The future of social media marketing is in digital storytelling; the ability to humanize a brand in ways with which people identify and are closely engaged, thus feeling invested in its future. The brand becomes an extension of the fan and they are its most compelling ambassador. Social media is more than water cooler chat and exceeds the benefits of traditional word of mouth marketing. While it provides immensely useful data about our habits in real-time, the new frontier of social media is chronicling lifestyle. When viewed not at the scale of minute by minute updates, social media provides a holistic picture of who we are and how we live. It begins to speak to customers as whole people.
The NMS team has been on tour the past several weeks, visiting clients to brief them on spanking new social media developments – from the smallest emerging platforms to the elephants throwing their weight around. And while everyone is curious about what’s up with Google+, a multitude of movers and shakers warrant an update to our social media watch list.
My Dad (Doug David/”The Doug”) wanted me to work in a field that he didn’t know anything about. Now The Doug knows about stuff: he knows the news, knows the literature, knows the nature, knows the media, knows the finance... that kind of stuff. The Doug knew social media was being heralded as a game changer. He knew about the argument of its role in revolutions; knew it was controversial; and knew that a decent amount of people used it. All good stuff, but he wanted to know if it had the juice to be sustainable. When I took the job at NMS last year, he wanted to know: what kind of confidence did the market have in the social media industry?
Every Sunday at 8 p.m. means it’s time for my latest favorite shopping event: Rue La La’s Sunday Night Styleathon. The weekly one-night-only sale features popular designer clothes, accessories, shoes, and more, all on one of the biggest sample sale websites on the Internet. At first I thought I might be alone, but a 2010 AOL study entitled “The mall behind the spreadsheet” found that 60 percent of women respond to email reminders and offers about fashion sales or deals.
The Facebook Place Page for Washington Dulles International Airport has 47,220 check-ins, and its foursquare venue has amassed 57,965 check-ins. It is instinctive to check-in at the airport, as this action has become social proof of one’s jet-setting adventures. Retailers and brand-sponsored check-in venues do not generally experience an airport-like momentum of instinctive check-ins. Brands can begin by offering a healthy incentive to check-in, such as a discount, preferential treatment or insider access to information; however an extra push is needed to activate those customers who remember to check-in at the airport but are not instinctively thinking “I should check-in” when shopping at their favorite store.
Whether it’s LivingSocial, Groupon, or Woot!, there is now an abundance of online resources designed to help you save money on products and services. It only makes sense that these services take local coupons to the next level by going online and advertising their deals and businesses to a larger audience, but somewhere along the line it also became cool to share coupons with others. While it doesn’t sound cool to tell your friends there’s a coupon for bananas in the paper, it’s no problem to go on Twitter to talk about a great deal on photobooks.
Last Wednesday marked a major milestone for Groupon, the collective online buying powerhouse, as they celebrated their 10 millionth sale in North America. Groupon gained notoriety as a viral promo wunderkind due in part to its quirky editorial style and its sweet sales offerings in 100 cities across America, Europe and beyond. Launched in November 2008, Groupon prides itself on cluing its crowd into coupons for the best there is to do, see, eat, and buy, regardless of where they might be.