Social Gaming - Good Job on Getting Us Addicted

So for the past month or so I've been sorta obsessed with this new game called Candy Crush. I remember seeing on my Facebook newsfeed that more and more of my friends were playing it and it looked to me that it was just a weird version of Bejeweled. But I was wrong. I also thought that it was just another one of Zanga's games. But I was wrong again. Candy Crush was made by King, another social gaming company. So how does Candy Crush, just like other mobile games get money out of us?

Well that's easy: first, they make a great game that gets you hooked, and then, they only give you a minimum amount of lives or turns and you either have to wait to play, ask friends for lives (here's your social aspect - how to show your entire Facebook entourage that you spend hours playing a dumb game), or make you pay for them. Additionally, after each turn, you have to see a 5 second ad on either a product or another game form that same company. And if you click on it by mistake you're taken straight to a browser or to the app store.


Now, you probably think that if something is offered for free then most people wouldn't dare paying .99cents for 3 lives...well I think you're wrong. Candy Crush came out with a commercial! What? A TV spot for a phone game that's free? Doesn't it sound crazy? And there's more....Words With Friends actually made a board game out of the app game...I mean what happened to the good ol' Scrabble? Oh yah, it's the exact same thing except the new generation has never seen a Scrabble commercial but they sure have seen one fore Words With Friends.

So the trend this day is to take the physical and make it virtual..but what if we start doing the opposite? Words With Friends did it. I guess well have to see...

IFTTT

So what's new this week in my social media world? Well now that most of the people around me know that I'm trying to be a social media guru, they always come up to me with new cool things they find that could interest me. This week, I was approached with this website called IFTTT, that stands for IF This Then That. What if you could get a text message every time this cute guy you like posts a photo on Facebook? (creeeeepy I know) Well now you can thanks to this site that comes from the principle that you can pretty much link every single social channel to each other by creating your own customized "channel linkage". They call it "the IFTTT recipe" when the This is the trigger and the That is the action. It is a quick 7-step process that differ depending on the channels you pick.
For example, let's say you're looking to buy an Iphone 4S, you can create this recipe: IF This: every Iphone 4S under 200$ on Craigslist Athens Then That: create a status on my Facebook with URL.
 

 For someone like me who always opens a million different tabs on my browser, this idea is quite brilliant!
Not only this site is easy to use, it also has a very simple and cool graphics, making the experience very engaging and interactive for the users. Though according to the founder this tool is kinda "nerdy" it is really about the simplicity of use and making your social media life a lot easier! 

PS: it's pronounced like GIFT without the G! :)

The Word-of-Mouth of Online Dating

Online Dating really? Now here is why I decided to take the time to write about this topic:

Last year, I became really good friend with a new UGA student that I met at a small gathering. We totally hit it off which is probably why he thought it was okay to tell me that he had a terrible time meeting girls. He soon decided that I was gonna be his wingwoman, helping him expand his social butterfly wings. This year, after being tired of playing around at parties and ready to settle down, he decided to join OKCupid, one of the various dating sites. After 4 months on the site, he somehow found the exact female replica of himself: UGA student, Jewish, Russian, a year younger than him, friendly, etc...Not to use other online websites' slogans or anything but it was totally a match made in heaven. So obviously when a week after their first date they decided to make it official, like FBO and all, everyone around was wondering how this happened.

Exactly, HOW did it happen so suddenly? He was honest about it, told us about that free website where you enter your info and somehow you find people. Remember like 2 or 3 years ago when everyone was ashamed of admitting that they had a profile on a online dating website? Now it's like a thing to brag about "Yah we met online and it was love at first click".

Once the online dating fad started with a wide approach such as match and eHarmony, some smart business people quickly thought about entering niche markets: JDate, ChristianMingle, BlackPeopleMeet,...

So what do I mean by WOM of online dating? Well, last night I was hanging out with a couple of friends who told me that another of the guys was on a date as we were speaking, and how did they meet? on OKCupid. They then proceeded to tell me that half a dozen of them had joined too! I love seeing the exponential snowball effect of WOM. 1 success story in a group of friend causes 5 or 6 people to join the website, that's how powerful WOM is.

Now what's the implication for marketers of online dating sites? or marketers in general? Well I think if you have watched TLC, E, or Bravo in the last year you'll know what I'm talking about. The key is to emphasize that someone close to you has probably met their significant other through an online dating site, making it more personable.

Now how do free online sites make money? Ads, as usual. Or by providing some kind of basic vs. premium accounts.

Socialebrities

Have you ever heard the term Socialebrities? Yah me neither, it happens that it came up in a brainstorming session while discussing the "famous" people from the web. I mean, think about it...Smosh, Hicox, Ray William Johnson, Nigahiga, Jenna Marbles...how the heck does everyone from the Gen Y know them when they aren't even featured on TV or the radio like the more famous actors or singers?

Well YouTube has found another way to make money off of people who also want to make money from YouTube! What a great win-win relationship. The way it works is a user needs to activate YouTubbe analytics and for each 10k views, the socialebrity will make around $30. Now multiply it by the number of videos and include the number of views each of them have..that's like more than a full time job salary over here for each video! These guys pretty much make more money doing the things they like and posting it on a site than most people make doing something they'd rather not. C-R-A-Z-Y!

So YouTube decided to take it to the next level. They actually built several studios called YouTube Space for their content creators to use. It provides them with sets, cameras, and everything needed to make successful YouTube hits. Seriously though, how fun would it be for all those kids to hang out all day making videos while making money and a name for themselves, pretty cool yah.

But let's take a step back here, before they had all of this handed out to them, they had to creatively market their channels, making them marketers after all! They have had people following their channels like they are following a show on TV, making these viewers loyal customers.
A lot of these Socialebrities have been seen featured in commercials, charging less than more known actors but still counting as a brand endorser/spokesperson for the younger generations that are well aware of these social personalities.

Leverage Your Personal Blog

For my latest blog post, I have decided to interview a street style photographer and blogger on the ways to monetize  your personal blog. Dana Balch, a junior from Alpharetta majoring in Public Relations, has created Athens Street Style, a personal blog showcasing the fashion style of Athens residents and students. Since its launch in March 2012, her blog has had over 70,000 page views and 3,000 unique visitors. Dana was also featured in an MTV short called Localities where she was presented as "the expert of Athens' Fashion". Since then, several boutiques have reached out to be featured on her blog in exchange for promotional items.

Sarah: What was your goal when you started your personal blog?
Dana: As a PR student, I thought that I needed to get involved in this field but since I had a weird schedule I decided that I wanted to be my own boss and created something from scratch.
S: You now work with 3 or 4 people at all time, why did you decide to make a team?
D: Because I had this idea that having only one person's point of view wouldn't be representative of the Athens community. Also, when you have more photographers, you are able to create more content and faster.
S: Why not involve more people and make it like a small business?
D: If you involve too many people, the quality of the blog can easily be at risk. I mean think about having a lot of people accessing the blog and posting whatever they want..to me, it is more about quality than quantity.
S: Tell me about the times retailers and magazines approached you.
D: First the Red&Black reached out and did an article about the blog. Then we decided to go bigger and pitched Teen Vogue who featured one of the persons working on the blog on a spotlight section. Then came MTV with their shorts. After that, we did giveaway for Puddleduck paper company
S: Did it work well?
D: The giveaway wasn't a huge success because it surprisingly didn't bring a lot of contestants, mostly because I believe that it wasn't the right fit for our blog. Also, it is always somewhat difficult to coordinate when you're dealing with third-parties. We were also approached by a sunglasses company who offered to give us sunglasses to giveaway in exchange for writing an article. After debating it and seeing that Puddleduck wasn't that successful, we decided to turned the offer down as it really didn't align with our blog's style.
S: How often do you get requests?
D: I think about once a month. After working at one of the local downtown boutiques, I realized that a lot of them have not yet started to use social media as a way to publicize their businesses. Once they find out how much power it has, I'm sure they will be using it more often.
S: What's your goal until you graduate and after?
D: For now, I want to maintain our niche audience even though our scope has broaden. I may want to make myself a bit more visible even if our SEO has improved tremendously because of more specific descriptions and people come from Google a lot more than in the past. As for after graduation, I don't think I will want a predecessor but I will keep my page up.

Here is a link to Dana Balch's website and tumblr:
http://www.athensstreetstyle.com/
http://athentic.tumblr.com/

#Grammys vs #Oscars

If you weren't studying for multiple exams last Sunday, you were probably enjoying the Oscars on TV. But if you're like me and take "Facebook/Twitter study breaks" then you honestly didn't need to be in front of the TV to know what was going on. What's up with this generation of oversharing? Before, we only posted a Facebook status when something super important happened in our life. Now, we feel obligated to be the first one out of our million fake Facebook and Twitter friends to post about how Jennifer Lawrence sorta fell but she's so cool that it doesn't matter. Let's be real.
So of course nerdy marketing me decided to check out the statistics on social media trends after the Oscars and I was surprised when I saw that it was trending less than the Grammys were! I thought the Oscars were like the hugest deal ever, then second came the Grammys, and way farther down were the events no one really cares about like the MTV Music Awards and the Country Music Awards...But no! With 17 million comments versus 14 million, people cared more to talk about the Grammys!
Then something came back to me...the recurring LL Cool J pretty much forcing people to tweet about the Grammys if they wanted to see cool backstage photos that would appear on every magazine the following day (just kidding, no one buys magazines anymore). So is that what non-marketing people do? They actually listen and engage? It's like if the dude had some sort of hypnotic powers (maybe that's why they did so many close ups of his face...) that made people stop playing Words With Friends for a sec and hashtag the hell out of the #Grammys.
 
So even though it's great to watch people winning weird looking statues and thanking everyone they ever met while on stage, neither of those 2 events is the top trended event. Nop, it's an event that, as a foreigner, I've tried to understand for 5 years but still don't get..."where the heck is the ball?? of wait, they're stopping the game AGAIN because you can't have more than 5 guys + their astronomically-sized equipment on top of each other at the same time...or something like that"
yah, yah, you guessed...the SuperBowl!

Let's have a one-on-one, Valentine...

Oh Valentine's Day, you are most definitely the most divided holiday of all. Some wait for you for days while others wish they could skip you. Why is that? Well you have put expectations in people's heads like nothing else has before. 

Let's go back to its real origins. According to one of my best friends, Wikipedia, Valentine's Day comes from:

"a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. The most popular martyrology associated with Saint Valentine was that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire; during his imprisonment, he is said to have healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius. Legend states that before his execution he wrote her a letter "from your Valentine" as a farewell."

Well that's good to know, I should remind my boyfriend that we are both Jewish and celebrating a holiday that was originally Christian. But why does no one really knows the actual origin of Valentine's Day? People even call it Hallmark Day! Well because it has become one of the most commercial holidays of all times, that's why. The average spent on Valentine's day paraphernalia is 13.9 billion dollars! Now it is sad to realize that some of these dollars are spent by 14% of women who send themselves flowers! 53% of women even said that they would end their relationship if they didn't get anything on that "special day". 

Now this is getting out of control from the consumer's perspective. But let's talk about the companies' view on that. They would be dumb not to take advantage of men trying to impress, or I should say keep, their women by selling them stuff. 

As a foreigner though I have to say that the US takes Valentine's Day to a whole new level. We all know that the main purpose is to celebrate the relationship you have with your significant other. So when, during my first American Valentine's Day, I got a handmade card and chocolate from one of my girlfriends, you can imagine how surprised I was. Yes friends, in the US, Valentine's Day is apparently also to celebrate friends and family members (Ok not gonna lie, I really enjoy this aspect =D).

So of course just like anybody else I know that Valentine's Day is a commercial holiday but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy gaining a few pounds from the instagrammed chocolate covered strawberries I got and the dinner I was taken out to. But I am still a "five year old American", so if I had given my parents chocolate, they would have probably made fun of me.

source: http://www.statisticbrain.com/valentines-day-statistics/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day