook did $4 billion last year from its 700 million users, they sold $5.71 for each user — or 4 times as much as Twitter.

Given that some more profitable companies such as Facebook, had a less that positive few months after their IPO, Twitter may be in trouble for its IPO.

During class the idea of how the Mackenzie Customer Decision Journey highlights the impact consumers can have on a brand and product after purchasing a product by spreading their experiences to friends and followers through social media.  These experiences can be good or bad depending on the experience the customer during and after purchasing the product.

While harsh criticism from customers about a company’s products may be hard for employees to hear, the opinions that are raised can be constructive and useful.  For example, elements of the criticism can be used to improve products and tailor distribution channels to fit consumer’s preferences, ultimately creating positive value for the company and customers alike.  However, what is not useful is criticism written by “artificial writers”, or people who are employed by competitors to write negative news about a certain company in hopes that the news will go viral.  Another danger of “artificial writers” is that the content they create could be picked up while mining for social media insights, causing marketers to come to the wrong conclusion about consumer’s behavior and brand preferences.  In order to avoid gathering incorrect data, companies need to identify if the source of negative comments are coming directly form a consumer or from a competitor.

SlideIdea Demo Video

SlideIdea is a presentation tool for iPad.  The one feature that puts it ahead of other presentation tools for iPad ,”  is its “smart widget” platform, which lets users add interactive elements to presentations in order to better engage and solicit feedback from the audience”(Taken from http://ow.ly/oVLkj ).

The theme of how traditional marketing has evolved into a two-way conversation between a company and each individual consumer is also transitioning its way into the world of PowerPoints and presentations.  It used to be that large companies would work really hard on a marketing plan and share it with their customers.  This style of one way marketing was disrupted by social media, which facilitates two way communication.

The idea of engaging your audience (customers) in an individualized two way conversation is now moving into the office.  Now with presentation software such as SlideShare, presenters can engage users like never before by getting live feedback from the audience as a whole through live polls and interactive forums using their smartphones.

So what does this mean for the future of live presentations?

I believe that soon a flipped classroom type of presentations will emerge. Audiences of every size will be empowered to give direction to a conversation and direct it towards the area that they are most interested in.

Much like multiple ending novels, Choose Your Own Adventure series, members of the audience will give choices that lead to multiple endings.  Presentations become more fluid.  Presenters will have to assemble presentations in a way that allows them to be flexible and directed in the direction that best engages the most audience members.

This will create more value for audiences by making the material more targeted and relevant.  In particular SlideIdea may be useful for large conferences where it is hard to interact with each individual member of the audience.

How would you like to wait in a lineup of 1,417 people? A recent article published by TechCrunch (http://ow.ly/p5h6K ) states that 1,417 people waited at Apple’s 5th Avenue NYC flagship store to get Apple’s iPhone 5s and 5c during the first day they went on sale.

Some may say this is because Apple’s iPhone 5s and 5c are so good people couldn’t wait to get their hands on them. However, I think large line up at the store shows how loyal and willing apple consumers are go out of their way to engage with the brand. Ultimately, Apple customers are willing to invest large amounts of time, money, and other resources to get the newest iPhone.

Moreover, the Apple has done an excellent job of communicating the announcement of its new products creating buzz and excitement around the launch. Apple is focusing in on customers who are actively listening to what the company has to say and are early adopters of their products. Many of the customers are also bloggers and influencers that can create positive social media buzz for new product releases by telling their friends and positively influencing their followers to buy more Apple products.

Apple customers wait in line for Apple’s iPhone 5s and 5c.

For example, a picture like the picture above creates buzz and gets people talking about the product release and the Apple brand a whole. The more this picture is shared and talked about the more brand recognition and prestige is created for Apple. Moreover, this type of publicity is does not cost Apple additional costs.

Pictures like this show that Apple’s iPhone 5s and 5c are popular, prestigious, and exclusive. These are attributes Apple strives to be related to. Moreover, these messages of positive attributes are being reinforced and spread by apple consumers, giving the messages more validity than if Apple tried to spread the same type of message through traditional marketing channels like television or paid advertising.