New Year, Old Goals?
Well, we’re now 31 days into the New Year. How are you progressing with those resolutions you made just a month ago? Have you already shed 50 pounds? Have you landed on the moon or won the lottery? No? Well, me either.
One thing I learned is rather than setting unreasonable, nearly unobtainable resolutions, it’s better to set reasonable, month-by-month goals. For example, I vowed to lose two pounds per month this year. At the end of the year, there should be 24 pounds less of me to love. Can I lose more than 2 pounds per month? Probably so. But mentally, the idea of losing a mere two pounds is a lot easier to digest than than unreasonably believing I’ll shed 10.
It’s a new year, but are you taking old goals or resolutions into it? If so, it’s time to get serious. Do you want to look back at 2016 still trying to accomplish the same things you were hoping to accomplish two or three years prior? Set obtainable milestones. Hit those and keep going. It’s a snowball effect and that snowball is packed with your ideas, ideals and desires to make you a better you. What are you waiting for? It’s a new month. Time to get cracking on those old goals.
Check The Website: That Diploma Could Be Fake
Okay, as a student who is pursuing a Master’s via an online program, a story in today’s The New York Times shook me just a little. Okay, it shook me a lot. A Pakistani company, Axact, posed as an online education empire with “hundreds of universities and high schools, with elegant names and smiling professors at sun-dappled American campuses.” Their websites are glossy, enticing and offer degree seekers opportunities to get degrees in nursing, civil engineering and dozens of other disciplines. The website includes endorsements on the CNNi Report website and enthusiastic video testimonials. “Students” have invested tens of millions of dollars in their online education. However, the whole thing is just a stock photo, software company scam.
In this Digital Media, Website and Search Engine Marketing Age, many of us assume that most websites, especially websites promoting education, are legitimate. However, “Axact makes tens of millions of dollars annually by offering diplomas and degrees online through hundreds of fictitious schools. Fake accreditation bodies and testimonials lend the schools an air of credibility. But when customers call, they are talking to Axact sales clerks in Karachi.”
So, how do you know if your online program is legit? Ask graduates. Check the school’s accreditation. Research teachers (Axact’s professors are paid actors). Should you turn to other websites to check the authenticity of the first website? Inquiring minds and leery IMC students want to know.
Sources:
The New York Times: Fake Diplomas, Real Cash: Pakistani Company Axact Reaps Millions
The Pakistani Man Accused of Making Millions from Fake Degrees Paid 26 Cents in Tax Last Year
Enhancing a Digital Identity: Apple Wants to Get You There
Emerging media is now a must in enhancing a company’s brand. Even global, well-known brands are constantly seeking ways to expand and improve their brand by introducing new product lines or even acquiring start-up companies. What do I mean? Well, I’m glad you asked. Let’s look at how Apple is planning to take a bite out of the GPS industry.
It was announced yesterday that Apple acquired Coherent Navigation, a startup brand focused on GPS technology. Most likely, this is a move to improve its Maps service which competes with Google Maps and others. Coherent’s co-founders all joined Apple in the last several weeks and Coherent’s domain name has been redirected to Apple’s network. Coherent specializes in precision GPS. Apple is supposedly overhauling its Apple Maps.
Apple, now a household name on continents around the world, continues to enhance its identity by integrating its services into every aspect of our daily lives. What time is it? Let me look at my Apple Watch. Need to send a text/take a photo/do online banking/track your steps/set your stopwatch/read the latest news/see what your friends are eating for dinner/post a picture? Press the home button on your iPhone. Need to get from Point A to Point B? Apple’s got you covered. Soon, the term “brand enhancement” will be obsolete, replaced with “brand reinvention.” I look forward to the days when my optometrist asks me to stare into the retina display and tell her what letters I see. My response: “A.P.P.L.E.”
Ethics & Lawmakers Can’t Keep Pace With Emerging Media
Consumer privacy is an issue impacting marketers and consumers in the ever expanding world of emerging media. However, laws and ethics are not capable of keeping pace with rapid tech growth. The world has become a dichotomy of Old vs. New. For example, “Employers can get into legal trouble if they ask interviewees about their religion, sexual preference, or political affiliation. Yet they can use social media to filter out job applicants based on their beliefs, looks, and habits” (MIT Technology Review).
Regulatory gaps exist because technology is emerging so rapidly, that laws simply can’t keep up. These great divides exist in employment, lending practices and in every area impacted by emerging media. Preeta Bansal, a former general counsel in the White House, explained ” that effective laws and standards of ethics are guidelines accepted by members of a society, and that these require the development of a social consensus” (MIT Technology Review).
While laws and ethics have evolved over centuries, modern-day technology has catapulted to what was once an unfathomable level. There was once a time when cell phones were as big as briefcase and Facebook was restricted to dormroom use. Now, the poorest citizens of remote areas have access to smartphones and are liking and sharing on Facebook. There has been public outcry and even lawsuits over unlawful surveilence. However, those concerns pale in comparison to the data collected by mobile app developers and Web searches.
Is it possible for law and ethics to catch up with technology? Can we draw a line in the sand over what is legal and ethical? If that line is drawn, will it be quickly wiped away by selfie-stick-using-beachgoer?
Suggested articles:
Privacy – The New Luxury Product?
Is online privacy an oxymoron? Can the two thoughts share the same cosmic space, or will there be an immediate implosion upon impact?
Smile For The Selfie Stick
My husband and I attended a two-day outdoor concert in Atlanta over the weekend, filled with thousands of music lovers, a sea of outdoor armchairs and adult beverages. Amid the sea of people, sweat, adult libations and grilled turkey legs, one thing stood out more than any other in the million-degree Georgia heat: adults with selfie sticks.
As we tried to find a pathway through the thousands of middle-aged concert goers, I was repeatedly apologizing for bumping into the long reach of selfie sticks. Seeing adults smiling while holding a stick feet away from their sun-drenched faces made me wonder a few things:
1. When did taking a selfie become so serious?
2. Shouldn’t there be an age restriction on selfie stick purchasers? Say, no teenage girl over the age of 16?
3. Why in the world are grown MEN obsessed with getting that perfect shot of themselves?
4. When is the selfie stick craze going to end?
An Ohio State University professor recently looked at the selfie stick obsession among men. Jesse Fox, assistant professor of communications, explained in OSU’s school newspaper: “…The obsession with selfies among men is a reflection of an underlying psychopathology. Using a recent study of her own, she found that men who obsess with selfies score higher on the narcissism scale” (Breit Bart, 2015). Based on my non-scientific study this weekend, I would tend to agree.
Are selfie sticks a fad, phase or forever available at a Walmart or online retailer near you? In the meantime, please excuse me if I inadvertently bump into your long metal rod holding your smartphone as I make my way down to the cement pond. Cousins Elly May Clampett and Jethro Bodine will be calling you soon, asking you why you borrowed their props.
Related articles:
Use a Selfie Stick? You Might be a Psychopath: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/02/use-a-selfie-stick-you-might-be-a-psychopath/
Selfie Festival Known as Coachella Boldly Bans the Selfie Stick: http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/03/coachella-boldly-bans-the-selfie-stick.html
Knock, knock. Who’s there? Generation X. Who?
There are numerous articles and blogs which teach how to target youth and millennials. However, there’s another important group which is often forgotten. Who, you might ask? Those Pee Wee Herman-loving, 80s big-hairdo-wearing, Friday Night-videos-watching, Back-to-the-Future fanatical women and men of Generation X. The 34-48-year-olds are next in line to replace the baby boomers as a “cash cow for marketers.”
In a youth-obsessed culture, the now middle-aged Cosby Kids Generation now consists of 60 million adults; 25 percent of the adult population. Gen X is the third-largest generation, just behind boomers and millennials. In general, this often forgotten group is optimistic about the future. Being a member of such a distinguished assembly, it often feels like we’ve got one one hand on an iPhone and the other hand on a push-button phone. We’re sort of in the middle of two worlds. We’re young enough to embrace technology, yet old enough to value some semblance of privacy. Some are all over Facebook but feel that’s enough. Instagram, Twitter, Vine…you don’t need to know everything about me. We refuse to “do it for the Vine.” Well, some of us, anyway.
Rieva Lesonsky, CEO, President & Founder of GrowBiz Media, explains in an article that marketers who wish to reach this eclectic group might find it helpful to appeal to the following:
1. Their desire to provide for their families
2. Their desire to take care of themselves
3. Their desire to play it safe
Do you think the mature Gen X is an important group to target? Non-upscale Xers, those earning less than $200,000, tend to earn more than their baby boomer and millennial counterparts.
Suggested Reading: Marketing to Generation X and Y: http://www.marketingprofs.com/7/fleischner1.asp
Reference:
(Rieva Lesonsky) Gen X: How to Market to the Forgotten Generation. https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/gen-x-how-to-market-to-the-forgotten-generation/
Viral Marketing – What Works?
As I flounder and flub my way through the blogosphere, I am charged with creative ways of creating buzz for my blog. How do I do it? My name is Kim, but my last name isn’t Kardashian. I don’t have a million Twitter or Instagram followers. I don’t know mobs of people. So, how do I get people who don’t know me to acknowledge and provide feedback to my thoughts? How do I get this viral marketing thing up and going?
First of all, viral marketing sounds like some sort of unwanted disease. But, “Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence.” In order to create buzz around messaging, it’s important to create word-of-mouth (WOM) buzz. That’s what I’ll attempt to do by incorporating a few steps:
1. Provide for effortless transfer to others
2. Exploit common motivations and behaviors
3. Take advantage of others’ resources
What’s worked for you in creating buzz about your blog?
Reasons you’re not going viral: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/06/24/5-key-viral-marketing-tactics-proven-to-work/
The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing
Auto-Play Videos : The New Frontier
In September 2013, Facebook launched the beginning of what became the source of my daily log-in frustration: auto-play video. I remember scrolling through my News Feed and my friends’ posted videos would play without my touching anything. I yelled to my husband, “How do I make these videos stop playing?! I don’t want to see all this stuff!”
That now seems like a lifetime ago. Long gone are the days when I had the power to control the video content I wanted to see on social media. The memory of the ability to determine what video content I wanted to view and what would view automatically seems as prehistoric as Brontosaurus burgers and black and white TV.
Now, marketers are entertwining social media to force us to watch their vidoes and make purchases via multiple sites. Stuart Weitzman recently launched a campaign on Instagram. The fashion brand purchased video ads on Instagram and then sent product posts to to Facebook to a customized audience who viewed the ad. “‘The campaign is about how to find that perfect mix of brand and direct response marketing,’ said Susan Duffy, CMO of Stuart Weitzman. ‘One of the exciting things we’re doing is using the full marketing funnel.'” This tactic is known as sequential messaging.
Auto -play videos, sequential messaging…what’s next? Is it ethical for advertisers to force us to watch their adverts? Are the days of us controlling (to some degree) what messages we want to view a distant memory? If only I could use my Google Glasses to see into the not-so-distant future.
Source:
Ad Week, April 10, 2015
Why Facebook’s Video Autoplay Is Great News for Marketers: http://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2014/24453/why-facebooks-video-autoplay-is-great-news-for-marketers
Stuart Weitzman Collaborates with Ann Street Studio to Launch its First Cinemagraph Campaign on Instagram: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stuart-weitzman-collaborates-with-ann-street-studio-to-launch-its-first-cinemagraph-advertising-campaign-on-instagram-300061685.html
Hi and Welcome!
Hi everybody!
Thanks for stopping by. From now through May 18, I’ll add weekly thoughts about Emerging Media – what’s new in the ever-changing technological, digital world. I’m not a techy, just a student learning how and why all the latest and greatest technological advances are impacting and connecting each of us, while changing our behavior. Is it passe to call someone to ask them how they’re doing? Is it too old-fashioned to send a handwritten note? Would you dare type a document on an IBM Electric? The emergence and advancements in technology have revolutionized the way we think, the way we interact and the way we connect. Emerging media is necessary on multiple levels:
1. Socially – It grants two-way lines of communication between key publics and businesses. Social TV, watching TV while tweeting and posting is now a way of life.
2. Economically – Bidirectional channels of communication are available between consumer and business
3. An Integrated Approach – Integrating emerging with traditional media is often a complementary approach. However, some marketers believe that if you’re trying to reach consumers via social media, traditional methods (TV/radio/print) are not necessary.
The world is quickly evolving, integrating and emerging. Grab on and enjoy the ride.
kim rankins 