Have You Searched For This?

Voice search use has increased over the years, especially as technology gets better. “71 percent of 18 to 29-yea-old Americans use smartphone personal assistants, and about 40 percent of all voice search users have taken it up in the past six months” (Iwasiuk, 2016). Currently, there are four companies that use voice search: Amazon, Apple Google and Microsoft. Marketers will have to adjust their blog and website content to match the needs of voice search in the future. When people use voice search, they use natural language instead of searching with keywords or short sentences that don’t make sense. For example, it you had a soy sauce stain on your white pants we used to search using, “Soy Sauce Stain”, “Remove Soy Sauce Stain”, or “Soy Sauce Stain Removal.” When using voice search, people are more likely to use, “How can I get soy sauce out of white pants?” (Zantal-Wiener, 2016). Are there any other techniques that marketers can use to benefit from voice search?

References

Iwasiuk, D. (2016, September 29). Why You Should Optimize Your Marketing Strategy for Voice Search Queries. Business. Retreived from http://www.business.com/seo-marketing/why-you-should-optimize-your-marketing-strategy-for-voice-search-queries/.

Zantal-Wiener, A. (2016, September 23). Voice Search Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know Now. HubSpot. Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/voice-search-guide#sm.0000kfkkk9uqiej1z581l6rtstxnl.

Guess Who’s Coming After Amazon?

Amazon is releasing a smaller version of it’s Amazon Echo (the Echo Dot) for half the price! However small, this piece of technology is just as powerful and efficient as the Echo and can be spread throughout the house for best performance. It’s main competitor, Google Home, will be released later this year in November. The price for the Google Home will be $129 (which explains why Amazon just lowered the price for the Echo), and shipping will begin on November 4^th.  Google Home can do the same things that Amazon can including play music, set timers, tell the news and weather. “But because Google has a lot of information on its users with access to calendars and emails, it can get to know users a lot more intimately than Amazon can right now” (Tiley,2016). For example, if someone wanted to plan out their morning, they could say, “OK Google, good morning” and Google Home would share the time, weather forecast, the commute time to work (or wherever you normally go in the mornings) and what’s on your Google Calendar for the day. More products like this will most likely appear in the future, but I wonder what new features we will start seeing.

References

Tilley, A. (2016, October 4). Google Home Vs. Amazon Echo: Everything You Need to Know. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2016/10/04/google-home-vs-amazon-echo/#7b33ba675963.

Can Facebook Live Be Too Much?

Facebook wants users to begin using Facebook Live as often as possible so that there is a large amount of user-generated content to choose from with a variety of viewers. Most videos that get posted on Facebook Live become viral within seconds, like the man that was mauled by grizzly bears and posted his bloody video for the world to see. “The video post has been viewed 12 million times so far” (Quinn, 2016). You can watch the video here:

“This fall, the Turner-owned digital sports company will air three high school football games on Facebook Live, all with interesting storylines that could make them appointment viewing. One of the games will feature a team that never punts, a story that’s gotten some attention from other media outlets but will in theory be a lot more fun to consumer in a live broadcast that can be viewed on your phone” (Barr, 2016). Personally, I’ve noticed some people on my news feed starting to experiment with Facebook Live and see what it is that generates the most views. I recently watched one of my old volleyball teammates use Facebook Live by broadcasting her beach pick-up volleyball game live. There were 30 people watching (most were teammates that wanted to just watch a game of volleyball and the rest were family) and we watched the entire hour long match. The other night, my friend went on Facebook Live to show us a spider that she was afraid to kill and reached out to those watching for advice on how to kill it!

How have you used Facebook Live?

References

Barr, J. (2016, September 28). Publishers Tweak Their Approach to Facebook Live. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/media/publishers-tweak-approach-facebook-live/305973/.

Quinn, C. (2016, October 3). Man Survives Two Consecutive Grizzly Bear Attacks, Gets on Facebook, Posts Video. SF GATE. Retrieved from http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Man-survives-two-consecutive-grizzly-bear-9625029.php.

Social Media and Security

Recently, Kim Kardashian has been in the media after being robbed in her and Kanye West’s apartment in Paris. The hotel is very exclusive in Paris (it doesn’t even have a listed address) and can cost people up to $30,000 for just one night’s stay. While she was hanging out after going to Paris Fashion Week shows, she was robbed at gunpoint inside the apartment, and was left tied up after the robbers escaped with over $100 worth of jewelry.

What has some people worried is that the use of social media to pinpoint where you are every moment may be interesting and enjoyable for your followers, but there can also be bad guys watching as well. Kim Kardashian tweeted, snapped and posted pictures on Instagram of most moments in her journey in Paris. One of the pieces of jewelry that was stolen was her engagement ring from Kanye West that she showed off just a few days before on her social media (worth an estimared $4.49 million).

A police officer stands guard at the entrance of a luxury residence on the Rue Tronchet in central Paris, France, October 3, 2016 where masked men robbed U.S. reality TV star Kim Kardashian West at gunpoint early on Monday, stealing jewelry worth millions of dollars, police and her publicist said. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Brian Calkin, Vice President of Operations at the Center for Internet Security, stated that, “With social media, everyone is posting updates all the time on an almost near real-time basis. You are essentially sending out a beacon as to your whereabouts” (Serjeant, 2016). How could celebrities keep their fans and followers up to date with their brand without compromising their own security?

References

Serjeant, J. (2016, August 28). Here, there and everywhere; Kardashian Suffers Price of Social Media Exposure. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-kardashian-socialmedia-idUSKCN123290.

Cause Marketing Legal Battles

This week I wrote about Savers Thrift Stores and the legal battles that occurred with them and the charities that they worked with. The Minnesota attorney general stated that Savers had been soliciting donations from customers for various charities and not having proper legal paperwork to collect charity donations. “The company also violated state laws by commingling funds intended for specific charities with those of others, according to the attorney general’s report” (Abrams, 2014). They eventually settled in court and will be paying the charities money that is owed and have agreed that they will not collect donations without the proper paperwork. If there were stricter laws in place and more regulations monitoring cause-related marketing, do you think that this could have been caught earlier (this practice was going on for over a year before they were caught)? If not, what could be put in place to closely monitor cause-related marketing for both the corporations and charities?

References

Abrams, R. (2014, November 24). Savers, A Thrift Chain, Said to Pocket Money Meant for Charity. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/business/thrift-chain-said-to-pocket-money-meant-for-charity.html.

My Favorite Example of IoT

I recently visited a friend’s house and walked past the Nest thermostat and was amazed at what it could do. Not only does it allow users to control their home or apartment’s temperature from their smartphone or tablet, but it can also help save on energy bills. Google purchased the company for $3.2 billion in 2014 and is beginning to release new products such as the Nest Protect smoke alarm system and the Nest Cam home surveillance camera. This is all possible because of Big Data and analytics – algorithms in the software used by the devices to monitor and record how they are used, building up a profile which allows them to intelligently ‘set’ themselves” (Marr, 2015). Google believes that this type of technology will one day be featured in the ‘smart home’ as well, so I’m interested to see what else Google will come up with in this product line.

References

Marr, B. (2015, August 5). Google’s Nest: Big Data and the Internet of Things in the Connected Home. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/08/05/googles-nest-big-data-and-the-internet-of-things-in-the-connected-home/#417527b458a1

Ethical Marketing

This week we talked about marketing to children and whether it is ethical. I used Capri Sun as my example because they utilized cause marketing in order to help promote their product by addressing childhood obesity. On their page, they ask children 3 questions in order to help them determine what types of games they can play so that they can be active with their Capri Suns instead of sitting around the house. Was this an ethical type of marketing or should marketers only advertise to the parents instead? Research has actually placed some of the blame for childhood obesity on the ability of children to have access to various types of media and now spend more time in front of a computer, television or gaming screens (2016). Is it possible that this epidemic could be thanks to an increase of new media, or should there be better laws or restrictions in place to help control what types of advertising companies are creating that target children?

References

(2016). The Impact of Food Advertising on Childhood Obesity. APA. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/topics/kids-media/food.aspx.

Intro to Emerging Media

What is Emerging Media

Emerging Media allows for companies and business to interact with its customers in a variety of creative ways through different forms of technology. Current trends in marketing include utilizing social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, etc), blogs, instant messaging, forums and mobile marketing. People all over the world can be connected and engaged in events together through emerging media.

My Favorite Emerging Media Example

My favorite example of Emerging Media comes from my favorite television shows on television: The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. Every Sunday night, I get ready for the show by grabbing my iPad, laptop or cell phone and go over to the AMC website to get to Story Sync. Here’s what it looks like if you’re interested in viewing it: http://www.amc.com/shows/fear-the-walking-dead/story-sync. Every few minutes, live polls allow you to interact with other viewers for various scenes that occur. Then after the show, there’s a talk show called Talking Dead that also lets you interact with fans by providing live polls and quizzes that challenge your memory of the episode. Social media is also heavily used by presenting opportunities for fans to tweet questions to members of the cast by using the hashtag #TalkingDead. I believe that this is one of the many reasons that The Walking Dead series are so popular. According to the Washington Examiner (2013), “12.3 million people tuned in to watch ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 3 opener in 2013.

 

References

Deluca, K. (2013, February 11). ‘Walking Dead’ Returns Strong. Washington Examiner. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/walking-dead-returns-strong/article/2521204.