First of all, Web 2.0? If you are calling your efforts Web 2.0 you are already starting behind and with the wrong foot. We are currently verging on Web 4.0.
Starbuck's has decided to join the social network bandwagon by creating My Starbucks Idea, a site that in its infancy week is already receiving some harsh criticism. Even Starbuck's customer blog, Starbucks Gossip is giving it a thumbs down and criticizing its treatment of customers ideas.
I think requiring people to register in order to provide an idea and vote for one is a really bad idea; though it's not necessary not for viewing suggested ideas and number of votes. Centering your social media marketing efforts on "a digital suggestion box" is too one-dimensional, made worse by the fact that you actually have someone entering previous customer suggestions.
Social media marketing is about conversation and creating community; it is designed to create and increase customer loyalty and devotion, and of course brand equity. This Starbucks effort misses the point entirely and as the news say, it is stale from the start.
For Thursday's class, come prepared to discuss Starbucks as a case analysis and discuss new ideas (no pun intended) that they could incorporate into their effort to really make a splash.
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Survey Says
This article pertains to our classroom discussions regarding the mistakes some businesses make in entering the social media realm. We discussed how a company should not jump into social media because everyone else is, rather they should step back, analyze and truly understand what direction they are going in and why.
TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony took a poll of over 60 marketers in North America, France and Great Britain to see how they are getting by with social media, what has been implemented, how and why, and as TNS put it, "Agencies don't get it."
The issue seems to be that marketers/ad agencies are treating their social media channels as they would traditional media. They aren't grasping a full understanding of the differences in approach for a blog as opposed to a traditional ad campaign.
One marketing specialist quoted in the article seems to think that traditional marketing firms are too stuck in their old ways and still refer to compensation models which were created for closed media and don't necessarily apply to open media.
This seems to imply that traditional ad agencies need to either give themselves a make-over and focus on social media training of some sort for their employees or they may become obsolete along with closed media.
TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony took a poll of over 60 marketers in North America, France and Great Britain to see how they are getting by with social media, what has been implemented, how and why, and as TNS put it, "Agencies don't get it."
The issue seems to be that marketers/ad agencies are treating their social media channels as they would traditional media. They aren't grasping a full understanding of the differences in approach for a blog as opposed to a traditional ad campaign.
One marketing specialist quoted in the article seems to think that traditional marketing firms are too stuck in their old ways and still refer to compensation models which were created for closed media and don't necessarily apply to open media.
This seems to imply that traditional ad agencies need to either give themselves a make-over and focus on social media training of some sort for their employees or they may become obsolete along with closed media.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Toyota enters YouTube
We've talked extensively about the different ways companies can use social media in a non-intrusive fashion and still reach their market. With online-video advertising projected to reach increasing numbers, some companies are starting to understand how to garner the power of social media.Toyota has now decided to sponsor a comedy channel on YouTube. See Toyota gets it better than YouTube as the company rejected YouTube's proposal as more of the same static advertising.
The company is shelling $4million dollars for what it wanted: "it wanted something users could participate in rather than just view". In turn YouTube will develop an algorithm to select up-and-coming comedy videos.
Will Toyota's risky strategy pay? Read the whole article; it's truly worth the five minutes to see that a company at least "gets" how social media is changing internet advertising.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Citizen Journalists
Political blogs have infuriated the media establishment because they are quicker with the news and they have singlehandedly exposed fraud (Rathergate anyone?).
Now it is The Daily Kos, a lefty Democrat blog, who is accusing the Clinton campaign of making Obama look blacker and with a wider nose possibly with the idea of making him look Muslim.
Of course, the Clinton campaign denies this, and goes as far as saying the ad on Kos is not the ad on their campaign. But guess what? It is.
Whether you agree or not with the view of some of the advocate blogs, you gotta give them credit for uncovering what others wont' do.
Now it is The Daily Kos, a lefty Democrat blog, who is accusing the Clinton campaign of making Obama look blacker and with a wider nose possibly with the idea of making him look Muslim.
Of course, the Clinton campaign denies this, and goes as far as saying the ad on Kos is not the ad on their campaign. But guess what? It is.
Whether you agree or not with the view of some of the advocate blogs, you gotta give them credit for uncovering what others wont' do.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Social Media and the 2008 US Presidential Election
CBC News Today host Nancy Wilson interviews Jesse Hirsh regarding the role and influence of social media on the 2008 US Presidential Election.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Ben & Jerry's in Facebook
Ben & Jerry's has joined the Facebook revolution and is taking a different and more aggressive approach than Owater. Rather than simply create a static page for Facebook members to become a fan of, Ben & Jerry's opted to mimic an application's behavior: allowing its "fans" to recruit their friends when joining the application. The gimmick? You get to send your friends different flavors of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. That's virtual ice cream of course.
Any thoughts?
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Move over YouTube?
MySpace founder Brad Greenspan has decided to compete with YouTube through a new platform called LiveVideo. What is LiveVideo? According to him it's like YouTube on steroids, and better, LIVE. Meaning that you can interact, blog, talk, and video all at the same time and on real time.
However, like everything else, being LIVE is not necessarily being better. While I can think of various interesting ways to use this platform to enhance our communication and expand our relationships, critics fear it will become a haven for pornography.
Unfortunately, critics are right. This is a screen cap of today's home page of LiveVideo. As you can see, pronography rules at this site.
LiveVideo is not a bad idea as this is where I see social network sites moving towards. However, it is a bad execution in the sense that no controls are added to safeguard users from having to be exposed to unwanted content.
What do you think? Can you "ideate" how to use this in a communications plan?
LiveShow boasts interactive features such as LiveTextChat, LiveCoHost and
LivePolls to encourage social interaction with a real-time community.
However, like everything else, being LIVE is not necessarily being better. While I can think of various interesting ways to use this platform to enhance our communication and expand our relationships, critics fear it will become a haven for pornography.
Unfortunately, critics are right. This is a screen cap of today's home page of LiveVideo. As you can see, pronography rules at this site.
LiveVideo is not a bad idea as this is where I see social network sites moving towards. However, it is a bad execution in the sense that no controls are added to safeguard users from having to be exposed to unwanted content.
What do you think? Can you "ideate" how to use this in a communications plan?
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Making a Living
Alex Perez makes a career out of participating in consumer generated advertising contests.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Is the Ad Industry Scared of Social Media?
In a column on AdWeek, Benjamin Palmer writes about social media scaring the advertising industry. He comments that the new design of the flow of information is way more open then it used to be. This provides consumers with more knowledge of the products they buy and the companies that build them. So why is this bad? Maybe companies don't want consumers to know everything. Palmer writes that this is indeed the case and the answer is not to fight it but, rather to embrace it.
Palmer argues that the advertising industry, instead of adapting to this new online world, is fighting it. Palmer writes,
What do you think? Are advertisers embracing this new online revolution? If so, is it enough?
-Personally, I think advertisers are slowly adapting, but this change is not so simple. Much of the corporate world is run by old men and women who grew up listening to Superman on their family radio during the prime time broadcast spots. As we grow up, the idea of social media marketing will come natural to us. We use it everyday. But what about the baby boomer generation that runs the companies? Can you really teach an old dog new tricks? The transformation will occur, it's inevitable, but the transition time will be longer than it needs to be.
Palmer argues that the advertising industry, instead of adapting to this new online world, is fighting it. Palmer writes,
This industry is still building broadcast spots and Web marketing as if the 24-hour news cycle never happened, as if the blogosphere doesn't exist. If the advertising industry were a social network, we'd be MySpace: played out, man.Palmer praises Facebook. He claims its business model should be the new advertising way of life: constant change based on consumer feedback. It sounds so logical, right?
What do you think? Are advertisers embracing this new online revolution? If so, is it enough?
-Personally, I think advertisers are slowly adapting, but this change is not so simple. Much of the corporate world is run by old men and women who grew up listening to Superman on their family radio during the prime time broadcast spots. As we grow up, the idea of social media marketing will come natural to us. We use it everyday. But what about the baby boomer generation that runs the companies? Can you really teach an old dog new tricks? The transformation will occur, it's inevitable, but the transition time will be longer than it needs to be.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Basic Steps
The WSJ has a small editorial on four basic steps to using Social Media as part of your communications programs. Even though most of the time we see Social Media from the B2C (Business to Consumer perspective), remember it also applies in other contexts like B2B and C2C (consumer to consumer - ebay, etc.).
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