Tara Hall Social Marketing

Tara Hall, the account supervisor for Weber Shandwick, came to our class to talk about her career and where social marketing has been and what lies in the future. Under Weber Schandwick, Screen Grab was started and led by Hall. Hall manages the Screen Grab practice group from San Francisco to New York with online message marketing, monitors analysis programs and manages blog and pod casts.

Hall told the class that we were lucky because there are lots of different avenues we can work within social media now because new technologies are emerging daily. Hall informed us that youth market is dominating, so if you want to target a young audience, social marketing is the way to do it.

Because space is so changing and constantly adding something new, there is always a challenge finding people who really understand the space of pod casting and blogging. Public Relations firms are looking for people like us who are being exposed to and understand what is new in technology.

Clients:
American Airlines, Exxon Mobil, Coca Cola, Walt Disney, Mastercard, Hersheys, Susan G. Komen and Energizer.

Some Facts:
18-29 is the age group that is online the most
60 percent of Americans access broadband at home
72 percent of wireless Internet users check email on a typical day

Hall mentioned that the Internet is growing faster than other media networks and that Internet users are spending less time with traditional media. With that said, people are currently trying to figure out the best way to pod cast and the idea is still going forward. She warned us to make sure pod casts give an incentive to make people come back and want more because this is the only way it will work.

Hall finished her presentation with a tip for the class. She encouraged us to get engaged in the blogosphere within industry’s we are interested in and to start participating in their blogs within the company and people will notice and respect that.

Nordstrom.com's Successful Launch

Nordstrom, one of the nation’s largest upscale apparel and shoe retailers, hired Conners Communications to help launch Nordstrom.com summer of 1999. Nordstrom’s goal for launching Nordstrom.com was to capitalize on the brand and communicate with loyal, existing customers while gaining the interest of new, younger, hip customers by the internet. Customers had high expectations and quality with Nordstrom, but customer base had not grown for a couple years.

A second goal for Nordstrom was to capture a larger audience by successfully positioning Nordstrom as the leader in e-tailing. Creating buzz and excitement around key events such as the launch of Nordstrom.com was the plan for Conners Communications. Conners also formulated messages and a public relations plan that focused on the positive elements of Nordstrom history, for example, the company’s reputation of having incredible customer service.

In result, many top journals and magazines published positive feature articles on Nordstrom.com as well as multiple business publications and newspapers commenting on how Nordstrom.com was one of the most successful launches for an online retailer.

Blogvertising

Blogvertising, otherwise known as blog advertising, represents a potentially huge advertising market and is in fact part of the fastest growing alternative media industry. eMarketer reports a study that blog, podcast and RSS advertising rose by nearly 200 percent in 2005 and is expected to grow another 145 percent in one year to reach nearly $50 million. Blogvertising is growing because there is a perceived ineffectiveness of traditional advertising by the 18-34 year old demographic, the majority of targeted age groups, and blogs reach this younger demographic effectively.

It was recently estimated that podcast advertising will actually be a larger market than blogvertising by 2010. Podcasting, projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 154.4 percent, is predicted to reach a total of $327.0 million by 2010. These numbers are closely in line with eMarketer’s own visions, which put total spending on podcast advertising at a total of $300 million by 2010.

For businesses blogging, there might not be much, if any, interest in putting advertisements on their blogs. However, if you are a small business, you should consider using advertisements to earn a little extra cash because it is predicted to actually work. Most major advertising networks recognize that there are a lot of available blogs out there that have not been tapped by advertisers and that potential real estate blog advertising is going to be the challenge for the future.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=101102
http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/category/blogvertising/

Public Relations - Good or Bad?

Britney Spears recently provides her fans with yet another shock. Flaunting her private parts in public, modeling her poor parenting skills, her disappointing marriage to Kevin Federline, rehabilitation admissions, new tattoos and most recently her shaved head. All of which have given Britney maximum exposure to the media and her fans. Britney, as we all know has been on the cover of numerous magazines in the past couple of years, and not for the good she is doing with the community or even her music, but for the poor decisions she makes. You could ask most of the world what Britney did last week and would have an answer in two seconds, but if you asked those same people what is going on with the war, politics or medicine, blank stares is probably what you would receive. This proves that PR is good PR no matter what. Breaking news these days qualifies as all these things about Britney I listed above, when things that really matter in the world are being placed with less importance, for example war, politics and medicine.

We have all been taught in our communications classes that public relations is all about creating buzz. The definition of creating buzz is basically spreading news by word of mouth and obviously Britney has made that happen. You think this would be a disaster for Britney, but it actually gets people talking about her again even after her music “fell of the face of the earth.” Public Relations professionals would say Britney could possibly still have hope because people are interested in her life now and want to see what will happen in the future.

Check out the YouTube site to see Britney in action!