The Innovation of Loneliness

“Our social lives become tainted and more demanding than ever before.”

Does social media really aid in how lonely we feel? A month or so ago, I shared a post about social media being directly related to the amount of anxiety a person feels; this is commonly referred to as the FOMO, the fear of missing out. Here is The Innovation of Loneliness video. I really love how this video is able to elaborate and expand this idea. The video says, we are sacrificing conversation with a mere connection.

Instead of engaging and really getting to know people, we are in turn getting to know their photos and statuses, rather than the person themselves: “I share, therefore I am.” We see who they want us to see. Only an edited version of themselves. With all of this, there has become a loss of complete interaction with others. Sometimes a screen won’t cut it and in turn we feel lonely. What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you agree with the points in this video?

The “Herd Effect”: Nothing New

 

The “Herd effect”: Nothing new to the online world.

SourceFed is hilarious and I love their informative video. However, this one popped up and made me wonder “just how long ago was this posted”. Surprisingly, only yesterday! I think most people, if not everyone can agree that the Herd Effect exists, and it exists in the online world almost predominantly.

Take viral videos as a prime example; You see a video pop up on your feed 3 or 4 times, your reaction is usually curiosity of “what it is”, but I’m sure there also lies the feeling of not wanting to be left out- “I need to know what this is all about!” The same goes for the growth of a social network platform; I have had numerous friends claim to ‘hop on the Twitter wandbaggon’ after the first year or two that it was out, just because their friends liked it and were on it. Well there was Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram and Vine, and Snapchat, and… The list goes on.

This type of reaction to do what others are doing isn’t a big surprise in the online world, so it’s not super shocking that something with a lot of likes, would also be liked by other peers. It’s human nature in the digital space.

 

TIP: Just remember brands out there that fake likes are NOT cool. Learn from another brands past mistakes or even read about how it can be a dick move [here].

Mini Getaway: Mobile Reality Gaming

Back in 2010, Stockholm, Sweden was transformed into a living game board for seven days and nights as games were brought to life with the MINI Getaway Campaign. This large scale, capture-the-flag game, challenged players to hunt and catch a virtual car while staying 50 meters away from all other participants. The prize: a brand new MINI Countryman. The campaign was created by the advertising agency Jung von Matt and mobile agency Monterosa to introduce the new car. The video below describes the game in detail.

MINI hit the bulls-eye with this innovative campaign, engaging over 11,000 players, making countless impressions and reaching over 100,000 blogs worldwide. After seeing such large success the first time around, would it be a smart idea for MINI to reuse the game in another location, or should they quit while they were ahead?

In late 2011, the Getaway Game moved over to Japan, this time giving away one of their already popular cars, the MINI Cooper Coupe. The initial concept was exactly the same as the Stockholm version, with a few changes, including an expansion of the game playing area, the addition of two more days, and Android phone app functionality, allowing more people to get involved.

How well do you think this would do a second time around; Would it be just as popular in another city? And is this still “press worthy”? See the Japanese Game results and why or why not repeating an idea can benefit your brand [here].

Old Spice & The “Blizkrieg” Technique

“Blitzkrieg” is not a new term in the social media marketing and advertising world. It is however, an underrated and fairly unknown way to market a brand. Interestingly enough, you may be more familiar with blitzkrieg advertising than you think. Even the Old Spice brand put the technique to the test with their Wild Scent Collection campaign earlier this year.

So what is the “blitzkrieg”? The term derives from a German “lightening” military tactic used in the Second World War. The German’s would attack quickly, unexpectedly and intensely on multiple fronts, inhibiting their enemies from properly retaliating. For their army, “lightening war” focuses on three main things; Disruption, constant motion, and utilizing the best military arms and tactics.

Old Spice’s Mr. Wolfdog campaign illustrates how these three tactics can be used to execute unique and impactful advertising campaigns. To read the rest of the article and how Old Spice utilizes this technique in more detail, visit: “Blitzkrieg Marketing In Action“

Vine vs Instagram: Video On Instagram

Our favourite photo-sharing app is making moves. Today Facebook and Instagram launched video on Instagram. Will this be the demise of Vine? Could this be the end of Vine’s short-lived life? I guess we’ll have to see.

I just finished posting my first Instagram video (which I suspect will have the hashtag #InstaVid or #InstaVideo attached from now on). Overall thoughts? AWESOME. In comparison to Vine, I think it definitely includes things we all wanted. I really love the focus ability on Instagram when filming. With Vine I often had a lot of difficulty focusing in the app with my iPhone. And I doubt it was just me, because I saw quite a few blurry videos out there. Another cool plus, is of course the filters. Who doesn’t love filters?! Even the #NoFilter people probably use filters about 45% of the time. Videos can be viewed on desktop and online, and unlike Vine, you can choose your own start still screen. COOL!

A few things I’m not so crazy about: The length for these videos is 15 seconds. I like Vine being 6 seconds, and I think for Vine users, it’s going to be a weird adjustment to fill up all that time. You don’t HAVE to fill up the full time which is good, but the initial feeling is “I have so much space left. What do I do with it?!” Others will love this time. For marketers, this is a 15 second spot- just promise not to treat it like one. Another thing, which I’m sure can always be added in later is the lack of frames. I think framing in the filter part of the app would be a great addition, and could create even more dynamic videos.

As I said, overall I love it and I can’t wait to see what’s next (and how Vine will keep up).

Images from thenextweb & gizmodo.

MiO Sport: Clever Annotations

Annotations: For those of you who have no idea what an annotation is, you’ll probably know what they were if I referred to them as those “clickable boxes you see show up on YouTube videos” (not the ads). Generally annotations are used to say “like this video” or “subscribe to me channel” or “click here to see another video”, but rarely do you see them used in new and creative ways.

Being able to utilize annotations creatively really means thinking beyond just the filming of your video. It means thinking interactively and directionally as to where the video could lead. One of my friends Corey Vidal showed really creative use of annotations earlier to when annotations were first introduced. Many YouTubers, or frequent users are familiar with them, but beyond that there are pretty unknown and under-utilized.

I love this commercial because it uses the social space to get people not just watching, but interacting. “Do you love secrets?” really taps into human nature and into people’s curious minds. The first time I watched this video I didn’t even hover over the screen once, but at the end when they mentioned that there were more hidden videos, I thought “NO WAY- how did I miss that!?” Upon going back you find a handful of clickable annotations that lead you to other videos and even some of those videos lead you to even more. Each additional side video brings you back to the original to hunt for more. For marketers, the numbers would blow you away just because of this one feature.

This video scavenger hunt isn’t new, but it is interesting, creative and fresh in the marketing world. MiO seems to have taken some “Old Spice” advice and isn’t afraid of being a little weird and a little different. I can’t wait to see what they do next!

Verified Accounts on Facebook

Not too sure about how I feel about Facebook having “Verified Accounts”…

The Facebook Verified Accounts are supposed to act almost exactly like the Twitter Verified Accounts; Problem is, is that they’re completely different networks and i feel like it might be unnecessary for Facebook. I think it’s great to know that you aren’t being scammed or aren’t hitting a parody account when you want the real thing, but I feel like that doesn’t really exist on Facebook in the same way. Yes there will always be people that create fake accounts or try to impersonate celebrities, but on Facebook it’s blatantly obvious, unlike Twitter.

When you search for someone, in this case we’ll use Beyonce, on Facebook, the search section clearly tells you how many fans the page has without clicking through to the actual page. This way you can clearly tell “well, this Beyonce page has 1 million fans, and the other one has 3,” you’ll obviously choose the one with more fans because chances are that one is a legitimate account. Also, I believe that celebrities aren’t concerned about their “fan pages” being copied, but more-so personal accounts, which they usually have aliases or fake names for anyways.

Twitter on the other hand, you can search for Beyonce and it will have her name, a one sentence bio and a follow option (the first 2 of which can be easily faked). If you decide not to click through the page and just follow, you may not realize you’ve actually followed @BEY0NCE, the fake account. Also, when it comes to celebrities, these tweets are usually coming directly from their mouths, so having a verified account is beneficial so that they won’t get misquoted. Facebook pages are usually run by PR, and not themselves anyways.

I think that the Verified Account on Facebook would be most beneficial to marketing for international pages, that way people can easily distinguish that this is a managed international page rather than just a fan created one. Other than that, I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference for anyone. It might also be interesting to see how one would “apply” for a verified account, and if it will be as difficult as the Twitter process. I guess we’ll have to see.

Social Media Causes Anxiety

This is a pretty funny article, but still unbelievably true. We all have fears, but does social media really amplify our neurotic tendencies. This article shares the complete list of six social-media outlets and their corresponding anxieties:

Pinterest — The Fear of Domestic Inadequacy
Instagram — The Fear of Missing Out
Facebook — The Fear of Personal Failure
Twitter — The Fear of Looking Dumb
LinkedIn — The Fear of Career Failure
Spotify — The Fear of Bad Taste

Read more [here].

MAD MEN Job Interview

Well, well, well… would you look at that! I guess I am on the right career path after all.

I swear I didn’t rig this somehow to give me this result either!

I’ve always been a fan of Mad Men’s social media, and I think that this just another amazing thing to add to the list. It’s interesting only to those who really know the show and possible only to those who work in the industry (or at least a similar one). I did say that I didn’t rig the answers, but honestly, like most quizzes out there I think that you could tell which answers gave you which results (most of them, not all). Still fun though. See if you get the job [here].

Internships: The Value of a Matchstick

“Founded originally as a consumer-to-consumer marketing firm pre-social media, the practice has evolved into a boutique social agency working with brands on a range of cool projects. Listen to what these guys have to say – it’s all valuable.”- AdBuzz

I’ve been lucky enough to work these guys first hand during my time here interning at Matchstick, and the experience is more than I would have ever expected. Each day I’m learning something new and valuable that I never would have learned in a classroom. I would recommend an internship here to anyone just finishing up school or someone looking to break into the social and digital realm of marketing and advertising.

If you’re not from Toronto (or even if you are), I recommend doing some research for a smaller agencies that are willing to take on interns or entry level applicants. I have a few friends that went straight from graduation to working at JWT, one of the world’s biggest advertising agencies. One of them said it was daunting, stressful and right from the beginning she was overwhelmed and under-prepared. She said one day she might be ready to go back, but for now she ended up getting something full-time at a smaller agency and she loves it.

I know people don’t really want to do internships now-a-days, and they want to just jump right into the “real world” but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Right after graduation I spent 4 months only looking for full time positions and didn’t find squat. Every “entry level” position I searched out still wanted 3-5 years of experience I didn’t have, and people who had it were getting in before me. Honestly though, looking back I thought I would have been ready to jump in anyways, but the amount of stuff I know now versus then makes me think maybe I wasn’t ready. Who knows. All I know is that everything happens for a reason, and I feel like this internship has at least put me on the right path, which I’m more that grateful for.