Is Facebook losing its cool? The answer is a debatable topic in the news today. Last week, I talked about how Facebook is losing its grasp over teenagers, which is seen as a potential disaster because teenagers are the demographic that spot the up in coming trends. However, maybe that’s not the case. Just because teens are quick to spot new trends, doesn’t mean that they are able to predict which ones will be profitable in the long run.

This video aired today on Yahoo! Finance about the reasons why Snapchat turned down Facebook’s 3 billion dollar deal and whether it was because Facebook had lost its “cool”. Aaron Task argues that “What’s cool with kids doesn’t always turn out to be a great business. Teenagers are notoriously fickle”. No offense to teenagers.

In my opinion…Snapchat was the bees knees last year. I was obsessed. Thanks to that app, I nearly went over my data limit each month because I felt the need to Snapchat everything I did. However, after several months it lost its appeal and my friends and I rarely use it anymore. Look at other apps such as Words with Friends and Draw Something- all were entertaining, sold for billions of dollars and all are rarely downloaded today. Snapchat should have sold out while they still had the popularity because technology is changing on the daily and what is cool now, isn’t necessarily going to be cool tomorrow.

In conclusion: Facebook might be losing its cool but so is Snapchat. Your thoughts?

Hats off to Volvo for another outrageous, epic viral video. If you haven’t see this video you are missing out!

With nearly 7.7 million YouTube hits, the publicity surrounding Volvo’s latest video featuring Claude Van Damme, aka “Muscles from Brussels”, is definitely a hit. However…are the plethora of views on YouTube actually going to help the company? Marketing experts say “Absolutely!”.

In Volvo’s case, the extensive publicity surrounding the new Van Damme ad, will not only increase the value of Volvo’s brand but it will also increase truck sales. Unfortunately, not all viral videos are this lucky. Some companies try so hard to create an astonishing video in the hopes that it goes viral but they forget to relate the content to their brand. Without the connection between the content and the brand, people will remember and talk about the outrageous stunt but they will forget to recall the company that made it.

Volvo scored BIG with this ad. Advertising columnists Barbara Lippert says “This is completely unique. It’s an incredible human way to show the equilibrium of the steering of the truck”, adding that “anyone who knows anyone who drives a truck or owns a truck will mention it to them. People love this stuff.” Also by using social media rather than a traditional TV ad, Volvo is able to increase brand awareness of younger demographics who could be potential truck drivers some day.

The idea to illustrate the precision of Volvo Dynamic Steering with 53-year-old Van Damme doing an epic split was perfectly on point. Well done, Volvo. Well done.

JPMorgan, the biggest bank in the United States, has faced criminal investigations accompanied by $30 billion in fines and legal fees. Soooooo who’s bright idea was it to hold a Q&A with JPMorgan’s vice chairman Jimmy Lee on Twitter? Earlier this week JPMorgan tweeted this…

Their intention was to give college students the opportunity to communicate directly with senior executive Brian Marchiony. This wasn’t the case. Within 6 hours, the bank tweeted “#Badidea! Back to the drawing board” and within that time frame they received 6,000 responses. The #AskJPM hashtag was used in more than 24,000 posts but not in the way JPMorgan intended. The response was fast, vast, and absolutely hysterical.

In my Emarketing class we talked about the benefits and risks of a company using Twitter to communicate with the public. This is a prime example of how social media, if used in the wrong setting, could seriously tarnish a company’s reputation. The timing of a social media campaign has to be on point and you have to be prepared to handle the backlash as quickly has possible. It will be interesting to see how JPMorgan plays this failure off…Good luck to them.

If you got a kick out of this post, click here to view the top 13 most epic twitter fails by big brands.

Facebook released a startling statement this month when they realized a decrease in daily users, specifically among teenagers. So why is Facebook so worried when they currently have 1.2 billion monthly active users? The answer is simple. Teens are the demographic who point the rest of us towards the next big thing and that next big thing appears to be Facebook’s enemy, messaging apps.

Facebook seems to be a victim of its own success. Back in the day, Facebook was primarily used by younger generations to post pictures of their weekend antics and uninhibited status updates. Now, Facebook’s 1.2 billion users is made up of your mom, dad, and grandparents who are flooding your wall with embarrassing comments and liking every picture you post to their newsfeed…embarrassing.

Due to the limited privacy Facebook offers teenagers, they are switching to messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, to share content with their friends. WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps with 350 million monthly active users (Twitter only has 218 million!). Messaging apps are posing a big threat to established social networks because they not only allow you to message your friends, you can also play games, send stickers and share music. These features have turned messaging apps into social networks and they have grabbed the attention of teenagers. It can only be assumed that older generations are soon to follow. Facebook- you’ve been warned.