“Can’t fly off to a Bavarian beer garden for Oktoberfest? Raise a glass over Skype.” – That’s how Skype introduces its social platform to users. This makes sense since Skype has become so versatile that it’s even used for therapeutic appointments. Pretty incredible right?

This article by AkWeek nicely covers some of the reasons why Skype has become so successful and the stats are mind blowing too. The article mentions that “Skype accounted for 40 percent of the entire conventional international telecom market”.  You’re probably thinking why is my Canadian phone bill still so high?

Image courtesy of: http://prashanthontechnology.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/improve-customer-experience-using-skype-with-oracle-crm/

But with competitors entering the market such as Google Hangouts – Skype needs to watch its back. But partially what still makes me like Skype over other communication platform (besides Google Hangouts -as I love this one) is that back in 2010 they turned down a $200 million ad opportunity, making it one of the only forms of Social Networking left, without advertising. In class we talk about the power of advertising, but we never bring up the power of not advertising. From a consumers perspective, this is actually nice and refreshing.

But all this brings me back to the Article “How Automating Your Social Media Content Can Hurt Your Brand“. This article covers the sad and ugly truth of automated messages, which has become troublesome for many brands. Its annoying, frustrating and not worth you time. I know that with Skype that will never happen, because the beauty about this Social network simply is, that it relies on the power of human connections. And only that to survive. Sorry automated messages, you’ve lost this one anyways.

Its hard to focus on your life when constantly you’re being swamped with updates from the protest in another country. Specifically Hong Kong this time. Having spent some incredible months there with amazing people and I believe their issue needs to be heard.

Source: Personal Facebook. Credit to: Jain Sarin Richie Thap

While reading the Article: Introducing The New Social Technographics®: The First Step Toward Social Success via the Forrester database I noticed that there are different types of consumers who qualify as different users of Social Media to interact with companies and ultimately the world. The article mentioned that different countries, earn very different scores, and that “People in Hong Kong rate as Social Stars, with Technographic Scores between 40 and 56”. I know that this is not related specifically to a company – but it shows that Hong Kongers are standing true to their digital status. They want to make sure that their issue of Democracy does not go unheard and taking every social action of doing so. The Government is noticing this – blocked Instagram immediately to allow for some damage control, also cutting off internet during sites of demonstration.

Source: Personal Facebook. Credit: Ruby Cheng

There are a lot of controversial issues happening all over the world today, but never before have we been able to stand so close. We watch and learn by scrolling through our Newsfeed on Facebook, our twitter accounts and Instagram – forming our own opinions, leveraging the voice of social media. We read many articles mentioning how powerful social media is, but through issues like these I can finally see the true power of this digital age.

Here for more information on the issue and a Canadian stance.

Adweek is by far one of my favorite sites to check daily brought out another interesting article yesterday titled “Brand Publishers Are Ditching Facebook in Favor of Microsites” by Michelle Castillo.

This article brings up an extremely important point in regards to Facebook’s recent change in organic reach, which results in companies having to use paid media. We talked about paid media in class and the article we read as a class prep suggested that brands use a more holistic approach called “Convergent Media” (a mix between paid, owned & earned) – but Brands are creating a completely new set of rules by using Microsites.

Image sourced from: AdWeek

Basically Microsites as mentioned in the article are a Brand owned spaces, where as Facebook is considered a rented space. There’s a great analogy in the article that really sums things up: “By and large, I view owned spaces as the farm and rented spaces as the market where you sell the crops—you can personalize your stall, but you can’t design the market.”

And that’s how everything is changing now. People do not want to be owned by Facebook rather they want to have their own space to be creative with. Facebook then is simply used to drive traffic to the site – but keeping other advertising to an absolute minimum.

If this will be successful – I don’t know EA Sports has started testing it – and who knows maybe other brands will soon follow.

I love Facebook, and I am a very heavy user of it – but recently I’ve had my fair share of thoughts about the platform and so did this article I recently read, which emphasizes the changes for businesses especially.

Image sourced from: http://internet.wonderhowto.com/how-to/finally-thumbs-down-things-you-dislike-facebook-0150997/

I’d briefly like to touch on their mentioned Facebook changes, in the sense as organic reach for all brands may soon reach zero. Brands knew this day would come, but I think the reality hit harder than expected. Back in the day, I as a consumer liked a Facebook page of a brand / company because I was sincerely interested in seeing their content. Yet Facebook in January took that away from consumers, and is now fully controlling things we see. This reminds me of almost a communistic approach to advertising – where only the big guy decides what we see, unless brands are willing to pay the big bucks and this in a real life situation could be seen as a form of “bribing” – if you understand my analogy. The more you pay as a brand, the more you get, and if you don’t pay – your information to the world is withheld. Scary right?

Before starting my internship in Digital Marketing @Heineken this summer, I had no idea how expensive advertising on Facebook actually is. Right now a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) ranges from about €0.50 to about €6! That for a big or small brand can add up pretty quickly.

So what does this mean for the future? I guess we will find out, but I believe brands are already taking next steps to branch away from Facebook advertising. Read my next blog to find out how!

It’s funny how you have random epiphanies sometimes. It may simply come from sitting at the beach, talking to your best friend or waking up while making your morning coffee (or tea in my case). The end of the summer is approaching and marketing recruit is slowly killing us, which got me thinking what is something I truly love to do.

This summer I was fortunate enough to work for a pretty cool company, specializing in digital marketing. Going into this, I knew I loved everything digital from Tesla’s, to video games, to gadgets, to software updates, to you know – there’s endless tech stuff out there! Coming out of it, I know I love it even more.

So here we go. As this is my first blog, I won’t necessarily follow the guidelines of identifying a marketing issue, but rather tell you why I chose digital and why I believe in tech.

So lets rewind. Its 2002 – I’m 10 years old. My mom enters my room and sees that I picked up some software from the library. She catches me with another software that supposedly should copy software number 1. Of course that’s highly illegal, but she let her 10 year old do it anyways. The software I was copying was actually one where you could learn to type with all my 10 fingers. Starting that day I practiced everyday until I became the best 10 year old typer on the planet. Its funny one exchange in Hong Kong (fast forward to 2013) I would have typing competitions, but with a speed of almost 100 WPM, its going to be hard to beat me right?

So why did I want to learn this in the first place? Well, I wasn’t so much interested in Barbies growing up – rather I preferred playing GTA Vice City and using the cheats to make life easier and beat my missions. You’re probably wondering, ok so why do you need to type fast? Simply because I thought it was easier and more efficient for me to cheat in the game this way. And that’s how it all started…

From there on I never gave up. I always wanted the newest gadgets, I wanted to learn more about computers, software etc. which eventually lead me to digital marketing.

adidas Smart Run in case you’re interested: http://micoach.adidas.com/en/smartrun

My boss this summer called me a digital “Nerd”… from fixing his Ipod to helping him strategizing our Facebook Advertisements in 53 countries it was all great fun. But what’s most important is that, in digital or tech for that matter were just beginning. When working at adidas we were one of the first to launch a “Smart Watch” and recently Samsung launched theirs, Apple followed suit and well the competition always grows fierce. But I truly believe in digital and do think it’s going to take over the world. So for now, let’s do our best to get used to everything that’s out there – stay on top of the latest trends, and who knows maybe one day we can even be a part of the team that leads innovation.

And with that, only time can tell…

xxxx