COMM 464

Compare to the acquisition of Instagram of $1 billion last year, Facebook is now offering 3 times the capital to acquire Snapchat.

Has Mark Zuckerberg gone mad? Seriously, offering $3 billion for a start-up business which has a large user base with no profit? Or is it nuts for CEO of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel to reject this all-cash buyout offer? Does Spiegel really believe his business is worth more than $3 billion? Ultimately that will depend on how how popular it becomes. Pictures posted to the site remain there for 10 seconds or less, which can be appealing. For more information about Snapshot buyout offer, watch this video Snapchat vs. Facebook: Being “Cool” Doesn’t Always Pay Off

Maybe Facebook is not cool anymore among young kids. “People are getting tired of having pictures surface years later of some drunken party they went to that cost them a job,” says Blodget. “So the kids are going to Snapchat. It’s a new form of communication.”

Snapchat is the Next Big Thing?

For more, read this article Why Snapchat should NEVER have Ads

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

A very interesting article where SOHO Business Group talked about ways to use social media to promote your business.

#1: Encourage audience to create their own content

This is similar to what we learned in class about earned, owned, and paid media. When your customers or third party write about you, your business will gain credibility, increase exposure, and increase interaction. Encourage your audience to take pictures and share with their friends, this will create a buzz in leveraging your earned media.

#2: Build a non-existing social media platform for your target audience

Monitor and listen to your customers closely, if customers can not find a platform to discuss their passion, then take the initiative to create one. For example, founder of Port Barrel BBQ has created a platform solely for “Backyard BBQ”, where BBQ enthusiasts discuss all things cookout, share pictures of interesting creations.

#3: Interesting competitions

Create the most creative competition by thinking out of the box. For example, use the tagging feature of Facebook to upload different pictures and encourage users to tag various items. This is simple yet effective.

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

Blog posts are “dive target traffic to your site”, which generate 67% more leads than those who do not blog. Very interesting tips on blog posts for your small business website

1. Identify what your readers wants: dig deep into your target audience by listening to their conversations, know what they want, and deliver information that met their needs. Read more on Business Insider about 8 Ways to Listen to Your Customers.

2. Strong headlines: 80% of readers will read the headlines, and only 20% read the content. Make sure your headlines are engaging and compelling for readers to continue with the content.

3. Original content: Be original with the content, which is not copied from other sites. This will improve SEO and website rankings.

4. Keep it short, concise, and specific: here, I would suggest using SMART goals, make the post brief, relevant, and coherent, and be proactive. Use the SMART Goals in Social Media.

5. Keywords & Phrases: Include keywords in your blog content to increase SEO. Check out How to target Keywords with Blog Posts.

6. Blog regularly: keep your audience updated, at least once a week. It’s your professionalism and commitment that customers value.

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

YouTube is one of the fastest growing social media platform. Interesting enough, Nespresso signs up as a debut brand partner with YouTube.

Nespresso is the first European partner for the YouTube scheme, which provides brands will all the tools, training, and data to improve their content creation skills on the platform. YouTube has grasp an opportunity to leverage their strength by partnering with top brands such as American Express, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, and now Nespresso.

YouTube is actually the number 1 video producer which has the most subscribers gains in one month. The YouTube Partnership Program helps brands to effectively act as publishers to improve their content, which  increase customer base, finally conversing customers in the purchasing process.

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

Starbucks is the pioneer in leveraging Twitter for commerce in its beverage retailing industry, using the Tweet-to-buy program.The future prospect of blending mobile and social together to drive commerce has its potentials.

First, sync the Starbucks loyal program account with customer’s Twitter account, and then send a tweet @tweetacoffee. Recipients can get $5 gift card which loads the redemption straight to Starbucks’ mobile app. At the point-of-purchase, customers simply show the email to get this free offer.

The purpose of this program is to drive in-store traffic. According to Mr. Aviza, the coffee giant saw a 68 percent increase in in-store check-ins during the summer campaign.

Want the $5 gift card, check it out here:

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

“In this article, Laura Balkovich, Google’s head of social for Asia Pacific, discusses the key trends marketers must respond to, from the rise of internet users connecting in more human ways to the increasing importance of mobile internet usage. She argues that brands must now include social media in all their marketing, connect with communities based around shared interests and seek to engage super fans.” – Balkovich, WARC

Three Social Media Trends:

1. Rise of people making human connections: internet has become a place to connect with people, Balkovich added that “25% of search results for the top 20 brands are actually links to user-generated content”, this is consistent with what we learned in class regarding the authenticity of UGC. Watch this case study of Bringing photography walks to everyone.

2. Rise of people connecting around interests: reaching out to customers based on interest, not demographics. By identifying the psychographics and social technographics of our customers, companies need to generate relevant forums and initiate discussions regarding what their customers’ want.

3. Rise of deeper online conversations: according to Balkovich “Our Social Planet showed that 78% of consumers are just as likely to communicate with friends and family through the web as they are face-to-face”. The rise of digital marketing creates a platform for more intimate relationships with brands and customer, as illustrated in the video below:

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

“Facebook is no longer positioning itself as just a social media solution. Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s vice president of global marketing solutions, spoke with eMarketer’s Rimma Kats about the key role social advertising and real-time marketing play for the company’s clients, as well as how mobile is constantly opening up opportunities.” Everson, eMarketer

Trend and Direction towards Mobile

Marketers want to be where consumers are. As consumers are increasing the amount of time spent on cellar phones, there will be budget shifts into that direction. Interestingly, I found some statistics about smartphone usage across British Columbia, Canada.

Smartphone Usage

6S-Marketing survey revealed that 89% of 18-34 year old BC adults own a smartphone and are using their device an average of nearly two hours every day on a wide variety of activities. Importantly, 79% expect a good mobile experience from the brands they trust and engage with. The average number of times a smartphone user check their phone is 150 times, with 23 messaging related, 22 times voice calling, 18 times checking for times, etc

Social Media Usage

Smartphone are the most popular way to access social media apps. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine are accessed more through mobile than laptop/computers (36%, 54%, 79%, and 80% of users access these apps through mobile, respectively.)

Everson emphasized that “mobile is the first screen, and I think it’s the most important screen, which means it’s going to be used for virtually every aspect of marketing funnel – form brand building all the way to driving very specific direct-response objectives”. It is evident that Facebook acknowledges the emerging market of mobile and how it interacts with paid social advertising. This creates an opportunity for Facebook to look at mobile as a “true brand-building platform”.

To read more, check out “Facebook Looks Beyond the Social Media Part of Its Business” http://bit.ly/1jkbHs1

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

Nick Tran, head of social media at Taco Bell was interviewed by eMarketer. He spoke about choosing the right mix of social media platform and trends his company is seeing for 2014.

Content: leverage between Company Generated Content vs. User Generated Content

Tran expressed the importance of digital marketing which provides a personal, 2-way communication. Brands need to create content that’s genuine and authentic, with less photoshopped. Taco Bell clearly understands the usage of company generated content in providing materials that reflects its brand’s value. In addition, Taco Bell cares about their customers, according to Tran “I don’t just throw product messages to our fans, [rather] I’m trying to reach them and build that relationship in addition to letting them know what we’re offering”. It’s interesting to see how Taco Bell leverages user generated content in creating a community with less advertising focused, and more organic messaging incorporated.

Monitoring and listening:

Taco Bell “takes a lot of pride in [listening to their customers, and they are always] aware of the conversations, whether or not they want to participate”, according to Tran. This reminds me of Professor Paul’s lecture about listening to your social media conversations before talking: first marketers need to listen, then talk. And moving towards engagement in a 2-way, mutual conversations. Afterwards facilitate pay-pay discussions, but keeping the conversation moving. The elements we learned in class about monitoring and listening is consistent with Taco Bell’s conversation technique.

Conversation Prism:

The conversation prism is the visual map of social media landscape. It tracks dominant and promising social media channels and organizes them by how they’re used in everyday life. Tran says that “it’s tough to really say [which social media channels] is more effective than the other, [where] each platform serves its purpose”. By actively listening where the conversation takes place, Taco Bell is able to venture with their fans through it’s first venture into Facebook, later migrated to join Twitter, and now Instgram. A big focus for Taco Bell in 2014 would be initiating relevant discussions and uploading interesting videos on YouTube and Vine.

Check out eMarketer “Taco Bell Mixes in Each Social Platform as Appropriate” to read more http://bit.ly/17lXOYk

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

A survey was conducted by Ascend2 regarding pay-per-click (PPC) advertising process. It is interesting to find that 54% of people named lead generation as #1 most important objective of their PPC strategy.

Lead Generation

Methods for generating leads include non-paid sources such as organic search engine, which results in referrals and brand advocates. Paid sources which include  paid media and owned media, such as advertising through print, digital and website. In order to increase lead generation, business wants to increase quality leads, needs to assess customers’ interest, and communicates brand effectively to customers.

Decision-making models: conversion

46% of respondents named  increase rate of conversion as the second most important objectives for PPC strategies. This draws back to our class discussion about consumer decision-making models. The traiditonal model is where consumers only considers about the product. However, the magican hat model focuses on customers that are more likely to convert. By further defining the target market, they reduce the amount of costs allocated inefficiently to audiences that are unlikely to convert. Yet, the pitfall is the huge difficulties in segmenting the market.

Check out what eMarketer has to say about this, http://bit.ly/1egA6OZ

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂

“Luxury brands are exploring a range of untapped opportunities, from diversification of product portfolios to raising awareness among the newly wealthy, a group found to be less familiar with high-end brands than expected.” Atlanta, WARC

Conversation Prism

It is interesting to discover that only 50%-60% of the affluent are familiar with luxury brands. Since majority of millionaires are self-made, as a result they have little knowledge about luxury products. This leads me wondering why aren’t affluent people educated about luxury brands, is Louis Vuitton marketing department not doing their job? Luxury companies need to understand which social media platform their customers are using. For example, how can LV join customer’s conversation. Undoubtedly, LV needs to learn about where their customers are and how they are conversing on these platforms. In order to respond to customers on each platform, LV needs to be part of their customer’s conversations. Luxury brands opens an opportunity to initiate conversations about the features, appeals, and value of the products. Doing so, will increase brand awareness, and turn potential customers into existing long-term customers.

For detail analysis of luxury brand research, check out American Affluence Research Center polled on Americans.

cheers

Crystal Liang 🙂