A new year just around the corner and now is the time to declare our resolutions for 2011. I wondered how social media would participate in the New Year celebrations this year. Well in the spirit of keeping everyone connected during the celebrations and revelry the Apple iPhone has an application for the New York Times Square Ball Drop.
Apple provides the following description of the app:
Join millions of revelers around the world to celebrate New Year’s Eve 2011 LIVE. The Official Times Square Ball App is your exclusive access to be part of the activities in Times Square as you watch the LIVE co-hosted official show featuring A-List musical performances, celebrity appearances, first Times Square Wedding, hourly countdowns and the midnight Ball Drop!
Don’t wait until December 31st to enjoy the Times Square Ball App. Download today!
Features:
* Participate in the celebration by submitting your New Year’s photo for friends, family and other revelers to vote on.
* Their favorites may be selected to be seen on the Toshiba Vision sign atop One Times Square directly beneath the Waterford Crystal New Year’s Eve Ball on December 31st! The selected photos will also be featured on the LIVE Show.
* Discover everything you need to know about the Times Square New Year’s Eve Celebration including the history, news, weather, photos, relevant maps and LIVE Show schedule.
* Send New Year’s Eve kisses and share photos with friends and family.
* Watch live streaming of the events in Times Square leading up to New Year’s Eve throughout December as well as the highlight promo and other exclusive video content.
* Customize your Toshiba Countdown Clock with your personal photo and time zone.
* Check-in via Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter to find out how far away you are from Times Square.
So from anywhere in the world you too can be a part of the New York celebration. From Birmingham to Bangkok and from New York to New Zealand we all can ring in the new year together. This is truly amazing. I wish I had an iPhone because I would definitely be a part of the worldwide celebration.
This Christmas we got snow! Yea!!! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a white snow here in Virginia but this time we got it. I sung about how I was dreaming of a white Christmas but now that it’s here I’m wishing for a warm tropical place with palm trees and umbrella drinks for next year. I’m taking any and all suggestions under consideration. Do you have any?
Many times (if not all the time) when making travel arrangements we often go to our friends and family for suggestions and recommendations. It’s no surprise that many are turning to their network of social media friends for travel advice. Well now there are two new social services available for travelers, Flip.to and TripAdvisor’s “Cities I’ve Visited” Application.
Flip.to, a social media service that turns travelers into brand advocates for hotels and airlines. According to the Flip.to the website “helps hotels, restaurants and airlines spread the word among the social networks of their best evangelists- their guests!”
TripAdvisor’s “Cities I’ve Visited” Application is in addition to the already well known travel recommendation pages of the original TripAdvisor site. According to InventorsSpot, “similar to Flip.to, TripAdvisor, one of Web 2.0′s earliest user-generated recommendation travel sites
has recently partnered with Facebook to help travelers benefit from their friends’ and followers’ travel experiences. Now when you visit TripAdvisor while logged into Facebook, the site’s Cities I’ve Visited will become your personalized travel planner, complete with friend’s reviews, a map showing places friends have visited, and a list of their most popular destinations.”
I wonder what my friends will recommend…Aruba, Bahama, Hawaii, maybe Bora Bora?
First it was the water cooler and then there was instant messaging but now social media has emerged as the new black hole to corporate productivity.
Australian scientists reported that when employees take time during the work to visit social media sites, they actually increased productivity. The study explains that workplace Internet leisure browsing, or WILB keep the mind fresh and helps and puts surfers in a better headspace when they return to their work. These breaks increased productivity by 9%.
“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work – within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office – are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” said Dr Brent Coker, from the Melbourne Department of Management and Marketing.
Say what?! This can’t be true. You mean social media won’t rot your brain?
I must confess that I do take time out throughout the day to check my social media accounts. I would agree that it gives me some down time and allows my brain to rest. I equate my social media breaks to the smoke break that my coworkers take.
Last week, Ad Age posted their favorite top ten social media campaigns. I can only assume that this list is for 2010 however I could no ascertain whether or not this list is their all time 2010 favorites or just current pickings. Take a look at the following campaigns and let me know if you think this list is comprehensive or if there are other campaigns that should be listed as well.
Haiti suffered a world of misfortune when an earthquake struck in January of this year. And while the rest of the world geared up to help, this proved to be one case where social-media did something more than slacktivists’ favorite rallying cry of “raising awareness.” Less than 24 hours after the earthquake struck, killing an estimated 230,000 people, the Red Cross initiated a text relief campaign. Wireless users wanting to help were asked to text HAITI to 90999 and a $10 charge would later appear on their phone bills. Over the next 36 hours, the campaign raised more than $4 million, making it the most successful texting fundraising effort ever. By late February, the mobile effort-backed by TV and spread across Twitter and Facebook-had raised more than $32 million and spawned a host of do-gooding imitators.
OLD SPICE
The Old Spice TV ads, featuring the manly, shirtless and humorously arrogant Isaiah Mustafa, have received rave reviews and have translated exceptionally well online. After being put on YouTube, the commercials became viral, with the most popular one amassing nearly 24 million views since the beginning of February. On Twitter, Old Spice solicited questions for Mustafa, now known as the “Old Spice guy,” and Mustafa responded to many of them individually by making short videos. For example, one commenter asked Mustafa to propose to his fiancé for him, and Mustafa obliged, making a video replete with a ring and romantic candles. Some of these personal-request videos have garnered millions of views as well.
PEPSI REFRESH
Through Pepsi’s “Refresh Project,” which started at the beginning of the year, the company has given away $1.3 million a month to individuals and organizations that have posted to its website ideas on how to “Do Good,” one of its mottoes. Thousands of people have posted ideas, including helping children who have experienced trauma and clothing homeless mothers in designs by local artists. Grant winners — who have received $5,000 to $250,000 — are those who get the most votes by fellow users at the end of each month. And users are encouraged to promote their ideas on Facebook and Twitter. One recent winner, a scientist at a public university in Michigan, received $50,000 to research compounds found in the spice cumin that may prevent cancer.
MURPHY USA
While some oil companies still have a lot to learn about social media (think BP), there is one in particular that’s at the cutting edge. It’s the Murphy Oil Corp., specifically the U.S. division, called Murphy USA, which operates retail discount gas stations in Wal-Mart parking lots throughout the country. This year, it teamed up with the makers of Whrrl, a location-based social network, to reward customers with prizes when they go to buy gas at one of the company’s stations. Since the program began in July, the Murphy USA “society” on Whrrl has 2,393 members — small for Facebook numbers, but not too shabby for a gas station on a location-based app not named Foursquare. The company also has a program called Team Murphy USA that sponsors local sports teams and encourages team coaches to post pictures and scores to its website.
IT GETS BETTER
After a spate of teen suicides in September that were all related to homophobic bullying or insecurities about being gay, Dan Savage, an openly gay relationship columnist, made a YouTube video with his partner directed at vulnerable young people with the message that “It Gets Better.” From this, the It Gets Better Project was born — a website that allows mostly gay adults to share their stories with potentially suicidal young gay people about how life “gets better.” So far, more than 5,000 user-created videos have been uploaded.
EDGE SHAVE GEL
Edge’s “Anti-irritation Zone” website solicited responses to the question “What irritates you?” Featuring a map of the U.S. on the website, users could read about other people’s annoyances by state, such as “when some jerk off on public transportation ignores a pregnant woman standing,” from Cory in New York, N.Y., or “girls who say ‘dude’ all the time,” from Steve in East Moline, Ill. It also used Twitter to provide random acts of kindness, seeking out instances in which people were complaining about irritating circumstances and attempting to solve them. In one example, a New England Patriots fan last month tweeted his irritation at his inability to get tickets to a game against the New York Jets and, within days, had them in hand, courtesy of Edge.
To spread awareness about GE’s commitment to using and developing green energy, the company tapped into young YouTube celebrities with mostly teenage fans, to make videos about anything at all related to the environment. The fans, in turn, were asked to submit “green” ideas to the YouTube celebs in exchange for individual “shout-outs” in the celebs’ upcoming videos. The campaign, called “Tag Your Green,” launched in October, and the hope was to get 10 million videos views by the end of the year. Within the first month, they surpassed that number.
ORABRUSH
For years, Dr. Bob Wagstaff tried to market his Orabrush tongue cleaner, and for years he failed — until he found professional pitchman Austin Craig, who started to promote the product by making funny YouTube videos about bad breath. While the first videos came out at the end of 2009, they have flourished in 2010 with the addition of “Morgan the Orabrush Tongue,” a goofy character whose head pops out of a giant pink tongue. The videos are produced weekly, and in November surpassed 30 million total views. In 2010, the company launched “The Bad Breath Detector” iPhone app which blurts out comments like, “I’ve never wanted to be flossed so much in my life.”
COCA-COLA
Coca-Cola struck social-media gold when it created a successful viral video at the beginning of the year. Teaming up with the interactive marketing agency, Definition 6, “Happiness Machine” features a Coca-Cola vending machine in a college cafeteria that dispenses a lot more than cans of Coke. After a girl puts some change into the machine, it yields a can of Coke, and then, to the shock of all the students, a set of hands emerge from the machine and produce increasingly bizarre objects, like a bouquet of sunflowers and a box of pizza.
HEINZ
Heinz Ketchup leapt into the 21st century this year by adding to its iconic label a blue computer tab-like design that reads “Find us on Facebook.” It may seem a little overeager, but not bad for a company founded in 1869. If a consumer or grocery store passerby heeds Heinz’s call to action (the new label also reads “Ketchup Lovers, Unite!”), he would find information on how to submit a design to its student-only Creativity Contest, now in its fourth year. Designs are submitted and the 12 winning designs are printed on millions of Heinz Ketchup packets.
Toddlers, that’s right toddlers, now have their own social networking site. Developed by two Finnish designers, IBOR is a social networking tool that toddlers can use to tell others what they are doing. Now you may be wondering like I was, “how can a child send messages when they are still learning the alphabet?” Well, the IOBR system requires no reading or computer skills.
So how does it work? Each activity the child is participates in has a corresponding block. When a child is doing that activity they will place the block with the image on the same shape lighted on the IOBR box. So for example if the child is brushing their teeth, they would place the round green block with the image of the toothbrush on the lighted circle.
How are these messages communicated to other IOBR users? The Passi and Ripatti blog describes it best: the boxes have been outfitted with led arrays and sensors that detect the presence a magnetic field. Magnets have been embedded in the wooden blocks to trigger the sensors when the block is placed in the right spot.
The Iobridge module and web service are used to provide the functionality and relay the sensor signals from box to box. The Iobridge allows the boxes to work anywhere as long as an internet connection is available.
Guess it’s never to early to build social networks.
Today, after months and months of neglect and the prompting from a notification email, I logged into my LinkedIn account. Once I logged in, I accepted the requested links from colleagues, family and friends. But while I was poking around on the site, I began to wonder who really uses LinkedIn? What is the demographics of users and how often do they log in and use the site? And how does LinkedIn compare to other social sites like Twitter and Facebook?
This week music artist Alicia Keys launched a social ban campaign for her Keep a Child Alive charity. During the Buy Life campaign, Keys along with other celebrities have agreed to stop all social media activity until the charity raises $1 million dollars to save the people of Africa and India who are affected by HIV/AIDS. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Elijah Wood, Serena Williams, and Usher have all agreed to participate. Each celebrity tapes their last tweet and testament before their “digital death.” The celebrities will only be able to buy back their life once the campaign reaches the $1 million dollar mark. The minimum donation amount is $10. Donations can be made by text message or by visiting the Buy Life web page.
The Buy Life campaign isn’t the first nor the only socially conscience effort conducted via social media. It appears that many businesses, nonprofits and citizens have turned to social media to promote social causes. Social sites such as Charity Water, Make the Difference Network, and Idealist use social connections to advocate various causes, efforts and charities.
Another instance of socially conscience social media is Jumo the creation of Chris Hughes, former co-founders of the social media giant Facebook. After leaving Facebook Hughes started his work on Jumo. As Hughes explains in the story that Jumo is a little different than other social media charity sights because its goal is to build a community of people passionate about causes. Check out the story here.
The use of social media for marketing efforts is all the rage. Some companies embraced social media early on while others are still warming up to the idea. There is nothing wrong with being a fast follower or a slow adapter. What really counts is using the right marketing mix for your product and its customers. But with the social media boom, the question that begs to be answered is: Does social media equal more money/product sales for marketers? Are social media users turning to these platforms for marketing purposes?
According to a report issued by Knowledge Network, social networks like Twitter and Facebook have not demonstrated its effectiveness as a marketing power. The report explains that “while 83% of the Internet population (ages 13 to 54) participates in social media – 47% on a weekly basis – less than 5% of social media users regularly turn to these sites for guidance on purchase decisions in any of nine product/service categories. In addition, only 16% of social media users say they are more likely to buy from companies that advertise on social sites.”
The chart below shows the percentage of users that go to social media networks when faced with a decision to buy.
Proportion of Social Media Users Who Turn to Social Media
When Making Purchase Decisions (by Listed Product/Service Category & Frequency)
“Regularly” turn to social media
“Sometimes” turn to social media
Travel or travel services
4%
24%
Banks or financial services
4%
10%
Clothes or shoes
3%
23%
Eating out or restaurants
3%
21%
Cell/mobile phones and service
2%
21%
Personal care products
3%
15%
Cars or trucks
2%
15%
Groceries or food
2%
13%
Prescription or OTC drugs
1%
10%
“How often do you refer to social media websites or features as a resource for information, reviews, or recommendations when in the market for [category]?” Base: Social media users (N = 418)
As you can see from the chart above the category that users regularly use social media is for travel. This category also garnered a high percentage from those who turn to this emerging media “sometimes”.
Twitter may not be a sale generator but it sure influences opinions and consumption by word of mouth testimonials.
In a Marketing Chart article, SVP-Group Account Director Dave Tice stated, “While social media is still a minor part of the media and personal mix that consumers use to make decisions, Twitter and its progeny can certainly greatly influence the way the press covers a product or media property – what gets buzz and what doesn’t,” concluded Knowledge Networks.”
“Our advice to marketers is, in a tweet-size bite of 140 characters: Twitter is less a way to directly reach customers, and more a way to reach passionate voices who may influence perceptions of your brand,” the company stated.”
After the creation of my blog, I began exploring various blogs on WordPress. There are hundreds and hundreds (if not millions) of blogs out there. Some blogs have a lot of followers and commentators while others don’t. That got me to wondering, in the blogging world how is your blog discovered and followed? Should I post silly pictures or post something extremely controversial just for the sake of getting some attention? What can/should I do?
Then it came to me, I should align myself with those bloggers whose blogs I enjoy reading and those who I identify with. I also realized that I cannot be a voyeur in this experience. Instead I must engage with others and genuinely contribute to conversations. Demonstrating this behavior to other bloggers will allow me to build relationships that could assist with my quest for blog notoriety. However, before I can be discovered, I need to develop more substantial content to demonstrate that I am serious blogger.
Hello everyone and welcome to digital twinkle, a blog dedicated to the discussion of emerging media in the marketplace. I will make every effort to bring you thoughts, suggestions and lively discussions on relevant emerging media topics such as:
Who does emerging media affect? Who does it not affect?
What sorts of emerging media have you been exposed to and how you feel about them?
What new developments have emerging media made and how it will affect users?
When should emerging media be used and when should it not?
Where is emerging media headed? What’s the future of emerging media?
Why do ethical issues arise when using emerging media?
Now these are just a few discussion ideas. However, if there is a more relevant topic or if there is something I find particularly interesting or cool, I will bring that to you as well.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let’s begin this blog by defining emerging media. Marian Azzaro, professor at Roosevelt University, defines new media as:
“the use of digital technology to communicate with a target audience”
Emerging media goes beyond the traditional forms of communication such as television, radio and print. Emerging media uses a uses a variety of digital tools to deliver communications. From websites, RSS Feeds and banner ads to Bluetooth, social networking and smart phone apps; emerging media is everywhere.
Why does emerging media matter?
No matter where you go or who you talk to, it is clear that we all feel or have felt the impact of emerging media. From sharing photos online to instant messaging your relative in another state, emerging media has reduced this seemingly great big world into six degrees (or less) of separation.
We are a society that needs communication. Each and every one of us wants to hear and be heard. We want to feel important. And many of us want our five minutes of fame. Emerging media allows for all of this. The video of a little boy’s finger being bitten by his brother has the ability to gain just as much notoriety as footage of a young girl being stepped on during a political rally. Emerging media connects us in a way we never imagined. And now that we have experienced that connection, we can’t live without it. For some it’s a love relationship and for others it’s a love/hate relationship. But regardless of our relationship with emerging media it is here to stay so we better deal with it.
Join millions of revelers around the world to celebrate New Year’s Eve 2011 LIVE. The Official Times Square Ball App is your exclusive access to be part of the activities in Times Square as you watch the LIVE co-hosted official show featuring A-List musical performances, celebrity appearances, first Times Square Wedding, hourly countdowns and the midnight Ball Drop!
The use of social media for marketing efforts is all the rage. Some companies embraced social media early on while others are still warming up to the idea. There is nothing wrong with being a fast follower or a slow adapter. What really counts is using the right marketing mix for your product and its customers. But with the social media boom, the question that begs to be answered is: Does social media equal more money/product sales for marketers? Are social media users turning to these platforms for marketing purposes?
