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Amazon Launches “Handmade At Amazon”

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With handmade items trending in today’s society, it seems like everyone has had their fair share of DIY disasters. Sites like Pinterest have a variety of jewelry, style and decorating ideas that can be hard to resist, but when projects turn out looking nothing like the original, it’s probably best to leave it to the pros. For the past 10 years, Etsy has been the go-to site for these unique items, where creatives can open their own shop to take orders and sell products. Last week, online shopping mogul Amazon launched a new element to their online platform, Handmade At Amazon, which is in direct competition with Etsy.

In a recent SF Gate article, the challenges that will face Etsy because of Handmade At Amazon are contemplated.

Handmade At Amazon currently consists of 80,000 products from 5,000 artisans. In order to sell on the site, artisans, which are determined by having 20 or fewer people working for the shop, have to fill out a questionnaire and be approved by Amazon. Etsy currently has 22 million active users and 1.5 million active sellers and allows for specific products to be made with the help of approved manufacturers.

Amazon also announced that users who have Amazon Prime can utilize the free shipping on the site’s new element as well. This gives Amazon an edge over Etsy. When an Etsy shop owner sells one of their products, they either need to then charge their customer for shipping or pay for it out of their own pocket.

Though Amazon does not allow for outsourced manufacturing for Handmade At Amazon products, Etsy feels that this allows for their marketplace to grow. Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson says that they only allow these manufacturers to be those who align with their values. The site has grown so much, that in order for more growth at Etsy to happen, these outside sources may be necessary to continue at their current rapid rate of growth.

So how can Etsy hold its own against an e-commerce giant? If Etsy sticks to their values and continues to sell unique, well-made products, the company can keep their customer’s allegiance. Individuals who shop on the site value the customer service experience and relationship between buyers and sellers.

Competition is always a great way to see how a company can do under pressure. Since its launch 10 years ago, Etsy has been the leader when it comes to purchasing and selling handmade goods online. It will be interesting to see how and if they change their marketing tactics or business strategy to compete with Handmade At Amazon.

For more on Etsy or Handmade At Amazon, visit their sites, or read this article from SF Gate here: http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Amazon-challenges-Etsy-with-Amazon-Handmade-6557787.php

Contemplating Content Marketing

Content Marketing

In order to ensure content and messages are reaching the right audiences, one crucial element comes into play – content marketing. This is the concept of directing a message to attract a specific, strategic audience.

We live in a world a where the Internet and social media sites are continuously growing. However, this also means that the volume of information online is expansive. For businesses, making sure their content does not get lost in the noise is crucial.

For content marketing to be successful, each message must contain contextual, connected and interactive points that resonate with the audience. These three elements tie the audience and the content together, bonding the trust between a brand and its consumer.

PR Daily explains the importance for PR professionals to utilize content marketing for their clients. Here are our top three tips to staying ahead of the game:

  1. Become the Media

The digital age allows for a brand to be represented across numerous platforms at the same time. By being the direct source of a headline, the brand’s voice can be heard exactly as they desire and there’s no need to have their pitch picked up by a journalist.

  1. Growth of Social Media

The creation of unique, original content is no longer restricted to written content. With the ever-growing popularity of picture and video sharing, social media platforms have become a crucial tool in communicating information. Have a picture or video that will captivate the attention of your audience? Post it to social media and all of your brand’s Facebook fans, Twitter followers and Instagram savvy users will be more likely to see the content you want them to.

  1. Adapt to Conquer

Since the beginning of time, the human species has been rapidly adapting and evolving to our planet. The same goes for our technology and how we get information. If we want to continue to grow, we need to adapt and develop content that fits with the technology available to us.

Adapting to the ever-changing media standards will make for more strategic and beneficial content marketing. For more tips, check out this article on PR Daily: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/19350.aspx

Taking Control of Your Personal Brand

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Building a personal brand, or the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers, has become an important tool in becoming more successful in the age of technology. Due to the quick spread of social media, online profiles have become some of the most effective resources to enhance your career and personal brand, as well as build boundaries between your professional and private life.

Here are our four favorite tips from Forbes on how to control your personal brand on social media in an authentic way:

  1. Embrace your story: Get used to sharing how you landed your dream job, the mistakes you made or where you went to college with others because it will ultimately help you make relationships and market yourself to influencers. Make sure you’re the primary force in telling your story to the rest of the world.
  2. Reach out: Some people go too far in trying to keep their privacy and reputation from being damaged on social media by shrinking their digital presence. When doing this, a digital search of their name means nothing. Be your own advocate and don’t be afraid to market yourself based on who you are, what you do and what you stand for.
  3. Make an impression: Your picture and profile content heavily influence a first impression. Make your profile true to you but remember to always stay professional. Sharing and publishing ideas that can help other people get a better understanding of who you are and what you’re passionate about can also help make lasting impressions on future employers or clients.
  4. Know your limits: When it comes to building a personal brand, the challenge is to portray yourself in the best light as well as being authentic to who you are. Know when posting pictures from last night is a good or bad decision. Understand the boundaries of your personal and professional life by thinking “would I want to explain this to my boss?” before you post it. Everything on social media can be seen by employers so if you are questioning whether or not you should post the picture – don’t do it!

Snapchat: Sharing Stories Between Strangers Around the World

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Snapchat, an app that hosts 10 second long user pictures/videos and aggregates content into live stories with a 24-hour shelf life, has grown into a mobile-first visual-based company with 100 million daily active users, 65% of them uploading at least one snap a day.

Over the past few months, Snapchat has increased its viewer base by targeting users based on their location. Users get a look into other people’s daily lives ─ music festivals, sporting events and reactions to breaking news. Snapchat recently made it easier to view content when they launched a Tap to View feature where users only tap their screens to view snaps rather than holding down their screen to view.

As a way to diversify content and broaden their reach, Snapchat launched City Life in April 2015 as a feature that collects moments from various cities. In the span of 24-hours, moments are picked and strung together to show what everyday life is like in that city. Users that select their photos or videos to be included in their city’s story become part of geo-tagged content that Snapchat’s team chooses to display.

The City Life feature can inspire people to consider those cities as future travel destinations by promoting the city and various attractions in the area. To date, Snapchat has featured users’ snaps from over fifty cities in thirty countries including Brazil, Singapore, South Africa and the United States.

Snapchat’s travel features help the world see how users’ are communicating and living their lives. The 10 second moments connect users by allowing them to look into other’s lives and share in their unique experiences, if only briefly. As an outlet for displaying global experiences, Snapchat can be a tool for travel brands to effectively convey travelers to visit their cities, musical festivals and restaurants by wanting to share in locals’ experiences. Using Snapchat’s excessive outreach, users can easily connect to others and see how people like them around the world are living.

Chevrolet Shakes Up Their Latest Press Release

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Chevrolet is bringing things further into the digital age with an all-emoji press release. Emojis are small pictures frequently used in text messages to convey emotion.

The new 2016 Chevrolet Cruze was announced in a press release Monday, and was decoded the next day for those who were unable to read the emoji message.

Why did Chevrolet decide to write an emoji press release?

Previously, Chevrolet’s attempts to reach a younger demographic have been underwhelming. Creating an all-emoji press release was their way of appealing to the demographic that would have the greatest likelihood to buy a car that is priced around $16,000 such as the 2016 Chevrolet Cruze.

According to PR Daily, Chevrolet’s new technique will likely bring in more interest from the targeted audience for the new Chevrolet model. With this departure from a normal press release, PR Daily said Chevrolet is trying to attract younger consumers who use emojis often.

Chevrolet was able to create a press release that not only drew the desired attention, but required active participation for those who were interested in attempting to decode the emoji message. The car brand also took to Twitter to tease their press release by using even more emojis and the hashtag: #ChevyGoesEmoji. Commercials starring celebrities Norm Macdonald, Zendaya Coleman, Jamie Chung and Ashley Benson were posted on Chevrolet social media accounts. The commercials show the young celebrity women teaching the older generation how to use emojis.

Chevrolet’s goal was to reach a young demographic who can afford a car like the new Chevrolet model. Because consumers respond more favorably to celebrities that they recognize, Chevrolet chose young celebrities that are popular right now and are heavily followed on social media for the campaign. The celebrity and consumer interaction on Twitter is evidence that Chevrolet succeeded in making their announcement interactive. Twitter was torn as to whether the press release was effective, but it definitely drew attention and sparked a discussion.

The method was attention-grabbing, but even though this was the first time that emojis have been used in PR, other companies have used emojis as part of their marketing strategy. According to Mashable, today’s marketers have to “speak their language” to appeal to the younger generation—and emojis are part of the language.

According to Digiday, many companies are trying to be more appealing to the younger generation. Companies are using trendy words like “fleek” and “bae” in attempt to appeal to the younger audience. The incorporation of pop culture into marketing shows that marketers have realized that the younger generation is becoming increasingly important to business.

Will other companies follow suit and get creative with their press releases?

Twitter Hashtag #JeSuisCharlie Demonstrates Global Solidarity over Paris Shootings

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Last Wednesday, Paris and the world were both shocked and devastated after the recent attack at the headquarters of satirical French magazine, Charlie Hebdo. While this is not France’s first threat on its national security, the shooting is currently the worst to date. Like so many others, this tragic event has sparked vast media attention and people around the world expressed their support within hours of the massacre. This article written by The Huffington Post explains how the #JeSuisCharlie Hashtag is “a message of solidarity” and the powerful effects of Twitter after the shooting at Charlie Hebdo.

Hashtag activism allows a simple phrase to turn into a powerful utterance that embodies sympathies of goodwill. The phrase #JeSuisCharlie or “I am Charlie” which emerged in the after math of the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo office is proof alone to cite the ever-growing presence of current events being integrated into social media. Twitter has become an online forum where people have the ability to connect to vast networks with updates of breaking news as well as free expression of their emotions and according to the Huffington Post, “thousands of Twitter users posted the hashtag in support of those killed and freedom of the press.”

In the past week, #JeSuisCharlie has become the trending hashtag bringing together journalists and citizens alike in support for the victims. Looking back to other past political movements in the last few years, such as the Arab Spring uprisings (#arabspring) or more recently, the Occupy Wall Street (#occupywallstreet) protests, hashtags are becoming increasingly powerful as they become a symbol for a global voice.

Read the full article written by The Huffington Post here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/07/jesuischarlie-charlie-hebdo-shooting_n_6429712.html

 

Guerilla Marketing Tactics of the 2014 World Cup

Fortune 500 companies are shelling out big bucks to advertise the 2014 World Cup, this summer’s biggest sporting event. In this Main Street article, Jason Notte reports that Adidas, Coca-Cola, Sony, Visa, Hyundai/Kia and Emirates paid $100 million each to become official World Cup partners. McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Budweiser and BP’s Castrol each paid $20 million for second-tier sponsorship. Despite these huge expenses, many of these companies are being outshone by guerilla marketing tactics from direct competitors.

The most-viewed World Cup advertisement (at 80 million views on YouTube) is “Winner Stays” by Nike, a direct competitor of World Cup partner Adidas. This marketing battle was simply one of star power. While Adidas features several recognizable players in their ad “The Dream” (35 million views on YouTube), including Argentinian Lionel Messi, Nike compiled an all-star team of celebrity players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Wayne Rooney and Gerard Pique. Nike’s celebrity endorsers are familiar outside of the soccer sphere and created more activity on social media. Ronaldo tweeted the commercial to his millions of followers, while Messi doesn’t even have a Twitter. “Winner Stays”, which turns a group of average kids in a pick-up soccer game into star players at the World Cup, also appeals to a much broader audience than “The Dream” which, while dramatic and exciting, makes the World Cup the central focus.

Guerilla marketing is continually present during large-scale sporting events like the Superbowl and March Madness. By excluding all World Cup logos from their advertisement and relying on the power of implication, Nike has proved that partnerships are not worth the hefty price tag. While Adidas may have edged Nike in soccer sales last year ($2.7 billion to $2 billion), Nike has come out on top during soccer’s most important event.

Here are the two ads, watch and decide for yourself which is more effective.

Adidas, “The Dream”

Nike, “Winner Stays”

6 Ways to Irritate a Journalist or Blogger and Blow Your Chance at Big Time Exposure

Journalists and bloggers are constantly receiving pitches from PR pros working to get their clients media coverage. An online mention from a respected journalist or blogger can mean big things for a client, but irritating them and losing the opportunity is extremely easy.

Christine OKelly from Dashburst recently asked a group of journalists and bloggers what people do that drives them crazy when they submit pitches or material and then compiled them into a list for the rest of the PR community to take notes from. Below are the six reasons your pitch will definitely be skipped over: Continue Reading →