Marketing April 22, 2014

A career in Social Media Marketing

If you’re new to Social Media, first thing you should do is get on Twitter and Facebook. To start with, at least.

There are a lot more platforms out there for you to experience, learn and possibly one day manage for your employer.

Watch some tutorials on how to use these platforms. You will be surprised at how much knowledge there is out there on the web. Once you have gone past the beginner phase of learning the in’s and out’s of each platform, search for programs that help you optimize their use as a social media professional. Such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and understanding Facebook page analytics.

At this point, you should also start looking at companies that are doing amazing work with their social media. Companies that have compelling marketing strategies and have a massive following. One of my favourites is Oreo.

5 Things All Bloggers Should Do On Twitter

When you’re applying to some companies make sure you ask lots of questions during the interview process or dig deep into their job descriptions for hints on what their expectations are. Some companies that don’t really understand the benefits of social media may not have a team or budget in place. This means you will be doing everything from managing their platforms, community, graphics, videos, promotions and more! Their expectations might be high for the type of following they want to see upon hiring you. It will be your job to explain the benefits of promoted tweets, boosting posts and ad’s to gain likes. Especially if people who are looking for your company can’t find their website or even a blog.

Check out the below infographic to getting a job in Social Media. There are some roles missing and the salary may be off for some.

Good luck!

Social Media: Is it plagiarism or is it innovative?

Social Marketing Universe

Marketing March 27, 2014

Twitter: What’s NEW

Just as soon as people started thinking Twitter was behind in its game, news sprouted up from social media channels about Twitter growing. At the moment Twitter has 241 million active users and it hasn’t been growing as fast as Facebook, Vine and YouTube. Time to play catch up?

Here’s a run down of what to expect and what has already popped up in Twitter News:

Last week Twitter rolled out a new platform for hosting video that gives iPhone and Android phone users previews of video clips in their feeds. With a single click you’re able to play the clip. This new feature on Twitter is called in-line video. You can see this feature being used on Vines. Twitter was behind in the video category and it was about time they started focusing on it.

It has been reported that Twitter is experimenting with the capability to see how many people have viewed your tweets, which at the moment only advertisers can see. The view count would be shown underneath each tweet, similar to how Facebook shows the amount of views underneath each Page post. How exciting is that?!

Tweet views will measure the reach of your tweets and help individuals and companies to recognize what they need to do or keep doing in order to get Re-Tweets and Favourites. Lots of views but no engagement says a whole lot to Social Media Managers. Fingers crossed this ‘experiment’ pulls through and every Twitter user can start benefiting from the data.

Twitter has also announced an update to its mobile apps that would give users more options when posting pictures. Many people on Twitter have already called Twitter out as copying Facebook because they changed the famous ‘Re-Tweet’ lingo to ‘Share’. I’m not a fan of changing the Twitter language, especially when so many users have gotten the hang of using RT. It’s one thing to expand, but changing something that isn’t broken. Not cool.

Why did @Twitter take out ‘Retweet’ and put ‘Share tweet’..?

— Orochimaru. (@Mitha07) March 26, 2014

There was another update to twitter mobile apps that would give users more options when posting pictures. One being the ability to tag up to 10 people in photos without lowering the character count within your tweet. Also, users will be able to post up to four photos in a single tweet and join them together like a small collage. Sounds like Instagram to me.

In-line videos, with one click view like Vines, yay or nay? How can ‘tweet views’ help you or your business? Will you use the new picture features?

Beauty March 20, 2014

Pantene Pro-V Product Launch- Hair is what happened..

Let’s face it, we all love our hair and have tried Pantene Pro-V products at least once before.

I’ve tried many brands of hair products, from the high end to the low end and honestly, I believe in changing up your hair products anywhere from 3-6 months. Whether it is a whole new brand or within the brand.

Just like our face and every other part of our body and lives, everything changes over time. I remember about 8 years ago I had really curly wavy hair. I would wash my hair, air dry and POOF! curls and waves galore! Now it’s different. Air drying gets me minimal volume and waves. Just the natural evolution of hair.

Feb 13th, a day before Valentine’s Day, I was invited to the Pantene Pro-V product launch on King street, downtown Toronto to be pampered. If you’re familiar with Toronto you’ll know this venue. Right across from Shoppers Drug Mart at King & Peter and was used for marketing TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival.

Upon entering, I was approached to have my coat taken and my information. Everyone invited, had registered ahead for an allotted time to be treated to their ‘Pantene Beautiful Hair Bar’ services. The venue had a pristine ambiance. Furniture, tables, counters, make-up station and the waiting lounge were all white, to fit the salon look and feel.

Here’s a vine I made on the day of:

While you wait in the lounge, you’re welcomed to do your nails at the nail bar, help yourself to treats and Starbucks hot drinks; all complimentary.

The lounge:

The blow dry bar was set up with 6 stations and had a featured chalkboard wall, where guests left positive, uplifting notes of their beautiful hair experience.

My hairstylist, talented Matthew Lill from Shagg salon in Yorkville styled my hair.
First, he went through a questionnaire to find out what hair solutions I was looking for and then matched my needs to Pantene products. We both agreed that the Ultimate 10 all in one Pantene line was perfect.

My finished look thanks to Matthew was wavy, bouncy curls, all done with a straightener. I loved the result!

The products I went home with:

I’ve been using these products for about a month now to write an honest review and love them!
Here’s a list of the Ultimate 10‘s solutions:

• Repair for Rough Hair
• Strength Against Damage
• Silky Softness
• Brilliant Shine
• Smoothing
• Moisture
• Frizz Control
• Gentle Cleaning
• Manageability
• Detangling

The only solution I’m unsure about is Frizz Control. However, because of our unforgiving cold weather this winter, I suspect nothing would be able to battle the frizz I had to deal with.

Overall, great event and excellent products.

TOP 7 FRAGRANCE FOR MEN AND WOMEN

Marketing March 7, 2014

Women: Social Media Leaders – Why are they on top of the Social industry?

Is it a big surprise that women are social media leaders today?

(P.S Happy International Women’s Day!)

Let me just dive right in. Historically it is proven that women understand emotions and are more nurturing than men. Women are known to have a higher emotional intelligence.

is regarded as a far stronger predictor of success – in work, love and life – than traditional measures of intelligence, with 90% of leadership success being attributed to a high EQ.*

I believe emotional intelligence plays a key role in social interactions. A huge aspect of social media is interacting and engaging with your audience. Emotionally captivating them to continue to follow you on which ever social platform it may be. Women love to nurture relationships and create a strong foundation for a long term relationship. Don’t get me wrong, there are men out there who can do exactly the same thing. But a higher percentage of women can do it better and it comes naturally.

Take a look at the below infographic and tell me what you see from an overall perspective. Do women spend more time leading the social media world than men do?:

Could it be that women love their smartphones and social platforms more than men? The answer is YES. According to research compiled by FinanceOnline, which was taken from PEW, Nielsen, and Burst Media, women run the show when it comes to social media.

The big concern now, is desktop usage is migrating to mobile use. Will men adopt to this change? Well, only time will tell. My solution, as social marketers we should be focused on how we can get men more excited about social. We need to see more studies on what captures their attention and then evolve.

Events February 28, 2014

Wearable Tech in Fashion

Wearable technology has come a long way. There was that brief time in history when some people either didn’t understand bluetooth ear pieces or just simply hated them. I reckon mostly because they thought they were being talked too, but in reality the person was talking into their ear piece. Now technology has evolved into being a part of us.

Now we’ve been seeing technology hit the runways! DVF (Diane von Furstenberg) used the Google glasses to capture the DVF creative process from a different perspective, which was accomplished by having the people involved with the entire process of making the show happen, by wearing Google glasses.

DVF created a short film to show her Fashion Show through the model, stylist and designers eyes via Google glass:

Then there’s the new dress that changes colour depending on a woman’s mood. The Bubelle Dress is made up of two layers, the inner layer contains biometric sensors that pick up a person’s emotions and projects them in colours onto the second layer, the outer textile.

Following the trend that only continues to grow, Social Media Week in New York had Tech In Motion host a Wearable Tech Fashion Show.

To mention a few of the contributors of the show:

Atlas Wearables (Austin): Presenting fitness tracker
Augmate (NYC): Presenting Google Glass and Vuzix m100
BrickSimple (Philly): Presenting Google Glass
Continuum Fashion (NYC): Presenting 3D printed shoes
Everpurse (Chicago): Presenting chargeable clutches
Sensoree (San Fran): Presenting mood clothing

If you missed the Fashion Show you can watch it below via livestream:

The health and fitness market brought out many products that look great when worn. Bands that measure how much you’ve run, check your heart beat or measure your health in various categories.

What will be the next best thing when Fashion and Technology collide? 3D printed clothes, clothes that change based on weather automatically? With imagination and determination, anything is possible.

Check out this infographic for more info about current day wearable tech:

Marketing February 25, 2014

Facebook+Whatsapp sitting in a tree…

Have you heard? Facebook and Whatsapp are getting married

When I first heard about this I wasn’t surprised. I was attending Social Media Week in New York as the SMW Reporter and had been in a seminar with BuzzFeed’s CEO & Founder Jonah Peretti. He was being interviewed by Toby Daniels Founder & Executive Director of Social Media Week.

When Toby asked Jonah about the future of sharing, that was when my ears perked up. Jonah went on to explain that he was starting to notice that their very popular BuzzFeed articles and quizzes were being dark shared and that people were starting to share less on Facebook and more across messaging platforms. Now, when he said this I got excited. It’s so very true. I have numerous amounts of Whatsapp chat groups and know that almost each group has a few shares a day with me. As a matter of fact, I’ve received BuzzFeed quizzes from friends in groups on Whatsapp too. There’s a steady shift between people wanting to share with articles, images etc with the masses to personalized and grouped sharing. Maybe Google was onto something with their Google+ selective group sharing capabilities.

It was all coming together in my head. When Jonah mentioned dark sharing. Many people in the audience at Social Media Week were boggled by the term. Had no idea what it meant. Thank you Toby! He jumped on it and asked Jonah to explain it further.

Dark sharing is a referral source that you see but has no exact source of where that traffic came from. So people who share via Whatsapp, BBM or other messaging services – their shares are not shown to BuzzFeeds analytics team. Right now BuzzFeed see’s that 20% of traffic is dark.

Marketers, advertisers and social media people of the world are thinking the acquisition will bring ads, change the platform, increase the cost of using the service, but no one has thought about behind the scenes benefits for Facebook. It’s the information of sharing that really matters to digital companies right now. That is where the future is.

Did Jonah know something before everyone else? Does he have a crystal ball that showed him the future Facebook acquisition? Or was it possibly an intelligent guess?

Let me know what you think with your comments below.

Events February 20, 2014

SMW NYC Official VIP Opening Party – Hosted by Nokia

To kick off Social Media Week (SMW) in NYC all insiders were invited to attend the opening party. The SMW reporters and I picked up our insider passes ahead of time and had the privilege of getting a glimpse of the venue, Highline Stages. The venue is so fitting for SMW NYC. It has this loft like layout, with exposed brick and wood features. (The interior designer in me wants to elaborate but I’ll stay on topic.)

7pm and the line-up of people to get into the opening party were already getting antsy. So glad the weather wasn’t too bad. I can’t say the same for the reporters who came all the way from Singapore, India and even New Mexico which at this time is 16°! I have way too many -30° wind chill warnings to compare too.

The SMW NYC Reporters & I:

As soon as you enter Highline Stages you’re welcomed by SMW representatives to sign in and then have your picture taken, emailed, shared to social platforms via 3 available tablets and printed! Picture taking couldn’t have been any more interactive.

Okay, where should I start?! There was an abundance of food everywhere. Vendors like Chipotle had tortilla chips with guacamole, other stations had pretzels, Whole Foods had bread with different spreads, candy and Kyotofu Bakery had lots of gluten free desserts. My favourite was the rich and smooth Miso Brownie. It was an open bar for those who wanted to drink. As some of you know I do own a turn table and enjoy mixing beats here and there. Not to brag or anything, but I can definitely recognize a great DJ. We had DJ Mick turning beats for us.

Poppin’ stationary had set up booth there and were giving away bright colored notebooks a long with pens. They set up a colorful photo booth area with some pretty awesome props! Additionally they had a twitter contest for those who tweeted an image of the freebies a long with their hashtag #Workhappypink (depending on which color of stationary you wanted you’d change pink for blue in the hashtag etc) The winner received a full desktop set from poppin’. Then there was Yelp giving out red sunglasses and sweat bands to spread the social cheer along with other brands that gave out freebies as well.

One of my favourites were the #NokiaPods! Brilliant idea of creating these hideaways from noise to charge your phone or take notes from the events. They worked great as working stations during the week.

If you haven’t checked out SMW NYC, you should make your way there tomorrow and catch the last day!

Events February 15, 2014

Social Media Week: SMW Reporter Competition

I’ve been following social media week ever since I attended my first Social Media Week (SMW) event in Toronto at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Yorkville. If you attend the seminars that can benefit you or the company you work for, than you really leave the event with great ideas and with a fresh outlook of what social media can do for you and where it’s going right now.

If you think about it, it’s a brilliant idea! Everyday there’s something new coming out. There’s so much social noise and no one to set the rules and help you understand it all. People new to social media are either looking the other way or just stunned, like a deer caught in the headlights. SMW brings it altogether in informative seminars, interactive workshops and live feeds.

Roughly 2 weeks ago SMW posted on their site and tweeted an opportunity for Social Media fanatics of the world for a chance to win a week-long adventure. They wanted to see how much you can do with only a few seconds of video on Vine, Instagram or YouTube. Three winners would have a chance to be a #SMWReporter in New York City! Even better, since Nokia is sponsoring SMW NYC, we’ll be bringing you the news with the awesome Nokia 1020. 41MP *drool*

Competing against the whole world I didn’t think I had a chance, but I did it because I enjoyed the challenge. After all, Vine, Instagram and YouTube are supposed to be fun. And that’s it. I had a lot of fun coming up with the story and compiling it together for one submission.

My take was that Social Media is EVERYWHERE. I found it everywhere I went. In the few days that I had, I tweeted different Vines of where I was finding SMW and on the last day put them together to tell the whole story on YouTube. Here’s the story:

UPDATE: I won the competition and I can’t wait to attend SMW NYC!
Check out Nicky Yates post about the SMW Reporter winners: here.

Follow the hashtag #SMWReporter on Twitter, Vine & Instagram to keep up with our live updates from the event. Those of you who are attending, see you there!

Follow up video of SMW 2014:

Marketing January 16, 2014

Instagram for beginners: How To

You’ve decided to jump on the Instagram bandwagon and don’t know where to start. You’re wondering alright, another application to add to the rest. I’m sure you’ve come across at least one Insta picture without actually downloading the app or even knowing it. It’s everywhere!

Your Instagram account can be whatever you want it to be.

Just put in thought to your posts and you’ll see your followers grow. If you’re not sure what to post on Instagram, try doing A/B testing. Post different pictures and see what your fans prefer. Whichever images get the most likes, that is your category to target.

Keep in mind not everyone on Instagram has the goal to gain followers or likes. Some are on Instagram to promote their products, brand, post their opinions, speak out for a cause or a place to be recognized for their awesome food pictures. What ever it may be, you’ll need to know how to use this application. Check out the below youtube tutorials. On a side note I finished recording these videos right before the Instagram update. So add this to your learnings from the videos:

Instagram direct is Instagram’s new update. It allows you to choose if you want to share your photo with all your followers or just a few. Click on the “Direct” tab, and select the followers you would like to share them with. The picture will not show up in your public feed, and just the users you selected will be able to see your photo.

Marketing January 14, 2014

Social Marketing Universe

Have you thought about your social marketing strategy for 2014?

Be the master of your social universe. Right now the social marketing universe is expanding at an overwhelming rate. New networks are sprouting regularly. I bet you didn’t know about Jelly. The technology that ties them together also continues to advance. With its advancement comes great opportunities.

Those who are intimidated by it all will be tempted to avoid learning. The social followers will dive in headfirst and fail. Somewhere in between are the curious souls who do their research on how to master the social networks that their customers are on. That could be YOU!

Some people think all you need is a Twitter account, or a Facebook community/business page. Reality is social is a lot more than just one platform. In order to gain success in the social marketing universe, you need to be involved in more then one platform. The more platforms you’ve dipped into, the better. Not to be confused with making accounts on different social platforms and just leaving them bare. You need activity on all of your platforms. It’s easier than you think. Upon hearing this most people get scared and think “oh my goodness, ain’t nobody got time for that“.

The trick is, use one platform as your hub station for the social universe you’ll be creating. I recommend a website or a blog.
Whenever you create a new post or put up something on your website, use tweetdeck, hoot suite, or manual copy and paste to post it to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whichever platforms you’re using. The point is, it’s all got to come back somewhere that has MORE content and information for your customers/fans/followers to engage with.

If you look at the social universe from this angle, you’ll be on your way to increasing your social network:

Foundation of your social community: Website/Blog
Social pushers of your content: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Visual stations: Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest and Flickr

(you don’t need to be set up with all of these platforms, as some are very similar)

Increase your social network with solid information and engaging content. If you can’t manage and differentiate the use of all of your social platforms then it would be best to start with less and do your best. Less posts but amazing content is better than more useless posts and crappy content. Check out the infographic below:

Join me on Twitter with hashtag #SMXChat on Tuesdays at 3pm EST.