The Future of Social Media Marketing

Considering the adaptability of social media, it is hard to say exactly what will happen with marketing in the coming years, or even months. Social network sites provide brands and organizations with an exceptional opportunity for marketing, and those who stay up-to-date with social media trends are even more likely to benefit from these opportunities. With that said, I think social media marketing will stay popular for the foreseeable future.
In addition to it being popular, however, I think marketing via social media will become more difficult in the future. Referring to the article "The future of social media: why public conversations will go private" (http://waggeneredstrom.com/blog/2014/02/10/the-future-of-social-media-why-public-conversations-will-go-private/), most people are becoming more and more picky about who they share their online information with. Taking into consideration the ability to form customized circles and groups of friends on almost every social networking site, it appears that network users want to see and share information about their lives with select individuals, and there aren't many occasions where brands and their advertisements make the cut. Those who stay in step with how marketing is advancing, such as with video and interactive advertising, stand a better chance at maintaining a presence in the newsfeeds of social network users; therefore, as internet moves forward, so should its users.
Brands like Taco Bell, whose Twitter account is noted for being cleverly entertaining, engage customers and make tweets more fun to read as opposed to boring followers with advertisement after advertisement. In a society where humor has taken a turn for the sarcastic, keeping viewers entertained is a feat in itself. People are more easily bored; with so much to see on the internet, creating an advertisement that viewers find to be both influential and worth watching is becoming more and more difficult. As such, the future of social media marketing will have to be geared toward finding ways to entertain viewers, making a lasting impression on them, and being innovative enough to inspire consumers to seek out the product or brand being advertised.

Week 11: Viral Video Popularity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOw44VFNk8Y#t=266

The above link leads to a YouTube video entitled, "The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made #airnzhobbit ". Putting a new twist on the ever-dreaded flight safety instructions given at the beginning of any plane trip, this video turns the process into something travelers can actually enjoy. In fact, the video was so popular that its reach extended the airplanes in which it was being shown and became an Internet sensation, having received 12,910,840 views since it was posted on October 22.

As the "official airline of Middle-earth," marketing persons at Air New Zealand took it upon themselves to promote the final installment of The Hobbit Trilogy - The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in a way somewhat different from traditional movie trailers. For Hobbit fans both travelling with the airline and located elsewhere, the video was a hit. By taking advantage of their location, the airline has managed to make a mundane process seem not only entertaining, but also something actually worth sharing online with one's friends and followers - a task which, with so much to look at on the Internet, is becoming increasingly difficult.

I think this video essentially became popular due to the potential expanse of its reach and appeal to a large demographic; most anyone who is a fan of the book or movie series is sure to enjoy the way everyday flight attendants are turned into residents of Middle-earth and take the viewer on a trip not only to where the plane is headed, but seemingly into Middle-earth itself. However, the airline then takes its advertisement cast one step further by also including celebrities in addition to its own employees. It is well-known that celebrities are often an excellent marketing strategy when it comes to making a product appeal to viewers; in this particular video, the Air New Zealand went so far as to include celebrities from the movie series in order to make it all the more appealing. Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood, and Sylvester McCoy all make special cameo appearances in the video. As some of the individuals who are most often associated with the movies, their use in the video was a sure way to entertain fans of the series. Richard Taylor and Dean O'Gorman also make appearances, further including cast and crew into the creation of a simple safety video.

"The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made" is definitely a fitting title for a video with more than 12 million views. There probably haven't been many occasions where a flight safety video has been viewed - at least, not voluntarily - by such a large number of individuals. For Air New Zealand to have come up with a way to take the dreaded process of instructing passengers how to fasten a seat belt and make it one that both flight attendant and passenger can enjoy shows excellent marketing skills. Being able to then take that video and make it a viral hit shows cleverness and good use of video, advertising, and social media. It is for these reasons I think the video became popular.

Apparently, this video is not the first of its kind done by Air New Zealand. In 2012, they posted their first hobbit-themed safety video. This video matches the one posted this year in cleverness and has almost as many viewers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlRbrB_Gnc&src_vid=qOw44VFNk8Y&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_541399643

Week 10: Super Bowl Advertising

This year's Super Bowl is bound to have more social media advertising than years prior. With Vine and Instagram Video having become exceptionally more popular in the last few months, these two apps are exceptionally likely to be used for advertising both during the Super Bowl and in the months leading up to it. Another recent addition to the social media advertising is the "buy" buttons that are rumored to be coming to Twitter and Facebook, a feature which will be very useful come Super Bowl time. With the convenience of having products available for purchase through popular social media sites, advertising and potential sales can be taken to a whole new level.
In previous years, Super Bowl advertising was an opportunity for companies to broadcast themselves with the potential of reaching millions of viewers via television. Now, they can do that and more. The freedom of social media allows a company to use a TV commercial to advertise their products/services and then provide a social media plug (hashtag or Facebook domain) that consumers can then resort to for further updates. Traditional Super Bowl advertising was all about connecting with consumers on a personal level through commercials; however, last year's game and its advertising proved that this personal connection is possible even with Vine and Instagram Video, which are much shorter than the standard commercial ad.
This year, advertising will have to be taken a step further than the standard Facebook like and Twitter favorite/follow. I think that, to keep consumers' attention, more companies will have to actively involve viewers in ad campaigns similar to the Oreo Snack Hacks and Qdoba Queso Showdown. By allowing consumers to contribute to a product, said consumers are much more likely to be interested in the product itself, which could then result in better profits for companies. Most people who watch the Super Bowl do so for the commercials; the advertisements are renowned for being entertaining, and allow companies the opportunity to reach a much larger group of people than normal. Another company that took advantage of consumer engagement is Lays potato chips; their "Do Us a Flavor" campaign was wildly successful after giving buyers the opportunity to actually create a flavor of chip and become partially famous and win money because of it. Though these ad campaigns were not necessarily Super Bowl advertisements, they were successful at engaging buyers and increasing sales. Therefore, I think that the ads during the biggest football game of the year this year will use Vine and Instagram Video to their advantage, make use of stop-motion video, and use the resulting increase in sales and social media traffic to gauge how much of an impact their advertisements had on the public.

As crazy as it seems, with the game being so far away, digital marketing is already gearing up for the big day: http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/forget-black-friday-digital-marketers-have-already-moved-on-to-superbowl-xlix-46269/

Week 09 Blog: Social Media Campaigns

As mentioned in the article "The 30 Most Brilliant Social Media Campaigns of 2014 (So Far)" by Heike Young, advertising via social media has become increasingly important. In said article, number 28 on the list was the "Meet & Seat" campaign; this campaign is exceptionally useful in the way of social media advertising. It allows users who are booking flights to see where other users will be sitting and therefore allow them to seat themselves accordingly. If there is someone on board a flight which they want to book, the user can choose a seat next to the individual they desire.
By using LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, Meet & Seat users are able to view who will be on a certain flight before booking the flight itself. Offered by KLM Airlines, an airline in Amsterdam, Meet & Seat allows for  travelers to pick who they sit next to based on social media profiles. Given a well-kept LinkedIn/Facebook/Google+ profile, an individual can be chosen by someone who is booking the flight. Seeing as random plane flight seatings are usually an undesirable occurrence which require sitting next to strangers for an extended period of time, the ability to choose who one sits next to is as genius as it is convenient; if I were to purchase a ticket for a flight, I would much rather choose whom I sit next to as opposed to being seated next to a random individual. To further that decision, the potential for being seated next to a business-focused individual with similar mindsets and personal goals is all the more appealing.
I think this social media campaign will be successful because it is appealing to individuals both from a comfort and business perspective. Having the freedom to request whom one sits next to on a flight is appealing enough, but being combined with the opportunity to sit next to a business partner is all the more appealing. Therefore, as LinkedIn increases in popularity, I think this Meet & Seat campaign will become more popular as well. What they should do, if I were to make a suggestion, would be to expand their reach to the USA and other nations; this concept has the potential for global appeal.
The following article is somewhat similar in that in suggests ways for social media campaigns to target certain audiences:
http://unbounce.com/social-media/use-psychology-to-build-social-media-campaigns-that-resonate/

Week 08 Blog Post

Social media, when it comes to looking into an individual's potentially troubled past, can only do so much good. Viewing somebody's tweets from the past might give insight to their character, yes, but the same tweets that might condemn certain behaviors are also those which are posted "in the moment," under certain circumstances, and as a result of behavior which the viewer might not understand. 

Retrospective psychology indicates that, after tragedy occurs, reading into social media posts will only make matters worse. After a murderer/gunman has been identified, people will no doubt search his/her social media in order to find what might have possibly led to the incident in question. Seeing as there almost certainly has to be a motive for someone to commit such a crime, those searching the culprit will no doubt have already pegged him/her as a terrible person. Therefore, having preconceived notions of the personality of an individual who committed such terrible acts will give the public an idea that everything posted online prior to said tragedy taking place led up to the culprit's eventual breakdown. 

I, for one, do not think it is fair to rely on somebody's social media for an accurate description of their personality - particularly after the individual has done something terrible. Nearly everyone who uses social media relies upon it for the sake of venting feelings, thoughts, and emotions on a regular basis. Posting such feelings, however, does not have to become grounds for judging someone's character. That is not to say that someone (in this case, the Washington shooter) is innocent. Instead, perhaps people interested in specifying the reasoning for his actions should look to his personal history, close friends/family opinions, and other information. There is much more character-defining information to be found in the opinions of one's close friends and family. For instance, I know of an individual who took his own life a few years ago, described by all those who knew him as someone who was always happy and loving life, bringing a smile and comedic relief to all those with whom he had contact. After the incident, all those who were close to him still had the same opinion; it was those who knew this man only through social media who read too far into his prior social media posts and took all the negative ones to mean something more than for what the posts were intended. Such negativity may have only been posted in "the heat of the moment."

In any case, while social media may potentially provide crucial information, it should not be used to judge somebody's character. 

As this article states, some posts are made purely for the sake of boosting the poster's ego and perhaps gaining some sort of following from those who feel the same way: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/social-media-narcissism-twitter-facebook_n_3423095.html 

Week 07 - Apple Pay

The launch of Apple Pay could revolutionize the way we purchase items. Whether you go to a restaurant, gas station, or mall, Apple Pay allows users to buy what they need without ever taking out a credit card. In fact, neither the credit card itself nor its numbers are ever seen while a transaction is being made; instead, everything is paid for via iPhone (the iPhone 6/6-plus, to be exact). By simply holding your thumb to the home button and holding the phone near a card reader, a transaction is made in seconds. This, to me, seems like a good idea in terms of avoiding identity theft and security breaches/credit card hacks. Granted, such things could still potentially occur, but without retailers having thousands of credit card numbers stored, security breaches would be less of a threat. Also, use requires the user's fingerprint in order for the payment to go through, so losing a phone or having it stolen does not mean that all your credit card information is available to whoever might take/find the cell phone.
The real struggle for Apple will be getting more than 5% of our nation's stores to make use of the new system. Google Wallet was a similar attempt that failed miserably, becoming obsolete shortly after it was launched. The Wallet attempt was more of a hassle than actually swiping a credit card and therefore did not last long before the appeal of its usefulness was gone. However, Apple Pay offers a much more convenient and secure method of payment with which many individuals (including myself) might find themselves on board. In order for the system to really be a hit, corresponding terminals/card reader systems will have to be installed in stores before they can start taking this form of payment. With the proposed arrival of EMV credit cards in America on the horizon, it is quite likely that switching to mobile payments is not too far in the future.

An article I found that further discusses the coming of EMV credit cards can be read at http://www.cnbc.com/id/102113933

Image from: 

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/apple-pay-is-going-to-be-huge-apple-ceo-tim-100761243774.html

Week 06 Blog Post

"Anonymous", when it comes to social media, is a term that must be used carefully. Apps such as Yik Yak and Fade, along with Facebook/Twitter accounts like Coyote Confessions, are becoming internet sensations due to the obscurity they offer users. However, while some individuals use these apps and websites for good, most users are starting to post little more than trash talk and hurtful comments; hiding behind a wall of anonymity makes people shockingly more brave than they probably should be. Without having their name tied to their comment, nobody cares what they say. Almost all ethical restraints are taken away by the fact that people can say anything without readers having to know who they are. Therefore, I don't much care for these apps. Sure, some posts can be funny, but most of them go too far. Also, it should be noted that none of these posts are truly anonymous; if necessary, a post can be traced back to its author by someone who knows how to navigate a computer. A good rule of thumb to follow with these posts, for the sake of their targets and audience alike, is to not post something online if you wouldn't say it out loud.

The following is an example of people who thought they were being anonymous online actually getting tracked:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/16/-sp-revealed-whisper-app-tracking-users

http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/460773149.jpg