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Israel and Hamas Carry Their Real-Life War to Twitter

A twitter war has broken out over the past couple of days.  This probably sounds like nothing new considering that it is pretty common to see users on twitter going back and forth at one another.  This however, is nothing like those traditional twitter “wars”, this is between two groups who are currently engaging in active warfare on the Gaza strip.  Never before have we seen anything like what is happening on twitter between both the IDF (Israel defense Federation) and the Hamas.  Below is a tweet which started the newest form of war, which was almost bound to happen eventually due to the rate that twitter has been evolving in recent years.

Israel’s twitter account is one that is interesting to me for a number of reasons.  For one, is has brought a new dimension to warfare, announcing as of late their latest rocket launching plans, and even going as far as putting up pictures of targets that they have successfully killed.  Another reason I find this account interesting is the way that it is doing everything that people are getting taught in school when it comes to twitter; using hashtags throughout its tweets, and consistently linking videos and pictures wherever possible.  This profile sounds like it should be coming from the marketing department of a particular brand, and not from a country who is in the middle of a very serious conflict. Below is another example of a tweet from the same account, asking followers to RT them if they think Israel has the right to defend itself.

Say what you will about the way that these two countries are approaching this conflict, the fact of the matter is that if you get past the tweets seen above, this is more about the country of Israel trying to find a voice in the conflict that is occurring.  I believe that this isn’t about showing off how many rockets they’re shooting per day, but rather about trying to fight the Palestine propaganda for themselves.  The last time that Israel and Hamas fought on the Gaza strip, it was Israel who took much of the blame for over 1000 deaths of innocent people due to the anti Israel Arabs using this as propaganda against them.  Israel clearly recognized that they needed a way to have their own say in the perceptions of everyone around, so they have taken to twitter to combat this.  I’m not saying this is right, as they are promoting their killing all over twitter, but I can say that this is a smart move by Israel, as they finally have a voice thanks to the world of twitter.

What I have discussed above is just another way that twitter is evolving, and how every day there are different groups making use of the leveraging capabilities that can be harnessed through twitter.  It won’t surprise me if one day down the road, we’ll see a tweet from the official Barack Obama twitter account asking a Kim Jong Un to follow him on twitter so that they can DM about this nuclear weapon crisis (Just kidding, I hope).

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Walmart Launches “Goodies” – Catering to Micro Niches

Back in week one of E-Marketing, we discussed the idea of Micro Niches and the role that they can play in online commerce and marketing.  The example commonly used, and the one diagrammed below, is music sales in Walmart vs. Rhapsody; One challenge for stores, which are always limited to certain amounts of inventory due to physical space of the store as well as holding costs, is which inventories to hold and which ones aren’t popular enough to keep in store.  Studies have shown that there is a substantial market for the niche products that make up the “long tale”, however it is difficult for a retailer to cater to these niches.  As you can see, Rhapsody was able to offer titles to the consumers that Walmart simply couldn’t do in store.

It’s quite ironic that this is the picture that we studied back in September, with Walmart being the focus company, as today Walmart officially announced their newest venture: Goodies.  Someone at Walmart must have been sitting in on our class in September and realized that this idea does not only apply to the tech industry, with songs, movies, and books at the forefront, but rather it can apply across many different platforms – including groceries.

How does Goodies work?

Big grocery store chains have always found the challenge of not being able to cater to every one of their customers needs, and have therefore lost out on potential sales.  With Goodies, subscribers pay $7 a month, including tax and shipping, to get a box of gourmet, organic and artisanal food valued at about $15, which they would otherwise never be able to find in store.  The items are all “sample sized”, and the whole concept works around the idea of Discovery Commerce.  If a subscriber finds that he or she wants more of any of the items, they can then go online and purchase the item from Walmart.

Issues

Goodies is clearly taken from Birchbox’s model, and there already seems to be a few competitors in this market such as Love with Food, as well as Tasterie.  Walmart has stated that it plans to differentiate itself from these competitors by offering their products at a lower price due to their big-box retailer status.  It has also brilliantly come up with the idea to let customers rate each product they are sent, even if they are not wanting to purchase any more of that particular item.  They offer points, in which subscribers will eventually be able to redeem for a free box of unique products.  This is a way that Walmart hopes to encourage others to buy these Niche products, because since they may not have tried them, they will have many recommendations from others to aid them in their purchasing process.

This idea of businesses catering to micro niches is something that can obviously be transferred to many different products worldwide, and online offerings like this one is something that I believe will continue to grow further down the road, as companies begin to see the advantages of this.

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Instagram Moves Online

Ever since I purchased my iPhone and made my Instagram account, I had always wondered why it was exclusive to the mobile platform.  I guess many people were wondering the same thing as me, because just last week Instagram finally launched online user pages; something that has been rumored for quite some time and has finally come to fruition.

It is a sleek and simple design, with a changing picture collage banner at the top of the profile, and small previews of each of your pictures at the lower part of the webpage.   It should be noted that not all functions of the mobile form are available, but important ones such as the ability to like and comment on other people’s photos are there.  One glaring thing that has been left out in the first web offering is the ability to upload photos onto your account from your computer.  It’s tough to say why this would be, as this is a major part of the Instagram experience that seems to be deliberately left out for now.

Although many expected this move to happen eventually, what intrigues me most is seeing a company diverting from traditional methods of developing an online presence and than moving over to the mobile platform.  Instagram has done the complete opposite, as they built the billion dollar business solely using the online platform, and have now finally made the move to online, something that perhaps stems from the Facebook acquisition 5 months ago.

To me this is a sign of things to come for companies in the future, with more and more mobile start ups surfacing each day.  Soon it will not be uncommon for a company to start on mobile without any online presence and then move online once they are well established;  something that Instagram has done extremely effectively.

Since the release, Instagram has spoken up to shoot down rumours that it is going to switch its focus to having primarily online activities, saying that the company is focused on maintaining its mobile platform to be its number one priority.  I believe that a balance between the two is key, and Instagram is making the right decision in developing their online platform, however I also believe that Instagram could further capture a market share away from photo sharing companies such as Flickr if they continue to work on improving the online presence.  Obviously there is going to be differences between the online and mobile forms of Instagram in order to optimize the usability for the users, however, I believe that the ability to upload photo’s online is something that needs to be implemented next if Instagram is serious about establishing their online platform.

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Christmas In September

I can probably say that I’m speaking for quite a few people when I say that for me, my Christmas spirit usually starts on the same day each year.  This day has moved earlier and earlier over recent years but there has always been something to welcome me into the holidays.  This, of course, is the first day that Starbucks brings in their Christmas cups.

Retailers have seen an increase in holiday shopping year after year and have continued to push the dates up for their Christmas season’s to begin.  What was once a time left almost exclusively for December, it is now quite common to see November 1st as the first week that holiday campaigns come into effect for most companies, leaving not even a day in transition time from Halloween to Christmas.  In fact, according to statistics from Shop.org, over 20% of retailers planned to launch their online campaigns in the first week of October or earlier.

The increase in E-Commerce in recent years has greatly changed the way marketers should approach the holiday season, as it is estimated that over 40% of companies generate the majority of their holiday sales on the web, with estimates of US retailers will earn $54.47 billion online during November and December this year, up 16.8% over online holiday season sales in 2011.  The challenge that most companies are faced with is when is the right time to launch your holiday campaign.  It’s tough to say, as on hand you do not want to fall behind your competition, however on the other hand, you must not draw it out too long and have customers become uninterested come Late November and early December when your campaign is no longer attractive to them, even though Christmas is still a full month away.

Another issue is that some smaller companies can reach the holiday season unprepared for what is to come.  Here are 5 very brief tips in preparing for the holiday season:

1) Optimize your shopping cart/checkout page

2) Give customers advance notice

  • It’s important for your customers to know when to expect your holiday line to begin, so that they can budget and plan accordingly

3) Mobile/Tablet friendly Website

  • Offering electronic catalogs is great way to attract tablet users, as well as making sure your company is able to accept and process online coupons, especially for mobile users

4) Give the customer’s the voice

  • Create platforms for your customers to do the talking about what they want this holiday season

5) Launch a Email Marketing Campaign

  • According to marketers surveyed by Experian Marketing Services, email marketing trumped all other tactics as the most successful initiative during the 2011 holiday season

It’s tough for companies to understand when the best time is to launch their winter campaigns, but if history is any indication, one thing we can count on is that as consumer spending continues to rise each year, more and more companies will start their campaigns earlier in the year.

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User Generated Content – My Favourite

User generated content has been a hot topic in class this year.  What is the best way to encourage it?  How can you effectively leverage it?  What platforms should be used?  These are all questions with not many definitive answers, but I want to examine one of my favourite campaigns from the past that focused almost solely on user generated content, which went viral almost as quickly as it was released.
It was January of 2009 and everyone north of California was already a couple months into their winter season and needing some sunshine in their life.  This was when Tourism Australia released their campaign for “best job in the world”.  The premise was actually pretty simple;  it was a job posting in Australia.  The execution, however, was brilliant.  This wasn’t just your ordinary job and Tourism Australia knew this, so they decided to launch this campaign around it.

The application process was pretty straightforward, but also a unique one, as applicants needed to submit a 60 second video online, which visitors to the site could view and vote for their favourite ones.  In the end, this campaign received over 35,000 unique submissions, and tourism Australia barely had to make any content of their own.  Applicants would create their videos and then share them amongst their groups of friends to encourage them to vote, causing more and more buzz around the job position, and Australia as a whole.

What was fascinating is how quickly this online marketing campaign took off, and how quickly news sites around the world were following this story.  In fact, in Tourism Australia’s final report, they concluded that over $400 Million dollars in media coverage was provided to them, absolutely free, all because of this one of a kind contest. Applicants knew that they needed to stand out more than the rest, so as the days went on, the video’s became more and more creative.  Check out the eventual winner’s application below to see for yourself.

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Only counting YouTube, this video has been seen about 180,000 times, but when you add in the views on the contest website, estimates are well over 1 million views.  Furthermore, the video below shows that in just 6 weeks, there were already 28 Million page views on the website.

Although this campaign on the surface was about finding someone to become a “caretaker for the great barrier reef islands”, in actual fact, this was a brilliant campaign launched to showcase how vast and beautiful the great barrier reef is, and to basically remind the world about why visitors continue to visit this spot, year after year. It’s hard to predict the success of something like this ahead of time, but when the content is 100% user generated, it is hard to see the downside in something like this.

YouTube Preview Image

 

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Redefining Sports Marketing

Sports marketing has always been an integral part of a companies philosophies.  It gives companies a unique chance to put a face behind their brand for the world to see.   The attractive stat about sports advertisement is the fact that 97% of America’s largest sports channel, ESPN, is watched live.  It is easy for television viewers to record different shows and watch them at their convenience while skipping through all of the commercials, but when it comes to a sporting event, the luxury of PVR quietly fades away as watching a sporting event after you know the result simply just does not measure up.

You could go the traditional route and be another person to sponsor a Lebron James or Alex Rodriguez, essentially giving them another madlibs book to fill out (I enjoy {Company name} more than any other company, and you should all like {company name} with me).  Although this route has worked for a number of companies, I believe that these days companies need to do something differently to separate themselves, and this is exactly what everybody’s favorite energy drink company has done.  That company of course, is Red Bull, who have redefined sports marketing and given it a refreshing change that consumers can get behind.

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Pinterest With a Twist

Unless you’ve been living under a rock over the past year, chances are you have probably heard of the popular photo-sharing website “Pinterest”.  Pinterest has been particularly interesting to marketers not only because the number of users have been increasing substantially over the past year, but rather for the way that the site is being used.  According to stats from theultralinx.com, Pinterest is only second to youtube when it comes to the average amount of time that people spend on the site at a time.  This is an incredible advantage to have and one that will lead to big advertising dollars when Pinterest decides to go that route.

Another interesting feature of Pinterest is the demographics that it attracts.  As you can see from the picture below, the users are predominately females, which in turn means that most of the content (or pins) on Pinterest will be geared toward the female taste.

Since it’s inception, there has been a number of websites that have tried to emulate Pinterest, with many trying to create the “Pinterest for men”.  Some examples include Dudepins, Manteresting, PunchPin, Gentlemint, and Dartitup.  While the thought behind these sites are great and make sense, they have had trouble retaining users, perhaps due to the experiences men have previously had with Pinterest and it’s predominantly feminine content.  It is clear that the concept of being able to collect all of your favorite pictures on the internet into one centralized location is something that has become very popular, but there was always something missing from these new sites geared towards the male population.

Enter Tapiture.

Tapiture was formed by the founders of TheChive.com approximately three months ago, and had over 1.5 Million unique visitors to the website in it’s first 4 weeks of being live with essentially zero outside promotion.  It is just like the others mentioned above, and the founders would be the first to tell you that.  They have readily described it on multiple occasions as their version of Pinterest, for guys.  There is, however, one thing that seperates Tapiture from all of the other websites mentioned above:  community.

TheChive is well known for having one of the most dedicated communities on the Internet, and the founders Leo and John Resig identified an opportunity to take advantage of this in a big way.  As mentioned several times in class, establishing a community goes a long way for a companies success, so it only made sense for TheChive to take advantage of their pre-existing community (who are predominately male) and fill a void such as this one.  So far, the average stay of visitors on Tapiture is 7 minutes;  a figure that is quite impressive and only has room to grow.  I believe that this number has been dragged down by a visitors who checked out the site very briefly after its initial launch just to see what it was about.

On the outside, websites such as Pinterest seem like ways for users to simply share pictures with each other, however, these websites are also very important for E commerce.  In fact, a recent report finds that Pinterest has motivated 47% of US female social users to make a purchase, as opposed to 33% on Facebook and 31% on twitter.  The founders of Tapiture have stated that among the 50 pictures to show up on the home-screen, approximately 10 of them will be strategically chosen, clearly marked commerce items, available for sale directly from the website.   The other 40 or so will simply be pictures ranging from good looking girls, to cars, to pictures of food, and everything in between.  It remains to be seen whether this strategy of a Pinterest for men is one that will stick, but for now, TheChive has taken all of the right steps to reach this mark, as it continues to grow it’s loyal community within the website.

 

 

 

 

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E-Marketer Report: Males Buy More on Mobile Platforms than Females

A new report was published last week courtesy of E-Marketer, which found that men top women in mobile buying.  There were a number of things that I found interesting about this report, in particular it was the categorical breakdown comparisons that really intrigued me.  The findings displayed that while men top women in mobile buying, it is the women that greatly top men on some categories.  Below is a breakdown of the different types of products that consumers have purchased by gender:

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How Social Media Helped to End the NFL Referee Lockout

Social media can be used as an outlet for many things; It can be used as a way for companies to interact with consumers, for individuals to keep up with their friends and any celebrities that they may chose to want to know more about, and even to take pictures of their food for the world to see on Instagram.

I want to focus this discussion on the recent problems that the NFL has faced in regards to the backlash over it’s so-called “replacement referees”.  For those of you who have been living under a rock recently, the NFL and the referees entered into a lockout last June after they could not come to terms on a new deal moving forward.  The NFL subsequently hired “replacement referees” to fill in for the regular referees, to show the real referees that they were not worth what they had been valuing themselves at.

What happened next was pure chaos, with fans from across the world coming together to voice their displeasure for these new referees, using social media as their main outlets.

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A New Age for Search Engine Optimization

As someone who has been working in the Finance industry for the past 5 months, nothing has intrigued me more than Facebook’s high-profile IPO and the disaster that has spawned from it.  The biggest problem currently surrounding Facebook is how it will keep its revenues growing  during a time where smartphone usage worldwide is increasing at an enormous rate.  Although there is a very big problem surrounding the rise of smartphone usage and how to keep advertisement revenue growing for companies, it is not the only problem facing companies because of the worldwide popularity of Smartphones.  Companies are now left with the problem of how to progress their Mobile SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine‘s “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.  In short, it is making sure that your company appears high up in a search engine search (Google being the most important)  over a variety of different search terms.  People using Google or any other search engine every day, and for a company to be in the top 5 of search results is a major priority.  Research has shown that almost no results are looked at past this point.

The Problem?

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