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For my social media news update, I focused on an article from Socialmediatoday discussing how Facebook is currently in the infancy of testing an integrated “swipeable” news feed that will combine Facebook stories with the old news feed. Facebook sees the story technology as the future of digital communication. However, since unveiling their own version of stories, they have struggled to generate the kind of participation that would back this claim. 300 million Facebook users actively use the stories function which only accounts for 10% of the total user body. To increase user participation in stories, and boost engagement with the news feed Facebook as begun testing an integrated news feed combining the two features. This would mark a shift from the current format where stories feature separately from the news feed.

From a marketing perspective, this switch in formats could present new opportunities to potential advertisers. Facebook is already the most popular social media platform for advertising but the full screen stories format could make for an even more immersive advertisement experience. Marketers already using Facebook as an advertising platform would have to evaluate their current advertising and decide whether the format shift could require a change in strategy. With story-style advertisements, clear messages and big first impressions are all the more important. Marketers should keep an eye on this testing process so they can integrate new advertising without being caught off guard by the potential format change. 

This article felt like a strong example of social media optimization which we have discussed in class. Facebook is seeking to make their stories more visible to users and is at the same time also addressing concerns related to news feed engagement. Facebook is the number one social media platform in terms of popularity with marketers and the general population, and innovative changes like these help it maintain its massive status.

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When it comes to social media, YouTube has long been the king of video sharing. However, since October 2018, short video creation app TikTok has risen to the top of the app charts. TikTok allows users to create short music videos from 3-15 seconds or looping videos that run up to 60 seconds. It’s popularity has skyrocketed in the following months and at this point there are over 500 million global users. While most of the videos are funny covers, social media influencer and now musical artist Lil Nas X was able to use TikTok to create his current billboard hit “Old Town Road”. Music fans have debated whether ‘Old Town Road’ is country or Hip Hop, but there is no debate that the song is a smashing success.

TikTok is similar to former social media platform Vine in the sense that users have a limited time frame for which they can film. However, TikTok allows users to loop music in the background of their videos which makes it a useful platform for funny lip syncing videos. However, Lil Nas X has now proved that TikTok can generate real commercial success. I think the biggest impact that his commercial success will have will be the amount of social media influencers who begin to expand to TikTok. In class we often talk about how important it is for brands to create as many touch points as possible for their consumers. For influencers, creating touch points is just as valuable. By expanding their personal brands to TikTok, influencers can gain more exposure and generate more buzz. 

I think Lil Nas X’s success opens a real window for marketers. By riding his momentum to commercial success, he opened up a new pathway for creators to follow in his footsteps. As 2019 unfolds, I’m interested to see if marketers look to TikTok and it’s creators for a mode of expanding their audience.

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This article about rapper Travis Scott comes from this summer when the Houston-area artist gave away $100,000 to fans through the Cash App following the release of his album this past August. Scott tweeted that he would be giving away the money to fans at random, all they had to do was tweet their favorite lyrics from Scott’s album, Astroworld, and their Cash App username or “Cash Tag”.

I remember reading this story over this past summer and thinking how awesome it was that one of my favorite artists would be so generous as to donate to his fans in order to show his appreciation for their support. However, that was before Marketing 350, and this class has taught me that companies and personal brands always have a marketing agenda. Cash App is a mobile bank transfer app similar to Venmo or PayPal in which users are able to send funds electronically to their peers. It was launched in February of 2018 by Square Inc.  In order to compete with more established apps like Venmo and Zelle, Cash App reached out to various influencers such as Travis Scott and partnered with them to spread the word about Cash App, as well as giving these influencers the chance to develop more loyalty within their fans to their personal brands. 

For their part, Cash App is unwilling to comment on whether they provide the money for these influencers to give away. However, Bay-area rapper Lil B, who has also participated in Cash App money giveaways, commented that Cash App had reached out to him to partner with him for giveaways. Going back to Travis Scott’s original giveaway, Cash App was able to capitalize on the considerable hype surrounding Travis Scott’s Astroworld album,  which debuted at number 1 on the Billboard charts in August 2018. Scott’s original tweet with the details of the giveaway was liked over 98,000 times and generated 123,000 replies. As a new app on the marketplace, this social media buzz is far more valuable than the $100,000 Scott was giving away. By using Scott to give the money away, Cash App was able to broadcast their services to all of Travis Scott’s 5 million followers compared to their own twitter account that has just over 100,000 followers. If even 5% of the people who replied to the tweet signed up for Cash App, then that would be over 6,000 new users. This example of social media marketing showed real awareness on behalf of Cash App. Electronic Transfer apps are extremely popular with millennials and gen z so by partnering with one of the most popular artists in that demographic, Cash App was able to increase it’s earned media. Overall, Cash App was able to take advantage of the huge hype of Astroworld and Travis Scott, promote the services of their app, and promote the artist. This was an A+ social context ad.

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In browsing my reddit feed the other day, I came across what I found to be some very creative social media marketing on behalf of HBO and the televison show Game of Thrones. Within the Game of Thrones subreddit, fans of the show are able to discuss all things related to Game of Thrones and post any content they create relating to the show. With 1.8 million subscribers, the Game of Thrones subreddit is the most followed television subreddit. This post comes from reddit user, u/chopwithchris, who had originally posted fabulously detailed wood carvings displaying sigils from the families of the characters within the show. In response, the television show sent the user 3 of the actual wood map markers used and seen in the show and commissioned the user to create another wood carving to appear in relation to the final season.

This kind of effort to involve fans of the show is a part of what has made Game of Thrones the most popular show on television. At this point, the show’s season 8 premiere on April 14th will in all likelihood attract it’s largest audience to date. Yet, HBO and Game of Thrones still are looking for creative ways to attract their fans and foster their loyalty. Clearly, Game of Thrones has dedicated serious effort to monitoring social media buzz regarding the show which is how they saw the original reddit post in the first place. Where other companies and brands may have been simply grateful to have such dedicated fans, HBO saw an opportunity in sending these original show props to this user. While on the surface it simply seems like a nice gesture, the post by user chopwithchris showcasing these props and explaining his role in the upcoming season has been liked upvoted nearly 43,000 times. By sending these pieces to the reddit user, HBO increased their exposure while also performing a nice gesture that was greatly appreciated by fans of the show.

This whole exchange between fans and television show seemed like a brilliant example of organic social media marketing. Reddit is a prominent platform for online communities and HBO has demonstrated why it is important for companies to monitor buzz within these communities. By reaching out to reddit user chopwithchris, HBO generated more brand loyalty and exposure at zero cost to the company aside from the three original show props. 

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Scrolling through socialmediatoday.com, I found this article describing new functions that Snapchat is planning to roll out. Much has been made of Snapchat’s challenges facing future growth of the app and functionality to marketers. At their partner summit, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel described various new developments that will help expand Snapchat’s value to marketers.

 The first development mentioned by the article is that Snapchat is creating a lens studio in which users can create their own snapchat lenses. To promote this update, Snapchat is also launching creator profiles so that users making popular lenses can be recognized for their creativity. This increase in user generated content is sure to help create value for users.

The next development discussed by Spiegel that I found particularly interesting was Snapchat’s planned expansion to their StoryKit. Snapchat is planning to partner with other apps such as Tinder to allow their stories to be viewed across apps. This maneuver would allow Snapchat to expand their reach and helps to address the growth fears. As part of this development, Snapchat will also expand their Adkit which will make Snapchat ads visible on the apps that partner with Snapchat for their stories update. This ought to help expand the reach of Snapchat advertisers and may change the perception among marketers that Snapchat lacks value when it comes to advertising.

Snapchat has had to deal with worrying reports to the future growth of the app, but it still remains one of the largest social media channels. These new developments won’t stop concerns and speculation, but these are solid innovations that should at least garner some attention from social media marketers.

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So the current viral challenge that’s sweeping the internet revolves around the popular sneakers, Vans. This past week, a twitter user noticed that when they threw their vans into the air, they landed on the right side facing up. That’s it. Nothing more. However, given the popularity of the shoes particularly among younger people, the original video with the tweet has been retweeted 259k times since Sunday. I think this viral challenge is a product of Vans shoes being so popular among younger people that it’s a very easy challenge to try on your own.

These types of challenges often seem very ridiculous on the surface, however i think that it reflects that people enjoy sharing things that make them feel happy, and the challenges that tend to go viral are the ones that multiple people can take part in and then share their videos with their social circles. 

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Interesting article that looks into the biggest social media marketing trends of 2019. One of these trends i found very interesting was the fact that Facebook is changing their algorithms to focus on more posts that have higher engagement levels. This means that posts that are being interacted with more by users will show up higher on the individual’s news feed. This will likely cause companies to have to change their facebook marketing strategies and focus on a more hands on approach.

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The Academy Awards show generates a massive amount of social media buzz. With nearly 35 million viewers, many companies looked to capitalize on the viewership to promote their brands. This article takes a look at a handful of brands that used the Oscars as an opportunity to promote themselves. 

I thought that Lego Brand’s promotional activities were the most creative and unique specifically from a social media perspective. They used the #Everythingisawesome and created a Lego model of the famous academy award statue. The hashtag in particular was a clever way to promote a phrase directly from the Lego Movie itself, while also trying to promote positivity on a night where many people are complaining about various snubs or undeserving winners. Combined with the model statue, which was photographed in the hands of celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Lego was able to successfully take advantage of the opportunity presented by the Academy Awards to generate publicity for their brand.