Inspired by Sephora…

Marketing is something we are influenced by every single day, most of the time without even realizing it. I have spent so much time reflecting on how marketing has directly influenced me throughout my life- with every new assignment in school I find myself remembering another example!

My most memorable experience was in 2000 on a trip to NYC in the 9th grade. We were attending “Footloose” on Broadway and there it was… the store that stood out among all the flashing, colorful signs around it. Black and White stripes- that’s my first memory… and I had to go see what it was:

Sephora. I was instantly hooked and wanted all of their makeup. I had never even worn make-up. The way the store presented the products made me realize I was missing out on something amazing! I bought an Urban Decay eyeliner and have been a loyal customer ever since. I couldn’t have imagined what social media could have done for this brand in the future…. until now

Visually Influencing the Masses

Social Media has provided a much needed platform in which brands can launch strategies that are perfect for make-up products: Artistic, Visual, Interactive and Viral. I also find myself intrigued by a product online promted online, but still feel the need to have a place to go phyically look at it before I buy- So I will look at two stores with brick and mortar store fronts: Sephora and Ulta.

While reviewing their sites, I instantly started noticing stark differences in how each company approaches the platforms. They both carry many of the same brands. Both companies do use the same platforms, promote them clearly on the homepages of their online stores and and offer rewards programs for loyal shoppers. Being in such a visually dependent industry both companies should focus energy into the two photo driven platforms: Pinterest and Instagram

Creative or Cookie Cutter Visual Campaigns?

Pinterest and Instagram

The first platform I visited for these brands was Pinterest. Both brands have 10+ viewers a month, and 500,000+ followers on many boards. I pulled the sites up side by side, and upon first glance I KNEW which one was Ulta’s board…

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I was instantly affronted with what felt more like advertisement after advertisement for Ulta. Every Pin was built from a series of templates, I focused more on the backgrounds and borders than I did on any brand/ product they were promoting. With Social Media being a way to engage with consumers, I found myself lacking desire to click through their content and learn more….

Sephora, on the other hand made the focus on the brands they carry. The content was clearly labeled with a brand name below the Pin…

So, as a viewer I can be quickly scrolling threw their boards, see a brand I like and click through to shop or learn more. Visually I am less likely to feel like I am looking at advertisements because each pin tells an individual story and differs from all those around. While users may not instantly know they are looking at Sephoras board… we will all end up at their site when we see a brand we like. Their boards kept me scrolling, looking, pinning and wanting!

Instagram

Instagram. An influencers dream platform, especially beauty gurus and users (like me) seem to flock to this site to look for the latest trends and looks. Sephora seems to have the edge on this platform with an impressive 19.4 million followers and over 6,000 posts made while Ulta has 9 million followers, and just under 4,000 posts. Both brands offer users to shop their posts and also have links to their e-commerce sites in their bios. Both brands reach a large audience with almost every post made… Sephora seems to reach 100,000 – 300,000+ likes consistently while Ulta ranges between 10,000 and 50,000 for a large number of posts.

Also, worth noting is the fact that in contrast to Pinterest- The two companies actually have very similar visuals…. Pastels, clean layouts and focus on the product. Videos are more numerous within Sephora’s posts, while Giveaways and Promotions are offered more on Ulta’s site. In this sense, I feel that both brands are fairly competitive on Instagram. I spent a similar amount of time looking through content, liking and sharing.

Both companies are successful on these two visually driven platforms, at the end of the day- if Ulta had focused on more casual content for Pinterest I would have felt that there was more engagement with users. I will continue my research on how they utilize more sites for future posts! Thank you all!

Many of us may not remember Orkut (I admit I do not recall this platform at all) which was a high prestige social media platform. Membership is by invitation only. Google had created an innovative application that allowed users who were well connected in the technology realm to connect with people they knew, and also people they admired. When the app launched in 2004 there was already many users that were eager to try the platform solely due to Google having a strong reputation. The company was able to attract attention to this launch by already having succesful marketing strategies for the search engine, Google.com.

Though it was created to be similar to other platforms already on the market, it was mainly designed around the concept of creating communities and making them searchable by keywords, titles, description and even thorough fellow users’ memberships. Within 4 months of Orkut’s launch there were already over 50,000 established communities, and within only one year of that a whopping 1,500,000 communities! Now, from what I have heard many of the communities were created to help find old classmates and friends- this was done by creating communities built around specific schools, cities, workplaces and even narrowed down to residential street groups- just type in information and get connected!

A Company that Wants to Protect Our Privacy? Why did it Shut Down!

For me, the interesting thing about this platform (since it was created particularly close to still popular Facebook) is that user safety and privacy concerns were the actual first priority for the creators of Orkut when working on the app. I don’t recall another time that I have read those words from a social media company before! Facebook’s entire existence seems to be littered with huge safety and privacy concerns- and I recall more than once seeing a story that had Facebook having to do crazy damage control- yet, no actual permanent fix was ever offered to prevent more issues for it’s users! The fact that Orkut’s marketing strategy focused on this issue from the beginning makes me wish we were using Orkut instead of Facebook!

Branded Community – Promoting Products Between Users

On top of connecting people and forming communities, Orkut also allowed users to make product and service recommendations within group memberships. This is an excellent way for marketers to be able to strategize- I could see entire communities being created by a team as to build brand awareness within them. Users could have discussions built around brands, products and services with other users interested in the same things! To me this gave the brand some control over the conversation, and they could strategize to turn negative conversation to positive- this would create trust in the company.

In the End, Technology Wins

Even though the memberships reached 30 million in it’s prime, Orkut shut down in 2014 because their fans had moved on towards platforms that were able to fill their need of searching communities while also offering cross- platform based content. They also had issues keeping up with the actual demand of the site and this caused inconvenient lags in the website, blockages, allowing a limited number of friends per user and issues with uploading and sharing photos! Fans started to grow frustrated with the stagnant technology- and user numbers cut so low Orkut could no longer stay active.

I really think if Orkut had found a way to stay competitive within their technology, continued to innovate and create changes to the platform and kept the security and privacy issues a main focus we would still be using Orkut today. With all the issues Facebook as faced, PR nightmares and failed strategies- we could possibly have lived in a world where Facebook fell flat and Orkut going towards public trading!

The story of successful social media platform Weixin

I thought this year would be different. I thought I could master the art of multi-tasking and complete my Christmas shopping quickly and mostly pain free. Well, maybe next year- since I had to sit and flip back and forth between my text messages (you know, “what size does Luke where for PJ’s!?” “What is Lucy’s favorite color, again!?”); emails to check for Promo codes; flip back to texts when my sister replies- and then remember which stores app I was on to go back and put those PJ’s in the cart! It’s not easy trying to get things done quickly on my phone…. Well, three weeks in to trying and I have 1 person (almost) off my list…

All of this chaos makes me wonder why, with all the advances in technology, and all of the marketing companies watching many of my habits while using apps on my phone, am I not able to do everything with-in one application!? I have recently researched a company who seems to have made their success by building Weixin, “WeChat”- a Chinese social media platform that allows users to do literally everything right from their phone and in the same app! How did they find success!?

Target Smart Phone Users and Learn Their Every Whim

What I find interesting about this concept is the amount of research it has to take to truly understand their audience enough to be successful. The company started it’s thorough approach by targeting young, urban smart phone users and following their daily habits closely- search habits, purchases, messaging and even services they order (the company found requesting a taxi to be popular among users). The developers ran with any and all trends they noticed to add features to this platform- and the more they learned, the more the app’s following grew and grew! It’s like they created the platform to specifically fit into each individuals life.

I mean, I understand our privacy rights as a social media user- but, I have come to accept that if I knowingly use a company app and provide my information, they will most likely use it to better my experience. Because of the information gathered by Weixin they have created an app that allows an audience to do almost anything without ever leaving the app. All of the things I think about while losing my Christmas shopping battle:

Texting, sending photos and links, shop on online stores directly through app (and with the Weixin Pay feature), call a cab while messaging friends. It’s so convenient to think about quickly completing tasks while sitting in a cab on the way to a work meeting, or family dinner- and only having one application open!

Another way Weixin proves they truly understand their audience- Continuously introducing new functions within the app, campaigns to keep their products and services in front of the user and creating a change in behavior for those using the platform everyday! The new functions makes me realize how easily we become bored with technology- and how right now I think this is a brilliant app, when I know a week after using it, I would sit there thinking, I should be able to do this and not have to do it that way!

We are ever evolving. Over a long period of time, and mores than ever- every second of every single day. Our needs are fluid, meaning we constantly seek for ways to make our ever hectic lives a bit more organized, and with that a company needs to be able to read what we will need next. Wexin has shown this to be a successful approach to social media.

A cyberactisim meme goes viral but misses mark on providing breast cancer awareness… and leaves many confused

Breast Cancer. When I think about this disease, and all that are (directly or indirectly) affected by the havoc it creates, I feel as though it could be explained in 3 degrees of separation- unfortunately- every human is in some way connected to this illness. I know I have lived in the same area my entire life and could create a list that sprawls for pages and pages of peers that have, at some point, shared a story of survival, hope, fear, grief or other emotions directly connected with this disease. If I could do that, it blows my mind to think of how many more would be on the list of people that have moved to different areas through out their lives.

Breast Cancer Awareness. Even though this disease is common (in men AND women)- we often miss signs within ourselves that could lead to early detection, less mortality rates and many more survivors.

In the U.S. we even have an entire month to focus on creating awareness, not only for those who have been diagnosed, but also for those who have a loved one affected by breast cancer. October brings with it hundreds of memes, campaigns and other content thoughout social media to shine a light on this horrific disease; help aid in the prevention and cure for Breast Cancer- but are they all effective in helping the cause? Do memes really drive change and awareness? If not, where do they fall short?

State Your Bra Color on Facebook to Help [What] Cause?

With the most powerful form of social media mobilization being cyberactivism, efforts to create a campaign often payoff with the messages going viral. This powerful vehicle is driven by an audience that seems to want to be associated with charity- whether through simply “liking” a page to show support or sharing an experience of volunteering for a paticular causes event or center- people want to be known as supportive.

This is one of the many reasons cuase and charity marketers want to ensure their media messages encourage actual behavior change. In 2010, an apparent effort was made to spread breast cancer awareness on Facebook- though many users never quite caught on to exactly what was happening to their friends status updates:

I never even noticed this taking off with my facebook friends, so I already don’t think it was effective. It was a simple enough idea- a private message would be sent to women and ask them to change their profile status to reflect “Name, Color of bra you have on right now” and nothing else. This message also advised users to NOT tell anyone what it means- and this would help create awareness about breast cancer- also, it would confuse men!

I have found that this whole- viral- idea was actually found to be a guerilla campaign. Many of the large names in breast cancer awareness said they did not create the meme; Susan G. Komen Foundation said they noticed a peak of interest and contribution during this meme’s populartity, but other organizations did not see anything.

Also, breastcancer.org made mention that they didn’t notice any educational or monetary follow up linked with this viral campaign- it seemed just to be another viral “fun” activity.

So, couple of things about this right from the message received with the task include:

• HOW would this create awareness if NO ONE is to tell their friends WHY they are changing their status’ to simply state the mentioned statement!?

• YES, I think that men would be confused… but, then again I would have been too!!!
• FUN- this may be the only message I take away from this whole meme… not a single bit of awareness… not a single idea of WHAT CAUSE these posts would be promoting!

Instead of a Secret Status Update- How About Actual Awareness!

I know I want to learn about causes before I get involved, donate or volunteer- So, having a viral meme stand out to me would definitely make me want to learn more about their endeavors- So, if this was a true breast cancer awareness campaign…. why is nothing linked to any of the content??

Another way would be to create a meme similar to what was launched, but have the status update read something, like-

• Share a link and photo attached to spread awareness about yearly self- checks for breast cancer
• Share the name of a fighter, survivor or a memory of a loved one lost- and even what you know about breast cancer awareness
• Share this Video- every share donates $1 to the following cause

I would agree with Marie Claire’s article when I say, even having a company promise a small donation… even $1 dollar to an organization, (such as) Casting for Recovery, per status update would be a big step. This would help grow the awareness of a great charitable organization by giving links to their site for more information.

I will end on this note- Women and men alike are susceptible to getting the diagnosis of breast cancer- We need awareness to help conversations start, and continue between us all in order to save more lives. One particular organization I have followed for a few years now, and hope to get involved with in the near future is Casting for Recovery… an amazing organization that helps so many with breast cancer learn to heal through fly- fishing.

Here is a great story of a retreat to show what this cause is doing to change the path for fighters and survivors…

Let’s create more CHANGE with our campaigns!

You all Thready for this? Don’t be Spoolish.

– Amy Poehler & Nick Offerman “Making It”

Here we are, my first blog post- Stay tuned as I am finishing up my site and will be launching it soon!