Baltimore Riots

These past few days, the media has been highlighting on the riots in Baltimore.
The riots were in response to the death of Freddie Gray's Funeral.

According to LA Times, The city issued a curfew from 10pm Monday-5am Tuesday with the National Guard on watch too.  However, this curfew still caused people to riot and resulted than 200 arrests.

The riots have spiraled out of control and caused major chaos throughout the city.

Even the Baltimore Orioles had to play a private game with no fans and is now moving games to be played in Tampa.

The riots on the streets even made it to battles on Twitter.  Social media was buzzing the past few days with articles and outrages posts.

I believe riots cause nothing but more violence.  To react in a violent manner proves no point.
It's ridiculous in this day in age people are acting as if it's 50 years ago.

It's time for everyone to act as an American

2016 Presidential Election through Instagram

Instagram is used by many businesses and people to promote themselves and services.
However, this presidential election is the first time Instagram will be used significantly throughout the campaign.

Hilary Clinton and Jeb Bush recently announced they're running.  Jeb Bush uploaded an Instagram video to his account.


The article I found, "2016 may yet be the first 'Instagram election'"
Bush attempted to announce his election through Instagram rather than a regular promo video.

I think this is a great idea, since there are many users on Instagram and it's a way to reach a wide audience.  The con of this may be the appearance of using this social media platform can make him look unprofessional.

Nowadays, there is a great amount of promoting done though these social media platforms.

The time were in now has changed and will continue to change.  If I was running for president I would be doing the same, posting and communicating on social media platforms.

LinkedIn's New Edition

LinkedIn recently added a new feature to their platform.

It's called Elevate.  I never heard of this app until today.
Elevate is an app that suggests and shares stories.

LinkedIn is featuring this now to connect the employees more and to develop a community.

The article I found goes more into detail of the benefits of Elevate for a member's standpoint and LinkedIn's revenue standpoint.

Elevate empowers the employee by allowing them to share stories.  The app also shows the analytics of the stories shared by whom and how many times its shared.

I think its key for LinkedIn to stay true to their "professional" social media platform.  This part differentiates itself from the rest of the popular social media platforms.

Hostess' #OpeningDay FAIL

For some reason, I enjoy blogging about epic fails of tweets. Especially if it occurred during sporting events.  My first blog I talked about the Super Bowl and failed tweets.

During the Major League's Opening Day for Baseball Season, Hostess tweeted a photo that without a doubt was invalid and just stupid.

If you look closely, the photo says TOUCHDOWN.

But wait, baseball are home runs not touchdowns.

However Hostess’ senior director of marketing, Ellen Copakes says “The 'Touchdown' line was intentional; it's fun and aimed at young audiences who are in on the running joke -- which, of course, is the goalllll."

This article goes more in-depth about the tweet.

I think this is just a cover-up for the messed up tweet.  It would have been a good tweet if it said something related to baseball.

Then again Hostess did get a lot of social media traffic from this tweet.

If this was my business or brand I would make sure the photo and tweet was interconnected and relatable. 

Marketing News Update: April Fools

My topic is on April Fools Day Marketing

Office Tweeted "Office 2016 for Cats Preview"

This was obviously was a joke.  This tweet has over 1800 retweets and it promoted Office's Brand.

Reebok released an Instagram video about a new fragrance called "Swet."

It was the smell of sweat.  

This was comical and showed customers Reebok's funny side.

My favorite April Fools Day Joke was from the company Miz Mooz.

They released a YouTube video called "Selfie Shoes"

If you haven't already seen this video, please click the link above because it was hilarious and already has over 1.9 Million views. 

BENEFITS

1. Drove Social Media Traffic
2. Increased Brand Awareness
3. Captured Audience's Attention

Alternative Reality Games Connection to Social Media

In my marketing class today, we learned about ARG or Alternative Reality Games .

These games are an online collaborative game.  These types of games are multi-platforms that uses the real world as a platform.  This is the first time I heard of this type of game.

ARG allows gamers to interact with each other and compete in the game.

The website I found, ARGN is a website that informs people of new types of ARG.
The most recent one is called Emma's Journal.

This is used a a promotional tool to promote the USA TV network series called DIG.

ARG is a new way of gaming the brings the gaming world into the real world.
This a great way for Movies, TV shows or books to incorporate this to gain more interest.
This will also increase the brand.

4 Dads Quit their Day jobs to pursue their musical talent

These 4 Dads from Utah decide to pursue an online career.

3 years ago they decided to quit their jobs to lunch their musical career. 

The 4 Dads are:

·      Jon Schmidt

·      Steven Sharp Nelson

·      Paul Anderson

·      Al van der Beek

They're YouTube Video Kung Fu Piano went viral.   

This video currently has over 10 Million Views.

They're now known as the The Piano Guys, holding over 54 videos on YouTube with over 600 Million Views.

Today, they are touring and performing in Concert Halls.

What a way to make a living.  If I could become famous from YouTube Videos, that would be awesome.  Obviously, I would need some musical talent or some clever YouTube channel.

Have you heard of BrandYouself?

This weekend I was watching the show Shark Tank.  This show is about entrepreneurs who display their business to shark investors, hoping for at least one shark to invest in their business.  This episode debuted a company called BrandYourself.

This business takes on search results of yourself to a whole new level.

BrandYouself is both free DIY serivce and paid service.  It creates a more favorable search of your name on Google.  It allows the user to enable the positive sites that pop up be viewed first and the negative sites to be below.

This company was founded in 2010.

The main focus is to impress your future employees with the accomplishments and positive information about you and to suppress the negative infromation.

This is something that everyone can benefit from.
     First, it's free.
     Second, the user controls the order of what they want to be displayed on Google.
     Third, it's a way to get ahead of other competition.

BrandYourself may just be the next go-to website.  Once it has the ability to alter search results on other social media websites a user is on, it will rapidly gain users

Social Media YouTube Video

This week in my social media marketing class, we had to create a viral video about Central Connecticut State University's School of Business.

http://youtu.be/g46fnfJ4u98

The take we took was attempting to be more funny and not so serious.

Our theme was a Western Showdown between an orange and lemon.  Theirs he was deciding if she wanted to major in business at CCSU.

A few ways we tried it to be a viral video was having the video be short.  We wanted a catchy song to grab the viewers attention and to have comedy also. 

How do videos go viral?

I think sometimes it's by mistake and was never meant to get as many views. 

For example, I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with Charlie bit my finger. That video went viral just from a baby brother biting his older brothers finger and then having the older brother speak with his British accent. The main point of that video was probably for family memories. However it was an epic video.

Making a video go viral is very tricky and needs to be made just right.

Please check out my YouTube video.

Thanks!

Epic Failed Brand Tweets from the Oscars

The Oscars aka the Academy Awards held its 87th award ceremony this past Sunday February 22.  It's filled with the Red Carpet, nominations and awards.

The awards shows created major tweeting and social media action.  Twitter was blown up and some major businesses jumped on the action to promote their business or product.  However, not all of the businesses were that successful. 

This article 17 (mostly failed) Brand Tweets From The Oscars mentions 17 tweets that referred to the Oscars and connected it back to their business.

For example, New York Life tweeted "From the Potters to the Skywalkers, who’s your favorite movie family? ‪#Oscars"

This tweet made no sense because the films were outdated. 

People started to reply to the businesses' tweets saying "ur tweet sucks."

This caused poor brand image of the business.  The only benefit of the businesses' failed tweets were people started to tweet or reply back at them, which caused more interest in the bad tweet.

Sometimes bad reactions can help a business by increasing awareness of the business but this caused a decrease in the businesses' brand awareness. 

Social Media on the RISE

Yes...Social Media has been becoming more and more popular.

According to Pew Research Center from 2013 to 2014 Adult online users have increased from the following:

1. Instagram increased from 17% to 26%
2. Facebook remained the same at 71%
3. Twitter increased from 18% to 23%
4. LinkedIn increased from 22% to 28%.
5. Pinterest increased from 21% to 28%.

These facts are astonshing because social media is continuing to engage and grab new users.

Making connections and sharing posts have become part of some adult everyday life. 

Businesses are continuing to develop and grow from expanding their business online.

According to the 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, "92 % of marketers said that social media was important to their business."

In 2013, "86% said it was important."

What does that mean?

If you own a business, it is crucial to branch out on social media and network or grab customers attention. 

The Best Social Media Platforms for your Business

The main social media platforms businesses are turning to are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Tumblr., Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ should also be utilized to increase marketing and brand awareness.

Tumblr. is great for blogging and to engage the customers. According to this article, "66% of all visitors under the age of 35."  If the business if gearing towards a younger target then Tumblr. can assist the business in reaching out to current and new customers.

Pinterest main users are “80% women.”  This social media platform is great for a business that focuses on women and highly suitable for businesses in retail.  Imagery is vital for this social media platform.

Instagram is great for a visual effect, branding an image and posting pictures or short videos to promote a product.

Google+ is can benefit businesses by users discovering new content.  They have the ability to click links that will lead to the business’s website.

Either way, if a business wants to gain more presence in the social media world, creating more social media platforms will contribute in doing so.

Super Bowl XLIX TV Ads

It's official, the Patriots won the Super Bowl 28-24 against the Seahawks.

However, many viewers are more interested in the TV commercial Ads than the actual game itself.  There were 137 TV ad commericals during the Super Bowl.

Every ad tries to be bigger, better and more memorable than the prior year.
One ad in particular,  went a little far with being better and stirred up viewers to jump to social media to complain.

Nationwide's dead child ad resulted in outraged viewers.  Nationwide ad can be viewed clicking this link.


Nowadays, viewers express their concern through social media and can have a negative or positive impact on what they say.  The top Social Media was Twitter and Facebook.


Superbowl ads can also have a encouraging response.  The Always "Like a Girl" Ad,  urged people to stop using feminst phases that's insulting to women. Once the ad is played social media fires up and viewers can convey how they feel.


The TV ads displayed during the commercials of the Super Bowl have aways been one of the most exciting part of the Superbowl besides the game and it will continue to have new and different ads every year.  Every viewer then will turn to social media to demonstrate what they think.