A blog focused on social media, new technology and web culture.
January 12, 2011 Leave a comment
I received an excellent comment on my last post regarding Foursquare vs. Facebook Places from Sheldon; he asked, “What you think about Groupons? are they going to be affected by facebook deals?”
It made me realize that I didn’t know much about Groupon, so I decide to sign up and give it a try. Read more of this post
August 25, 2010 3 Comments
Which do you prefer?
Although Facebook Places is in its infancy, it is definitely causing a stir in the social media world — especially for one of the leading location-based networks, Foursquare. Blogs everywhere are blowing up on this topic and many believe that Facebook Places will be the Foursquare killer once it becomes more developed. I don’t think anyone can accurately determine which will come out on top yet. Personally, I’m team Foursquare and though I love Facebook, I want to use Facebook for Facebook purposes, not location-based purposes. After the jump I point out the pros and cons of both Foursquare and Facebook Places and why I ultimately believe that Foursquare won’t be dying anytime soon.
June 9, 2009 1 Comment
Everyone is on Twitter, especially celebrities. Watching the playoffs, I had to laugh out loud when I heard Dwight Howard thank his Twitter followers. And then I had to add him. There are hundreds of different Web sites that give out “authentic” celebrity Twitter accounts, including CelebrityTweet, TIMES online and The Guardian online. But why are celebrities so hooked on Twitter? I’ve been thinking about this.
Celebrities usually want to keep their lives private, so why are they constantly updating their status on Twitter? Maybe it is a marketing technique for celebrities and it allows them to up their status in Hollywood — the person with the most followers is the most popular. Or it could be that Twitter allows them to share information with fans in a controlled way. Or maybe they are just doing because everyone is doing it. Could they simply be doing it because Twitter is… fun? Whatever the reason is, celebrities are joining at an alarming rate.
However, it may not be all that it seems. Celebrities are joining Twitter, but they are also on other social networks like Facebook or Myspace. While hundreds of celebrities are on Facebook, it doesn’t seem to make as much of an impact as Twitter does. This is because of the social aspects of Twitter. Fans are able to follow and even interact with their favorite celebrities unlike Facebook and Myspace where there is a slight chance that their response is even looked at. Twitter allows “normal people” to get close with celebrities. Good for fans, good PR for celebrities.
You can follow me on twitter: @nikimae
November 8, 2008 2 Comments
The answer is yes. Among other things, Facebook played a part in Obama’s win.
Obama utilized social networking and Web 2.0 applications much more than his competitors. For example, in one of my earlier posts on Second Life, I talked about how Obama campaigned on this popular video game. It also appears that Chris Hughes, one of the four founders of Facebook, was Obama’s “online organizing guru” for the campaign. The experience that Hughes has with social networking definitely gave Obama an advantage over others.
If you think about it, Facebook is a great place to target young voters. College students alone make up half of the Facebook audience (source). According to Facebook statistics found on their Web site, there are more than 120 million active users. This makes Facebook one of the most popular, if not the most popular, social media sites in the world. Putting all these young people together gives them opportunities to create groups and other grassroots projects in favor of their candidate. People can connect all over the world to support a single cause.
Compared to 2004, about 2.2 million more people age 18 to 29-year-olds voted (source). Of these young people who voted, 66 percent preferred Obama and 32 percent favored McCain (source). Of course it’s the messages and ideals of each candidate that wooed the voters but Facebook definitely helped spread these messages as well as helped bring people together. Facebook might have also played a part in getting more people registered to vote.
As a Facebook user myself, I was reminded of deadlines to vote. I received group invitations regarding the elections, and I was sent event invitations to remind me to vote. I’m one of those people who already knew who they were voting for, and I remembered to turn in my ballot in early. For those people who aren’t like me, they were definitely reminded on Facebook and given the opportunity to read plenty of information regarding each candidate and measure. I also saw who my friends were voting for in their information and status updates.
We have learned a lot in this election from the methods that the candidates used. One thing that we will continue to see in years to come is more involvement in social media and social networking. There is no going back now.
November 5, 2008 3 Comments
Facebook Image
It’s about time I wrote about Facebook. It is not only my favorite social networking Web site but it has a fertile ground for public relations work.
The other day I was watching television with some friends and we saw a cell phone commercial. The commercial’s main focus was that you could update your Facebook status from the product. One of my friends was bewildered that Facebook has become so mainstream, enough so that companies are creating phones to better ease your Facebook use. It’s crazy. Facebook is everywhere.
In general, companies and nonprofit organizations are putting their names on Facebook to connect to their audience. They create groups and fan pages for Facebookers to become involved in. By doing this, the companies can get feedback from consumers as well as spread their name or message.
There are a few issues I’ve heard about regarding Facebook and public relations. First of all, people who use Facebook want to keep their page personal, to use only with friends. In this New York Times article it discusses the fact that people want to keep their Facebook as a place to share with friends, not to build their business or share connections — like LinkedIn. The article also talks about Orkut, a social networking Web site made by Google. In Orkut, friends can be separated into groups (e.g. professionals, friends, family), making it much easier for people to separate their personal lives from their work lives. Perhaps Facebook should take this route. But then again, it might not be Facebook anymore.
Along with this same idea, people do not want companies to be protruding into their private lives. I know from experience. I’ve joined a few company’s groups and my goodness, it was a mistake! One group in particular would send me six or seven messages a day. My inbox would always have something in it and it was so frustrating. I would never read these messages. Instead, I’d immediately delete them. Tip for businesses using Facebook: Do not bombard people with your messages. Rather then getting your information out, you are irritating people and losing people’s interest in your company.
However, it’s not all bad! There are some good PR tactics I’ve discovered on Facebook. Maybe it’s just my personal opinion, but I really like free gifts. I’ve noticed that a lot of companies use free gifts to promote an event or a movie that is coming out, and I think that is such a good idea! First of all, people like free things. Most gifts on Facebook cost money. Second, if the gift looks appealing, people will send it around. This means that more people will see your message or brand. People on Facebook are connected to people all across the globe! I could send a gift to someone in Africa, and they’d see it. Genius!
Another great PR tactic on Facebook is using event invitations. For example, Ben and Jerry’s sent out an invitation to their free ice cream day event yesterday. I would have not known about this event if it wasn’t for this Facebook invitation, and I wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of some delicious ice cream! Companies can use these event invitations for any type of events that they are going to launch. But like the inbox message story I talked about earlier, it has some complications. Don’t overuse this tool! People will begin to ignore your invites, making the message worthless. Only send invites to people who are in your specific target audience and only for events that are newsworthy. I always love getting free stuff!
I’m sure there are many more things that Facebook is good for (relating to public relations) but those are the two tools that stick in my mind. Can you think of any others?
Below is a phone commercial that specifically talks about Facebook. Enjoy!
November 3, 2008 2 Comments
Do you remember what life was like before YouTube? Where would you look for entertaining home video clips, advertisements, music videos, commentaries, movies and television shows? Now, we are used to watching what we want, when we want it. Instant gratification.
I was inspired to write about YouTube after reading a classmate’s blog post on YouTube advertisements (Thanks Camille!). It’s weird to think that we do all we possibly can to avoid advertisements on television, but we flock to YouTube to watch other advertisements. Why? If you search Superbowl advertisements on YouTube, most of the ads have at least 500,000 views. Some ads have over a million. Camille’s post describes a Wii commercial that is made only for YouTube. If you haven’t seen it yet, please check it out: click here. It is extremely creative and even scared me the first time I watched it. I thought my computer was breaking down!
This ad is executed perfectly. Targeted to the right audience, YouTube is an ideal place for Wii to place ads because they are reaching people who are already interested in the product. These consumers are putting the effort into going online to look at Wii’s product, opposite of what we normally think of advertisements.
In general, YouTube is a great place to build your company or brand. You can be an unknown and become a celebrity overnight. If your company is trying to reach this YouTube audience, you definitely want to get involved with this great social media tool. The audience of YouTube isn’t just the young and computer savvy anymore. I know that my dad loves YouTube, and he is a baby-boomer. People are becoming more and more computer literate and age is no longer a huge factor (ruling out the extremes).
YouTube is also a great place for companies to build their brand because they receive amazing feedback from their viewers. You know that once people start mimicking your videos, you’ve done a good job.
In conclusion, YouTube is too much fun.
While surfing it earlier, I found this video:
Relating to my last post, public relations is still being portrayed in the media as being propaganda. Another sad (but a bit funny) portrayal of a public relations practitioner. Hey, at least it’s a woman this time!
October 21, 2008 5 Comments
I don’t play Second Life but I understand the appeal. I enjoy simulation games like The Sims 2, but I understand they aren’t quite the same thing.
To me, I think it’s crazy to do PR and advertising on a video game — in a virtual world. I mean, there are plenty of PR opportunities on Second Life. For example, Obama is sporting his campaign and even the American Cancer Society is getting involved, creating a virtual walkathon Relay for Life. A virtual walkathon? Does that even make sense?
According to this LA Times article, it seems that Second Life isn’t what it used to be. However, it’s obvious that Second Life is still making an impact if Obama is putting his campaign in this virtual world.
In my opinion, Second Life has a very particular audience. None of my friends have a Second Life account; there are many people who aren’t involved with this game. If a company wants to market to people on Second Life, they should only do so if trying to reach this certain gamer audience.
I hear about companies creating virtual Second Life stores and then quitting because they don’t get any “business.” It’s true that Second Life money can be transferred into real money, but this isn’t why people create a Second Life company. They are trying to expand their brand name and reach a different audience. This may make sense for companies and people that are trying to reach a broad audience, like the Obama campaign. This works for him especially well beause he has people working on his team with the time and money to maintain that marketing strategy. However, if your audience isn’t the small audience of Second Life (or you aren’t trying to obtain this audience) don’t even bother creating an account. Time and effort could be spent so much better with a different approach but this is completely up to the company and its objectives.
October 15, 2008 5 Comments
I am now a Twitter addict. To many, this sounds silly… many skeptics think Twitter is just a “status update” Web site. Hey, I can’t blame them. That’s how I felt before I opened my account. Luckily, in one of my classes we learned that Twitter is actually a useful PR tool. Now that I tweet, I agree.
My Twitter
Yes, people do use Twitter to tell people about the events going on in their personal lives but that’s not all there is to it!
Twitter is being used for many reasons (see Getting Fired or Arrested ) and by many different organizations — or things (see the Mars Phoenix Twitter). It is all exciting! Twitter is also a great place to connect with people from across the world and build relationships with people you might not ever have a chance to meet otherwise. These relationships may eventually lead to internships and jobs! How can it get any better?
Since I’m still new to Twitter, I’m not following (following = reading other people’s “tweets”) many people yet. However, I still feel like I am reading news that I might not have otherwise noticed. I love it when people tweet about some news story they find interesting because then I’m not only learning about current events, but I’m also learning more about the person too.
As a member of the PR world, I need to be up on current events and breaking news. Twitter helps because people tweet about news that interests them, which is probably interesting to lots of people around the world. Twitter also helps me discover new trends and products that are hot, which is something else I need to be on top of.
Conclusion: Twitter is fun and it is also a good PR tool. Spread the word!
And look me up: twitter.com/nikimae.
