Who will win the social media battle?

24

September

2013

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Is it going to be Adidas or Nike? The two giant companies have been in rival since many years. We can see that Nike is a larger company in terms of revenues, but what strategy will Adidas follow to change that? The will take advantage of the social media of course!

Adidas has invested a lot on social networks, and especially on Facebook. They try to introduce new ways of attracting customers, for example, in 2012, Adidas made a tour within the Netherlands with 3 famous Dutch football players. The trick here was that some hours before they visit each city, they were announcing the event on Facebook and Twitter. The result was magnificent. Thousands of people showed and enjoyed the football event Adidas made while they had the opportunity to win a lot of special prizes. Obviously, that did not happen only in The Netherlands but also in other European countries like Italy. A solid proof that social media strategy can work.

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But what will follow shortly? The world cup of 2014 is approaching. The event where athletic companies are making most of their money, after the Olympic games. Adidas has a competitive advantage here, since it is the official sponsor of the world cup. How will Nike respond?
Already they prepare new football gear, which is mostly advertised through social networks, and at both companies, from the likes and re-tweets, it is obvious that marketing mainly through social media has a serious impact and response.

Sources: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/adidas-eyes-brazil-2014-as-next-social-media-battleground-with-nike/4006846.article

http://www.allanalytics.com/author.asp?section_id=2220&doc_id=260051

http://rickmulready.com/adidas-social-media/

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How are airlines using their social media strategy?

19

September

2013

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Since the fast growing of social networks, many businesses across the world seemed interesting on a marketing strategy solely based on social media. Particularly Airlines seem to be the segment that uses social media as a primary marketing approach. KLM, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue etc.  are active on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest,  Google+, YouTube and they interact directly with most of the customers while they also do small competitions and quizzes and give the opportunity to random customers win a special prize. These new innovations are playing a big role on the spread of the new marketing strategy. Specifically, KLM has over 4 million likes on Facebook while the crown of Twitter is possessed by JetBlue which is approaching 2 million followers.

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One of the reasons that the social media strategy is more successful than the common online marketing is due to its impact. To be clear, when you see an Airline countless times a day in your social media pages, you will visit their website and probably book some tickets as well. Besides,  the relationship that is created between the marketing management and the customers has a personal touch. Customer service is not so cold and slow as before, now you can interact with them through comments in Facebook, only some minutes after your tweet.

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To conclude, marketing through social media in the airline industry has proven to be really successful. It is widespread, penetrates all layers of a society and most important, it is the cheapest way to be close to customers. Unfortunately, not all airlines have noticed that yet, Delta and United Airlines are way back on social media marketing.

Sources: http://www.chiefmarketer.com/promotional-marketing/american-airlines-marketer-on-ramping-up-social-media-12062013

http://www.brandignity.com/2011/06/airlines-social-media/

http://airtravel.about.com/od/airlines/tp/Top-10-Airline-Pages-On-Twitter-Social-Media-And-Twittering-Airlines.htm

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Are social networking sites addictive?

18

September

2013

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What do you think? Would you be able to delete Facebook for a week or log in only once in a day? As I see it, no. Social networks have replaced many activities from the past. Our smartphones have completely replaced the core functions of a normal cell phone. Nowadays, we do not send SMS messages anymore, we just send a personal message on Facebook, most of the times we try to call someone with Skype or Viber and we do not distribute flyers for a party, we just create an event on Facebook.

America’s first hospital-based “internet addiction” program at Regional Medical Center in Pennsylvania states that every year there are more and more people who register for their rehab package. In mainland China, Facebook is blocked since 2008, while the next year it was Twitter’s turn due to the fact that China faced the most problems with internet and social networks addiction. Individuals in Australia faced also social media obsession, as can be seen from the picture below.

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But what are the signs of Internet addiction? If you start losing sleep because you feel it is urgent to check all new updates, you should start feeling worried about it. According to Diana Bocco, a reason we spent a lot of time in social networks is because they are casual, they provide relaxed ways of exchanging information, and it is hard to keep up with all of your 2000 friends. Information flows nonstop.
Joining a social network site can be fun, but we should not forget that being social in our ‘real’ life is far more important that on the web. 

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Sources:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/information/social-networking-sites-addictive.htm
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/what-makes-networking-sites-addictive

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Summary of homework on Social Commerce

12

September

2013

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Every year the trend of social media is rising. Almost a decade after the first social media platform, a new concept was introduced. Social commerce. It is e-commerce’s backbone and was presented after the extensive use of social media, especially through Facebook and Twitter. The sources I found gave me a better overview of the social digital area, by providing me with information about the technical and social background that are needed in order for social commerce to run smoothly.  Furthermore, I was impressed by the amount and size of firms that are engaged in social commerce and by their strategies too, due to the fact that they were the first in the field and they had to develop pioneer approaches. In addition, social experience of each company is crucial to attract potential customers in order to make them continue using your website and having a good relationship quality. Social commerce is the future to our online shopping. Without that complex grid in the virtual worlds, social commerce would not be able to be functional. We should see it as the evolution of e-commerce and not as a concept that is completely new. 

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