Social media is today’s most transparent, engaging
and interactive form of public relations. In today’s society social media is
the shift of how we get our information and what is happening around the world,
it allows us to find people with the same interests and connect and share
content with individuals. Social media is crucial in today’s society; it
flattens out the world and gives us access to people that we would never have
met otherwise. Within our group we chose Starbucks and the hashtag #redcupselfie
as our creative campaign. The combination of social media and Starbucks fit
perfectly as they are both associated with a younger up and coming audience
that are present with the use of social media. The iconic snaps of the
Starbucks drink are uploaded to Instagram daily featuring the hashtag of
#redcups to show the festive drinks. Our creative idea was to change the
traditional hashtag into #redcupselfie; we thought that this hashtag would be
very successful on Twitter and Instagram as selfies have become a popular and
iconic way of representing yourself on social media. Therefore, by
incorporating the red cups and a selfie together in one picture it would have a
bigger impact on audiences into purchasing the festive drink as individuals who
have interest in both social media and Starbucks will want to follow the trend
and hashtag their own festive drink onto their social media page.
The creative ideas that we have chosen for
our campaign suit our chosen digital platform as using a hashtag is a current
activity that millions of people on social media are using. By encouraging
people to use the hashtag ‘redcupselfie’, it can help get Starbucks’ new
festive drinks get trending all around the world as people are connected
globally via social media. These trends help bring people together as people
can view other peoples red cup selfies via the hashtag and this promotes
Starbucks as it will appear on ‘current trends’.
Another form of social media that we will
be using for our digital platform is Snapchat. Snapchat often do live stories
of events where the public can add their own snaps to a global story which
everyone can view. We will use a live story called ‘redcupselfie’ where Snapchat-users
can take their own selfie with their festive drinks and upload it for everyone
to see. This is ideal for social media because Snapchat is an extremely popular
social platform and therefore this will help spread the word for Starbucks.
We expect our target audience to respond in
a positive way and become excited about the new selfie trend that we have
introduced. Starbucks’ festive drinks are also a campaign that the public look
forward to every year, so joining the idea of the drinks and the selfie
together, which is also a current trending activity, will hopefully elicit a
global buzz. This response will then boost Starbucks’ sales as people will want
to join in the trend and try out the new flavours.
Social Media is crucial in our everyday lives, technology is ever
changing, and it is our job to adapt to the new customs of society. Would you
believe that 62% of the entire adult population is using Facebook?( Meltwater,
2015: Online) And that 50% of technology companies say that they have got hold
of their customers through twitter- that’s crazy right? (Help Scout, No Date:
Online)
Many people judge social media to be a lifestyle, a way to
illustrate their creativity and the freedom to say/do whatever they please.
Well that’s precisely it, according to the Oxford dictionary social media is
websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to
participate in social networking (Oxford Dictionary, No date: Online).
As an agency we have come up with four top techniques that
we employ when using social media:
oChoose the RIGHT social media site:
To ensure the best results it is crucial to chose the most
suitable platforms for the business or product, some sites are more appropriate
for certain areas of content and different targets markets. For instance Twitter is a suitable website
for creating media hype, and advertising your business’ upcoming events. Using
hash tags allows Twitter viewers to see what is trending regarding your
business and enables new potential clients from around the world to view your
business’ posts.
oUse VIDEOS and IMAGES
Today’s society
is very visual and as a whole, pictures are definitely more appealing than a
large piece of text, 40% of people will respond better to visual information
than plain text (Sibling, Amanda, 2014: Online). With that in mind, it is
advisable to use a specific social media, like Instagram, which focuses on
visual aids like photos and videos. A company which takes advantage of
Instagram is Adidas, their posts are quirky and immediately attention-grabbing,
and this not only catches the fancy of consumers but also gives Adidas a
certain edge over their competitors.
oSCHEDULE your posts correctly, be CONSISTENT
The timings of when you post can play a huge part in
the success of a post. If you post in a ‘hot spot’ period, it is more probable
that the post will receive a better reception; on the opposite end of the
spectrum if you post in a period where most users are inactive there will be
less of an effect- pretty simple! An
example of a ‘hot spot’ period would be between 1-6pm, and the most useless
times to post are evidently when people are sleeping, between 12-8am (Social
Media Marketing, No date; Online). Consistency is key, there are millions of
people posting simultaneously therefore it is vital to ensure that your post is
not forgotten about.
oENGAGE with your audience
Connecting with your viewers is a very important aspect
of social networking; social media offers the opportunity to turn a
professional relationship between consumers and businesses into something
personal and somewhat special. An exemplar case study of this would be
Benefit’s ‘#realsies’ campaign, the idea in a nutshell; real people wearing the
brands mascara would upload a picture on Instagram with the hash tag #realsies.
In total a whopping 11,900 selfies were submitted, Benefit then created a
mosaic of all the photos for the “they’re real” product page.
ADVANTAGES
+ CRITIQUES
Social media has become a global phenomenon, and as an agency
we believe every brand/business should grasp the many opportunities social
media offers. Due to the worldwide connectivity of social media it offers your
company the chance to increase your brand visibility, which is especially
important in drawing in and retaining new and potential clients.
However if social media is misused it can have some damaging
effects. Ineffective use of social media would involve, for example, failing to
engage to negative customer feedback which could expose or damage your
reputation. Nevertheless with effective and immediate action it is easy to
respond effectively to criticism and feedback, (besides with our agency your
businesses social media would never be slacking).
JOHN LEWIS
CHRISTMAS 2015
Social media is a digital platform which is used by a number of large-scale businesses, most famously John Lewis. John Lewis’ Christmas adverts are notorious, the 2015 campaign saw billions of excited viewers counting down the hours till the release of the movie, and the advert broke records with 23,000 mentions in two hours (Daily Mail, 2015; Online).
The advert involves a young girl called Lily. Looking at the
moon through the family telescope one night, she's amazed at what she finds...
a man on the moon.She becomes determined to get something to the moon,
to send him a message and show him that someone down here is thinking of him
(John Lewis, 2015; Online).
John Lewis launched the hash tag- #manonthemoon a week before
the advert was due to release in order to create media hype. After the release,
the hash tag also enabled people to share and give feedback but also gave the
company a chance to promote to potential customers. The video now has over 7.5million views and
112,000 shares just on their verified Facebook page (Facebook, Nov 2015;
Online).
TO
CONCLUDE... as an agency we believe that social media is the most current
and rewarding digital platform around. It is only appropriate, for both an agency and
a company, to keep on trend with current trends and social media is most
certainly a trend which is ever-growing. The benefits unquestionably outweigh
the negatives, these benefits condense into one thought, that social media is
the perfect way to satisfy and connect with existing customers and potential
customers globally. Social media is the
platform for YOUR company.
Words that come to
mind and their Google trend information-
Coffee When coffee is typed up on the
Google trend bar, ‘Starbucks Coffee’ immediately comes up as related searches. The most popular regional interest is Singapore
and Australia with a search volume index of 100, however by town/city the
highest interest is in Portland.
Hot chocolate
The search for hot chocolate
peaks in winter seasons, where most coffee companies release new flavours and
make new advertisements to increase sales. For example in July 2013, there was
only 22% interest in the search ‘hot chocolate’ but in December 2013 it had
100% interest, which is a dramatic increase. Red cups Red cups is an image
that has become associated with Starbucks’ 2015 winter campaign, when searched
into Google trends it shows how this word has had 100% interest this year due
to the campaign. With especial regional interest in the US and Canada. Related
searches are; ‘red cups Starbucks’ and ‘Starbucks cups’
Starbucks
Names Starbucks’ introduced the name personalisation
of a coffee; this trend reached an all-time high in 2014 where it reached 100%
interest compared to 2013 where it had 25%. The only regional interests of this
search was the US, Canada and the UK. Seasonal drinks
Seasonal drinks is not as highly
sought after; however in the winter months, October- January, is when it is
most searched. In December of 2013, it had 43% interest and in December of 2014
it had 95%, also this shows how the brand has increased influence over the
year.
Barista
Related searches to ‘barista’
are ‘barista Starbucks.
