Snapchat Breaks in to Mobile Payments

Yesterday, Snapchat introduced Snapcash. Snapcash is powered by Square and gives Snapchat users the ability to send money to their friends very easily. Just link up your debit account, type in the dollar amount, for example $20, and send away to your friend that paid for your movie ticket last night. There's no word yet on whether the money only stays in the person's bank account for 10 seconds and then disappears like other snapchats do...

Mobile payment apps are becoming very popular. Snapcash follows other payments apps like Venmo and Squarecash. It's interesting to see if people using Snapchat will actually use it and trust it to send cash to their friends. What do you think?

Unintentional Viral Marketing

Sometimes, companies benefit from viral marketing campaigns that they didn't have anything to do with. For example: Target. Recently, you might have found yourself asking what the heck the #alexfromtarget hashtag was about all of social media. Well, this is where it all started....

Yes, that tweet started a storm of people tweeting about Alex from Target. Insane. The kid didn't do anything. He was as confused about it as all of you probably. Soon #alexfromtarget was a trending topic on twitter, and Ellen invited him to be on her show. 

I'm sure Target benefitted from this surprise Alex from Target fandom. You couldn't plan this type of viral marketing. After all of the negative press from Target's credit card hack months ago, it's good that they could gain something positive from this social media storm. I think Target reacted in the best way to the new fame of one of their employees. The most simple tweet that acknowledged what was happening was the perfect way to respond. 

Taylor Swift's 1989

Taylor Swift released a new album today called 1989. I'm sure most of you already knew that since it was nearly impossible to escape it on social media (not that I wanted to...). #Buy1989oniTunes, #TS1989, and several individual song titles from the album quickly became worldwide trending topics on Twitter after the album's release. Swift's 1989 is expected to sell over 900,000 copies in its first week, and could potentially break 1 million. That's pretty insane. To put this into perspective, only one album has sold over a million copies total this year, and that was the Frozen soundtrack. So, Taylor Swift could potentially have the second largest selling album in 2014, after just one week of it being released. Considering her last two albums Speak Now and Red both sold over a million copies in their first week, I have a feeling 1989 will do the same. If it does, Taylor will be the first act to have three million-selling weeks. Very impressive if you ask me. T-Swift's still got it.

SnapChat: Ouija Advertisement

This week, SnapChat released its first advertisement on their app and freaked a lot of people out. It was inevitable that this would have to happen eventually. SnapChat has to make money somehow and advertisements is one of the easiest ways to do that, but I'm not sure if an ad for a scary movie called Ouija was the best first impression. The ad appeared in the recent updates of everyone's SnapChat and you could choose whether or not you wanted to watch it, so it wasn't too invasive to me. On Friday the company wrote in a blog post, "We want to see if we can deliver an experience that's fun and informative, the way ads used to be, before they got creepy and targeted."

What do you think? Do you mind having ads on your SnapChat?

Venmo: The New Way to Pay

"Just Venmo me." These are my new three favorite words. What's Venmo you may ask? Venmo is an app you can download onto your smartphone that allows you to pay anyone instantly. You securely link up your bank account, and voila! You can pay your friend back for buying your dinner last night when you said you "forgot your wallet." It's incredibly easy, and I love it. No more writing checks to pay your roommate for utilities, or giving the waiter four different cards to split the bill at dinner. Venmo fixes those annoying little problems.

But how is Venmo setting itself apart from being just a service that helps you pay someone? The people at Venmo are making the app SOCIAL. When you pay someone, you get to write a memo for what you paid them for. There's a timeline on the app with a feed filled with what your friends are paying your other friends for (transaction amount not included). You can comment on these or even like them. You could say your paying your roommate for your portion of the water bill, or you could also say that you're paying her for Nickelback tickets (which is hilarious to me...).

I find myself scrolling through my Venmo newsfeed almost every day even if I'm not using it to pay anyone because people are funny. Not only is it a really great, easy to use, safe and secure service, but it's also slowly becoming a hilarious social network in the meantime. Kudos to Venmo!

#X - AT&T Steps Up "It Can Wait" Campaign

This year, AT&T started their "It Can Wait" campaign to attempt to knock out texting while driving. The campaign encourages drivers to tweet/text/Facebook #X before they start driving to let people know to not text or call them until they arrive to their destination.

AT&T is doing everything they can to make #X catch on. They've gotten several celebrities to join them in this fight including Demi Lovato and Pete Wentz. Having high profile people tweet and explain what #X is has been a large part of getting this campaign more attention. AT&T also created an app called DriveMode. So how does this app work? Basically, if you're driving, and you go over 25mph, your phone will not receive texts, emails, or phone calls. The only problem with this app is that it's only available to AT&T Android or Blackberry users. It isn't compatible with IOS, which I'm sure is a very large portion of smartphone users. So for iPhone users (or people who didn't download the app), the idea is that you should send #X over social media or text it to your friend before you drive. This is a great idea as long as people happen to look at Twitter or Facebook after you send that out or you remember to text your friend before you start driving. If your followers don't happen to see your tweet or Facebook post or you forget to text your friend, then #X is pretty useless because most likely you'll get at least one text while you're behind the wheel. Hopefully you'll wait to look at it, but it's still very tempting.

AT&T is doing a good job of at least getting people to talk about the problem of texting while driving, but how could they make this campaign better? First on all, I think they need to make their DriveMode app available for IOS users. If I could get the app on my iPhone, I probably would because honestly it's hard for me to not look at a text while I'm in my car when I see it pop up on my phone. Secondly, they need to make their celebrity endorses less obvious, if that makes sense. To me it's very clear that they aren't tweeting their support for free so it all seems a bit phony. It comes off as a way to just get more attention for AT&T as opposed to genuinely trying to combat texting while driving. 

What do you think? Will #X become "a thing" soon?  

"Boring" Companies. How To Make Social Media Work for You

I got a new vacuum cleaner about a week ago. I've never been one to love cleaning very much, but let me tell you, that new vacuum has changed my life. My roommates and I have never had one that actually sucks (in the right way), so this was a big step for us. I've never vacuumed our house as much as I have in the last week.

This new love of my vacuum cleaner got me thinking about how a company like Shark uses social media as a marketing platform considering there's not much to talk about when it comes to vacuums. They clean your floors and carpets, maybe your drapes or couch, but for the most part, vacuums are boring. I looked up Shark's twitter account to see what they're doing on social media to get people talking about their brand, and they're doing a good job at sharing relevant content. They tweet helpful cleaning tips, new products they have coming out, and have giveaways each week. They even used Shark Week on the Discovery Channel to their advantage. It's very clear that they know what market they are targeting.

I think the key to using social media to your advantage if you're a "boring" company is to not let people know that you think you're boring. Establish who you are as a brand and make sure you identify your target market. Know who you're talking to. If you're a vacuum cleaner company, don't try to talk to the teens (they don't care). Talk to moms or dads or self-proclaimed neat freaks. Another good way to help your "boring" company utilize social media is to do giveaways (if possible) or trivia. Everyone likes games or contests. Including this in your social media strategy is a good way to increase engagement. Also, make sure that the content you're sharing is adding value to your brand identity. Stay on topic. If you're a soap company, don't tweet random pictures of cute cats (unless, of course, the cats are using your soap in the picture...then I guess it's okay?). Just make sure what you're sharing is relevant to your brand.

So, if you find that you're in charge of using social media to market what some might think is a "boring" company or "boring" product, just remember that there are ways to make it more exciting. You just might have to be more creative.

There she is... Miss America

I wouldn't call myself a "pageant person" by any means, but I do usually watch Miss America every year if I'm not busy. I think I mainly like to be there just incase someone says something insane during the onstage question or falls while walking in those 7 inch heels (but that's beside the point). I noticed this year that during the competition little fun facts or trivia about a contestant would pop up on the screen during her time on stage. I didn't realize it, but those little fun facts resulted in thousands upon thousands of tweets going out about this pageant (300,000 tweets and 48 million Twitter impressions according to Nielsen). But oddly enough, the pageant only pulled in about 6.7 million viewers which was a 22% drop from last year. So what gives? Why was Miss America one of the most talked about things on Twitter Sunday night, but one of the least watched programs? I think that people need something to engage with if they're going to spend their time watching a show live when they know the best parts will be online the next morning. Unless you're a pageant fanatic or one of those "I saw it first" kind of people, there's really nothing that enticing to draw you in to watching it. This year was a good step in the right direction with the pop-up facts they included in the broadcast. Twitter is a great way to get people engaged, and the Miss America pageant might need to embrace social media a bit more and find more ways to incorporate it. With those ratings, they're going to need some help.

The girl on the right didn't win...

Twitter Begins Testing "Buy" Button

Today, as I was mindlessly scrolling through my Twitter feed, I came across a tweet that piqued my interest. Twitter had tweeted (yeah, you can follow Twitter on Twitter...) that they were beginning to test commerce on their site and mobile app. Basically, they're testing out a new way for users to discover and buy products through Twitter. I think this is actually a pretty cool step. Instead of just seeing an advertisement for a product on your feed, you'll also see a button that says "buy." I think this new "buy" button will lead to more spontaneous purchases because of Twitter's "real-time" component and could also be a good platform for limited time offers. They've started testing this out with a small group of artists, brands, and non-profits such as Brad Paisley, Burberry, GLAAD, The Home Depot, RED, and several more. So what do you think? Do you like the idea of being able to buy things straight from your Twitter app, or do you think it's too in-your-face? If you're down with it, what would you be interested in buying? 

Wait, she has HOW many followers?!?

Have you ever thought about how it seems that certain people's amount of twitter followers doesn't add up to his or her real life persona? Well, if you're like me, you have. "Who is that? How does she have 100,000 followers? She's literally in ninth grade." "How could Justin Bieber have over 54 million followers...there's no way. Who cares that much?" Well, it turns out, there is such a thing as BUYING Twitter followers (and Instagram followers, Facebook likes, YouTube views, etc). It's weird, but it's real, and it's not a very new thing apparently. After a simple Google search of "buy Twitter followers," I found out I can get 1000 followers for $2 and 10,000 for $5. That's cheaper than my meal at Chipotle even without getting guacamole (which, yes, I know is extra).

THERE'S THE PROOF ^^

There's a website called StatusPeople.com created by a social media management company in London that can ascertain how many of your followers are fake or inactive. So, here's the fun part. More than 75% of the accounts following Justin Bieber aren't even being used. I'm not trying to single out Justin (nothing like kicking someone while they're already down) because even the beloved, innocent T-Swift has about half of her followers that seem to be fake and more than a quarter defined as inactive.

 
So what's the deal? Did they buy followers? Who knows, but it's definitely something to think about. Honestly, I think buying social media followers is kind of cheating, but I can see the positives to having some extra "fans" to boost your street cred. What do you think?