#is6621

We’ve reached the end of this course (plus a little) and I’ve learned a lot about how social media can be not only an important part of a non-profit business, but an overall strategy to drive towards our organization’s goals.

At Living LFS, we encourage, empower, and educate those living with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) by connecting them with care, resources, and others who are Living LFS. 

Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) is linked to a mutation in the TP53 tumor suppressor gene. There are many types of TP53 mutations. People with this mutation have a higher risk of developing cancer over their lifetime. LFS affects each individual differently, even within the same family. Some families with LFS have higher rates of cancer incidence, while others do not. Nearly 100% of women with LFS get cancer in their lifetimes. Men have a 70% or greater chance. It’s our mission to make sure families living withing the LFS blast radius get the care, information, and sense of community that they need. Receiving an LFS diagnosis is both devastating in its impact and isolating in its rarity.

How does this align with Social Media? Our founder Jen Mallory was diagnosed with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome and metastatic breast cancer in 2012. At the time, there were only thought to be 400 families with LFS in the world. Realizing the importance of connecting these isolated families together and advocating for this rare disease she started a Facebook Support Group in 2013. As the group grew, she founded Living LFS, and it was registered as a 501c3 non-profit in 2014.

Jen posted blogs, connected with other families, and built a board of directors. Together the board held fundraisers and sold branded merchandise. They began attending advocacy events in places like Rare Disease Week in Washington DC and provided travel scholarships to LFS specific events. Living LFS continued to grow but has gone through its ups and downs as its board of directors is made mostly of patients who are often “cancering”. Jen herself became sick stepped back from the posts, and stepped down as president of the organization. She left enormous shoes to fill and we needed a plan. That’s where this class came in. 

The first thing that really opened my eyes was the TOFU, MOFU, BOFU marketing funnel. 

After looking at the funnel the first thing that came to mind was the question “what are we actually trying to do?” or "What does conversion mean for us?”. After reflecting on it, to us, conversion means three things

1)      Families found our support group and connected with others

2)      A person donates

3)      A person signs up for volunteering

The next step was to understand who exactly our customer was.  When we started doing this we noticed a few things. First, the most active people in the group, on our social media pages, and within our volunteer ranks were women. 

Second, the people were mainly from the United States but interestingly also in Australia and the UK.

And finally, we really did a terrible job at keeping track of who our donors were. 

Overall the social media strategy will have two main paths. The first is to ensure that all of our social media accounts are pointing to our Facebook support groups.This ensures that the people with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome are connecting with other families and can get the information and care that they need. This also serves as the eco-system to pump all of our fundraising, campaigning, and other information through. 

The second was ensuring that people found our website through google and that our website directed people to our volunteer signup, fundraising, support groups and donation pages.

Now that we evaluated who our end conversion customer was we decided to look at how we did against each of the items listed in the funnel at each of the steps. After going through the entire list we created actions which will translate into our 2021 goals. 

Before even getting through the first layer of the funnel we can see how the number of blogs and our content has fallen off over the years.

The actions from the TOFU section were all around getting our content going and distributed through our social media channels described above. 

We found that we had a very limited prescense on Twitter and zero existance on TikTok. Luckily during the semester we found a woman on Tiktok who has agreed to volunteer and we’re just launching our tiktok account. She has also agreed to take over our twitter account where there is a large medical community presence that we can leverage.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Living LFS - Li-Fraumeni (@livinglifraumeni)

The other part of the funnel which we addressed this November was going live with our new donor management platform called network for good. I realized that we have very limited data on our donors and that it was spread across many platforms including paypal, physical mail, facebook, and venmo. We consolidated all this data into one place. This also allows us to say thank you much easier.

In the MOFU section of the review we found that we really need to just broadcast the information that we have in a better way. We have a ton of content that sits and is stagnent. The new donor management platform will help us with email blasts for both new and old donors and famililes. We can build many of these actions into our board approved goals for the year.

In the final section we will focus on conversations. Once we have people funnelling into the group we need to take advantage of their willingness to help. We have tons of volunteers and have historically struggled to manage them. The new donation platform allows for peer to peer fundraising where people can manage their own fundraisers without the need of much assistance from the board.

“Sweep the leg Johnny!”

Who knew that this movie staple of my childhood would make it’s way into an MBA assignment but here we are. The premise is clear. Win at all costs. You can see the moral dilemma in Johnny’s eyes and the complete lack of empathy on his sensei’s. As a child, we’re taught that evil decisions like this don’t work out for the immoral person. Daniel wins the match, gets the girl, and goes on to live a happy and complete life.

We all like to still believe this but in real life things are more complex. In the late 90′s steroids were so prevalent that it was estimated that up to 40% of baseball players in the 90s used steroids. They did this at the expense of their dignity, set illegitimate records, and made hundreds of millions of dollars doing so. Barry Bonds set a new record for the all-time home run leader, earned 188 million dollars in his baseball career. Giants fans, even with the persistent rumors and investigative work that went into Bonds’ career with steroids still love him to this day. That’s because fans like winners, and they don’t particularly care how they get those wins. They will go to the grave defending their stars and idols.

We are all fans. We have people who we look up to and we all choose sides that we adamantly defend. Whether it’s Coke vs Pepsi, Chevy vs Ford, or my team against yours. We pick a side and we present our case as to which is better. Sometimes we exagerate, some times we tell white lies, or we defend things like SpyGate, DeflateGate, etc because we want to win. When we travel we look for “Patriot’s Bars” so we can be with our fans and cheer them on.

This brings us to the state of politics in this country. We have grown up taught that you root for a team, YOUR team, and you need to win. With politics it’s the same. We often root for the same teams our moms and dads did, just like in sports. We stop listening to the other side and have beers with like minded friends. We defriend people who don’t believe in the things we do. We join Facebook support groups that pull us into these echo chambers of influence, where ideas that once seemed radical are validated by like-minded people. 

Social Media is making it worse. Social media builds algorthms that point people to these groups based on patterns in their usage. They then funnel precisely targeted ads into these groups based on their similar traits. Facebook doesn’t care about the content of those ads (see 2016 election) but only that those people of like mind and have like interest and purchasing decisions.  

The people in those groups don’t care about reliability of the information being placed on Facebook, they only care that it shows their team is right and the other team is wrong. Mis-information has completely eroded the mechanics of news in a social media age. It doesn’t matter how quickly fact checkers work. People will believe what they want so long as their team is winning. I don’t know what the solution is to this problem. Competition is good but when it comes to politics maybe we should start focusing on issues and solving problems rather than identifying with a party. We need wins that win for everyone and to have good conversation.

After this election I’m exhausted but I’m hopeful for brighter and calmer days ahead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_baseball

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paid_Major_League_Baseball_players#:~:text=Though%20retired%20since%202007%2C%20Barry,highest%20overall%20in%20MLB%20history.

The Federal Trade Commission, along with 48 states and territories, have filed lawsuits seeking to break up the Facebook empire which includes Facebook, Instagram, and What’s App. The lawsuits claim that Facebook has formed a monopoly and essentially crushes it’s competition by gobbling them up. 

Facebook has made 87 acquisitions since it has been a corporation, recently acquiring a company called “giphy” for $400,000,000. The company has been adept at discovering a limited amount of product focused companies that support their mission to become a worldwide platform for advertising through data mining. The majority of their acquisitions are for acquiring talent rather than the products they offer. The products are typically discontinued. Exceptions to this are Instagram, WhatsApp, giphy, and Oculus VR.

The FTC claims that Facebook’s strategy is to eliminate the competition. What I find interesting from is that the FTC approved both the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. There have been 87 acquisitions that have been made and only a few stand out as complete successes. Facebook made a statement which said, “Years after the FTC cleared our acquisitions, the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community or the people who choose our products every day,” Thinking back to 2012, when Instagram was acquired for $1 Billion, I don’t think any of us really understood what the platform would be. The platform had zero revenue at the time. In 2019, Facebook generated 70.7 billion dollars in revenue with Instagram contributing 20 billion of that number. That is up from just over 5 billion in 2012 for all of Facebook. The majority of that 70.7 billion is from advertising revenue.

The Instagram purchase was a risk. During an interview Steve Henn from NPR quotes Josh Bernoff as saying, “a few years from now, it will be abundantly clear to those investors whether this was another brilliant business decision or Mark Zuckerberg's first big mistake.” Clearly this move was not a mistake and now the question is should Facebook be punished for being good at what they do? Should companies face negative publicity for taking risks that other companies would not. I think of how far Facebook and Instagram have come since 2012 and it’s hard to imagine them being as successful apart as they are together.

It is one thing to hate on Facebook because of their lax privacy policies, campaign influence policies, or Mark Zuckerberg’s past sins during his start up, but it’s another to thing to dismember a corporation because they’re the best at what they do. Competition laws always face these types of dilemmas. It’s up to the government and states to provide the evidence that their whole strategy was to become a monopoly to intentionally crush the competition vs a company that made sound investing decisions when others would not.

 https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of-facebook/#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20Facebook's%20revenue%20amounted,of%20income%20is%20digital%20advertising.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of-facebook/#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20Facebook's%20revenue%20amounted,of%20income%20is%20digital%20advertising.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120114/how-does-facebook-fb-make-money.asp#:~:text=Facebook%20sells%20ads%20on%20social,by%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Facebook

 https://www.npr.org/2012/04/10/150372288/instagram-sells-for-1-billion-despite-no-revenue

In recent years, K-pop has gained worldwide recognition. One of the unique traits of K-pop is that they always tend to be in groups. Within the industry, almost a new group debuts every week, so when I heard another girl group was making a debut I didn’t think much about it. Until I heard their concept, something unique and has never been done within the Korean Music industry, virtual members. I was always used to real people/ members being part of a K-pop group, however, in a recent announcement recently made by South Korea’s top entertainment company, SM Entertainment, they are planning to debut a new venture group that mixes humans with virtual members. Yes, virtual members that are AIs. The K-pop group “aespa”  is set to debut in the next week to turn a new page in the chapter of Kpop. The group’s name, “aespa”, is derived from the words “avatar,” “experience,” and “aspect.” It has been said that the real-life members of aespa will continue real-world promotions like other Kpop stars going on concerts and live performances. Within the virtual world, their avatars will engage with fans in new and unique ways. The concept draws inspiration from several musical performances within video games like Fortnite and Roblox. The founder of SM Entertainment, Lee Soo Man said “the avatar members have AI brains that allow for them to converse and to support the real members, even befriending them, sharing information, as well as going back and forth from one world to another.” 

We’ve seen the rise of virtual influencers and pop-stars like Lil Miquela and Japan’s Hatsune Miku. But what if real-life and virtual idols came together in one K-pop group? When I first heard this, I had mixed emotions. Not only is this a new concept to me but I was curious to see how successful it will actually be. It’s pretty common to see computer graphics and technology being utilized for music videos and virtual influencers/ pop-stars is not a totally new concept. We’ve seen artists like Travis Scott, Marshmello, and others are already exploiting their digital selves for a massive gain. The Travis Scott Fortnite concert event was one of the most-watched in-game concerts ever. However, seeing a combination of the virtual and real-world is unheard of and a bit creepy for me. 

The purpose of creating these virtual stars is to solve problems and perform actions that real pop-stars cannot achieve. Real celebrities deals with lots of scandals, but avatars won’t have that problem and fans can essentially interact with them anywhere and anytime they want. The avatars are capable of doing things you cannot directly do with your favorite celebrity. Imagine an avatar of your favorite celebrity being created and being together with him/her, next to you. Kind of creepy or uniquely attractive? This news had stirred quite a controversy across K-pop fans. They find the idea of fans “owning” their idols problematic, especially when “aespa” is made up of young women. Others also think virtual idols will only make fans, some dangerously obsessive, more far removed from reality. Fans dislike the ambiguity of mixing a fake and real world together. Many people think that this will further perpetuate “sasaeng” fan behaviors. A term widely used in Korea to describe obsessive fans who stalk or engage in behaviors that invade an idol's privacy. It is not uncommon for sasaengs fans to go through extreme measures to see their idols in Korea, which is why “aespa’s” concept it worrying many people. 

While there are many factors to be worried about, I can see how this concept can be successful. Given that virtual idols have proven to be popular and it has been done before. For example, Hatsune Miku, a character developed by computer programs and has appeared on billboards, in TV commercials, and gave sold-out concerts to fans all over the world. The main reason for Hatsune Miku's success is that at some point she stopped being looked at as a software program and started being treated as a legitimate pop star. Miku's virtual status has allowed her to easily move into forms of media often ignored by real-world idols. If done properly, this can be the case for “asepa” as well. SM Entertainment might change the future for not only K-pop but other countries. We have seen technology being gradually integrated into the music industry as a whole especially with the pandemic and more virtual events, “aespa’s” concept might not be completely bizarre. I’m curious to see the results of this launch and whether it’ll be a it a miss. Should we be expecting more artists to opt to become an avatar whether it may be in games, music or another platform entirely? 

Sources:

https://reputationtoday.in/virtual-influencers-the-next-big-thing/

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/10/29/k-pop-group-aespa-introduction/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxxgd/aespa-kpop-music-girl-group-virtual-sm

https://kotaku.com/why-hatsune-miku-is-the-worlds-most-popular-virtual-ido-5936200#:~:text=With%20Miku's%20Vocaloid%202%20in,primed%20for%20her%20big%20break.&text=And%20because%20of%20the%20ease,covers%20of%20popular%20Japanese%20songs.

https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/aespa-ai-lee-sooman-sm-entertainment_in_5f9a4b71c5b6a4a2dc823ae6

https://www.soompi.com/article/1433733wpp/watch-sm-drops-mysterious-teaser-launches-twitter-account-for-something-called-aespa

2020 has perhaps been the most eventful and political year of our time for many of us. Worldwide protests for justice, devastating environmental events, a widespread virus, and a notorious U.S. election have plagued our lives and our social media feeds so far this year. People around the country have also called for change like never before, marching for BLM, demanding better environmental legislation after deadly CA wildfires, and even electing our new president. During such turbulent times, how can brands safely and effectively navigate their advertising campaigns? Should brands be mentioning these issues at all? As it turns out, avoiding speaking on important events in a climate of increasingly engaged and frustrated consumers may be hurting brands.

Consumer beliefs and what they care about have changed, especially due to new generations like millennials and Gen-Z. Now, especially with the rise of social media, brands have to be more careful than ever before with what they do and say. In a recent 2019 study, 70% of consumers said it is important for brands to take some kind of stand on important issues, up from 58% in 2017. Majority of these consumers even noted that they felt brands have more power to address and solve major issues than the government. Consumers have strong opinions about brands, and they aren’t afraid to act on them. 64% of worldwide consumers will make a purchasing decision based on a brand’s social or political position, according to the 2018 Edelman Earned Brand study. These statistics show that consumers have politics and social issues at the forefront of their minds, even when shopping or seeing ads, because they recognize how brands are related to such issues.

With so many consumers caring about what brands do, it is crucial for a brands long-term reputation to say something when it matters. A brand's actions can directly affect its employees, customers, and the environment either in significantly negative and positive ways. In recent decades, consumers have become smarter and are watching brands more closely. Boycotts of even the largest brands have become normal, as consumers realize that certain brands are hurting society in impactful ways. People want brands to speak up because they need to know whether or not a company they are giving money to cares about important issues that affect them. In a country of increasing diversity, awareness, and activism, what might a brand's silence on important race, women's rights, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ issues (and many more) say to its consumers? When it comes to morality and human rights in particular, more and more consumers are accepting the notion that silence is complicity, and complicity is bad.

The challenge for marketers is figuring out how, when, and through which channels it is appropriate to speak out. First, a brand must determine if it is the right time to speak out, and if their comments will be relevant. I would argue that in today’s political climate, it is almost always relevant to speak out. With so much going on, particularly this year, brands have many opportunities to speak out about important issues, and tie these issues back to their marketing strategies. If a brand claims to stand for and support its black employees and customers, there isn’t a reason to stay silent during the ongoing BLM movement. If a brand cares about the environment, they should be taking actions to help our earth. There are countless examples of brands who have used activism successfully both to their and society's advantage. A prime example is Gucci, who have used political statements to both promote awareness and increase brand value through an increase in sales among millennial consumers. By donating to the March-for-our-lives campaign, and writing ‘My body, my choice” on clothing during a fashion show, Gucci increased their 2018 sales as more millennials began purchasing after noticing their continued activism efforts. Beyond increasing sales, actions like these from a major global company can bring new awareness and real change. 

A company must also speak out in a way that feels authentic and true to their values. If a brand claims to stand for equality and justice, then speaking out against current injustices should feel genuine if done correctly. Finally, a firm must decide through what channel to speak out. Only 47% of consumers said that they want brands to share political values through social media, so a video advertisement on T.V. may be a better approach than a post on Facebook.

These stances, if done right and through the right channels, can be incredibly positive for a company. When Nike released its infamous ad featuring Colin Kaepernick in 2018, it quickly went viral. Although many conservative-leaning customers boycotted Nike for supporting Colin and his protest against police brutality, Nike still saw a 6 billion dollar boost in brand value and a 31% increase in sales just one year after the ad. The reason? Nike’s target audience and loyal customers resonated with the ads message and appreciated Nike’s stance on an important issue happening within the NFL and beyond. As a result, Nike was able to spread positive awareness internationally for an important issue, and increase their own brand value at the same time.

As political and social issues continue to increase in the coming years, consumers will continue to watch brands. We have seen more and more people stand up for what is right this year, and speak about issues that only are getting worse as time moves on. I think one sentence from an article I read summed up best what the future could look like for brand activism: “Companies who are afraid to speak because they’re trying to target everyone, alienate everyone by standing for nothing.” Not only is it the right thing to do to speak out, it’s becoming increasingly important as consumers begin to value a brand’s values more and more.

Sources:

http://overit.com/blog/brand-politics

https://www.inc.com/amanda-pressner-kreuser/should-your-business-take-a-political-stance-here-are-3-brands-that-did-and-how-their-customers-reacted.html

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/boycott-brands-era-easy-outrage

https://www.businessinsider.com/cmos-how-brands-should-participate-in-social-political-issues-2019-8

https://www.impactplus.com/blog/should-brands-get-political

https://hbr.org/2020/02/how-do-consumers-feel-when-companies-get-political

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-people-see-value-and-quality-in-a-brands-politics-not-products-as-facebook-and-other-companies-are-learning-2020-07-01

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/342996/survey-consumers-want-brands-to-take-political-st.html

https://www.fastcompany.com/90399316/one-year-later-what-did-we-learn-from-nikes-blockbuster-colin-kaepernick-ad

Snapchat first launched in 2011 as a real-time picture chatting app and has since experienced rapid growth, making it one of the most widely used social media platforms in the world. Snapchat has 360 million active users with three billion photos and videos generated everyday. Although Snapchat’s photo and video messages disappear after a few seconds, and stories expire after 24 hours, the company has proven over the past 9 years that it is not disappearing any time soon. One of the main reasons Snapchat resonated with younger audiences was rooted in concerns of their social media history getting them in trouble in their professional lives or future endeavors. People loved the simplicity of the concept and the exclusivity that came with sending private photos. 

Founder Spiegel said that “Snapchat changed the perception of deleting something as bad.” The app essentially tried to model virtual conversations in the same ephemeral way that they are in real life. 

Since its inception, Snapchat has evolved significantly over the years with the introduction of various features such as stories, bitmojis, snap map, augmented reality filters, and visual search functions. At its annual partner summit in June, Snapchat announced the release of additional visual search features to identify cars, plants, dog breeds, solve math problems, songs, and even products by scanning images via its camera function. Most recently, Snapchat has added the capacity to scan food and wine labels and display specific information on the products. This setting is not necessarily revolutionary, given that other food and wine specific applications already offer similar functions to show nutritional information, price rating/reviews, and tasting notes. The information on food-related labels is provided through nutrition app Yuka and the wine-labels go through the third-party app Vivino.

It was a strategically advantageous move on Snapchat’s end to partner with other applications that already specialize in food and wine and can offer accurate details and advice. This is reminiscent of their previously-established partnerships with Shazam to distinguish songs and with Amazon to look up common products. In terms of the food and wine third party apps, this is mutually beneficial. It gives brands exposure and gives Snapchat access to a range of scan options, based on credible databases, which enables users to scan a range of products to gain supplemental insight and data. This eliminates the research-intensive process Snapchat would have to undertake to collect this data. To this extent, they only have to focus on perfecting their visual search technology to ensure that its scanning and image-recognition capabilities are accurate via an easy-to-use interface. On the same note, this is an interesting way for brands to market themselves in a digitally-savvy way and simultaneously reach an extremely wide audience.   

Visual search and augmented reality will continue to evolve, raising the question as to what the next stage for this technology holds. Some may project that the next logical progression would be incorporating the camera feature into glasses. However, I personally feel this is unlikely given the historical failures of so many brands to bring this goal to fruition in past years. They are very expensive and not widely adopted. Nonetheless, Snapchat seems to have a strong grasp on the complexities of image-recognition technology and seamlessly blends this with user’s daily tendencies and actions. It’s fair to assume for the most part, a majority of users perceive Snapchat as such a silly, goofy app to put filters on our faces and record comical videos of our friends. Despite this, they are a leader in social media and emerging tech and have successfully anticipated and navigated changing consumer needs to establish their presence as a social media giant today. In fact, Snapchat’s revenue reportedly increased 52% this year to $678.8 million, which is the fastest growth it has seen in three years. This is likely largely due to the increase in user screen time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the company also credited the strength of its AR experiences as a critical source of revenue, “as brands sought to engage customers who were less likely to shop at retail stores because of safety concerns”. I believe that the trends and habits ingrained in consumers during quarantine will not entirely stick in the post-COVID era, but will certainly translate into their decision-making and behaviors. This means that brand marketing via Snapchat could be a very useful tool for brands to implement.

I think the incorporation of these new features is an attempt for Snapchat to remain relevant in today’s constantly evolving digital and social media landscape. For example, competing platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have released updates that seek to position them as not only a place to bolster social connections, but also function as online marketplaces of sorts. Although I think it's a stretch to conclude that people will begin shopping via Snapchat, it definitely offers interesting ways for users to engage with image recognition. This definitely aligns with Snapchat’s broader goal to add more utility to the app aside from just sharing intimate moments of one’s life and communicating quickly with friends and family. 

https://www.thestreet.com/technology/history-of-snapchat 

https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/fast-forward-what-we-learned-from-the-snap-partner-summit-2020-bf769165fc81

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/snapchat-adds-new-barcode-scanning-capacity-for-selected-products-providin/587596/

https://wersm.com/you-can-now-scan-food-and-wine-labels-on-snapchat/

https://www.engadget.com/snapchat-scan-food-and-wine-labels-130019011.html

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/snapchat-adds-new-barcode-scanning-capacity-for-selected-products-providin/587596/

https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/snap-revenue-surges-52-as-direct-response-ar-ad-offerings-pay-out-during/587423/

I’ve recently joined the podcast bandwagon this semester: Personally, I like listening to them as background noise when I’m getting ready or doing assignments. After our discussion on content trends and how people are increasingly engaging with podcasts, I kind of felt like I fell for a marketing scheme. Am I really interested in podcasts or am I just listening to them because everyone else is?

Over the past decade, podcasts have seen a steady rise in popularity, where 75% of Americans are familiar with podcasts and more than 50% have listened to a podcast themselves. Podcasts coincide with a general increase in digital media consumption, especially on mobile devices, as well as the fact that podcasts are increasingly accessible. Covering politics to sports, companies are embracing podcasts as a way to reach an engaged audience with strategically decided content. Anya Grundmann, NPR's senior vice president of programming, states that “podcasting is more and more the way people are spending time, trying to educate themselves, trying to get smarter, trying to have companionship in a moment when people are alone.”

COVID-19 has had mixed effects on the podcast industry, as most people listen to podcasts when they are commuting or at the gym. However, the lockdown forced everyone to stay inside. Yet, U.S. weekly podcast downloads were up 20% in April 2020, where categories such as news saw a 57% increase. Unsurprisingly, mental wellness podcasts gained a surge in popularity. That being said, companies are using podcasts as an opportunity to shift quickly and follow what is trending in the market.

Spotify has successfully built out its podcast business by tapping into a growing hunger for entertainment and news. That being said, Spotify survived the pandemic as its services are provided virtually. Following social distancing restrictions, Spotify show hosts have been able to record in the comfort of their own home, contributing to more than 700,000 podcast titles available on the platform. As Spotify’s podcast business continues to grow, the amount of podcast content consumed by monthly subscribers have nearly doubled. With that being said, Spotify made huge investments, rolling out support for video podcasts and featuring renowned people like Michelle Obama and Joe Rogan.

With increasingly sophisticated data collection, Spotify is able to recommend podcasts that capitative its users around a particular mood or moment in time. Spotify highlighted some podcast trends that they’ve found throughout the pandemic. With fewer people streaming from their cars during their daily commutes and increase in working from home, more people are streaming across computer desktops, TVs, and smart speakers. There has also been an increase in cooking/housework-themed podcasts, showing that people are primarily focusing on family and domestic tasks. Self-improvement podcasts are seeing increasing popularity as well.

However, how has Spotify competed against Apple? Though Apple has long been the dominant player in podcast consumption, Spotify is rising in popularity among listeners. In fact, Spotify is "ahead” in more than 60 markets: Spotify pointed to data tracked by podcast technology firm Voxnest, showing that between January and May, Spotify's podcasts were used more frequently than Apple podcasts in countries including Canada, Germany, France, Mexico and Spain. I found that Spotify’s success in the podcast industry was driven by two major factors.

1) Spotify has been successful at capturing podcast listening.

From January 2019 to December 2019, Spotify has quickly captured podcast platform shares. Spotify is growing because it was able to solve that discovery problem for some people. That being said, Spotify is not necessarily “stealing” Apple listeners. However, Spotify is presenting their regular music listeners with interesting podcasts right in the app they’re already using every day. This leads me to the second factor.

2) Spotify is incentivized to promote podcasts that keep its users happy.

Spotify’s business model depends on people using it as a streaming service. Therefore, anything that makes someone want to stop using Spotify is obviously a bad thing. This is where data driven recommendations become so important. Spotify listeners are primarily looking for entertainment, where Comedy and Sports podcasts are the most popular categories on the platform. That being said, Spotify invested huge amounts into developing an algorithm that matches podcasts (and advertisements for those who do not pay) to certain demographics that may be interested. In fact, I launched Spotify and went to the podcasts section. The top recommendation? A daily horoscope podcast. 

Sources:

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-03-30/how-social-distancing-has-shifted-spotify-streaming/

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-04-27/coronavirus-podcasts-spotify-finnea

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21346339/spotify-q2-2020-earnings-podcasts-coronavirus-covid-19-consumption-recovery

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/media/spotify-podcasts-risk-takers/index.html

https://www.statista.com/chart/10713/podcast-listeners-in-the-united-states/

When the topic of Korea comes up now, automatically the top things people associate with it are K-pop, K-Dramas, Korean food, K-fashion and lastly, K-beauty. I personally got exposed to Korean cosmetics during high school, and back then, it was nowhere near as popular and common as we see now. The only way to purchase Korean cosmetics before was through Korean beauty brand websites, but in recent years I’ve noticed large drugstores such as Target, CVS, or Walmart selling Korean cosmetics. Western retailers are joining the K-Beauty bandwagon and have started stocking them. Skincare/ makeup fanatics, I’m pretty sure you’ve walked by the beauty/ skincare aisle of Target or even shopping online on ULTA and realized some foreign brands/ products you’ve never seen before. In April 2017, CVS Pharmacy began rolling out a “K-Beauty HQ” section in 2,100 stores nationwide. Not so long after, ULTA Beauty also introduced a “K-Beauty” section to ulta.com and more than 300 stores. Even social media has grown to play a bigger role in the promotion and increased accessibility of K-Beauty products. From seeing your favorite influencers endorse the products to having advertisements pop up while you’re scrolling through your feed, it introduced and familiarized us to the whole concept of Korean cosmetics. Of course, there are other factors that also contributed to this entry such as packaging and media influence from Korean culture, but without social media, the reach would not have been as broad. 

According to PR Daily, “South Korea exported nearly $625 million in cosmetics to the U.S. last year, and much of its global success is tied to vibrant packaging and marketplace agility.” Social media has propelled the growth of K-beauty in the US by turning skin care and makeup routines into creative outlets for self-expression. The rapid proliferation of social media since the late 2000s has provided fashion-forward individuals with a myriad of platforms to spread the gospel of K-beauty. Koreans influencers took to YouTube, blogs and Instagram to share their interests with the rest of the world. Recently, TikTok has also become a great platform to promote K-beauty as well. Product reviews and makeup tutorials engage and educate viewers, while “transformation videos,” in which YouTubers alter themselves into recognizable celebrities, highlight the astonishing power of makeup and excite the viewer’s imagination. Social media celebrities have been more successful at promoting Korean skin care than corporate or government-sponsored marketing campaigns because they focus on the topics that truly excite them, while also providing compelling video and photographic evidence of their personal skin care journeys. This is a notable difference between K-beauty influencers and traditional Western cosmetics influencers. The influencers seem to genuinely like the products and use them in their personal lives. These influencers usually have beautiful skin, and what they say sounds authentic. Meanwhile, many Western influencers who promote skin care don’t always have skin to die for. Bridging the gap in professional endorsements and private use is essential in enhancing consumers’ trust in the reviews.

For the fashion-forward millennials of the information age, investigating products online before they shop, relying on reviews and tutorials before making a purchase is habitual. By doing this they often find niche and foreign brands. As Korean skincare transcends the traditional Western cleanse-tone-moisturize routine, K-Beauty’s myriad products like serums, essences, ampoules and masks can be customized to an individual’s exact skin care needs and preferences. The array of products appeals to millennials who are paying more attention to their skin’s unique needs than previous generations. CEO Eunhee Hwang of STB said, “The popularity of Korean entertainers including BTS and BLACKPINK led to the K-beauty craze in the U.S.” K-beauty products follow an “Instagram-first” philosophy, meaning they are made with social media in mind, something Western brands don’t consider to the same degree. 

Korean cosmetics are also really good at keeping up with the trend and being responsive to people’s needs and wants. From marketing campaigns and packaging designs to creative visuals on social media, these brands have made cohesive and consistent statements throughout their branding initiatives. For example, one of the more popular k-beauty brands, Innisfree, uses the two separate Instagram profiles for the global audience (@innisfreeofficial) and for the US audience (@innisfreeusa). These profiles demonstrate distinctive characteristics that specifically target the right demographics in each audience. Another brand, Mamonde completely takes on the floral and greenery theme on Instagram, acting as a great visual inspiration brand. As mentioned before, Korean cosmetics is known for its intricate and aesthetically pleasing packaging. K-beauty brands like Etude House or Holika Holika revamp their packaging regularly, create limited edition colors in small quantities and have the agility and research &  development to take new innovations to market. Although their brand awareness is not as high in the US market compared to Mamonde or Skinfood, they have curated their Instagram feed to serve as an inspiration for other people by having themes and color schemes. They’re not only advertising their products but at the same branding themselves as “influencers' ' in a way people can follow and make lifestyle choices inspired by them. Many K-beauty brands leverage themselves through a variety of social media tactics such creating aesthetically pleasing feeds, using beauty gurus, and producing informative content which allows them to draw more attention to their brand and products. Ultimately with the assistance and power of social media, we have seen how extensive and fast the Korean cosmetic industry has expanded into the U.S. market allowing them to compete alongside with other Western cosmetic brands. 

 Sources: 

https://blog.euromonitor.com/growth-k-beauty-us-market/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1001755/south-korea-korean-beauty-popularity-in-the-us/

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/06/10/2046337/0/en/Global-K-beauty-Products-Market-is-estimated-to-be-US-31-6-Billion-by-2029-with-a-CAGR-of-12-0-during-the-Forecast-Period-PMI.html#:~:text=from%20the%20report%3A-,The%20global%20K%2Dbeauty%20products%20market%20accounted%20for%20US%24%2010.3,%2C%20distribution%20channel%2C%20and%20region.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200904005155/en/The-K-beauty-Innovator-STB-International-to-Enter-the-U.S.-Cosmetics-Private-Labeling-Market

https://www.beautypackaging.com/contents/view_online-exclusives/2020-07-09/k-beauty-is-increasing-its-foothold-in-the-us/

https://digitalbeauty.com/k-beauty-brands-social-media-presence/

https://www.post-gazette.com/life/fashion/2017/05/22/K-Beauty-skincare-cosmetic-products-from-South-Korea-popular-in-United-States/stories/201705220006