Viral/Online Marketing Class Response

In class, we talked about the differences between viral marketing online as compared to traditional marketing. Online marketing, in my own words, is a strategy used to gain an online following, as well as, to promote a message/product on the internet. There were five key factors that made viral marketing successful. Those included: Interesting Appeal, Accessibility, Engagement (MAIN model - Modality, Agent (source of info), Interactivity, and Navigational Function), Promotion giveaway, and not awkwardness. We also explained that online marketing used word-of-mouth, but in internet terms, meaning that social media sharing is the equivalent of re-telling a message to a friend in traditional marketing.

Traditional marketing still has it's place.. billboards on highways, concert flyers around local business, and giant posters on sides of city buildings, however, advertisements typically contain something like "Find us on Facebook and Twitter or #Example." This shows that the integration and switch to online marketing will probably dominate markets eventually. There is even electronic billboards now so the possibilities continue to be discovered.

Online marketing is able to increase exposure and influence more than traditional media. It's a great opportunity to get your product out, but comes with many cons too. For instance, now you can trending one hour but something else the next hour. Also, more personal information can be exploited as we all subscribe to the system. Other countries and Apps have been known to use information or your pictures in countries advertisements overseas. We all run the risk of being exploited under the online marketing industry.

Response to RIP: A Remix Manifesto - Girl Talk Documentary

Prior to the Girl Talk documentary, we discussed, as a class, the concept of fair use and transformative use within intellectual property. I found it interesting that fair use is a subset of free speech that allows for reproduction of material under critical comment and parodies. My first impression of Girl Talk was that the music was not my style but I can understand why people want to hear all their favorite songs mixed together. As a musician, I feel that artists must have some protections in order to make a living, however, we can see that record labels are the middle man between artists and society, therefore destroying the artists pay.

I think that the documentary has a point, such in the case of Radiohead, that music should be controlled by the people who make it and there should be shorter copyright rights in order to push forth creativity and innovation. It’s very disheartening to think that bio-medical research innovation cannot push forth due to its own field’s copyright restrictions. In the case of music, film, and other types of art, we should be able to collaborate and explore new possibilities. We can see that the status quo right now is not solving for this matter and rather pushing people to work around the system or to accept unreasonable penalties.

It is true, “the past always tries to control the future.” Hell, the KKK wanted to control the future, Hitler wanted to control the future, Kim Jong-Un wants to control the future, and they all failed or are failing at it. There are innumerable instances of failed attempts to control by our government in our history. These are signs we need to change. Life plus seventy years for a copyright sounds more like a jail sentence than a government regulation for the betterment of artists; not surprisingly, that’s how it basically functions; it takes creativity and locks it up continuously in order to control the minds of society and does this by controlling their pockets. This abusive relationship with society and government needs to stop. I say, thank god for the people who have risked everything for these types of films because these messages are the only way to really check government and big corporation’s actions. 

A discussion of Interactivity and Web Design

As we study interactivity and how it relates to website design in our class I recommend checking out this supplementary article.
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/05/20/new-web-trends-immersive-interaction-design/

This article explains what interactive elements do for a website and argues that they are helpful in the process of website design. The author suggests that interactive elements function to: accomplish a task, connect elements, make an adjustment, change a state, or allow a unique data interaction. The argument develops by stating that interactivity follows a process that begins with a "call-to-action from a user, rules for engagement as determined by the interface (what will happen and how), feedback from the user (did it work or not) and patterns or loops (does the action happen once or repeat on a schedule)." 

This relates to our class lectures of Internet Communication because it shows that media richness and interactivity work together to enhance a websites credibility, it's attitude, and it's information (Lu et al 43). In one of our class readings it deems that media richness is dependent on the ability to communicate with "face-to-face communication being the richest, threaded discussion being leanest. According to his argument, richer media contains more communication modes and social visual cues (e.g., gestures or immediate feedbacks) while less rich media have less cues or capacity to facilitate communication" (Lu et al 41).

Specifically, the article I have linked, connects to the idea of communication and the need for feedback on websites. Media richness and interactive elements serve the web audience so that they can participate in the website through those immediate visual cues of change. They serve to both recognize the audience and to aid the consumer in the service of the website. Websites now and in the future serve to accomplish more actions. For instance, back in 1995, one may only have been able to look up a website and see pictures and call a company for their service. Now you can live chat, make and monitor your account with them in real time, take 3-D tours, watch video of their services, etc.

This leads to my discussion of measuring interactivity. Our class article from Karimova states that interactivity cannot be measured because it is relative, defined in many ways, and hard to observe under said definitions. There is notion, however, in the article that states one way to measure interactivity is by a system of checks and balances. So what this means is that we can monitor a change on a website or a time when something is unbalanced and balanced in some process or cycle.

The speed at which this happens can be defined as interactivity or we can take the Bakhtinian point of view that says that everything is always "in a state of becoming, unbalanced...Therefore, the system is always in a state of interaction" (Karimova 299). So this dialogue or relation is the easiest way to measure interactivity but it may not be crucial for us to measure but rather to find more ways to promote audience and website relationships.

Information and Networks Response

The network law I agree with most is Sarnoff’s law, which states, "the value of a broadcast network is directly proportional to the number of viewers.” I agree with this law the most because I see its evidence in YouTube videos. For instance, when you upload a video and it gets 500 views, its worth is only a little and will not get as many promotional opportunities as someone who gets over a billion views. Essentially your broadcast’s monetary and social value is equivalent to the number of views you receive. For instance, “Gangnam Style” received roughly 900 million views but made Psy only $870,000 (Thompson n.p.). This is still a lot of money but really only $0.00096 cents a view. Therefore, a video with only 500 views would only be worth $0.48 total.

In five years from now, I predict that people will get their information from the same platforms as today. These will primarily be major news websites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other apps. We are starting to however see the internet of things rise. I predict that more appliances, electronics, and such will have integrated voice-response search browsers. Our fridges will keep track of items missing, our trashcans will be able to maximize space efficiency, our cars will drive themselves without error, etc. This will continue to grow alongside with artificial intelligence development. We may even see holographic Skype to mimic the idea of teleportation, until it is available, which may be centuries from now. Everything is headed towards convenience and efficiency, so that is why I think the internet of things will be our next technological step. Every few years we see new video game consoles come out, new phones debut, and every year electronics dominate the sales on Black Friday. Technology is here to stay and I predict it will take over more of our lives, despite the loneliness we feel from the disconnect, because of its addictive nature.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/how-much-are-1-billion-youtube-hits-worth-only-870-000-just-ask-psy/266020/

"Can't touch this..."

                                             Now I have a place to post my gif... Also, check out my old YouTube vidyas!

"Generation Like" - PBS Film Class Assignment #1

1.             Engagement – people coming back to your information and showing that they are interested in being part of some product, brand, or celebrity. The film says gives the example that engagement is a way to take something you like and apply it as “part of your identity” and that “you are what you like.” The film also says that “companies have spent billions trying to get kids to engage with their products and brands…the companies that know they want to reach them know they have to change too”

Interaction - I define this as the way people respond to your information via digital platform. For instance in the film, “Generation Like,” the young girl’s twitter response and reaction to a reply from an actor from "The Hunger Games’ actor is considered interaction.

Reach – The number of people that see your information whether they want to or not. For example let's examine the fan-girl of "The Hunger Games." She gained followers by liking something from "The Hunger Games" and then those followers of "The Hunger Games" noticing she was getting liked back and they decided to start following her. It therefore, expanded her reach.

Target – Companies or teens target themselves or people like them. For instance, the company in the film targets certain audiences through data collection in order to achieve more and loyal viewers.

2. “Generation Like” explains that “Like”ing someone’s post on Facebook is a form of social currency. The more likes we get the better we feel. It holds value to get likes, both as a means of fame and of endorsement perks through advertisements and promotions. I feel that “Like”ing someone’s post on Facebook or other social media can be both good and bad. In my opinion, “Like”ing a post creates a form of competition between others. Sometimes we like things genuinely but sometimes we feel socially obligated to like something whether we want to or not. A good example is “liking” everyone’s birthday posts to you.

3. When I see people like the same things as me on their profile, I generally have a more positive impression of them. As biased as this may seem, I always found it hard to relate to other kids interests growing up and therefore it matters more to me that we have multiple things in common since it is so rare. Towards advertising, I think seeing what other people like influences me to check out events and videos but not so much sales and discounts.

4. Influencer – A good example in the film of this definition is the quote, “They tell the world what they think is cool.” This means that teens tell each other what influences them and therefore influence other teens to like the same things too by sharing and promoting product information.

5. By embracing same-sex marriage, Oreo was able to gain more publicity and support for their product. They recognized that they needed to stay relevant with the changing youth. By gaining the support of the LGBT community Oreo was able to market to both new and old customers and make strong supporters of Oreo products. Oreo also used consumers to market its product as well. Specifically it was said by CEO of Oreo in the film, “If kids want to express themselves by advertising his company’s products, like Oreo cookies, he’s happy to oblige.”

6. The process of advertisement through social media all starts with a like. The more visits or likes you get, the more advertisements people see, which means the more they click on them, and the more they buy the company’s products or give you their information to sell, and therefore social currency gets turned into real life currency. This all starts by handing over some sort of data.

7. Marketers are using social media combined with internet celebrities to build ‘brand’ trust. Then celebrities are collaborating over videos to bring more trusting viewers to a new idea or product.

8. Celebrities use social media to advertise through the power of mashing culture and commerce. They appeal to their audience through their popularity. Thus, followers will believe them based he their online relationship and buy or check out the promoted product.

9. Corporate sponsorship is when you get enough likes or followers that a company recognizes your ability to sell and therefore hire you as a corporate sponsor. As a perk, they give you free stuff as long as you promote it on your channel to your viewers.

10. The interactions are transparent because they are obviously using their audience to advertise. The marketers act invisibly, however, by showing that they are being open to customers and by establishing brand trust.  Specifically the transparency is modeled in the film when they say, “your consumer is your marketer.”

11. In "The Hunger Games", competitors must sell themselves to get a sponsorship. This is similar to advertising products or yourself in real life because you have to be interesting, like-able, and useful. 

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