When the Wu-Tang Clan released their new album in 2015, ‘Once Upon A Time in Shaolin,’ it was met with an immense amount of hype. The year prior, a double CD of the album was stored in a vault at a hotel in Morocco, you know, as one does with a new album. But this wasn’t any album drop – they only released one copy. ONE. And that single double-disc sat inside of a vault in northern Africa until a rich kid bought it at an auction for $2 Million. It was unattainable to the nth degree. It was as much an innovative music launch strategy as it was a wild PR and marketing stunt. And it got people to notice, with social chatter skyrocketing for several months after the album’s initial announcement.
DIGITAL
digital marketing teams are outdated
The headline itself might raise a few eyebrows or create frustration. How could a digital marketing team in this digital age be…outdated? That question is especially true considering there are still many companies and brands out there that are somehow just jumping on board the whole “we should get digital” train; in late 2016. Sometimes the barrier or delay was due to budgets, resources, or strategic direction, and sometimes it was because they were just…late to the party.
brands – make sure your social content is these things. or stop.
Consumer brands on social media are not a new thing, in fact, the brand “boom” on channels such as Facebook and Twitter was about seven years ago. In those seven-ish years we’ve seen social platforms grow up, go public, and become huge legitimate businesses. Their users have grown up and adapted as well, as have those users’ expectations and behaviors, how they consume content, and where and when they consume it. So it comes as no surprise that brands have had no choice but to keep evolving on social media, too, if they want to reach the right people with their messaging, stories and content, and make those stories matter.
is instagram ruining itself?
Over the last few months, a lot has changed on the beloved social network known as Instagram. Unfortunately for its 400 million users, most changes have been made without the actual experience of said user in mind, or at least that’s how it feels. Instagram likes to say things that sound nice and fancy – things like they’re enhancing the Instagram app, or making things more relevant for people, or a bunch of other things I typically block out. But what’s really happening is very apparent, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of Instagram.
the importance of mobile SMS marketing – what I’ve learned
A year ago I had very limited experience with mobile marketing in general, let alone SMS (text messaging) on behalf of a brand. The far and away priority in my world when I started the new job was the social media program and strategy, content marketing, and building a new model in that realm that better connects the brand to consumers and gives them more of what they want to engage with. It’s not something that happens overnight so it took the majority of my time for a long while. But along with the social and content side, I also had the responsibility to oversee the mobile SMS program – something I needed to learn quickly and get rolling. It soon became much more of a priority for me and my team.
let’s stop calling all of it social media
There are three quite different areas that fall into what we once knew as “social media”: content marketing, social advertising (paid social display) and community engagement.
Let me break these down for you…and hopefully add a little clarity to the mysterious world of “social media” for businesses as it sits in 2015.
measuring success through social content in 2015
Over the last several years, the success metrics that have told us if social media is doing a “good job” for a company or brand have fluctuated more than Chandler Bing’s weight in the last few seasons of “Friends.” A few years ago we were all very proud of ourselves as social media managers and marketing organizations if a Facebook post we put out there got a lot of “likes.” Or if a tweet got a bunch of favorites. Because, that told us that the stuff that we published had people clicking a thumbs-up or a star. And of course, that meant success.
A quick look at big happenings in brand social media in 2015
I haven’t written too many blogs in 2014. For a while I was still on the agency side of things so writing an opinionated blog about the digital world was part of the gig, so it came more naturally. The last five months or so, I’ve been in a new job back on the client side, with a longer commute, kids getting older, and seemingly less time than ever before. I’m still very much-so up on my game, it just hasn’t been on paper (digital paper). But here I am, back – writing again.
10 social media buzzwords…and their buzzy meanings
There are plenty of coined phrases out there that signify different elements of the online world. Things like earned media, conversions, click-through-rate, or optimization . Those of us that work in the digital space have all used them. In fact, we say them all the time. They become so commonplace that the actual meaning behind such words sometimes gets lost, or we so deeply know what we think they mean that we don’t often look through the lens of those that don’t speak our language.
a recap of my digital storytelling presentation at the SIA Snow Show
Two weekends ago, on February 1st, I was lucky enough to speak at the 2014 SIA Snow Show in downtown Denver. Specifically, I was lucky enough to speak about something I am passionate about, and have been involved with for several years: digital storytelling. Also, I spent the better part of just over three years in the ski industry – so it was fun on a personal level to be back in that environment talking about content specific to the snow sports world.
JEFF WERKHEISER 