#idm705

I have seen many creative uses of social media and I know that how to use social media is very important. Now, I am going to talk about a creative use of social media in China.

In 2006, the Chinese government hired many Internet commentators. The Internet commentators need to pretend as ordinary users and then they post some public opinions or give some comments in some social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. These public opinions and comments should steer discussions away from anti-party or sensitive content. It is because the Chinese government wants to use social media to keep a stable social environment. Now, this policy is really effective in China (Actually, people can not visit Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in China; instead, there are some Chinese websites that have almost same functions). In this case, I think the Chinese government use a creative way to use the social media. Now, I just want to talk about it based on social media’s feature; why the Chinese government chooses social media, which “customer” they focuses on and why it is useful.

First, using social media is very popular in China. In 2013, there are nearly six hundred million Internet users in China. 85% users use Internet to visit some social media websites with computer, mobile phone and tablet. The amount of six hundred million is not a small number; it is such a big user group leads the Chinese government to put a high value on social media.

So who is the customer of this interesting policy? Almost all of the Internet users in China are the “customers” of it. With the popularization of social media, Most of the Internet users have opportunities to get to social media. Internet users get much information from the Internet even if they chip off just a bit. For instance, even if I only spend fifteen minutes a day visiting on Facebook, I basically know what happened in the world today and what people's views on issues, which was impossible for any kind of social media in the past. Therefore, a typical Chinese Internet user has read the professional Internet commentator’ post or comments but not realizes those commentators are not providing their sincere opinions. Consequently, all of them become the Chinese government’s customers as planed.

Why is it useful? It correlates with the basic characteristics of social media. The biggest characteristic of social media is interactive. At present, people prefer to believe the news or information coming from social media rather than those official views from television. It is because, social media as an interactive platform, people can both read and comment on it. When these Internet commentators are working, they post or comment by using an unofficial tone. It is very hard to distinguish the post are coming from ordinaries or Internet commentators, but we agree with some of their opinions at times. And because of this Internet commentators’ post or comments do have an effect on us. Then we get to understand that this policy is rather useful.

Social Media... It’s a wonderful world to be in for promoting an ad, project, new products and designs or even to promote yourself and get your name out there.

One way that people are promoting their ideas, campaigns, products and projects, is by using Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a community to promote your project and either help get funded or to get funded and sell certain items to raise money for a new project. It’s a great place to get a start up and see how many fans want what is there to be offered. Companies and an everyday person can use this platform to get funded. It is up to the people to decide how well the campaign actually goes.

With the use of social medias such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Tumblr, projects shared on these social media sites can help get more views and possibly more people to fund ones project and get the word passed around. 

One interesting Kickstarter campaign uses Instagram as a part of their project. “Kickstarter Campaign Turns Your Instagram Photos Into a Memorable Wallet”. Funders of this campaign will receive an access code that they can use to design and personalize their own wallet online by using their own personal photos. Funders can select up to six photos; allowing them to design the front, back and even the inside of the wallet.

Social medias can help promote business by allowing them to spread their campaigns and messages across the World Wide Web without having to buy an advertisement. By promoting on these social platforms, word can spread pretty fast and can create hype and engagement within the social media community.

Another helpful use of social media is allowing users to get noticed. Have an opinion? Want to express what’s on your mind? Want to show the world your talents? Social media can defiantly help spread the word. The bird is the word and twitter can help, along with other social media platforms.  Like I had said earlier, word spreads fast on social media and it is up to our peers to decided how popular one could get. Some people get lucky when they promote themselves on these platforms and become famous and popular or find a new way to bring home the bacon; but like I said… that opinion is based on your peers and fan-base.

The music industry is one of the biggest and most influential across the world. However it is  also one of the most damaged by the internet and all the social networks available right now. The days of record stores selling thousands of copies of one album are in the past. Artists have had to evolve and learn new ways to engage with their audiences. Concerts are the perfect avenue to connect artists and fans in a global context where communications are powerful. The use of them is key for success.

     Selling music over the internet is not an easy job. It is too easy to obtain music on the internet without paying a single dime and there are too many people sharing files that make it almost impossible to stop piracy. Understanding this situation, artists around the globe are changing the game and they’re trying to use social networks and internet to circumvent this proce

    Last week the famous singer/producer Pharrell Williams released the first 24 hours music video on the internet from his single “Happy”. This is a great example of the music industry understanding they need to change the way they do business. The idea is groundbreaking and it tries to engage new fans with Pharrell’s music. Using social media, the video managed to spread really fast across the internet. It made a lot of noise on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc. The website http://24hoursofhappy.com  started gaining thousands of users as soon it was available.

            The concept of the idea is a 24 hour video that is always playing along to the song “happy”. The website is a great combination of design and technology, providing the user with the ability to search through the entire video and select the scene that he or she wants to see. Also, the scenes where Pharrell Williams appears dancing and singing the song are well featured. Every single part of the entire 24 hour video is available to share. Thus the video becomes more sharable and went viral more easily. It really succeeded at engaging new users as people were sending their favorite clips to their friends.  

              In addition to this, inside the 24 music video there are other celebrities in it, dancing and singing the song along Pharrell. This addition was also part of the social media campaign. Due to the longevity of the video users spend more time inside the website not only listening to the song but also trying to find who out who were the celebrities involved and what parts are they featured in.

              Pharrell did an amazing job, engaging not only his fans but also the entire social media community with this great concept. It is good to see new creative ways to communicate ideas throughout the digital space. Using social networks as well as interactive media platforms, artists are able to expand their reach and counteract the ills of piracy. It is a really  good example for other artists to follow so hopefully we will see some replication in the near future.

  >>> Spoiler Alert <<<<

List of celebrities

    •       1:28 a.m.: Kelly Osbourne

    •       5:32 a.m.: The Minions from “Despicable Me”

    •       5:36 a.m.: Magic Johnson

    •       11:48 a.m.: Jimmy Kimmel

    •       1:48 p.m.: Tyler the Creator, Jasper and Earl Sweatshirt from Odd Future

    •       4:40 p.m.: Another Minion

    •       5:08 p.m.: Steve Carell (on a school bus)

    •       5:28 p.m.: Jamie Foxx

Over the last few years, social media has transitioned into a useful marketing tool for businesses to expand and generate worldwide exposure. From the users’ point of view, social media has permitted them access to a world filled with unlimited content, giving them a voice to express their opinions for the world to hear.  Social media lets people interact, connect and post their content online whether it’s text, photos, videos etc. How could this tool be used to benefit companies? I have relied heavily on social media for my prior workplace using Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon. Instead of just plastering ads for people, I had to strategize to promote our company brand to users by grabbing their attention and making the content relevant and interesting. The key questions when developing the content were: why should they look at our products and how would it benefit them. Not only have I learned that social media is essential and useful tool, but it also requires time and dedication to maintain. Not everyone can have an account with one hundred thousand followers, but the people who do dedicate hours in constructing their account.    

As I think about the impact of social media and how it has affected the way in which we communicate, my immediate thoughts flourish to a campaign I recently heard of which expresses the importance of social media.  The campaign was from Nikon and they sponsored the Warner Music Group’s 2013 SXSW Music Residency- a three day musical event featuring: The Flaming Lips, Paramore, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Tegan and Sara, Alt-J, Fitz & the Tantrums, Lianne La Havas, Atlas Genius, Icona Pop, and many more.

Social media platforms enable us to build a network community and have a two-way conversation with our audience, and social media campaign is becoming increasingly important for a brand. I find two impressive cases to help us better explore the creative and effective uses of social media.

Being timely and relevant

In traditional marketing, a campaign is essentially complete once the content is delivered to the audience; while with emerging social media platforms and tools, the conversation never ends. We have to keep listening to our audiences and moreover, to respond timely and relevantly to things happening at any time.

Oreo shows us a great example of how to react quickly and effectively in social media campaign. There are millions of viewers watching the game inside the Superdome Stadium or on TV, and no one expected the blackout during Super Bowl. The blackout had lasted for half an hour, Oreo took advantage of this cultural moment, posted a twitter that read “Power out? No problem” along with the advertisement “You can still dunk in the dark." The tweet totally rocked the social media world, it had been retweeted 13,734 times and got more than 20,000 likes on Facebook.

BuzzFeed reveals the recipe of the success: how Oreo got that Twitter Ad up so fast? Things tuns out to be they have a social media team who are responsible for anything happening during the Super Bowl. Agency president Sarah Hofstetter told BuzzFeed: “We had a mission control set up at our office with the brand and 360i, and when the blackout happened, the team looked at it as an opportunity.”

Social media network creates an interactive conversation, helping us to speak directly to the audiences. What we learn form the Oreo case is that timely reacting and responding to things happening hep us to build a smarter brand image, and apparently having a social media team to make decisions at the very moment is the key. Also in this advertisement, Oreo chose using humor to respond to the feelings of viewers who wait for the blackout. It is not only important for us to get attention of the audiences but also try to interact with them in a real situation.

Evoke true emotion

Dove conducts a social experiment to prove women are overly critical of their beauty and shows that women are more beautiful than they think. A FBI-trained sketch artist was invited to first draw a woman as she describes herself, then draw her as stranger describes her. The result turns to be the second sketch based on the description of the strangers appeals to be more charming, confident and similar to what the woman actually looks like. The campaign aimed to help women to see their true beauty and build a more positive self-esteem.

Despite of some criticisms about whether beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the campaign made huge success. The Dove Real Beauty Sketches video went viral on Youtube and has been viewed more than 114 million times.

Why it was so successful? It was largely due to the video evoking a strong emotional response of the audiences. I am a girl, and when I watched this video, I was deeply touched. I thought of how unconfident I felt about my appearance, and how negative I saw about my own features. The Dove Real Beauty Sketches inspires me to be less critical about my flaws and see more of my merits. When I share it with my friends, they have the similar emotional responses. It sends a warm message that women are more beautiful than they think.

Social Media sites make a great contribution to engage users. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the most popular and most visited on the web. To connect and interact with users, some companies are using and getting the most out of Social Media to engage with their fans and followers in a fun and unique way, as well as create ways to attract potential new customers, promote a brand or create awareness for a specific issue. Below is a list of 3 awesome examples of creative use of social media:

  Samsung Smart TV Stare Battle

This was a competition in a custom built YouTube channel, developed by the agency Muse for Samsung to promote their new series of Smart TV. Users were engaged and challenged to stare at the new Smart TV for as long as possible, discovering its features in a battle without blinking. This social media channel was using an innovative eye tracking device registers eyelid movement via the user's webcam and every week the player with the longest stare time was rewarded with a Smart TV prize package including the Smart TV. The result of this creative use of social media was engaged and entertained millions of people and generating up to 500 thousand visit to Samsung YouTube Channel, it even got into on the top three channels on YouTube. In total, people watched the new Samsung Smart TV for more than two months resulting in over a thousand hours of interaction with the social media channel.

  CNN Ecosphere

This was a digital ecosystem in the form of an evolving garden growing from thousands of tweets about climate change. CNN was invited to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) and brought the world to the climate change conference with a creative use of social media, the hashtag #COP17 was used to engage users and create a real-time visualization of the global discussion on Twitter. In the weeks before the conference CNN called for contributions with the press online and TV campaigns and the CNN Ecosphere project began to spread via social media to join to the global conversation with the hashtag #COP17. All the tweets around the world began to flourish and became part of one of the numerous plants representing topics like sustainability or carbon. The result was the CNN Ecosphere got more people involve in a climate change conference that even before, displaying over 220,00 tweet around the world.

Coca-Cola Sitelets

As a consumer, I don’t usually find myself engaging with brands on social media. As we discussed in class, many companies have a presence on twitter or Facebook not for any meaningful reason, but because it’s the thing to do (a good example of this is the twitter account for Fanta).  Social media is meant to connect people on a one-to-one level, but (also like we discussed) social media campaigns are merely a part of a company’s overall PR strategy. As consumers, we know this. That’s why it comes off as so transparently dishonest when companies try to approach us on social media like they’re our friends (another bizarre twitter phenomena, documented by comedian Joe Mande, is faceless corporations responding to tragedies). Social media campaigns are often meant to humanize these companies, to soften their cold corporate image. But when a heartfelt message comes from an account whose profile pic is a logo it just estranges them further.

 With so many brands using bad social media badly, it’s important to document the ones who do it well. A friend of mine works for the Scotiabank Scene program so I have a tiny bit of insight into their social media strategy. So far I like what I hear.

Scene’s social media engagement is purely promotional. All social media, whether done for personal or business use, is inherently promotional. But Scene is explicitly promotional. That’s what I like about it. Scene works with some of the biggest brands in Canada and are constantly holding prize giveaways. Scene gives away CDs, concert tickets, hotel stays and a lot more. The caveat is that you need to be a registered Scene member.  

Since a large portion of Scene’s products and activities take place online their Facebook page also works as a de facto help section, fielding questions from the community.

Scene has engendered a wildly active fan-base: even a simple post by the company such as, “What movie are you going to see today?” gets hundreds of responses.  

Admittedly Scene is a great product to begin with. Its association with film assures an almost built in audience of moviegoers. But with their social media campaign Scene’s marketing people have appealed to people’s twin love of movies and free stuff—the same love that got them to sign up for Scene in the fist place. It’s paid off in the form of a large vociferous community, and an increased number of eyeballs on their partners’ brands.

The success of the Scene program has allowed them to experiment with consumer engagement. On gaining their 5 millionth member, Scene launched their own social media platform. “5 Million Scene Stars” allows users to create a profile (or star) where they can list their favourite movies. They then have access to a navigable interactive “universe” of these stars/profiles.

It’s a neat experiment, but Scene couldn’t have done this if they didn’t already have a strong base of both loyal customers and engaged social media followers. If they had started their campaign with The Scene Star platform—absent all the good will built up by their contests and giveaways—would have been a disaster.

I'm not the most active social media user, but thanks to the proliferation of news articles reporting on the Twitter feeds of certain people, organizations and other groups, I've seen or heard about a number of interesting uses of social media for a variety of purposes (most of them the marketing/promotional kind). Now that I'm in this program, and paying more attention to what's going on in the industry, I'm now realizing that these relatively new methods of communication can help your company reach an enormous number of people who might otherwise be completely unaware of your brand or message.

While I was doing research for a presentation for another course, I came across a particularly inventive social media campaign that was used to promote the premiere of The Walking Dead in France. Since the show's age-restricted rating prevented regular broadcast promotion, and because it had already been on the air in the States for some time and was among the most heavily pirated, the Darewin agency had to come up with an innovative way to drum up interest for the French premiere. Their idea? The very first Twitter and Facebook zombie attack.

On the official site for French network NT1, visitors were advised to NOT use #walkingdeadNT1 as a hashtag or in Facebook posts, or they would face zombie-related consequences. Tweeting or posting the hashtag caused users to be "attacked" by a horde of zombified Twitter and Facebook accounts. After more than 30,000 people were followed by digital zombies, the premiere of the show was a success, scoring massive ratings, and was among the most-tweeted premieres in France.

#walkingdeadNT1 was an example of social media being cleverly employed as a marketing tool, but this next campaign shows how Twitter can do more than just raise awareness for a TV show.

One of the presentations at last month's Fall Tour Interactive detailed another creative but considerably more noble social media campaign on behalf of the Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada. It should come as no surprise that most people don't have a clear understanding of what Tourette Syndrome is and how severely it affects the lives of those who have it. Through a desire to educate the largely misinformed masses, the #SurrenderYourSay Twitter campaign was born. Earlier this summer, Twitter users who signed up to participate in Surrender Your Say handed over control of their Twitter feeds for 24 hours to a bot that posted tweets for them. The tweets were often nonsensical and sometimes offensive in nature. The idea was to have users experience the same loss of control over what they said that people afflicted with Tourette's suffer through every day. Almost 9,000 users participated in the campaign, with over 3.9 million people being reached worldwide.