Equanimity

Despite all its heralded success and popularity, there have always been questions surrounding Twitter and its ability to generate profits since it burst onto the scene in 2009. Twitter has been criticized for its lack of a profitable business model, despite strong venture capitalist backings and funding of $160 million.

With all the hype surrounding Social Media in the past year, especially as a business/marketing tool, it’s an important question to consider – when/how does the hype and popularity translate into monetary value?

Earlier this year, Twitter launched its advertising platform known as “promoted tweets”. Basically, companies can send out a tweet from their company accounts, and pay Twitter for the tweet to be at the top of search results in which the tweet appears. Sometimes, promoted tweets/hashtags also appear in the trending topics list.

That’s how I came across the hashtag #GroundRules, a promoted tweet from @JetBlue. For some reason it caught my eye, and clicking the tweet lead to this video:

I found this advertisement quite interesting because, rather than pushing the product, it is emphasizing a purpose: customer empowerment. This made me think back to class 1, when we discussed Ryanair and its many cost-cutting tactics. For being in an industry in which rising fuel costs and regulations are forcing airlines to charge for meals, pillows, blankets, and maybe even to use the toilet, JetBlue has chosen an interesting point of differentiation.

Currently, the jury is still out on whether Twitter’s promoted tweets are proving profitable for Twitter and the promoted companies. However, if Twitter and companies continue to work in tandem to create innovative and interesting content like above, I think there will be a time in the future when we finally stop asking, “is Twitter profitable?”.

When I read the Class Prep instructions for this class, I got super excited – our topic for the day was Marketing. As a first year with a keen interest in pursuing Marketing later on, I want to gobble up every morsel of information, advice and insight I can gain about Marketing, so this was definitely a class I was looking forward to.

Although the reads were long, I did find them quite interesting. Although I have a rough idea of what Marketing is, I hadn’t given much technical thought before to Product Positioning (a QuickMBA article). Yet, almost all of us can claim that we have knowledge in this area – we are subjected to advertisements every day, everywhere we go, and we subconsciously know what catches our attention and what doesn’t.

One point that Al Ries and Jack Trout stress in their book (mentioned in the article) is that your product either has to be first on the market or occupy a unique position (if it is not first). I never really considered the consumer market to be this black-and-white – surely, there must be other marketing techniques that can triumphantly position a product in a consumer’s mind.

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

Let’s consider the recent Old Spice marketing campaign (hopefully it’s not too cliche yet). Old Spice was neither the first Men’s fragrance, nor is it a unique product – but recent sales figures have confirmed the success of the campaign in placing the product in womens’ minds (the target audience). This campaign demonstrates that marketing is a dynamic field, adapting to new mediums (such as social media) and consumer attitudes (company interaction).

Not sure if this has confirmed or discouraged my vocation for marketing, but at the very least it has left me wanting more. Can’t wait till my first full-term Marketing course next year 😀