Airline chatter turned positive, disaster averted

In contrast to our discussion this morning on airlines and how NOT to handle bad social media "press", I found this example of how I think an airline SHOULD react when things could go from bad to worse. This is from May 2010, when Continental and United were in merger talks. The Continental CEO made some inappropriate remarks about US Airways, that he quickly apologized for. US Airways uses the opportunity to provide a long list of reasons why their recent activity would actually make them a GOOD merger partner.

I think we see two things in this post, first the Continental CEO gets off the hook thanks to a timely e-mail communication and some empathy from US Airways. And second, as we saw with Taylor in class today, sometimes an unfortunate event (being called the "ugly girl") turns out to turn heads and make a great time to say something meaningful to an eager audience.

http://theairlineblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-us-airways-ugly-girl.html

Seeding Viral Campaigns Appears to Be The Key

Great conversation in class today. Blendtec increases sales 600% with a viral marketing campaign? Dave Carroll's life will never be the same.

Crazy.

Now how do you learn crazy? Because as a future entrepreneur with a limited budget (that probably has $200 set aside for marketing) I want to know how to use this apparently learnable (true?) skill.

I have spent some time looking for viral marketing experts on the web. Guess what? They are REALLY hard to find. There are lots of blogs/forums and people who sell books, but not alot of viral marketing companies - people who will do it for you. The only consistent advice/conclusion that runs as a common thread through most advice is that seeding the campaign is critical to its success. I have attached an article that explains how Old Spice seeded their hugely successful campaign (and doubled sales).

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/The-Genius-of-Old-Spices-Viral-Marketing-Campaign-4334


Pretty creative, but not genius.

Our class in reality

Hey all,

I know many of you have seen this on RadyLink, but just wanted to make sure you were aware that we are having a co-founder of a local social media marketing company come and speak on Monday night in MPR2.

So, if you want to see how people are really making such companies as BzzAgent (or in this case, Brand Anywhere) happen, you should come and hear the talk. There are many advantages to this:

1) Next Wednesday, impress Professor Mochon with any new jargon or insights you have learned

2) Find out how a small entrepreneurial business is making itself known using social media and marketing (ummm.....wasn't Terry discussing this today?)

3) Get ideas for lab-to-market

4) They are going to present both internship and career opportunities.

Hope a blatant plug does not go against the spirit of blogging!

You Have 0 Friends

In the theme of 'But, I don't have any friends,' those of you who get a kick out of South Park might enjoy this episode. Interestingly, there actually are a number of things in it relating to topics discussed in class...enjoy :)

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s14e04-you-have-0-friends

StumbleUpon

I came across an interesting site “StumbleUpon” today and thought of sharing with you. StumbleUpon is a social media platform that allows users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests using social networking data. It seems like it uses collaborative filtering to create virtual communities of like-minded Web surfers. Rating Web sites updates a personal profile and generates peer networks of Web surfers linked by common interest. These social networks coordinate the distribution of Web content, so that users "stumble upon" pages explicitly recommended by friends and peers. Giving a site a thumbs up results in the site being placed under the user's "favorites".

Here is the link you may want to try -> http://video.stumbleupon.com/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

A social media campaign for games!

I ran across this website today for a company that is making games. Interesting strategy of trying to involve and teach the consumers about the game. It seems to be a small company trying to get the "buzz" going for their product through most of the social media avenues we have talked about.

http://www.telestrationseffect.com/#/home

This seems similar to what we can do with the skills we are learning from this class.

Is there a job in all this?

I saw this article today about how companies are not prepared to handle a social media-based threat ( http://bit.ly/ckZm3r ). As the article states:

"About 34 percent of global chief corporate communications officers say their firms experienced a social media-based threat to their firm’s reputation during the past year. According to the survey, however, 33 percent of the communications professionals surveyed say they’re not prepared to deal with such threats."

33%? If that is the case, it seems there is market for offering services to protect these companies. How can we enter the market? What product can we provide?

The Dragon Fly Effect

The Dragon Fly Effect is a book about a social media marketing technique that I ran across when doing research for our upcoming assignment. Their blog demonstrates some of the things we've learned about in class such as being an opinion leader without explicitly plugging the book.

The power of one million from the power of one

Great article on doing social good using social media:

http://mashable.com/2010/10/09/social-media-activism/

Activism need not be as dangerous as past decades. Although, this technique may make it easier for the bullys to ignore..?

Play it safe in Social Networking

Ok. This is the subject title of the email I received from ING DIRECT this week. I thought wow, this is awesome, receiving this email just when I am trying to learn about maketing through Social Media. ING DIRECT is using the one form of social media to warn about the dangers of social media. Talk about oxymoron....

Here is the gist of the email...

As social networking explodes in popularity, so do the scams hitting the sites where people like to gather. Here are a few quick tips to keep you safe the next time you're stalk..., err, "catching up" with old friends.

At the end of the email, they have a link to their security website. Of course, once you are in their website, you might be tempted by the discrete ads placed for "Protecting yourself from identity theft"....interested anyone??

New way of donation in using social media

Hi everyone,
How is your weekend? As many guys know well, I am a very fanatic fan of Oakland Athletics. For sure, I am starting to follow some related news, organization and so on.
Today, I started to follow Craig Breslow, Oakland setup man, who is a founder of the fund for helping children cancer. Just before, he re-tweeted to me and asked me for donation as follows:
CraigBreslow

Thank u 4 following Kiyoshi! Give my foundation a "Like" on FB http://www.facebook.com/Strike3Foundation if u r interested in learning more

Related to the next class topic, social media has a function of viral marketing. Rather than asking for donation in front of public places, it would be more effective to ask for donation in utilizing social media which is changing donation (charity) strategy.

PS
Craig is truly Craig not the fake, I believe.

A new way of getting my news

So before this class, I definitely was not new to social media. I was definitely a big time facebook user (and used twitter for my internship), but I mainly used social media to keep up with friends and family. Ever since creating a personal twitter account for this class though, I have been watching CNN a lot less and hardly ever reading the WSJ on their website anymore. Now, I get most of my news on twitter. I follow various new sources on twitter such as CNN, WSJ, NY Times, etc. It is great because I constantly get updated headlines on my twitter feed, and then I can go directly to articles that interest me from there. I find it to be much more convenient. It is amazing how quickly my habits have changed; what started as a small assignment for class has completely changed the way I get my news!

Twitter Can Predict the Stock Market

For those of you who still aren’t convinced about the power of social media, here is a fascinating article about some new research showing that the mood on Twitter can predict which way the stock market will go a few days later. The researchers admit that they have no idea why this is the case, but it is impressive nonetheless that they are able to make such predictions.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/twitter-crystal-ball/

Sony's Google TV changes marketing promotion?

Recently, Sony announced the Google TV which collaborates HDTV with the internet. People who are watching football game can tweet in the same screen!
This would make companies or advertising agencies re-consider their promotion method in the near future. It would be collaboration out-bound marketing with in-bound marketing.
Stay Tune!

URL: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/sony-unveils-the-first-google-tv/

Facebook Flexes Muscles on Apple

Great article about the on going battle for facebook’s 500 million users and who should have access and at what price. Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg wants Steve Jobs to pay high prices for the rights to the network.

http://yhoo.it/9LNsV0

I am having a great time following the action between the new big four – Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook. The battle for information, access to users, target advertising and more has only just begun.

"My LEGO Network" A Social Networking Site Built Especially For Children

In preparation for this week's class I stumbled upon "My LEGO Network". My LEGO Network allows kids to create their own LEGO web page, collect, build and trade virtual items. The site allows users to express themselves through means of making music, creating stickers and displaying personal LEGO creations. The site even includes a ranking system that enabling users to grow their virtual items using what is called "challenging blueprints" to improve their rank amount users in the network.

Check it out, but spend to much time in the Arcade!

http://mln.lego.com/en-us/network/status.aspx

Some Recommendations for Monday's Case

I had some initial frustration with finding a company blog in order to start this assignment. Companies that I thought would have a blog did not. Ikea (which I had thought was hip and current) and Gerber (tied into the aggressive parenting market) did not have a readily found blog on their websites. I thought this was strange and ended up doing a search for “corporate blogs” and found this article (http://bit.ly/dfnK0m). The article specifically addresses 15 top company blogs.

I hope it helps you.

Enjoy!

Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter was in San Diego last week and was interviewed by the local paper. I have attached the article if you want to read it. In the article there is also a link to the entire 55 minute interview.

There were a couple of key things I was looking for:

First, was Twitter a visionary foresight or just a lucky shot? I have my opinion but you can decide for yourself.

Second, is it making anybody money? Not a penny so far. In fact, they have invested $57M.

Third, how do they plan on eventually making money? Targeted advertising. How are people going to feel about that.

Fourth, how are they going to grow the product to keep people interested? To me, it sounds like they are moving closer to the space currently occupied by the Facebooks, Flickrs and You Tubes of the world. If that happens we will probably see a consolidation in the market of similar businesses.

Anyway, I thought the article was cool because it offers a peek into the business side of Twitter.

The Facebook Movie

I saw the movie "The Social Network".

Although highly entertaining, aspects of it bother me. The screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, stated quite openly that his objective was to tell a good story, rather than to be perfectly accurate and loyal to the facts. But this is not historical fiction. This is a depiction of a currently living person, presented as a truthful representation of events. Isn't this libel?

The movie made me realize what Facebook was intended to be. It's a private space for teenagers to call their own. Teenagers need their own domain away from the eyes of adults, a place to express themselves freely, to test out new grown-up things, to get a little wild.

The audience in the theater with me consisted mostly of older folks. They had their own version of Facebook in their day. Their teenage years occurred just as the car became a mass consumer good. They bought big cars, enormous cars -- cars so big that both the front seat and the back seat were like couches. They loaded all their friends in the car and drove around and around the same loop in town, whistling and hollering at other groups in other cars. They went to restaurants that served them in their cars. They went to outdoor movie theaters and watched movies through the windshield. They had dates in their cars. Supposedly, they would drive their dates up to Inspiration Point for privacy, where one can only imagine what went on there. Their parents were terrified of the whole thing.

It's the cycle of the generations. It's no different in rural Africa. During my years there, I saw young people creating their own slang and dress codes and handshakes that only they understood. Their parents were also terrified of the supposed decline in morals and proper behavior.

The Simpsons put it best:

Grandpa Simpson: What the hell are you two doing?

Young Barney: It's called rockin' out.

Young Homer: You wouldn't understand 'cause you're not "with it".

Grandpa Simpson: I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you.

Young Homer: No way, we're gonna keep on rockin' forever...

Chris Anderson: How web video powers global innovation | Video on TED.com

Chris Anderson: How web video powers global innovation | Video on TED.com

Again another post from TED. Again we, as individuals are shaping the world in an unremarkable way. Look how videos are shaping our Social Media. Probably one day, all of us will join groups of people whom are Video Blogging. If you are interested to have a better understanding on video blogs check Wikipedia. Few ideas for starting Video Blogging: click here.

So is any of you out there doing a video blog? Let us know.

Social Media and Legos

Turns out that cool adults like Legos too. As reported in this article, David Beckham recently revealed in a Yahoo! Interview that he would like to be a professional Lego builder. After his revelation, sales for the Lego Taj Mahal reportedly grew by over 600%. This illustrates the power of social media such as Yahoo! Interviews... and also how bored some people are.

How young is too young to target with Social Media Marketing?

This article states that 7% of children have an e-mail address by the age of 2. 5% of children have a social media profile by that age.

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/10/06/5-of-unborn-babies-have-a-social-media-profile/

So my question to the class: Is there an age below which it is unethical to use social media to market products and services to children? Certainly pushing alcohol or tobacco on 10 years olds would cross a line for most of us. But, for example, should toy manufacturers be allowed to push the hot toys of the season on facebook and twitter, going directly to kids?

Gap Succumbs To Online Pressure

Look! Our opinion really does matter:

http://bit.ly/aEbSRq

Gap recently tested a new look for its logo on Facebook and got quite a backlash. It only took 1000 comments for them to take it down. It seems obvious that long time patrons of the company would have a hard time with the new look, so I am surprised that they were so quick to abandon the effort. I can only guess that they has some statistical justification based on the number of positive and negative replies they got.

Social Media and Sports

A little while ago, rather than putting my free time to use working on Wednesday's case, I was messing around on twitter. While scrolling through the various tweets from my classmates and others I'd decided to follow, I noticed the 'Who to follow' section on the right side of my newly acquired 'new twitter' page. Because of my following on the USA men's soccer team, up popped Landon Donovan's twitter, which I naturally immediately decided to follow. I poked around a little more and found a few other professional athletes to follow, most of which are fairly active on twitter. I was surprised, yet not--I'm sure they spend a lot of time traveling and relaxing and enjoy using it to keep in touch while away.

Yet it got me wondering...are sports teams on board with this whole social media thing? Is it really a big deal to them--and is it working? So I googled it, and sure enough, I found a recent article about how the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals have harnessed the power of social media to garner attention from a younger crowd.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101105882.html

To me, it's a natural fit. Who wouldn't want to be able to 'personally' congratulate the Sharks on a season opening win? Who wouldn't want to hear what any big name wide receiver is doing every second off the field? It's a great way to self advertise, and to draw attention to the teams themselves. I think social media and sports are a natural fit, and that more and more social media specialists will flock to big name sports teams the same way they've flocked to big name companies.

Influence of networks on music choice

There was one issue from class which touched a personal nerve for me, and I think is very much worth thinking about. It's the issue of music popularity as intertwined with social influence. In case you missed it, Salganik's finding was that in worlds without social influence, top choices varied across members, but there were still a few that fared well overall (ostensibly the better songs). In the worlds with social influence, the top songs were basically unpredictable. To me, the corollary is almost chilling: your friend's opinion is much more important than the merit of the music.

This is also why you should never, ever talk to me about music: I am not afraid to let you know that you have bad taste. I have a music degree, I am snobby about it, and my opinion is, in most cases, going to be more informed than yours. However, this gets me into trouble, because the purpose of music, throughout the history of mankind, has been largely social: no one sings along to Miley Cyrus because the music itself is so stimulating, it's just that Miley's been foisted on us with chilling effectiveness, and so by default it's what we all know and can collectively rally around. And no one likes the guy in the back of the room that points this out while everyone else is trying to do karaoke.

But here's a positive view: now that you're aware of this, you are empowered to choose only good music. Pop music is a modern-day Soma, unnoticed but caustic. It's an area where I believe marketing really is doing cultural damage, and the only way out is to pay attention to the music you purchase, the radio stations you choose, and the shows you attend.

And so it begins: Targeted Ads

Have you seen this icon:

Click on it to be monitored!
Not by me... but the owner of the ad...? I think?





Ad Industry Attempts to Self-Regulate Behavioral Advertising:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1692936/ad-industry-self-regulates-behavioral-advertising

I find this interesting because on one hand if I don't click on this icon, then I get hit with all kinds of ads. So clicking is good. On the other hand, will clicking open the flood gates? Am I signaling that I want more ads? Who exactly gets the data - Who is watching?

Here are some insightful reasons from IDEO to give away some level of privacy:
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662437/ideo-why-would-you-trade-away-your-online-privacy-6-case-studies

"I Like It" on Facebook Status: Breast Cancer Awareness Goes Viral

Guys don't be fooled by this Facebook Status, it is not what you think it means. The "I Like It" Facebook status is part of a viral campaign for breast cancer awareness month. The campaign encourages female Facebook users to post status updates like "I like it on the couch" or "I like it on the bed" in reference to where they keep their purses.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20018860-10391704.html

Pre game twitter would be fined from NFL case

Hi everyone!

Are you excited about Sunday Night Football? Yeah, I am! But, I am not so familiar with NFL rules...

By the way, I found an interesting post about NFL player's violating rules on tweeting one hour before the game.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5670754

Because of social media development, we tend to be more familiar with famous people such as singers, sports players, politicians, and so on. It is interesting for us to see their real daily life.
But, just as the above case, it seems to be that their social media use of ignoring the basic rules
would damage their estimate or be compensated very highly.

We have to be careful to the basic rules in utilizing social media.....

Xtranormal_Can sites like this be a new social media tool?

Again surfing the net and guess what I find. A website where you can create films through typing: What an intriguing idea !!!
This means that we can create films and post them on Facebook, Youtube or other social media sites only by sitting behind our computers. I wonder how much attention a subject would get through a good short movie that are made through such websites.  It could be cheap and easy.

Now, I am wondering how many great ideas are out there that I have not come across, yet. I am pretty sure there are a lot of similar websites but how can we find them ?

One thing is clear at least, such websites have not been successful on reaching out to people.
The idea is fascinating but it did not reach me before I did.

One last thing, should we have a competition on making a film which gets more hits in the internet? After all, it can be part of our Social Media Marketing project :)

Cons of Social Media from Japanese episode

Hi everybody,

I wanna share an interesting story about twitter episode in Japan related to yesterday’s class, with everyone. Two weeks ago, there was a big election of leader inside Japanese biggest political leader party between Mr. Kan (Japanese prime minister) and Mr. Ozawa.

Somebody faked twitter account of Mr. Ozawa. Initially, many guys misunderstood Mr. Ozawa’s fake account as Mr. Ozawa's message. People were very surprised! But, later, Mr. Ozawa officially announced that the account was a fake.

This shows cons of social media as an invisible social network, especially related to authority.

About the details, please refer to the below website.

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/09/06/fake-ozawa-twitter-reels-in-thousands/

What do you think about it?

Putting Technology to its Best Use

People eventually find the best use for new technology, even if it's not the use that was originally envisioned.

I remember watching one of those "world of tomorrow" films from the 1950s. It triumphantly demonstrated a fully-automated nursery for babies. All of the carrying, rocking, and feeding of the babies was done, gently, by a complex series of machines.

At the time, they thought it was a great idea: no-touch, hygienic, controlled, standardized care. Now, of course, we know that it was worst idea ever. Children need the human touch for proper emotional development.

This is not to say that the mechanical engineering involved wasn't brilliant. It was. It just needed the right application.

Similarly with internet technology. As the internet matures, it is providing more sophisticated and more refined tools for sharing information as far as we choose. "Social media" may not actually be sociable. But the fact that any of us can now broadcast to everyone else in the world at very little cost or effort represents a revolution in information distribution. We will eventually figure out how to put these tools to their best use.

For example, one of the best uses of Twitter I've heard of is by a neighborhood produce stand and bake shop. They broadcast messages to their customers: "Just got a crate of ripe bing cherries, $2.99/lb." "Fresh baked peach pies, out of the oven at 3:00 this afternoon!"

It's not a social conversation, but it's a very useful way to transmit information.

Facebook Groups

Here is an interesting article from Mashable.com discussing the newest feature on Facebook – Facebook Groups. Now users will be able to create mini communities within their existing and ever expanding network of friends, and share content exclusively within these communities.

This is a great application of one of the principles we discussed today in class: scarcity. Now users can create small groups, where they can decide who is in and who isn’t, which will give people a feeling of exclusivity that Facebook is quickly losing. This should help increase how valuable people perceive Facebook to be.

http://mashable.com/2010/10/06/groups-feature-is-the-new-facebook-op-ed/

Network Diagraming Goes Glam

Our discussion today about network diagramming reminded me of the apparently now-defunct Facebook App "Friend Wheel." It created pretty pretty pictures of your friends and how they were related. There were a few different options for how the App ordered the friends on the wheel and selected colors, so not all the images you'll find if you Google Image Search "Friend Wheel" will be directly comparable, but I still recommend it, if for nothing else than the pretty pictures.

Here's a blog about the history--the creator's site and facebook page are no longer working.
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=501

Does anyone else remember this?

Social Media and China

While popular social media sites such as Facebook and twitter are blocked in China by the Chinese government, the idea of social media can’t be blocked. China, with a fast-growing economy and a huge population, has developed it own social media phenomena which creates lots of opportunities for marketers who would like to do business in China.

Some interesting facts about social media in China:

(Link to the original article is attached below)

1) By 2010, there are 221 million blogs, 117 million BBS and 176 million social network users in China.

2) 272 million people on instant message, 222 million on online video, 108 million on online shopping (The market leader Taobao.com beat eBay and chased them from the market), 265 million on online gaming and 321 million using online music.

3) Tencent, a Chinese internet company offering services such as instant messaging, online gaming and blogging, is the third largest internet company in the world, after only Google and Amazon. It has over 1billion users, 485million active users, and made over $1.5B USD (which is roughly 3x what Facebook made) with a net margin of 40%.

4) Love Farmville? The first farm game was made in China by a company called 5 minutes.

5) Zhenai is the most popular dating site in China (and the world, with 22 m profiles. It's bigger than Match.com).

6) Dianping is a Yelp-like site that has many more reviews than Yelp.

7) $5Billion worth of virtual goods were sold online, which is 5 times bigger than the US

Check this article for more information: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-and-china-its-not-what-you-think-notes-from-sxsw/

a new start

I was under impression until now that social sites like facebook, twitter has really no tangible benefits to me; it is mere waste of time while hanging out these sites so often. But, may be I was wrong. May be, I had never realized the positive effects of social media. After seeing so many classmates here, i am deciding to venture into this virtual world of blogging, twittering, face-booking.

Here is an interesting article that i was going through earlier today, you may find it a good read:

http://gigaom.com/2010/10/05/marketers-and-social-media-cutting-through-the-noise/

New to blogging, but not social media

This is my first blog post ever! I check my facebook and twitter accounts multiple times a day to see what is new, but I have never written a blog. When I use social media, I tend to only write quick little updates no longer than a sentence or two. I feel that is enough to get my message across. I believe there are probably a lot of great blogs out there worth checking out, but I have just never gotten into it, maybe it is because when blogs were first starting to become popular I had this stereotype that bloggers were dorks with a computer and too much time on their hands, probably writing from their parents basement and eating a bag of chips at the same time. With this stereotype in mind, I had no desire to read what these bloggers were writing. After looking over a few blogs the past few days, I have learned that is clearly not the case. I think it is about time I start exploring and experimenting with social media tools such as blogs that I never used in the past.

Twitter Re-tooling?

Looks like it's time to get serious for Twitter. WSJ reports the COO is now the CEO. Interesting how his focus was leading advertising initiatives. Why? Because so far I have to say that after 4 days of using Twitter I rather enjoy the lack of clutter.

http://bit.ly/blAmt2

But like any other business we examine at Rady, the financial bottom line rules. Sure the company can raise money. The question is can they make money for the investors!?

Way over my head.....

As of yesterday, the only two people I have ever texted are Andrew and Mindy. I logged on to Facebook and Twitter for the first time EVER 2 days ago. I have talked to 2 classmates who check there Facebook posts 10-50 times a day. Malcom has his own very cool blog, complete with an artist's rendering of Otterson Hall.

Chris Turl - Thank you very much for your honesty and candidness.

With all of that as prelude I am throwing myself off the cliff. It's more out of fear of being left behind than excitement of what I can do with this stuff. Iam praying that excitement comes though. For now I am going to have to trust that ignorance is not bliss in this case. I remember showing my grandparents how to use a tv remote a few decades ago and their refusal to accept that any such technology could have value.

I'll ask stupid questions for sure....so laugh and then do me the favor of an answer. I would rather look ignorant here than out in the real world after we graduate. Thanks in advance!

BBC News On Corporate Use Of Social Media

BBC News wrote an article yesterday about how a few companies are using and watching social media. The article uses the classic example of "United Breaks Guitars" to show the dangers of mistreating your customers in the age of YouTube and how other companies view social media as an essential part of their marketing efforts. Various ways that Twitter can be used to monitor customer sentiments and attention are also covered.

BBC News: Why companies watch your every Facebook, YouTube, Twitter move

Also on my new blog

Rady Social Media Marketing: Happiness is Healthy Socializing

I think this one is more interesting:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5A10ZP20091102

It's good for all those non-E's. Maybe all that happiness, whether online or off, is not a good thing.

Happiness is Healthy Socializing

I really enjoy being social. Remember the Myers-Briggs test? Well, I am a strong "E" - extrovert. Moreover, articles like the following make my head nod up & down in agreement:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Happiness-is-Healthy-Socializing&id=3532416

But notice that the author focuses on human contact when it comes to socializing. I wonder if digital socializing is just as healthy. My gut (getting bigger due to a digital lifestyle) says no. But then again for people that are introverts, using tools like facebook and twitter could be a great on-ramp for being more social in life. Or is it a crutch?

From a business standpoint, if a promotion promotes healthy social atmospheres, there is a positive relation to the brand/product. So sitting and commenting on blogs or bulletin boards is healthy vetting, but not healthy lifestyle. Well, that's my opinion... as I write my first real blog!

"The Social Network" Number One In Box Office

The new movie, The Social Network topped Friday's box office at $8,000,000 beating out Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and The Town. The movie has been tagged as "the Facebook movie" as it chronicles Mark Zuckerberg's conception and creation of Facebook.

What is next for Facebook?

Who has time for this social media?

I have spent the past couple days learning how to use some of the tools we learned about in class. I have created a Twitter account. In starting my account, I had to create a new userID, put in new information about myself, find a picture that I thought was worthy of being shown to my classmates and then had to find someone to follow (that wasn't the professor). Granted, my internet connection was slow, but it took me forever to find new people to follow and be followed by. I couldn't bear to have one or two people on my elite Twitter following, so I searched for as many classmates as I had time for and finally settled for about 10 total. It took me nearly 30 minutes to establish my network and now I needed to think of something to tweet.

But I had nothing to say. Does Ryan care that I was going to pick up my car from being serviced? Does Andrew or Josh care that I played with my daughter after class? And I started to think, in the time it took me to establish my in-group of sorts, I could have gone for a run, read a book, or headed to the beach to go surfing.

So I have become curious, who has the time for this social media? How much does the average person spend setting up these profiles, finding friends, finding products or companies, how fast of an internet connection do they have, do they use a home computer mostly or a smartphone? Since I was curious, I searched and found an article about who uses social media ( http://bit.ly/9vnU3a ). It says 80% of Americans use social media, but can we better the process?

My experience with Facebook has been similar. It takes time to upload pictures, keep up with the multitude of conversations, accept new friends, find old friends, think about whether I want to stay in contact with the bully is high school who is now wishing me Happy Birthday because he saw it on Facebook, and then to think about what I want to tell people about my day.

Considering my experiences with social sites and the electronic world have been draining at best, is there a way to streamline the process? Have others had similar frustrations? Is tweeting and Facebook much more enjoyable when you have a mobile device that helps you to do it on the run? I am amazed that (according to Malcolm's post) people are willing to pay real money for property in a virtual world!

Just my thoughts. Maybe I am not cut out for the virtual world? But then again, I cannot be the only one. How do we better bring people like me into these realms?

P.S.- This is my first blog posting. So be nice!

How social media can make history

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history | Video on TED.com

As a person who frequently follows TED Talks, I find this video on Social Media interesting. It was posted on June 2009, still it provides us with a good understanding of how Social Media has changed the world.

As Clay puts into the words Social Media has have the "largest increase in expressive capability in human history".

So, the Question is not "how much effect social media in marketing will have?" but "what is the most innovative way to take advantage of this phenomena?"

Socializing and Marketing in Second Life

On February 2^nd of this year Frontline ran a report on the effects of digital media throughout modern society. It covered a broad range of topics but I thought 2 of the chapters on how people use virtual worlds (namely World of Warcraft and Second Life) to connect with each other would be relevant to the discussion of social media marketing.





Watch the Full Report: Digital Nation (90 min)

I found the failed attempts of a number of companies to use Second Life to market real world products particularly illuminating. Several people have been able to earn a full time living selling virtual clothing, buildings, and land in Second Life but Coke and American Apparel couldn't use the same medium to any effect. I think this shows how the same old marketing techniques don't always work in this new space. Building a virtual store for people to visit just wasn't a compelling experience. People weren't interested in spending their time in a virtual world to gain real world products but hundreds of thousands of people were willing to pay real money for virtual goods that had no real value in the outside world.

On the internet engagement is everything.

A virtual representation of a storefront just doesn't offer Second Life players what they are interested in. They want social interactions, status symbols, and ways to represent their personality. I'm not entirely sure how major brands should go about approaching these types of virtual worlds, which are becoming more common. However, there does appear to be an opportunity to extend the positive brand associations of the real world to the virtual world.

Also, for anyone interested in Second Life, the founder is a UCSD graduate and the alumni magazine interviewed [link] him last year about the game and his company. It goes into some of the challenges he faced creating a virtual economy, including a tax revolt.

My Blog