Celebrity Twitter

For this blog assignment, I chose to follow Kim Kardashian and see what kind of tweets she has recently posted. Kim has had a reputation for being famous for no particular reason but being in the social spotlight, having a family reality TV show and more recently, having a baby girl with famous rap singer Kanye West.

As I bagan reviewing her most recent tweets, I noticed that she actually posts a lot of personal information. A good amount of celebrities do not personally tweet and instead have an employee who constantly are tweeting for them but in the case of Kim Kardashian, it is obvious that she tweets personally. Her most recent tweet was denying accusations that she underwent plastic surgery to get back in shape after she gave birth to her baby girl. Previous tweets include personal pictures and responses to other celebrities and fans.

Kim also has a lot of brand promotion on her twitter. She mentions certain brands in her tweets as well as post pictures. Additionally, she promotes themselves a lot in her tweets by tweeting about her personal life and what she is currently doing and is interested in. She does not post anything that personally draws attention besides personal photos. She does not have anything interesting or out oft he ordinary to tweet about.

I recommend that Kim jumps out of her comfort zone in the twitter world by tweeting about things that  effects her or things she is interested in. I think it is important for celebrities to be aware of current events occurring in the world and to have opinions that relate to average people and fans that follow her. I also think that she should respond more to fans because so many people do tweet at her. I think that it would be in her interest to tweet to fans because it allows her to be a more personable and relatable person rather than a celebrity who considers themselves too good for their fans.

Facebook Privacy Issues

In 2012, Facebook pulled the plug on community voting which caused their users to question whether or not the social media site was a site that they wanted to be directly connected with. Although not even half of Facebook users voted on the new privacy changes in December of 2012, 88 percent of those that did vote, voted AGAINST the privacy changes. Facebook was aware of these results and instead of listening to their consumers, they ignored them and took away their rights to vote. 

Many Facebook users are confused with the continuously changing privacy settings because they are written in terms they do not understand. Luckily, for the social media consumers, Facebook has altered the wording in the setting in hope that they will understand the policies better than they have in the past. The continuous changes have made Facebook users disappointed and annoyed with the site. Allowing users only partial control of how their personal information is displayed to other on the site is not considered pro-privacy, by any means. 

Privacy issues and terms of service continue to be of much concern to consumers and users of various social media sites. The increasing number of court cases that are filed because of personal information being leaked to employers or other organizations have cause outrage among the Facebook users. This issue is something that should be solved immediately and should be a fairly reasonable issue to be resolved but instead, social media sites like Facebook try to increase the amount of income they are making through the website, no matter the consequences it has on their customers. 

My Favorite YouTube Video

Choosing my “favorite” YouTube video was extremely difficult because there is such an assortment of videos posted every day. Typically, I go to YouTube to watch music videos, commercials, or “homemade” videos. I have favorite videos in each category but for the sake of this Marketing assignment, my favorite YouTube video is the Coke commercial—“There are reasons to believe in a better world”.

Coke initially came out with this video to promote their 125^th anniversary and referred to the campaign as “sharing their happiness”. I think that it is such an appealing video because it is emotional and relatable and tugs at everyone’s heartstrings. It compares a number of bad things that people think about in the world and replace it with more good things that people are doing in the world that we often do not think about as regularly as the bad. It is an emotional and informal video promoting Coca-Cola and the happiness Coke can bring to people as the other things in the video brought joy to the viewer.

Surprisingly, there are absolutely no advertisements before, in, or around the Coke video. I like that there are no other advertisements besides Coca-Cola because it allows myself as well as other viewers to concentrate on the message that the video was conveying instead of being distracted by other advertisements. Additionally, there are no social media tie-ins that were made obvious in the video. I think that a twitter handle or hash tag would have benefitted the brand but do not think that it took away from the meaning of the advertisement. I do however think that at the time this video was released there were many various Coca-Cola hash tags and social media topics in their favor. Overall, I think that Coke did a wonderful job at grabbing viewers attention and bringing an emotional appeal to the video and allowing customers to remember them as a brand that cares about the consumers.

Take a look at the video: 

Internet Design

I have my many online shopping websites and today I received an email from Tobi. I usually receive and email from then once a day telling me that I receive 50% off of my first purchase. Talking to other friends that have bought stuff from the website, I decided it was a reliable link to click on and check out what they had to offer.

As I explored Tobi’s website, I realized that there were a lot of good elements about the online store. The website was extremely interactive with their clients via social media. On almost every page I clicked on, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter buttons were strategically placed on the top of the page. As I was shopping, they gave me the option to choose different types of clothing and accessories that I was interested in purchasing. As I clicked on a certain category, I could even sort the items by price, newest to oldest and vise versa, as well as what kind of top I was searching for (casual, night time, blouse, etc.). Although Tobi captured my attention and the website design was very appealing, they had some bad elements as well. I thought there were too many items on a single page. As I was looking through the clothing, I found myself getting bored and dizzy because it was too many things to look at on one page. Additionally, the “new items” page did not have a category button so I was unable to look up just “new tops” and instead had to search through each item of clothing before I found a piece that I was interested in.

Once I found a top I was interested in purchasing, I clicked on the button add to cart and it lead me to this page…

 I clicked on learn more and this page came up…

 I did not want to join with Facebook so clicked on “Join without Facebook”

 Then I clicked on the button that said “Join Tobi” which lead me to finish creating my account…

Finally, I was lead to this page that told me to either invite 5 friends or join with Facebook to receive the 50% off. I just clicked on begin shopping now because I was uninterested in choosing either option. 

Finally, I was able to go to "My Cart" where my shirt was located and filled out my shipping address, shipping method, payment information, and final review.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get the 50% off that they had promised me because it required me to connect to Facebook which I denied doing in the previous pages.

Overall, I think that Tobi is a great online shopping website that attracts a lot of customers but I think that they can do a better job promoting their discounts and explain the details before I get the Checkout page and realize that the 50% off does not apply to me. Tobi, along with many other online shopping websites have a lot of great assets for the customers but need to work on keeping their clients on their page and loyal customers. 

My Favorite Blog Demographics

Unfortunately, my favorite blog "Have-a-little-hope" was not displayed on quantcast.com or alexa.com because it did not have enough traffic on the site. I think that Hope can improve her presence on social media and she will be surprised with the amount of visits that she gets on the site.

For the sake of this assignment, I chose another one of my favorite blogs: http://karlascloset.com/. Karlas closet is a fashion blog so I expected only women in their 20s to view the site.

1. What are the primary demographics?
Women is the only gender that view the site. Additionally, college and grad students who live and work in the U.S. are primarily viewing the site.

2. Do the demographics match up with content of the blog?
Yes, the demographics of the blog were exactly who I imagined them to be. Although it did not give me a specific age range, it told me that most of the viewers were college and grad students which lead me to believe that most viewers are in their 20s.

3. What is the Bounce Rate for the site?
The bounce rate for the site is 71.10%.

4. How many Unique Visitors were there in the last month?
6.4% of the viewers last month were considered "unique visitors"

5. What is the trend for visitors to the site?
On the graph posted in Alexa.com, it shows that people view the site very sporadically. Although the number of people who view the page in a day are high, the trend runs sporadically.

6. What is the spread between mobile and Online viewers?
Last month, the number of mobile viewers was very low, totaling to about 5.5%.

Super Bowl Sunday 2013

After I saw the various super bowl 2013 advertisements in class, I decided to do some more research to see if I really thought the ones shown were my favorites for the year. I also began to think back to when I watched the super bowl and unfortunately, I did not even pay much attention to the advertisements this past game because I was studying abroad in Rome, Italy. The game was projected on a screen at a local Irish pub and many Americans came to watch the game but it was more about the atmosphere for me than actually watching the game or even the advertisements. Because of this, I tried to watch as many super bowl advertisements than I could from 2013 and I tried to compare the social media “tie ins”. 

            I came to the conclusion that out of the entire 2013 super bowl advertisements, the Budweiser “Brotherhood” advertisement was my all time favorite commercial of them all. I think that the ad did a great job tugging at the heartstrings of the viewers watching by showing the connecting the horse and the owner had. The advertisement was extremely touching which therefore made it a memorable ad in the minds of all super bowl 2013 viewers. The Budweiser advertisement was also one of few that I personally think did a good job with their social media presence. At the end of the advertisement, they present the #Clydesdale as well as asking viewers to tweet there thoughts and help name the horse in the commercial to Budweiser.

            The other commercials that I thought were really well done were “Jeep: America is Whole Again”, “Kia Sorento: Space Babies”, “Volkswagen: Get In, Get Happy”, and “Doritos: Fashionista Dad”. The Jeep advertisement had a similar idea as the Budweiser advertisement. It was very family-oriented and drew emotions from the viewers because bringing the troops into the ad allowed viewers to relate to the advertisement. Although, this advertisement did a good job, they failed to show any form of social media. Similarly, Kia Sorento and Doritos commercials did not show any form of social media during their advertisements, which definitely lowered their credibility to the viewers. Volkswagen had a controversial advertisement that I actually enjoyed and they did a good job showing the viewers their hash tag on the last image of the ad.

            In conclusion, from watching a good amount of the super bowl 2013 advertisements, I predict that the 2014 ads will be a lot more interactive via social media. I was extremely surprised to find that the majority of advertisements did not have a twitter handle or hash tag to show the viewers and if they did, it would be flashed on the screen and in such a small font that it went without notice. I think that instead of just showing the hash tag for the last 2 seconds of the ad, the twitter handle or designated hash tag should be up on the screen throughout the whole ad. It does not need to be obvious but I think that it is definitely worth having in the bottom right corner throughout the whole advertisement and I think that companies will be surprised with the kind of results that they receive from viewers on social media.

My Favorite Blog

It was very hard picking my favorite blog because a few of my friends do a great job blogging. As I was reviewing each of their blogs, trying to decide which one I related the most too, I found that each of them have very similar formats and set ups that immediately grab my attention. None of the formats are busy. Each blog is simple yet extremely unique in various ways. As I narrowed it down to two blogs, I started to just look at content. Which blog had the most interesting and enriching content? I finally came to the conclusion that my favorite blog was “have a little hope”, found on Tumblr.

The blog, “have a little hope” is a very simple blog that my friend, Hope, created for pure enjoyment. She wanted a place to record her daily reflections, music, videos, quotes, and other random discoveries to help start others days off right. When you first enter the blog, the most recent post is first on the page and as you scroll down, older posts are below in a straight line with nothing on the right or left. It is simple yet grabs my attention instantly and directs it to the image of the day. Her writing style is very casual. She posts quotes, inspiring commercials, songs, tv episodes, bible quotes, and the list continues. She posts whatever made her happy that day. I am intrigued and incredibly interested in this blog as well as her writing style because it is inspiring in such simplicity.

Hope has many great things on her blog but I think the best element is that she always posts something new and very rarely repeats herself. Every Sunday, she posts about the Gospel and Homily at Church but besides that, she rarely discusses similar things. Something good that Hope does is that she adds her own commentary to her blog posts. Most of the times, she adds to the quote, song, bible verse, etc. but she can try and improve on doing more of that. I think it is important to add your own opinion on every blog post, whether it is a reaction to something or a simple statement discussing why you chose to post this on the blog. I think that she needs help with posting everyday. I understand that she is a college student with a wide variety of activities she participates in as well as a heavy course load, but in order to keep the intended audience she would like, she has to be more consistent on posting every day or a couple times a week. I think that if she sets aside a time each day or a specific couple of days a week, she will be able to continue positing regularly and opening up her audience to a larger amount of people.

Hope does not do a great job with using social media to promote her blog. The only form of social media she has used was Facebook when she first set up the blog a couple of years ago. She has a twitter but rarely uses it and definitely does not use it to promote her blog. I think that this is an area that can be improved and in return, she will gain a larger audience. I tweeted at Hope to tell her I really enjoyed her blog but I have yet to receive a Twitter response.