Danielle's Blog Spot

The next frontier – mobile marketing.  It’s no lie that more and more people are spending time away from home thus away from televisions and radios and some times, even the computer.  How are these people getting reached?  Through their cell phones.  Text message ads are becoming more common.  While they may be somewhat annoying depending on their timing in your everyday life (nothing like getting a text message ad in the middle of a business presentation, right?) they’re generally harmless.  Now our phones are being used against us in a sick ploy to sell us things we don’t want.  What makes this so much worse than more modern mobile marketing is that they’re calling us!

*Ring Ring!* Oh look, a number I don’t quit recognize.  I wonder who it could be? (Answer the Phone) “Hello?” “This is second notice that the factory warranty on your car is about to expire.”  What to do next? Angrily hang up? Freak out about not having a warranty on your car and actually handing over money for something you don’t need or even have in the first place.  Who’s the victim in this game?  Unfortunately it’s the elderly who’s targeted.  These messages come through on cell phones, which scammers are betting and relying on the fact that most elderly people who have cell phones don’t know how to fully use them.  A lot of the older generations aren’t aware of how to send or receive texts and may not have these capabilities on their phones so that’s why they call.  They also use an automatic machine caller who picks numbers at random.  If you get a spunky young adult like myself on the other end, you’re going to get hung up on.  If you have a sweet grandma on the other end, chances are she’s going to listen, be frightened, and pay up.

Spam.  It’s not just a mystery meat in a can.  It’s now a message being thrown and shoved at people who would otherwise not receive it.  Most spam is simply a bunch of commercial advertisments for bogus products, get rich quick schemes, and semi legal services.  It’s been reported that almost 2/3s of all emails sent are spam messages! Don’t believe it?  Check out your own email account.  In fact, I’m going to do so right now and see what’s in there.  Hm, look at the goodies: spam piece from Direct Buy on Home Renovations (I don’t even own my own home), Credit Crisis information, weight loss emails (Great, now I have SPAM telling me that I need to lose weight), offers from Macys (I don’t shop at Macy’s), and ASPCA Newsletters (the ONE thing I signed up for). So out of the 5 emails I received in the past 5 hours since the last time I checked my emails, 4 of those emails were spam.

So if we’re not signing up for this stuff, how do spammers get our email addresses?  In a surprisngly scary number of ways:

• Posts to UseNet with your email address
• Mailing Lists
• Web Pages
• Various Web and Paper Forms
• Ident Daemon
• Web Browser
• IRC and Chat Rooms
• Finger Daemons
• AOL Profiles
• Domain Contact Points
• Guessing and Cleaning
• White and Yellow Pages
• Access to the Same Computer
• Previous Email Address Owner
• Social Engineering
• Address Books
• Buying Lists from Others

To check out more details on this list go to http://www.private.org.il/harvest.html

http://email.about.com/od/spamandgettingridofit/a/spam_finds_you.htm

http://www.ftc.gov/spam/

When Ralphie snuck an ad for a Red Ryder BB gun into his mother’s women’s magazine he had a genious idea.  He thought his mom would go about reading her magazine and be dooped into reading a sales pitch.  Truth is there have been times where I’ve gone flipping through a magazine and seen an article, or what I thought was an article, and realized I’d just spent 2 or 3 minutes reading an advertisement.  How could this be?  There is only one answer – Advertorial.   An advertorial is an ad that takes on the appearance of an article.  Ah, ever underestimate the sneakiness.  Is it really ethical to trick people into reading an advertisement?  At least with television or the radio, if a viewer or listener doesn’t want to watch or listen they can turn it off or change the channel.  With advertorials, a reader may be half way through the ad they didn’t want to read in the first place before they realize it’s an ad.

This is where the ethical problems start to araise. Yes, they are misleading, but most do have some sort of educational value to them.  The blured ethical line depends on how they look, where they’re placed, and what they say.  A few suggestions that have been made to keeping consumers aware of what’s an actual editorial and what’s an advertorial are a few simple changes such as: using “Paid Advertisement” lables, make the advertorials distinctive by using fonts that are not used in typical news editorials, and even offering a third party disclaimer.  Is it really so much to ask as a consumer not to be tricked into reading ads? 

Check Out More of Advertorials from http://www.clickz.com/3510076

Advertorial

Advertorial

Is it any real surprise that Copyright Laws apply to the Internet?  This is one of the last things we’re talking about in class.  We were asked our opinion about if we think it’s a good thing to have laws that apply online and what would happen if there were no laws for online content.  Hands down I was for online content being protected by laws.  What kind of laws are we talking about though?

• First Amendment (though it doesn’t extend to deceptive advertising or spam)
• Libel Law
• Negligence Law
• Privacy Laws (concerning appropriation of name, likeness, or voice)
• Copyright Law
• Trademark Law

The great thing that I learned in some papers I found on the Internet is that a person doesn’t even have to apply for a copyright for the copyright to be applied.  Once a work is created and or posted, it’s officially a copyrighted piece of work.  Which it should be.  It’s someone’s writings, ideas, images, art, music, movies.  They should be copyrighted and if someone borrows from that, the original creator should at least receive credit. 

I was a little shocked by a few people who thought that the great thing about the Internet was that we could all “share”.  I have a feeling their idea of sharing was that in a sneaky sort of way an Internet user can log on, find something, copy and paste it and pass it off as their own.  The sad thing is that this is seen in schools.  A friend of mine teaches at a Junior College.  She explained to her class that they had to write a paper with a minimum of two sources.  A student asked her why he couldn’t just copy and paste something off the Internet and hand it in!  When he was told it’s illegal, he acted so shocked.  It’s stealing.  Stealing is stealing no matter what form it’s in.  Everyone knows that pirating music and movies is wrong.  It’s wrong to walk into a store and steal merchandise.  It’s wrong to steal money from someone.  In most cases it’s even wrong to walk into your own grandmother’s kitchen and steal cookies.  So why do people think it’s ok to steal things off of the Internet?

I love music.  I constantly have to have a soundtrack to my life. Today, we have more musicians than ever before! We have very well known popular artist and then there are local artist who are trying to spread their name around.  When I was in junior high and early high school years, back before emerging media and IMC really took off and became the beacons they are today, I remember street team promoting.  I would be in the mall handing out flyers or at local music shows passing out flyers for upcoming shows.  Now musicians have a marketing outlet, social media!

In doing some research I came across an article which interviewed Corey Denis, a woman which is described by one of her former employees as just short of a genius at marketing bands and artists. In this interview Ms. Denis expressed the importance of artist participating in social media.  Using social media gives artists a chance to take advantage of new online tools which may actually enhance their current projects. The top 10 sites she believes artist should have a pressence on include MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

While Denis suggests it doesn’t hurt to have profiles on as many networks as possible, it isn’t going to help the artists unless they are aware of how to use them and how to integrate them together into a powerful network in themselves.  For example provide links to your other social media sites on each social media page you have.  It’s suggested to start with 3 sites and to hire someone to do it for you if you know nothing about doing it yourself.  This also leads to another bit of advice.  Artists with only 30 minutes a week to dedicate to their own social media sites should consider setting a small budget aside to hire someone (another band member) to do it for them.   

To Read Corey Denis’s Full Interview Go To http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/social-media-online-marketing-for-musicians-10-questions-for.html

Check Out Some Local WV Bands on MySpace

Lonely Town (my cousin’s band) http://www.myspace.com/lonelytown

Ten Carp Lie http://www.myspace.com/tencarplie

Shindig (Started out in WV) http://www.myspace.com/shindig

  My friend Richie (the lead singer) doing it right on YouTube!

One of my favorite subjects in my emerging media class has been the use of online videos to market.  How often are we really drawn in to buy something from an online video though?  I recently had a big blast of buzz and online videos recently overwhelm my purchasing powers.

I was at work on a relatively slow night.  I know several people who have iPhones and them seem to like them.  I turned to my coworker and asked her if she liked hers as well.  She told me that she loved hers, but if I was wanting one, I should hold off.  Why would she tell me that on a phone she loves so dearly?  Word of mouth buzz just about kicked me in the face when she told me there’s suppose to be a new iPhone coming out that will allow you to take actual videos.  If it was something I was interested in, she said, I should wait.  Well this was the first I had heard of it.  The next day I mentioned the amazing new iPhone to another co-worker who had the same iPhone 3G.  I had just participated in buzz and word of mouth marketing sharing this information which was completely new to her. 

Later that day, I found myself on the apple.com website.  On the website there’s some pretty pictures of the new iPhone along with 2, not one, but 2 online videos for the new iPhone 3GS. The first video is the television ad.  The second video is a guided tour of the iPhone 3GS. This 14 minute video is a beautiful ballet of how to use all of the features and what makes iPhone3GS a superior phone experience.  Even though it’s a tour of how to use the iPhone3GS, it’s really a very long commercial on why iPhone 3GS is the revolution in communications.  It certainly got my attention and I will soon be purchasing this phone next month when I can upgrade my plan!

See For Yourself!

What did companies do before the internet in order to create buzz?  It seems like even word of mouth has become word of email/text.

I went to the GraphicDefine Magazine website to try to get a better grasp on how to generate some good word of mouth buzz.   What is buzz anyways?  “Buzz” or “Word of Mouth” is what people talk about, the currency of conversation if you will. A company or business can get their word out there and give people something to talk about, which therefore increases the company’s visability and leads qualified prospects to the company or company website.

What makes buzz effective? Lack of trust.  Take a look around at some companies or everyday life examples.  We normally don’t trust what companies have to say for themselves because we know they’re just trying to sell us something.  However, for some reason we trust what others say about a company or product.  These “others” can be celebrities, people in the media, experts, friends and colleagues.  How many times have we heard of a restaurant but not ventured in until we heard a rave review from one of our friends?  That my friend, is an example of buzz/word of mouth.

What are some ways to generate buzz? According to GraphicDefine’s website, buzz can be generated in 4 ways:

1. Identify Your Best Advocates: Focus on the people who believe most strongly in the superiority of your services. These might just be your current customers or employees because they are in the strongest position to spread the word. Employees and customers may need help so it’s suggested to help them with awards, certificates, and gift cards. Offer them visability by featuring them in your marketing and provide them with the tools necessary to spread your word such as business cards, brochures, or other information.
2. Give Prospects a Taste:  A little bit of marketing can go a long way with a sampling program because allowing people to experience your services makes it easier from them to spread the word.
3. Gather and Use Testimonials: Make asking for testimonials a standard part of the evaluation process.  Ask the person giving you and your business praise if you can use their compliments as a testimonial and then plaster these testimonials on your website, sales letters, business cards, etc…
4. Encourage Viral Marketing: Asking people to tell others about your company, product, service is another way of responding to a compliment. The viral marketing comes in with “Tell a Friend” links that are added to every email message, email newsletter, or webpage with useful information.

For more information on Buzz Marketing go to: http://www.graphicdefine.org/issue1/buzzmarketing

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1105

http://followmeinternetmarketing.com/blog/buzz-marketing-a-thorough-explanation.html

I always took people who said they were addicted to myspace very lightly.  I could easily say I’m addicted to it and not really mean it.  MySpace for a lot of people I know is just something they do when they’re bored.  They’ll change their backgrounds, add some pictures, update their status, maybe play some application games to pass the time.  If I had time to pass I would do the same thing.

Little did I know, MySpace Addiction is apparently a real thing.  I ran across an article about it on, of all sites, a rehabilitation center webpage. Addicted to uploading pictures, updating status moods, and changing backgrounds? Really?  Not so much.  Turns out MySpace addiction is an actual disease like a drug or alcohol addiction.  So how does it happen? How does a person get sucked in? Can they break free?

Who does the addiction effect?  We all know the people who refuse to follow the social networking trend.  For weeks, months, maybe even years these social rebels have held their own in the fight against owning a social network page.  Then one day, they crack under the massive amounts of peer pressure and sign up and make their own profile, afterall it’s harmless – right? It’s not so scary.  You can make it your own with different layouts and backgrounds, add your pictures, likes and interests, and even write a small blog to tell the world what’s new with you and how you’re feeling. Everyone wants to be noticed and feel appreciated and wanted and if you’re good at MySpacing, you can have hundreds of friends in weeks!

This unfortunately is where the addiction begins. MySpace actually feeds the part of our natural psychological needs to be accepted and acknowledged.  Sure you have 200 friends on MySpace, but why do all of your other friends have 500 friends?  Are you not good enough to have 500 friends? You need more friends. So you make vicious cycles trying to whore yourself out to people you don’t even know and bands and companies just trying to get higher numbers.  That time you’re spending trying to create yourself on the internet is taking away from time spent doing homework, work, time with your family, or even *GASP* your real life friends.

The mass appeal of the internet is that we can be whatever we want to be.  It gives the user a mask to act out in ways they may not in real life.  Some people may be completely happy with the way they are.  However, addicts are more than likely going to be the “geek” or unpopular kids in school.  The internet is going to give them the chance to be popular.  They can easily send a message to people they may want to get to know better online rather than gather the courage to talk to them in real life.  Users don’t even have to put pictures of their real selves online.  Hence why we get so many 50 year old perverts pretending to be 19 year old girls.

MySpace also creates unnecessary drama.  We’re given options to delete friends, even at the end of a bulletin post like whatever they said was so offensive we’d have to delete them. We can also choose to approve or disapprove friend requests.  Isn’t that going to hurt someone’s feelings even more if they’re not important enough to be approved by people they want to be friends with. Then all of the drama that comes along with deciding who gets the covetted Top 8 spots and in what order!

Good news, there are steps one can take to try to break their MySpace addictions. 1 – try to contact friends via phone or email, don’t use MySpace to contact them.  2 – regulate how much time you spend on MySpace so you don’t waste endless hours on it.  3 – tell someone you trust about your efforts to stay away from MySpace and let them hold you accountable.

For more MySpace Addiction Information go to

http://www.casapalmera.com/blog/myspace-addiction-understanding-and-breaking-the-habit/

Fun Quiz http://www.picgames.com/forum/myspace-addict-quiz.php

In class we’ve been discussing pass along media. One tactic of pass along media that caught my attention was Flash Mobs.  At first I was like, “A mob?  Isn’t that generally a negative thing?”  When I hear “mob” I think of the angry farmers with their pitchforks and torches chasing after Frankenstein’s monster.  So what exactly is a flash mob?

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place to perform an unusual act for a brief period of time and quickly disperse.  The term “flash mob” is generally given to gatherings that are organized via social media or viral emails.  However, it does not apply to gatherings set up by public relations firms or as publicity stunts. 

Some popular noted flash mobs that people may be familiar with is Worldwide Pillow Fight Day and Silent Disco.  During Worldwide Pillow Fight Day people from 25 cities world wide took a moment to stop and start pillow fights with each other.  During Silent Disco, 4,000 Londoners gathered at London Underground Stations and at a set time began dancing to their portable music devices.

While doing research for class, I came across a couple fun flash mobs that can border on advertising as well as pass along media.  One flash mob was created of 111 men of all shapes and sizes to go shopping shirtless in Abercrombie and Fitch on 5th Avenue in New York.  It turns out, a store that is a shrine to shirtless men, does not like shirtless men shopping in their stores.  Another fun flash mob occured for a T-Mobile commercial when people started to collectively start dancing in a London train station. 

Still don’t get what a flash mob is?  Think back to this past couple weeks and all of the people gathering to pay tribute to Michael Jackson and create a flash mob to break out in dance as a tribute.  Still don’t get it? Check Out These Awesome Videos or go to www.flashmob.com to maybe even sign up for a mob yourself!