Instagram, the photo sharing application, has become a popular platform for contests. From a marketing perspective, Instagram contests allow brands to interact with advocates and gather authentic real-time photos. From a user perspective, contests can provide new content ideas and a chance to win something on a platform they’re likely already using.
Feedback’s Danny Masting and Dean Browell, PhD have provided a discerning guest blog at Smart Insights discussing complacency in today’s social media marketing, both in the realm of insights and implementation:
Considering how fast social media came upon us, social media marketing has reached an interesting point in its evolution: complacency. Not in the media itself, nor in how users are behaving online, or in how quickly new spaces are popping up and evolving – but in how marketers are becoming comfortable in how they are using (and not using) social media.
This complacency is driven by marketers’ need to create short cuts in analysis and implementation without necessarily understanding the ground-level view of what it is they are analysing and implementing.
…We believe it’s important, as we face new social landscapes, that we do not immediately respond with complacency and a desire for efficiency and instead take the time to listen and seek out the right audiences.
So – please allow us to adjust the premise of this article… While they are looking for the snappy headline to polarize marketers, there’s a better way of approaching the very real issue they are laying out. They point out that only 25-30% of consumers they surveyed want engagement and that the other 70-75% just want coupons and deals – they use these stats to wag a finger at marketers for misunderstanding needs. But we would be remiss if we didn’t point out: Why not aim to have all of your “fans” be the 25-30%? When I look at a stat like that I would tell a brand with that kind of split that they should try and only attract those that fall into that 30%. The ACTUAL fans. This article presumes to paint all consumers as equal (they’re not) or at least that 75% of all consumers as coupon/deal-hungry zombies (absolutely not true). The real truth is, everyone’s fans are different. Every industry is different. Get to know the community you have, the one you want, then move to make those one and the same. But if you wake up and most of your “fans” are deal-zombies – you need to attract different fans — not risk alienating the super-fans by marginalizing their experience and input for junk mail engagement.
meme – (n.) in Internet culture, an idea that is shared digitally across a culture. Also, typically funny.
When things on the Internet spread like wildfire as they often do, we might be tempted to assume that since we – the English-speaking Americans of the world – began using the web in earnest, that Internet culture is ours and ours alone.
But that, of course, is not the case.
From the cryptic blogs in the Cyrillic alphabet hosted on LiveJournal blogs to the old oekaki online drawing boards in Japan, foreigners have contributed just as much as Americans to the humorous or interesting posts we find on eBaumsWorld.com, that are emailed to us by friends, or are shared on Facebook. Digital emoticons, for example, are now used by the masses but first started popping up in international Usenet groups, one of the first forms of large-scale message boards from the 1980s. A smile or frown emoticon says the same thing no matter your nationality.
The Tenso meme, using a screengrab from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The principle of how an Internet meme catches on also applies to viral videos, save one crucial detail: creating memes requires considerably less skill and equipment to create, capture and share with the Internet. And unlike videos, a photo meme can transcend the language barrier. A video that begins in America may only reach an English-speaking audience; but a funny picture that requires no caption or language knowledge to understand could end up flying around the world.
Tenso, which originated in Portuguese, is a beautiful example of such a meme.
Tenso memes are typically four-panel comics that showcase something that might not have been obvious in the original image. In most cases, this is drawing attention to someone who has a less than desirable facial expression in a photograph. An example, shown right, is taken from a concert scene in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World where an extra has a rather absurd face that doesn’t fit in with the crowd so much.
There are several instances of Tenso photos popping up on a forum called “Fórum Uol Jogos,” a popular Portuguese-language destination primarily for Brazilian Internet denizens to discuss pretty much anything from the latest video games to silly pictures like these.
Many memes are images adapted from their original media (a music video or a movie, for example) and applied to other pictures. Take the meme simply known as Dorgas, in which a Brazilian forensics dog has its picture taken in front of a large supply of narcotics. In the meme, people place a quote bubble above the dog’s head, and meme participants change what the dog is saying. The head of the dog has even been Photoshopped into the wildly popular “Advice Dog” meme, as well.
The Drago meme incorporated into the colorful Advice Dog meme.
Memes like this cross-pollinate on a near constant basis, turning pictures of a dog with a bit of text and point-blank humor into images that are instantly sharable and almost universally understood. It’s subtle humor that makes for big laughs and, if done correctly by a marketer, gives customers a reason to pay more attention to their brand.
So, to recap, memes must be:
- Simple.
- Funny.
- Universal.
“Language” is not necessarily included. Get all three of those right and you might have just created the next big Internet sensation.
Seth Godin, author, blogger and CEO of Squido.com, recently blogged about the “Coming Meltdown in Higher Education” (as Seen by a Marketer).” Some of his insights certainly provide food for thought:
Most undergraduate college and university programs are organized to give an average education to average students
Accreditation isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.
One reason to go to college was to get access. Today, that access is worth a lot less.
His article has sparked lively conversation online and with those on both sides of the fence. The conversation has been, at the very least, interesting and entertaining to read.
OSU built a strategic social media presence on Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn and multiple Twitter accounts. What’s “Powered By Orange?” Here’s the answer from the PBO website:
“It’s you – the network of alumni, students, faculty, staff, friends and fans connected to Oregon State University. It’s the positive impact you make every day in Portland and beyond – on the economy, the environment and the community. Use this Web site to tell your story and connect with the other practical idealists who are Powered by Orange.”
Since the campaign’s launch, enrollments have soared, first-time donations by alumni are up and visits to the OSU website have grown exponentially. Luanne Lawrence, OSU’s vice president of university advancement said that they are letting social media drive their decision making,
“We stripped our budget and rebuilt it. It was the hardest thing we had to do. Fifteen to twenty-five year-olds are rebuilding every aspect of the industry, and I’m listening to them.”
In a time of tragedy and a lot of questions left unanswered regarding the death of UVa’s women’s lacrosse player, Yeardley Love, social media seems to have found a way to respond with patience and maturity. The sports blog, Deadspin, known at one time for its vindictive and unprofessional posts, proved a firm and respectful grasp of the situation by shutting off comments on the UVa story when they veered towards bad taste.
Editor, A.J. Daulerio said, “It was more a message to think a little bit more next time around.”
There also wasn’t a single negative comment to be found when a Facebook page was set up in Yeardley’s memory. Instead, there has been an outpouring of compassion towards Love. The number of likes on the Facebook page jumped from 4000 to 13,000 within 14 hours … and two weeks later, there are over 66,000 likes.
One student blogged the following: I started to feel isolated and lonely…By 2:00 pm I began to feel the urgent need to check my email, and even thought of a million ideas of why I had to. I felt like a person on a deserted island…. I noticed physically, that I began to fidget, as if I was addicted to my iPod and other media devices, and maybe I am.
Two hundred University of Maryland students agreed to live 24 hours without any social media – no cell phone, iPods, or computers. The results of this study actually found that students suffered from the same physical and emotional withdrawal symptoms as alcohol and drug addicts when they went without social media and their cell phones for 24 hours.
President Brian Rosenberg of Macalester College has never blogged, tweeted, and he’s not on Facebook. However, as he stated, he learned first-hand how new forms of social media “have more potential to connect audiences across both generational and geographic boundaries than do virtually all previous forms of communication.”
After a seemingly innocent, self-parodying video on YouTube, “President’s Day at Macalester College” initially designed to engage alumni reached over 40,000 viewers on YouTube and annual fund donations spiked, the self non-technology savvy college president has had a change of heart:
“I have begun to learn about the nature and power of the social media that are reshaping the way we communicate with one another and should be reshaping the way organizations of all kinds communicate.” – President Rosenberg
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by FeedbackInstagram, the photo sharing application, has become a popular platform for contests. From a marketing perspective, Instagram contests allow brands to interact with advocates and gather authentic real-time photos. From a user perspective, contests can provide new content ideas and a chance to win something on a platform they’re likely already using.
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