Tuesday March 19, 2024

3 Lessons Brands Can Learn From Facebook Manipulating Consumers

Facebook  research has found that the emotions of others on your news feed can affect your mood. The social network did not inform users their news feeds were being manipulated as part of this study. And users are expressing outrage over the study’s ethics. Should Facebook have done things differently? Are the outraged consumers justified in their ire? […]

Brand’s Annual Report Published via Instagram

"Story drives the form. Form does not drive the story." A local journalist instilled this mantra in me recently. And it would appear this mantra is being applied to annual reports. Over the last decade, annual reports have gone from dry as toast financial documents to become a brand's "secret weapon" (vs. bread and butter /rimshot). […]

Tips for Brands on Instagram

Instagram changed its terms of service earlier this week, unleashing a vocal and fast-emerging online protest. For brands, the “Instadrama” raises a more important question. As brands and their loyal consumers become invested in free online platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, what should brands do as these platforms evolve into a business? How brands react to things like […]

Are Brands People, Media or Publishers? Ad Age Misses the Point.

Like any professional industry, social media discussions can become unnecessarily “confrontational.” The air quotes are to emphasize this confrontation isn’t heated by any means. It’s usually a keyboard-based back and forth that starts when someone makes a point and someone else splits hairs to create a counterpoint. That’s what happened in the latest Ad Age […]

The Power of Unassuming Brands (a lesson from Signal P&G)

The Signal P&G event brought together brands we see in the news almost daily — from Twitter and Facebook to Coca-Cola and more. But the brands on Procter & Gamble’s dais getting less media attention, or perhaps less positive media attention, were the most interesting that day. Presentations from Amazon, AOL and Nokia taught me to reconsider […]

Instagram’s Android Launch Complete’s the Picture for Brands

With 1 million downloads made in the first 24 hours of its release, Instagram’s long-awaited Android app has clearly been well-received. The Android release was a bit of a tidal wave as you can only access the platform via its mobile app or using your app login to use web-based options that tap into the […]

Brands & Blogs: Building Better Relationships at Savvy Blogging Summit

It’s been almost two weeks since I attended Savvy Blogging Summit with my Empower MediaMarketing colleague, Jessica George. We were asked to speak on building better relationships between brands and bloggers. Empower’s done more than a dozen different outreach projects for clients — online and offline. We posted our presentation at the Scoop.It page we created for the […]

Brands Go Offline, Get Experiential for Social Media Success

Starbucks, Best Buy and Home Depot are some of the most successful brands in social media. And one of the secrets to their success can be found offline. Starbucks makes sure customers have access to exclusive content through its Starbucks Digital Network. Best Buy uses mobile and QR codes to take consumers from the printed […]

Engagement: Getting Brands and Consumers to Commit

We talk a lot about creating engagement between brands and consumers. And that’s because social platforms are an engagement tool, not a broadcast tool. But after awhile, it can start to sound like we’re trying to arrange marriages. Perhaps it’s the fact that several of my coworkers were recently married or are preparing to walk down […]

Social Brands and the Seven Deadly Sins

Companies establishing a social media presence may make some missteps. Some of the brands known for their social presence, including Best Buy and Starbucks, can point to mistakes made along the way and to what the brand learned from it. It’s understandable. Social marketing requires a company to shift from broadcasting an anonymous, singular brand […]