David Zhang
The NBA season has arrived. As fans anticipate the first
game of the season, fans can obtain more information about their respective
teams on their social media websites. The Golden State Warriors are the
flagship for fans in the Bay Area and their Facebook page proves to be an
effective social media tool. The Warrior’s Facebook page gives out premiums, allows
user-generated content, and regularly updates the content flow on the website.
First off, the Warrior’s Facebook page allows fans to obtain
premiums, or free stuff to attract users. The latest example of premiums on the
Warrior’s website is an autographed copy of the new Sports Illustrated
featuring Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. To obtain one of the autographed
issues, one must complete the challenge on the Sports Illustrated magazine.
This gets their fans more involved. In addition, the Warrior’s Facebook also
allows their fans to create user generated content. The Warriors have a
bloggers round table where fans can talk to one another and discuss projections
for the upcoming season. Also, users can comment on their Facebook page. Last
but not least, the Warrior’s Facebook updates their content flow almost daily.
This allows users to keep up with the most current news on the Warriors.
As a result of giving users free things, allowing users to
create their own content, as well as updating their content flow regularly, the
Warriors have a very successful Facebook page. They have over 2,500 likes on a
post created three hours ago. As one can see, the Warriors social media
marketing is very effective.
Chris Kim
Recently, a 3DS and a copy of Pokemon X ended up in my possession. As the hottest new video game of Fall/Winter 2013, I wanted to look up more information about Pokemon and learn more about this franchise. Fortunately, I was able to quickly find their Facebook page, titled "Pokemon" in order to learn more. I think overall, this page is a very effective marketing tool, hitting a huge part of their target market and effectively converting new visitors to like and follow their page.
The Facebook page offers its visitors and followers games, exclusive videos, quizzes, giveaways, and more. Since they came out with a new game with a lot of new characters and mechanics that people aren't familiar with yet, Pokemon uses their page to explain these things to their audience. In addition, they have giveaways for parts of the extensive Pokemon merchandise line for people who participate in their contests and games. Lastly, Pokemon gives users a chance to interact closer with the page and the organization through user-generated content spotlights and by replying to commenters personally.
Olivia Tang-Kong
Creating a facebook page for a product like Cheez-Its might seem like a mundane and difficult task at first. This is a snack item that has lots of competitors and not much of a brand-name which pulls people to be loyal to a specific brand of cheese flavored cracker. Creating a facebook page for a snack food which does not revolve around premiums and giving away free products might seem next to impossible. However, Cheez-Its works to develop a social media presence, one which markets itself mainly through participation and content flow. New and engaging statuses and photos are posted on the facebook page daily. The content posted is often humorous, slightly outlandish questions which all revolve around their snack product. For example, a status posted today prompted followers to ‘LIKE if you think ‘Trick or Treat’ should just be “CHEEZ-IT or CHEEZ-IT.’” Cheez-Its also features lots of user-submitted content on their facebook page. Thanks to the some of Cheez-Its’s biggest fans, there are pictures of Smart Cars covered in Cheez-Its, cakes made out of Cheez-Its, Cheez-Its jewelry, and even memes featuring the cheese cracker. Cheez-Its has capitalized on this participation by having photo contests among its followers. Perhaps most interestingly, Cheez-Its makes a huge effort to respond to all user posts on its timeline, whether people are asking questions about the product, complaining about a defective product, or are just relaying their appreciation for Cheez-Its. This helps the Facebook page function as a customer service portal of sorts, where a dialogue between user and company can be sustained.
Brian Ly
Always a popular checkout line candy bar known for its catchy jingle in the 90s and its breakable form factor, Kit Kat has evolved in its marketing into the 21st century, utilizing Facebook and other forms of social media. Much like its success with its catchy jingle in the 90s, one many even today cannot get out of their heads, Kit Kat employs a rather modern implementation of the classic jingle in the form of microblogging on their Facebook page. Rather than just featuring their products, Kit Kat uses the distinctive Kit Kat shape to create traditional scenes, whether it’s Halloween monsters to hype up the season and bring attention to Kit Kat as the premier choice for Halloween candy or in the Android shape to demonstrate collaboration with other corporations. Also featured on the page are a variety of sweepstakes month after month, ranging from small, like winning free Kit Kat, to large, like winning an Android phone from the aforementioned Google partnership. With these various offers, fans of Kit Kat can get involved directly. Kit Kat, while making many of its very interesting advertisements, also at times displays user-generated content involving Kit Kat that is relevant to other users. Much like other Facebook pages, Kit Kat also responds to concerns and complaints, answering earnestly to their customers and providing solutions. With frequent updates of interesting Kit Kat images and Kit Kat-related statuses, Kit Kat creates what is ultimately a very interesting presence that definitely has a certain appeal and draw to keep their customers coming back. For a product already so delicious, Kit Kat effectively uses social media marketing to make their brand all the more interesting and their page all the more worth revisiting.
Victoria Bravo
Recently, a 3DS and a copy of Pokemon X ended up in my possession. As the hottest new video game of Fall/Winter 2013, I wanted to look up more information about Pokemon and learn more about this franchise. Fortunately, I was able to quickly find their Facebook page, titled "Pokemon" in order to learn more. I think overall, this page is a very effective marketing tool, hitting a huge part of their target market and effectively converting new visitors to like and follow their page.
The Facebook page offers its visitors and followers games, exclusive videos, quizzes, giveaways, and more. Since they came out with a new game with a lot of new characters and mechanics that people aren't familiar with yet, Pokemon uses their page to explain these things to their audience. In addition, they have giveaways for parts of the extensive Pokemon merchandise line for people who participate in their contests and games. Lastly, Pokemon gives users a chance to interact closer with the page and the organization through user-generated content spotlights and by replying to commenters personally.
Olivia Tang-Kong
Creating a facebook page for a product like Cheez-Its might seem like a mundane and difficult task at first. This is a snack item that has lots of competitors and not much of a brand-name which pulls people to be loyal to a specific brand of cheese flavored cracker. Creating a facebook page for a snack food which does not revolve around premiums and giving away free products might seem next to impossible. However, Cheez-Its works to develop a social media presence, one which markets itself mainly through participation and content flow. New and engaging statuses and photos are posted on the facebook page daily. The content posted is often humorous, slightly outlandish questions which all revolve around their snack product. For example, a status posted today prompted followers to ‘LIKE if you think ‘Trick or Treat’ should just be “CHEEZ-IT or CHEEZ-IT.’” Cheez-Its also features lots of user-submitted content on their facebook page. Thanks to the some of Cheez-Its’s biggest fans, there are pictures of Smart Cars covered in Cheez-Its, cakes made out of Cheez-Its, Cheez-Its jewelry, and even memes featuring the cheese cracker. Cheez-Its has capitalized on this participation by having photo contests among its followers. Perhaps most interestingly, Cheez-Its makes a huge effort to respond to all user posts on its timeline, whether people are asking questions about the product, complaining about a defective product, or are just relaying their appreciation for Cheez-Its. This helps the Facebook page function as a customer service portal of sorts, where a dialogue between user and company can be sustained.
Brian Ly
Always a popular checkout line candy bar known for its catchy jingle in the 90s and its breakable form factor, Kit Kat has evolved in its marketing into the 21st century, utilizing Facebook and other forms of social media. Much like its success with its catchy jingle in the 90s, one many even today cannot get out of their heads, Kit Kat employs a rather modern implementation of the classic jingle in the form of microblogging on their Facebook page. Rather than just featuring their products, Kit Kat uses the distinctive Kit Kat shape to create traditional scenes, whether it’s Halloween monsters to hype up the season and bring attention to Kit Kat as the premier choice for Halloween candy or in the Android shape to demonstrate collaboration with other corporations. Also featured on the page are a variety of sweepstakes month after month, ranging from small, like winning free Kit Kat, to large, like winning an Android phone from the aforementioned Google partnership. With these various offers, fans of Kit Kat can get involved directly. Kit Kat, while making many of its very interesting advertisements, also at times displays user-generated content involving Kit Kat that is relevant to other users. Much like other Facebook pages, Kit Kat also responds to concerns and complaints, answering earnestly to their customers and providing solutions. With frequent updates of interesting Kit Kat images and Kit Kat-related statuses, Kit Kat creates what is ultimately a very interesting presence that definitely has a certain appeal and draw to keep their customers coming back. For a product already so delicious, Kit Kat effectively uses social media marketing to make their brand all the more interesting and their page all the more worth revisiting.
Victoria Bravo
I have been a Flamin’ Hot Cheetos enthusiast for at least
fifteen years, so when the time came to evaluate a commercial page I had to
choose the Cheetos Facebook page, that at a glance, seemed to be doing an
effective job at social media marketing with over a million likes. What I did
notice immediately was that there were no photo submissions from users, which I
would have expected from this particular brand. Instead, all content was posted
by the page itself and user-generated content came from a current promotion
called “Project TP,” which is a contest to “digitally TP something cheesy,”
that even had it’s own separate website that one could go on for more details
about the contest and information about prizes to whoever had the best
submission, which seems to be successful as many people have submitted entries
in the comment’s section of the statuses.
Another way they involved users was by promoting the carving
of a Chester Cheetos pumpkin. They provided a template that the user could
print out if they wanted, but as was mentioned before there were no
user-submitted photos of this carving.
After browsing the page for a few minutes, I did notice that
their content flow was extremely regular; statuses were updated at least daily,
and occasionally more. The statuses that they posted were witty, funny, and did
generate a good amount of responses from the public, who continued with the
jokes or sometimes went off on tangents. They also periodically posted pictures
that were clever, and usually featured the mascot or cheesy fingerprints
somewhere in the image. The more recent photos made references to baseball
because of playoffs, which showed that they seemed to keep up with popular
current events. Users were able to share opinions and interact on the page by
way of status updates that asked questions, or prompted them to “share” these
statuses. The dialogue was almost all positive, with the most negative comments
consisting of users being upset that bags are not filled with more product or
that they miss a discontinued flavor of Cheeto. Mostly, users interacted in a
light-hearted and comical way with Chester, who it seemed they thought they
were communicating with because of the effectiveness of the page and its
continuous flow of content. While the page was lacking in a very few areas, the
Cheetos Facebook page was effective in providing positive marketing for its
products.
Qiqi Zhen
Gaiaonline is an avatar based website, with 7 million unique visitors each month. It is free to use and the users will have an avatar which they can dress up. How does this website continuously bring back the users? The user can dress up their avatars with items from the regular shops, which cost gold. Gold is the currency, and can be generated when a user posts in the forums. This way, the website will make the user participate and get involved with the website and interact. This creates user generated content, categorized in the forums so the users can go to the forums and find topics that they like. For those who prefer to lurk, they are not excluded from interacting with the website due to games which earn you gold, too.
Aside from the regular gold shops, there are special items which can only be acquired through donations to the site or from other users, and new items come in at least twice a month, multiple items at a time. The constant update of new items will make the users not only come back to collect the new items, but also to interact with others if they cannot donate. The use of premiums also lure the user to check the website daily due to daily specials, such as watching a video to earn free rewards. However, it is during events when the forums explode with the most activity. This is because, during events, users get to participate in the event, whether by posting or engaging in some social game battle, and gain special currency to earn event items. The items are free and thus users will regularly check during a holiday for the event, and for free items
Tim Wang
As a poor college student, I am constantly on the lookout for foods that are cheap and easy to prepare, yet still cater to my tastes. It is for this reason that I follow the Hot Pocket Facebook Page in hopes of scoring premiums, like coupons, to save me every penny possible. For this assignment, I will be evaluating the Hot Pockets Facebook Page, which can be found at this link: https://www.facebook.com/hotpockets
Premiums: 3/5 This is the main motivation for which I follow the page. However, the Facebook Page doesn't seem to have a lot to offer in terms of giveaways or even coupons. A simple Ctrl + F search for the word "coupon" reveals two coupons in the current year, one in July and another in January. What I do like about their way of marketing the coupon is their use of interaction. To obtain the coupon in January, one had to share their New Years' Resolution.
Participation: 5/5 The Hot Pockets Facebook Page has some pretty entertaining material, including Hot Pockets dressed as pop stars for this Halloween, or famous pop stars or rappers making a video with Hot Pockets. They also market their Instagram while posting pictures. The Page allows for Facebook users to comment on the content, and the admins usually ask questions to try to entertain the crowd.
User-Generated Content: 2/5 While some of the photos and videos may be made by users, the comments left on the Page are usually negative, such as one describing an occurence of mold in their Hot Pocket, or many others conveying dissatisfaction.
Customer Service "Portal": 1/5 Similar to above, there are many negative comments regarding the quality of the product. Yet there is no feedback from the admins of the page.
Content Flow: 4/5 The admins post new content on average once every 1-2 days, which is a pretty good frequency. However, there isn't much variety, which may make the content get a little old.
OVERALL RATING: 3/5 I feel that while the Hot Pockets Facebook Page admins do try to engage users with new content almost every day, areas such as variety in content, as well as a portal for dealing with and providing feedback can be improved on substantially. Overall, this page isn't the worst I've seen, as a lot of content actually seems to be quite interactive, but it has work to do before it becomes sufficient.
Autum Boulais
For this assignment I reviewed the Al Jazeera America twitter account. I recently started following them and they have become my primary news source. The information they provide is, in my opinion, less biased and sensationalized in comparison to traditional American news sources. They currently have over 130,000 followers, however I think their account is fairly new. The twitter account is used to give viewers “sneak peaks” of top stories, promote upcoming debates and program specials, and to share (retweet) news and events on partner channels. They do not offer any premiums, however their news is free to viewers and does not require a subscription, so there would not be much of a need for it. There is some degree of participation. They will tweet surveys about specific issues and users can reply to posts to have their voice heard in a debate. Additionally, users can favorite or retweet the stories that they enjoy to their own followers. There is not much user-generated content. An individual can attach a picture when they @/reply to Al Jazeera America’s twitter, however it won’t be viewed by others unless the administrators choose to retweet it. The @/reply ability on Twitter serves as a type of customer service portal. Users can give any kind of feedback they choose and it will go directly to the owners of the @ajam account holders. The perk for Al Jazeera America is that this feedback is not viewed unless a user clicks the tweet and chooses to see it. They also will ask questions about a specific topic with an email address to send responses to.
Perhaps the best feature of the Al Jazeera America twitter is its content flow. They tweet on average 1-4 tweets per hour. This keeps them constantly on my personal Twitter feed. They tweet interesting blurbs about a story in 140 characters or less. The blurb is just enough to perk my interest without giving the house away. If they have a big special news story coming up, they will tweet about different aspects of the story or debate throughout the day. For example, they were advertising a story on the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. They tweeted different angles of the story-the impact on Haiti, the response of insurance companies, and the epidemic of respiratory infections from mold that was generated-over the course of the day. Each blurb had the potential to attract a different audience member to the same story. They include a link to the full story on the Al Jazeera America news website with every tweet. Their Twitter account serves as a direct portal to move traffic from Twitter to their news website and their partner sites. Overall, their twitter account is doing a fairly effective job of social media marketing. It did a good enough job to make me a user of their product and to share it with my friends.
Shane McDonough
As an avid gum chewer, Trident Gum’s Facebook page is exactly the type of social media page I was born to evaluate. Trident does a very good job of interacting with those who “like” it’s page, asking questions of them and commenting back on their responses thus creating dialogue between supplier and consumer. The page include premiums in the form of a coupon tab at the top of the page, though, at the moment no coupons are available. Other premiums include contests such as the recent contest for page likers to enter to win VIP access to VOODOO music Festival (October 16th, New Orleans) and serve as Trident’s official “Social Media Correspondent” there. Going back to September, the page offered a free streaming concert of Jason Derulo, sponsored by Trident. The info on how to access this event was on a Facebook event created by the page. Essentially everything the page posts on it’s wall is participatory in nature. They post a lot of gum themed pictures and ask silly, humorous questions of page likers. For example, there is one picture of trident gums packs dressed as wolves and it has a heading “Want to be part of the Wolfpack?” clearly referencing the Hangover and making a pun about packs of gum. Then the caption says, “Comment with your favorite flavor and we’ll see what we can do.” People did comment their favorite flavor and Trident responded back to them. In fact it seems that they respond to every comment or posting on the page, sometimes with words and sometimes with picture of words spelled out in gum, saying things like “Oh you “ or “We you too”. Though there isn’t a ton of page regulated avenues for fans to post user generated content (say for a contest or something) there are a lot of wall postings with pictures of gum or statuses about gum, all of which Trident replies to. In the about section there are links to Trident’s website and it’s Oral health website as well (because a big selling point is that it’s good for your teeth). But even in response to comments on the page, this page engages in customer service with fans. For example of the Wolfpack picture I spoke of earlier, one comment reads “Can I have my Vitality back? Then I'll gladly join your pack!”, referring to a discontinued flavor of gum. The page responds: “Teresa- We always enjoy hearing about people's love for some of our flavors that aren't currently in production! We'll be sure to share your feedback with our Marketing team and let them know about your interest in bringing Vitality back. We can't make any promises, but it's always a possibility. Thanks for reaching out!” Finally, the content flow on this page is very up-to date and fast pace. The page posts every day with new statuses, pictures, surveys, and puns.
Qiqi Zhen
Gaiaonline is an avatar based website, with 7 million unique visitors each month. It is free to use and the users will have an avatar which they can dress up. How does this website continuously bring back the users? The user can dress up their avatars with items from the regular shops, which cost gold. Gold is the currency, and can be generated when a user posts in the forums. This way, the website will make the user participate and get involved with the website and interact. This creates user generated content, categorized in the forums so the users can go to the forums and find topics that they like. For those who prefer to lurk, they are not excluded from interacting with the website due to games which earn you gold, too.
Aside from the regular gold shops, there are special items which can only be acquired through donations to the site or from other users, and new items come in at least twice a month, multiple items at a time. The constant update of new items will make the users not only come back to collect the new items, but also to interact with others if they cannot donate. The use of premiums also lure the user to check the website daily due to daily specials, such as watching a video to earn free rewards. However, it is during events when the forums explode with the most activity. This is because, during events, users get to participate in the event, whether by posting or engaging in some social game battle, and gain special currency to earn event items. The items are free and thus users will regularly check during a holiday for the event, and for free items
Tim Wang
As a poor college student, I am constantly on the lookout for foods that are cheap and easy to prepare, yet still cater to my tastes. It is for this reason that I follow the Hot Pocket Facebook Page in hopes of scoring premiums, like coupons, to save me every penny possible. For this assignment, I will be evaluating the Hot Pockets Facebook Page, which can be found at this link: https://www.facebook.com/hotpockets
Premiums: 3/5 This is the main motivation for which I follow the page. However, the Facebook Page doesn't seem to have a lot to offer in terms of giveaways or even coupons. A simple Ctrl + F search for the word "coupon" reveals two coupons in the current year, one in July and another in January. What I do like about their way of marketing the coupon is their use of interaction. To obtain the coupon in January, one had to share their New Years' Resolution.
Participation: 5/5 The Hot Pockets Facebook Page has some pretty entertaining material, including Hot Pockets dressed as pop stars for this Halloween, or famous pop stars or rappers making a video with Hot Pockets. They also market their Instagram while posting pictures. The Page allows for Facebook users to comment on the content, and the admins usually ask questions to try to entertain the crowd.
User-Generated Content: 2/5 While some of the photos and videos may be made by users, the comments left on the Page are usually negative, such as one describing an occurence of mold in their Hot Pocket, or many others conveying dissatisfaction.
Customer Service "Portal": 1/5 Similar to above, there are many negative comments regarding the quality of the product. Yet there is no feedback from the admins of the page.
Content Flow: 4/5 The admins post new content on average once every 1-2 days, which is a pretty good frequency. However, there isn't much variety, which may make the content get a little old.
OVERALL RATING: 3/5 I feel that while the Hot Pockets Facebook Page admins do try to engage users with new content almost every day, areas such as variety in content, as well as a portal for dealing with and providing feedback can be improved on substantially. Overall, this page isn't the worst I've seen, as a lot of content actually seems to be quite interactive, but it has work to do before it becomes sufficient.
Autum Boulais
For this assignment I reviewed the Al Jazeera America twitter account. I recently started following them and they have become my primary news source. The information they provide is, in my opinion, less biased and sensationalized in comparison to traditional American news sources. They currently have over 130,000 followers, however I think their account is fairly new. The twitter account is used to give viewers “sneak peaks” of top stories, promote upcoming debates and program specials, and to share (retweet) news and events on partner channels. They do not offer any premiums, however their news is free to viewers and does not require a subscription, so there would not be much of a need for it. There is some degree of participation. They will tweet surveys about specific issues and users can reply to posts to have their voice heard in a debate. Additionally, users can favorite or retweet the stories that they enjoy to their own followers. There is not much user-generated content. An individual can attach a picture when they @/reply to Al Jazeera America’s twitter, however it won’t be viewed by others unless the administrators choose to retweet it. The @/reply ability on Twitter serves as a type of customer service portal. Users can give any kind of feedback they choose and it will go directly to the owners of the @ajam account holders. The perk for Al Jazeera America is that this feedback is not viewed unless a user clicks the tweet and chooses to see it. They also will ask questions about a specific topic with an email address to send responses to.
Perhaps the best feature of the Al Jazeera America twitter is its content flow. They tweet on average 1-4 tweets per hour. This keeps them constantly on my personal Twitter feed. They tweet interesting blurbs about a story in 140 characters or less. The blurb is just enough to perk my interest without giving the house away. If they have a big special news story coming up, they will tweet about different aspects of the story or debate throughout the day. For example, they were advertising a story on the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. They tweeted different angles of the story-the impact on Haiti, the response of insurance companies, and the epidemic of respiratory infections from mold that was generated-over the course of the day. Each blurb had the potential to attract a different audience member to the same story. They include a link to the full story on the Al Jazeera America news website with every tweet. Their Twitter account serves as a direct portal to move traffic from Twitter to their news website and their partner sites. Overall, their twitter account is doing a fairly effective job of social media marketing. It did a good enough job to make me a user of their product and to share it with my friends.
Shane McDonough
As an avid gum chewer, Trident Gum’s Facebook page is exactly the type of social media page I was born to evaluate. Trident does a very good job of interacting with those who “like” it’s page, asking questions of them and commenting back on their responses thus creating dialogue between supplier and consumer. The page include premiums in the form of a coupon tab at the top of the page, though, at the moment no coupons are available. Other premiums include contests such as the recent contest for page likers to enter to win VIP access to VOODOO music Festival (October 16th, New Orleans) and serve as Trident’s official “Social Media Correspondent” there. Going back to September, the page offered a free streaming concert of Jason Derulo, sponsored by Trident. The info on how to access this event was on a Facebook event created by the page. Essentially everything the page posts on it’s wall is participatory in nature. They post a lot of gum themed pictures and ask silly, humorous questions of page likers. For example, there is one picture of trident gums packs dressed as wolves and it has a heading “Want to be part of the Wolfpack?” clearly referencing the Hangover and making a pun about packs of gum. Then the caption says, “Comment with your favorite flavor and we’ll see what we can do.” People did comment their favorite flavor and Trident responded back to them. In fact it seems that they respond to every comment or posting on the page, sometimes with words and sometimes with picture of words spelled out in gum, saying things like “Oh you “ or “We you too”. Though there isn’t a ton of page regulated avenues for fans to post user generated content (say for a contest or something) there are a lot of wall postings with pictures of gum or statuses about gum, all of which Trident replies to. In the about section there are links to Trident’s website and it’s Oral health website as well (because a big selling point is that it’s good for your teeth). But even in response to comments on the page, this page engages in customer service with fans. For example of the Wolfpack picture I spoke of earlier, one comment reads “Can I have my Vitality back? Then I'll gladly join your pack!”, referring to a discontinued flavor of gum. The page responds: “Teresa- We always enjoy hearing about people's love for some of our flavors that aren't currently in production! We'll be sure to share your feedback with our Marketing team and let them know about your interest in bringing Vitality back. We can't make any promises, but it's always a possibility. Thanks for reaching out!” Finally, the content flow on this page is very up-to date and fast pace. The page posts every day with new statuses, pictures, surveys, and puns.
