Media Messages?

Instagram acts as a mini blog; bloggers post photos of key or special life events, adding on appropriate hashtags (#totally) where necessary to insight and draw followers in. Launched in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the photo- and video-sharing app has taken the world by storm. Instagram’s success can be said to lie in; instead of trying to be too many things, Instagram focused on doing one thing, and doing that one thing really well. More than 25,000 users signed up on the day Instagram, and high profile figures such as Justin Bieber (#omg) aided in Instagram’s rapid take off. Instagram allows you to follow your friends or celebrities so that you can ‘keep up’ with their lives in the way you can with Twitter or Facebook. Yet, Instagram’s realm of photos adds a more personal spin out of the three. What also appeals when using Instagram, is that it allows users to share via popular social media platforms, giving the brand instant exposure across multiple channels. Existing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter have photo/video uploading capabilities, but they lack the editing functionalities that has made Instagram famous. So when you’re sharing a photo on your ‘Gram account - using those super cute filters - you can share it to your Facebook as well! This move leverages off the pre-existing networks of nstagram users, so their peers will know about the app that allows their friends to take such nice photos. I had a few objections to creating an account (some of these concerns still remain); primarily constituting how narcissistic the whole thing seemed to be. While I personally use the platform publish photos to inform friends about my life events, Instagram has more-or-less turned into a slaughterhouse for self esteems. Within the first 5 minutes on the platform, you begin to feel an overwhelming sense of being unsatisfied with your body or own life, as most photos that circulate tend to picture: “how much better my life is than yours” or, “look at me!”. However, it would be unfair for me to say that Instagram only serves to fuel one’s personal love or hate of themselves. In spite of the looming hole one can fall into - being consumed the ‘virtual world’ where you can wear your happiness like a mask - I too use Instagram and find it’s a great way to connect with and show my friends all the interesting little things going on in my life.

References:

Ong Si Quan. (2014). How did Instagram become successful? For example, through what ways did they market their app? How did it stand out from the rest of the photo sharing apps? - Quora. Retrieved October 17, 2017, from https://www.quora.com/How-did-Instagram-become-successful-For-example-through-what-ways-did-they-market-their-app-How-did-it-stand-out-from-the-rest-of-the-photo-sharing-apps

Case Study - What Lead to Myspace’s Downfall, But Facebook’s Uprising

Facebook (launched 2004) and MySpace (launched 2003) were neck and neck competitors for years, but with the announcement made on the 18th of November, 2010, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) became the clear victor of the social media platforms. Mike Jones, former head of Myspace, perceived that what lead to Facebook’s uprising and Myspace’s downfall lay in a simple, yet prominent component. MySpace put up barriers to user enjoyment by forcing members to use anonymous pseudonyms in place of their real identities. Facebook, on the other hand, encouraged members to actually use their real names. Once this ‘open’ identification was revealed as not as large a risk in the public as it had been thought and made out to be, Facebook made its great leap and took off. It is believe that this marks the significant difference between the two social networking sites, which therefore proved to be a huge game changer in the two companies’ experiences. Looking five years after Facebook’s declaration of being victorious - April 2015 - 1.44 billion people were using the social platform per month, while just 50 million people were visiting Myspace per month. Facebook’s continued success as a leading social platform lies in its willingness to change and make swift and sudden changes. Facebook has an excellent team behind it; their agility is unparalleled to any other major social networking/media site. Just think about the amount of times Facebook has added or changed features and functions. How often has this upset you, only for you to eventually accept and embrace it? Speaking from my personal experience, Facebook has had some doozies, and while we’re sometimes so frustrated with the new add-ons, we learn to adjust ourselves and begin to enjoy these changes. Facebook’s willingness to change represents a sense of vision and forward-thinking. Facebook has often been criticised for stealing ideas from other social networking/media sites. Their blatant rip-offs haven't always been big successes, but then again, theft is a part of business. Every strong business has used some form of theft to elevate their position; “just ask Steve Jobs who's often been cited (ironically) as stealing Pablo Picasso's phrase "good artists copy and great artists steal," hinting that idea theft is a natural part of business.” (Price, 2015) This willingness to steal has contributed a great deal to Facebook's success because it shows that they're keeping a watchful eye on their competition, and in the event their theft doesn't work, they buyout their competitors: Instagram is a great example of this. There is also very little doubt that Facebook is one of the most powerful tools that can be used by businesses to market their products and services. As shown in the video, many people or developing/larger companies utilise Facebook’s access to its broad audience. Facebook is very clever it the way ads are predominately tailored to target things people may be interested in through what they are ‘liking’ on Facebook. Also, unlike other social networking/media platforms, Facebook doesn't just want to be your video hosting provider, or your photo hosting provider, or just communication platform. They want to be all things for all people; they want to swallow the entire market and dominate. While this may be perceived as Facebook's blatant attempt to monopolise the social space, I prefer to look at it from the point of view that Facebook is just building a global, comprehensive platform.

NOTE: The video was taken on my Facebook server, the people witness and included to demonstrate using the platform, have given their permission.

References:

How Facebook learned from MySpace’s mistakes. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2010/11/19/how-facebook-learned-from-myspaces-mistakes/

Price, M. (2015, January 13). How Facebook Succeeded When Other Social Media Sites Failed. Retrieved October 17, 2017, from http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/how-facebook-succeeded-when-other-social-media-sites-failed

Schenker, M. (2015, May 12). Former MySpace CEO explains why MySpace lost out to Facebook so badly. Retrieved October 17, 2017, from https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/former-myspace-ceo-reveals-what-facebook-did-right-to-dominate-social-media/

Snapchat. (2017, June). Snapchat Ads | Meet the audience you won’t find every day on TV. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://forbusiness.snapchat.com/blog/meet-audience-you-wont-find-on-tv

The appeal that draws all Snapchatters in is ability to capture their life's everyday moments, and then share them with a personal or a wider audience. Not only does it allow you to broadcast what you’re eating, doing, and maybe what you’re ’not doing’, Snapchat also poses the ability to converse with others about these life events - “86% of Snapchatters have used Snapchat to communicate with friends and family, and many indicated it was their main source of communication with friends” (Snapchat for Business, 2017). Thus, for brands and advertisers, Snapchat poses as an innovative and differing method of advertising from users on other platforms. The television revolutionised the way people advertise, as it reached a wider audience with it’s combination of auditory and visual stimulation. However, the need for televisions has began to wane as smartphones continue to rise in meeting all our possible entertainment needs, while also allowing us to access information, whenever and wherever. Thus, as smartphones claim more and more time in our daily lives, it’s quickly becoming the best way to reach potential customers. Snapchat’s success of marketing itself as a platform of advertisement lies in two primary components of successful advertising: audience range and usage. Firstly, their community spans across a vast age range. While Snapchat is regarded as a ‘young person’s’ invention, the audience utilising the platform are continuing to increase in age. Another thing that sets Snapchat apart is the amount of time their community spends on the app each day, as well as how they’re using it. Instead of just checking in once or twice, daily active Snapchatters open Snapchat an average of over 18 times every day. They send Snaps to friends, watch Shows from brands they love, and catch up on Stories, both from Publishers and Friends alike. Whether at home (81%), at school (64%), at a sports or music event (70%),4 or on the go, Snapchatters use the app wherever they are, spending over 30 minutes per day using it, on average. Apart from these two compelling forms of advertisement, Snapchat differs from many other platforms that displays their ads inside a user’s feed. This means the advertisement is surrounded on all sides by distractions — like other ads or completely unrelated content posted by users. But on Snapchat, all content — whether it’s a Snapchatter’s Snap or an advertiser’s video ad — mirrors the full-screen, sound-on format found on TV. That way, all Snaps and Snap Ads have the viewer’s full attention. Thus, marketing itself as a medium to upload photos capturing your current life events, instantly, Snapchat also very cleverly provides an opportunity for other companies to utilise its broad audience to market themselves in ways they cannot through other mediums. Personally, I love Snapchat and am a regular user. I think the medium provides a great form of advertisement that isn’t accessible or used on other platforms. Snapchat has certainly revolutionised that way people connect and communicate - I used it myself almost more that Facebook and texting (combined). Today you see many platforms such as Instagram and Facebook adopting Snapchat’s trademark of creating ‘photo stories that depict life events’, yet they are yet to keep up with Snapchat’s ability to be flexible and adapt to the increasing market opportunities in the way Snapchat does.

(Photographics are also used to inform and demonstrated Snapchat’s clever marketing)

In 2005, three PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, decided it was time for them to branch out. Originally, their idea involved components of the video element YouTube is infamous for, but was designed initially as a dating website. With no luck on the dating website front, the men however picked up the idea of accessing videos via the Internet, and ran with it. Today, approximately 7 billion hours of Youtube content is viewed every month! YouTube’s fame derives from being a medium where millions of users, globally, can upload and watch videos of every imaginable description. The medium has proved to be one of the most dynamic innovations in the history of the internet.

However, not only does this platform provide an excellent source of entertainment, the marketing possibilities for this medium are myriad. Attached is one of my all-time favourite advertisement compilations, “Panda Cheese”. These advertisements certainly live up to the title of being an ‘oldie-goldy’, as they utilise the power and effect of humour to generate interest in the product.

Like “Panda Cheese”, YouTube houses a myriad of advertisements for companies, whether they be commercials you can search yourselves or the 10-30 second ads that will ‘pop up’ each time you open another screen - unless you have YouTube Red. This then leads to the question; what is YouTube Red? YouTube Red is a payed medium of YouTube, where you can view ‘constricted content’ and no longer have those pesky advertisements that tag onto the beginning of every clip you watch.

YouTube is unlike other media platforms as it does not possess the dynamic ‘interactive’ component that most social media platforms have. Yet, through it’s uniqueness, it poses as an innovative, creative, entertaining, and in some cases educational medium.

Tweeting, an incredibly easy way to state your views to a global social platform, and either make yourself look like a pioneer for the future, or in Donald Trump’s case; a fool. Twitter is designed as a social network where individuals can microblog about their lives, catch up on their favourite celebrities, post their political or social perspectives, etc. Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams (2006) the pioneers of Twitter, originally designed the social platform as an SMS-based communications platform as a great way to ‘update’ friends on life’s circumstances. Now the platform has spread globally, connecting celebrities, world leaders and us (the common folk), and it’s appeal lies in it’s ability to keep everyone updated with their idols or even with what the world leaders are doing.

For example: Donald Trump, the President of the USA uses this platform as a means of publicising himself and, what used to be political views, now decisions he has made as President. While Trump has a large base of ‘haters’, he utilises the propaganda he generates from this network to further himself and his assets. He appears to have a vast group of people disgusted with him and his decisions for the country, yet his base of followers on twitter is one of the highest globally on the Internet.

Twitter has a feature that allows users to see what the most users are talking about called “trending” and this is such a powerful tool that it often drives news and media reporting. In the example used, where Kim Kardashian (also a worldwide recognised celebrity) retweets Trump’s propaganda, which only fuels his fire as everyone is continually exposed and drawn to it. I would be lying if I myself didn’t admit to being drawn in by his ludicrous behaviour exposed by the media.

Thus, while it may appear that Trump is doing himself no favours by tweeting such ludicrous assertions, the whole Internet are following and eagerly awaiting his next folly. He has manipulated the network in such a manner, that while many of us are disgusted, we remain curious and are therefore drawn in. Twitter provides a very simple and easy form of networking, and in the hands of a cunning mind such as Trump’s, everyone is watching and waiting for his next post. Inevitably, we only aid his strive for power.

Tumblr blog posts (2017) - in order of appearance: http://draconian-rex.tumblr.com/post/165918639229/kim-kardashian-west-has-more-compassion-and http://whatareyoureallyafraidof.tumblr.com/post/164082165715 http://were-all-queer-here.tumblr.com/post/165309536296