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International Catastrophe = Opportunity to Boost Sales? ….. No. Not So Much.

Los Angeles based clothing company American Apparel has received some serious heat over the last few days after blasting shoppers in the Northeast with this email: 

That’s right  American Apparel, scientists predict the biggest storm in 400 years to hit the coast and the first thing you should do is make sure your sales don’t take a hit. Yes, it is true that many tweeted about the boredom of being stuck inside for the storm, but have enough sense to know that many people will suffer damage or loss to their homes and belongings.  Twitter gave a resounding response:

American Apparel CEO didn’t seem to think his marketing team had done anything wrong. A representative of the company  responded to the backlash with this:

“Of course we’d never mean to offend anyone and when we put the email out yesterday it came from a good place…”

If only he’d had enough sense to stop there. Alas, he did not. He went on to defend the sale, saying:

 “… Retail stores are the lifeline of a brand like ours, so when they are closed, we need to come up with ways to make up for that lost revenue. People forget how expensive it is to run a Made in USA brand like American Apparel, and if we made a mistake here, it came from the good place of trying to keep the machine going—for the sake of our employees and stakeholders.”

Yes, you poor multi-million dollar company. Our hearts go out to you in this terrible time of hardship…..(Excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.) While we appreciate American Apparel’s commitment to keeping its employees at work and the company operating, this sentiment is not one the public wants to hear as they and their loved ones are in danger.

Unfortunately, several other companies including The Gap and Urban Outfitters jumped on the Sandy Sale bandwagon. It did not go over well.

So, while we hoped this wouldn’t need to be said, it ever-so-apparently does:

Using a natural disaster to promote sales is definitely on the ‘NOT OK’ list. 

Supplying people in need with batteries and mobile device charging stations like Duracell? This is ok! Waving late payment fees for customers in the Northeast like JPMorgan Chase & Co? This is ok! Offering 30 free days of storage for evacuees trying to save their belongings like U-Haul? Definitely OK!!!

What these companies understand is this: Marketing is not about making a sale; it’s about creating trust and loyalty in life-long customers. They understand that though they may see a dip in revenue in the short-term, the return gained from this kind of do-gooder activity is immeasurable in the long-term.  Whether these companies are motivated by sheer kindness or are keen to these long-term payoffs, we’re not sure. But frankly, we don’t care either.

Big Bird’s Big Viral Adventure

Not since Tickle Me Elmo has Sesame Street experienced such attention in the media…

Why a Presidential Nominee would choose the first presidential debate to put one of the most beloved children’s characters on the chopping block is a mystery to us, but against all reason, he did.

And boy are we glad!

After Mitt made the comment:

“I’m sorry Jim,” to moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS News Hour. “I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it,”

Twitter exploded in defense of our big, yellow friend. Users were tweeting the words “Big Bird” at a whopping rate of 17,000 times per minute. Accounts like @SadBigBird, @BigBirdRomney, and @FiredBigBird (which had more than 16,000 followers by the end of the debate) started popping up!  PBS had enough good sense to see an opportunity and made an ad buy on the phrase “Big Bird” on Twitter. Any time this phrase was searched on Twitter, the first thing people saw was this:

 And not long after, the meme-machine started working its magic:

Three days later….

And finally, the Obama campaign jumped on the band wagon with this ad:

To its credit, PBS was not about to let itself or its characters be made a political football and had this to say:

“We are very disappointed that PBS became a political target in the Presidential debate last night. Governor Romney does not understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation,” said PBS in a statement on its website. “For more than 40 years, Big Bird has embodied the public broadcasting mission – harnessing the power of media for the good of every citizen, regardless of where they live or their ability to pay. Our system serves as a universally accessible resource for education, history, science, arts and civil discourse.”

What do you think? Are Big Bird and PBS worth the .0012% of our Federal Budget every year? Does the cost outweigh the benefit? Or was this just a cheap shot?

Storytelling Lessons from Snoop Dogg

No one raps a story like the legendary Snoop Dogg. His infamous and chronic ( if you will) career is built on the concept of storytelling. As discussed in previous posts, the strategy of brand storytelling is imperative.   No matter if the author is a rapper or a company, telling a story is what captures people’s attention and provokes emotional attachment.  In Snoop’s case, who is a brand himself has acquired thousands upon thousands of loyal fans.    It’s no surprise the rapper proves to be a stellar storyteller via social media too.  Lets be honest there’s not too much that the Dogg can’t do. 

 1. Doggystyle

Think of it as..

The promotion of something like the song “La La La” can be thought of as being built around a story. It has a beginning, which is the build up; previews, contests, giveaways etc. Then the main event is the release of the song. Lastly, the ending is the feedback from people who might  might be provoked to write their own story.  How you tell the story and what it is  about is up to you. 

2. Game Don’t Wait

Consistency

Snoop Dogg is a very active Tweeter, sometimes updating every 30 minutes .  Not to mention, he has 9 million followers.  He also has a new logo, which he uses both on his Twitter and Facebook. The new logo correlates with the release of his new song “La La La” from the forthcoming album Reincarnated. Being consistent when it comes to using social media is helpful in building a community.  Once you set the precedent of how many times you tweet or the number of photos you upload or the use of your logo followers start to become familiar and often start expecting that.  This expectation is not a bad thing it is evidence of brand loyalty.

 

2. The Next Episode 

That deserves Documentation

Snoop is a pro at documenting excerpts of his life via Instagram or Viddy.  He gives his fans just enough information  keep them thirsty and begging for more. Like this less than a minute Viddy video where he is dropping beats with a fellow rapper.  Snoop is all about being himself allowing fans to get to know him on a deeper level.  Using a new mode of technology like Viddy promotes you and the new platform , as well as sends the message you are on top of you game and active in the social media world.

 

3 The Doggfather

Accessibility

One monetizing component of the Snoop Dogg story is his “Snoops Market Page”, which is strategically linked to his Facebook. Everything Snoop is easily accessible on his Facebook page. By taking the extra time to hyperlink something or writing a more detailed description really makes the difference for fans.  Many notice this and appreciate it.  Not to mention it also ties the story of your brand full circle.

 

The story of the 2012 Summer Olympics told in a new Way


Experiencing the Olympics 5 decades ago was significantly different from what it is today. Today we have altered the rules, added a few more categories, sport different jerseys, but the largest difference is the explosion of social media.  You don’t need to go back 50 years, to get a sense of how social media has changed  the Olympic game’s experience .  Imagine it is the year 1996 and you are attending the summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia and you aren’t tweeting that your all time favorite swimmer just finished first in the 200 Medley relay.  Doesn’t it  seem like a piece of the experience is missing?

Going Viral like never before

Techbargains.com  gathered estimates for what the social media usage will be during upcoming Summer Olympic Games.  They did this by conducting a survey asking people questions like “How often do you plan to interact with social media during the Olympics?”.  According to the survey it is estimated that  77% of people will be posting Olympic related content on Facebook , 31% on twitter, and 28% on YouTube.   Also according to the survey  it is foreseen that 53% of the sharing will be cheering on the athletes and 21% will be about results and medal ceremonies. The media conglomerate, NBC noticed these statistics and seized the opportunity to build upon it.

The Olympics and Mobile go hand in hand

NBC has made a deal with the Olympics and guess what it? It involves apps.  It is called the NBC Olympics App and NBC Olympics “Live Extra” App. which is available on iPhone and iPad. It will stream live the events via the apps and the NBC website.  The app has made it possible  to watch the Olympics live without delayed events for the first time on mobile devices and the web.  NBC capitalized on the idea that the Olympics are all about history unfolding and  in turn created an environment for  the Olympic story to be a part of everyones life 24/7.  NBC has done this by focusing on making every aspect of the Olympics from the athletes to the Olympic gear as interactive and engaging as possible. With polls, mad libs, a box to type in your zip code to find athletes in your hometown, easy to share videos, live tweet stats  it is a story being updated every second.  Even the sponsors have integrated their brands into the storytelling.  For instance, VISA has a display ad (with their logo visible) that connects to a Facebook to create a cheer for an athlete page.  This is the first Olympics where the connection and bond between the athletes thousands of miles away from their home town fans is stronger than ever thanks to the technique of storytelling.  

NBCOlympics.com visible via Facebook 

To make sure the story is spread to its maximum potential a special Facebook sharing option is available.  It is called “Social Sharing on NBCOlympics.com”, which allows for everything you read or watch on NBCOlympics.com to automatically be updated to your Facebook timeline.  This eliminates the trouble of clicking ‘share’ or ‘like’.  Helping the pieces of the story go viral almost almost by default.

Nike indirectly participating in the Games via Twitter

Nike may not be sponsoring the Olympics this year, but that doesn’t mean they won’t get their story told.  There strategy involves promoted tweets accompanied by the brand logo and links.  This is all apart of Jordan’s #riseabove marketing campaign.  During the live games Nike will tweet updates hoping to promote excitement and retweets, ultimately gaining new followers to be a part of their brand story.


Paid, Owned, and Earned Media: What’s the discussion all about?

Time is of the essence when it comes to advertising your content.  Getting discovered and going viral is everyone’s top priority.  In turn, creating a competitive environment. On top of  that the immense, plethora of media channels to choose from makes the possibility of making a noticable presence overwhelming. The easiest way to look at media is to break it up into 3 categories: Paid media, Earned media, and Owned media. Using this categorial approach allows companies to more efficiently advertise their content.  

Definitions

Paid Media:  A media owner is paid by the brand to promote their message.  Examples of this type of media are display ads, sponsorships, paid searches, promoted tweeters tv comercials, etc. This is the least organic approach and people tend to judge it as less credible.  The other negatives to Paid is that consumers are becoming less and less effected by things like banner ads.  They don’t want to be talked at anymore they rather offer their attention in exchange for useful content.  On the other hand, is useful when it comes to getting in touch immediately with niches and the advertiser has a large amount of control.

Owned Media: is a channel a Company/brand creates and owns.   They can either fully or partially own the channel.  For instance, a company fully owns their website, but partially owns their Facebook page.  This allows for brand extension and expansion on the web, but requires patience to gain attention.  The reason for this is it takes time to find someone creative to create the brand’s content and also to find a responsive audience.  Brand storytelling is a large portion of why owned media work. Once these two elements are found the brand advertising becomes much easier and authentic. This approach has more credibility because it is coming directly from the source, at the same time that can defer some consumers.

Earned Media: the term stems from the PR field.  It is known as the most organic approach because the Company/Brand does NOT pay money for attention.  Attention is “earned” by people naturally sharing.  They find the brand’s content interesting so they tweet it or write about in their blog. Earned is all about interaction and engagement. The only negative is that the advertiser doesn’t have a large amount of control and at times can be difficult to measure. In contrast, it involves all levels of influencers from Sara sitting at home commenting or a blog post to Justin Bieber retweeting your brand’s link.  These type of interactions are the main force behind things going viral.  This approach has the highest credibility.

Work well Together 

Usually what happens is more or less a domino effect.  Paid is needed to get Owned going and then Earned is needed to sustain traffic  and lower costs.  When all three are utilized they are able to fuel each other allowing to for advertising optimization.  Sometimes Owned and Earned take over and Paid is no longer needed saving money.

3 Content Marketing Lessons from Justin Bieber

His 44 million Facebook page likes prove that Justin Bieber has infected his fans with the Bieber Fever and there is no cure in sight.  This young man was discovered on YouTube where he posted his content (home music videos).  Now he’s on Forbes’s list of 100 most powerful celebrities.

Video Components

Justin Bieber knew how to best get his content out there and noticed.  It was YouTube videos.  His current manager Scooter Braun discovered him on the site and the rest is history.  Video’s are great components for companies.  A video that describes how a company works or their mission statement is sometimes easier or more entertaining for users compared to written paragraphs.  Virurl did this when explaining how the site works in a video titled “Earn Money”, among other videos.

It’s all about finding the right Niche 

In 1996 Disney evaluated the radio landscape and realized that there were zero radio stations catering content to younger kids (tweens to be exact).  This is what inspired them to create “Radio Disney” and capitalize on the ignored niche.  This is where Justin Bieber came in.  He positioned himself look and lyric wise to best fit the “Radio Disney” station profile. His music found its perfect niche and since then has thrived.  Looking for an untapped niche is a smart tactic to allow for creativity and to cut down on competition.  As Mary Meeker points out everything slowly, but surely is moving to mobile.  Investing the time in creating content for mobile devices users could be a less slightly less competitive niche to focus on.

Setting the Mood

Justin Bieber knows how to set the mood not just by his catchy songs, but also by his writing style.  He makes sure to always be positive when making a statement.  He’s currently touring the world and probably completely exhausted, but maintains  optimistism.  For example, “Great time in Germany. Can’t wait to see you all again on the #believetour next year”.   This tweet received many responses, including the German supermodel Heidi Klum.  Even when you are having a rough day projecting positive updates is always more compelling than complaining. This doesn’t mean being dishonest, it just means putting a twist on things. 

Lady Gaga’s 3 Lessons in Content Marketing

Everyone is aware of what Lady Gaga is up to or where she is located because she is constantly updating this information on all social platforms.  She believes in social networking so avidly that she has created her own called Little Monsters .  The site is a hybrid between Reddit and Pinterest and revolves around the Lady Gaga brand.  Seeing that she has already mastered YouTube with one music video receiving 141 million views, twitter with 23 million followers, and Facebook with 51 million likes it was time to move on .

1. Have the confidence to innovate

Lady Gaga has taken her content sharing to the next level and has invented Little Monsters.  Creating her own social networking site allows her the leverage to push her content without the competition found on the regular sites.  This is a brilliant move because it is the perfect environment for a vibrant community to flourish.  This community is full of fans connecting with other fans, sharing their own Gaga related work, and being exposed to her new work.  She has set this up so her “little monsters” do her marketing.  It maybe  a bit time consuming for you to reinvent the wheel like she has, but innovation on a smaller scale is definitely called for.   Existing social networks are also very conducive to growing a community, which Gaga has demonstrated. People to people sharing is a good idea to keep in mind when trying to do so.  It is proven that people have high trust levels towards their friends promoting the sharing the of content leading to it going viral. 

2. Supporting Charities

According to her social network sites Lady Gaga is keen on giving to non-profits.  In 2010 she boycotted her Facebook and Twitter pages until $1 million was raised for Alicia Key’s Keep a Child Alive charity.  In another one of her innovative and philanthropic endeavors, she has established Born This Way Foundation. This foundation supports the elimination of bullying, which she has been very vocal about dealing with in growing up.  People like to see someone successful give back it, it is a test of character.  Giving back is never a bad thing especially if it is timed and somehow relates to your content.  For instance, if you are marketing pet supplies why not start a fundraising campaign for ASPCA during pet awareness month.

3. Embrace Fans/Users   

Lady Gaga is so affectionate with her fans that she has dubbed them, her little monsters.  She values quality over quantity, even though it’s clear she has attained both.  She concentrates on building a trusted relationship and rewards them by offering them exclusive offers like behind the scenes content and such.  Your users need to know they matter and by giving them a little attention doesn’t hurt.  Maybe an “couple dollars off” or “for first 10 people to tweet..” campaigns and people will start talking about how great your company is.

4 Lessons we can learn about Content Marketing from Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian: The Queen of Branding teaches us something about Marketing

Whether you agree with her lifestyle or not, you most likely know who Kim Kardashian is and what she is all about….herself.

Kim is a superstar at branding herself and she does so through closely calculated content marketing strategies.

1. Don’t be M.I.A 

This is a woman who reportedly received $25,000 for tweeting one tweet about the brand Armani. Kim is valued for her consistency in terms of staying in conversations and being active in so many different ones.  With 14 million and counting Twitter followers she has to keep them entertained almost on an hourly basis.  She has a frequent and vibrant presence in everything, from Twitter to TV.  This is why hundreds of brands are begging for her endorsement.  Make tweeting and posting a daily routine and it will pay off.

2. Be Creative

Kim is far from shy about posting pictures of herself.  You know what that is okay because she fully grasps what it is she is branding and thoroughly embraces it. Along with her pictures she unfailingly has text that compliments her personality or the product she is endorsing.  Images and graphics are great components to a Facebook post or Tweet.  A visual catches a person’s attention who is in a hurry and doesn’t have time to read.  Often times an engaging picture is what is needed to provoke the viewer to follow through and read your content.  You have been told time and time again “Just be yourself” and it is true. If you regularly speak loudly use exclamation points in your writing.  If you talk using big adjectives, write with big adjectives.  This creates a personal tone, giving the reader a sense of who you are and what you are marketing.  There are so many other people out there competing for the same attention as you. Stand out by being different.  

3.Incentivize Me

Being boring on the internet is a sure way to lose consumers and potential consumers.  Kim and the companies she endorses eliminate this issue by implementing marketing campaigns like sweepstakes and contests to promote the product.  Her latest one is for Midori. It is a “If you help me, I’ll help you” mentality.  People are asked to  do something all day at work why not them get them excited about your product or content by getting them excited with incentives.  Virurl also does it by provoking people to share content for cash incentives.

4. Mix it Up

Kim doesn’t always post identical content on all of her platforms.  She mixes it up.  She reserves Twitter for responding to followers who mention her. Her Facebook and Twitter somewhat overlap.  She also uses Facebook to help promote her freshly published blog posts.  It is worth noting, her Twitter and Facebook profile photos are the same.  Having a solid profile photo helps build a brand because it gives viewers a reinforcement of who is marketing across different platforms.  Her blog is updated on the daily and she is very interactive with the people commenting on her posts.  She also has various videos on her blog supporting her diversified branding endeavors.     Deciding on what content to repost can be difficult, but just remember to utilize the social media platforms for its valued capability.  For instance, Twitter only allows 140 characters, while Facebook allows many more.  Maybe a shout out to a consumer is better on Twitter, while a link with a thoughtful message is more appropriate for Facebook.

Is It Just Me Or Is It Really Noisy?

To put into perspective of the amount of noise on the internet:

  • Facebook has 900 million users
  • 1 in every 9 people on Earth is on Facebook
  • 200 million photos uploaded on Facebook per day
  • 340 mill. Tweets a day
  • 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or 1 hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second.

Quickly glancing at these stats may make you feel like the possibility of your content going viral, let alone being discovered is slim to none.  It is apparent that  you have an immense amount of competition when it comes to launching your content online.

Wait, don’t give up yet!!!!

  • 30 billion pieces of content is shared on Facebook each month
  • 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute
  • 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc.) every week  

Undoubtedly, this makes you feel hopeful.  Lots of uploaded content is being shared, liked, and commented on.  Of course, the uploaded to shared ratio is unequal, but the web still provides a rich and potentially viral environment for your content. Plus the mission statements of social media sites like YouTube and such promote bringing people together by sharing content and

Sponsoring Conversations

You may be asking yourself how do I stand out and not become another sound contributing to the overwhelming noise?   It has to do with highlighting the brand’s content by sponsoring the conversation.   It is very probable that your money, time, and talent will go to waste if you are not involved in a conversation.  As an advertising platform, Virurl makes certain that your content is the center of attention or close to it. Virurl creates a graceful conversation starter by providing users with a sharable spn link, to post to Facebook, blogs, Stumbleupon, Myspace, and of course, retweet your content.  With an easy to share spn link and an incentive to click your content  people become engaged in your content.   In addition, to being intrigued to discuss it on the various social media platforms.  In turn, increasing your traffic and developing a brand.