Selling via Instagram

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Social media is great but the platforms have to find some way of generating revenue.  The primary mechanism has been advertising revenue but those platforms are always on the lookout for additional opportunities.  According to USA Today article, “Picture this, entrepreneurs: Selling via Instagram“, Instagram has been experimenting with a sales platform.  This new feature allows followers of a company to buy a product if they see it in a company’s feed.  The article states that 200 million users visit at least one business profile each day so there’s a lot of potential traffic to capitalize on.

A class exercise could be to ask your students to read this article before coming to class and then in class have them develop an Instagram plan for their favorite retailer.  They could choose a clothing boutique, a bike shop, an electronics store, etc.

Chicago Bulls Digital Media Team

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Many of my students have an interest in a career in sports marketing.  The draw isn’t terribly surprising considering how much time and money devotes to athletics but most of these students have no idea what a “sports marketing” job actually entails.  This article from the American Marketing Association, “A Night in the Life of the Chicago Bulls Digital Media Team“, does a great job of talking about the responsibilities performed by members of the Chicago Bulls digital media team.

In addition, the article can be a good focal point for a discussion about owned vs. earned media.  It talks about the shift in control of content published from journalists and other media to the franchise owners themselves.

 

Popularity is For Sale

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The measure of your impact in social media is often the number of followers or views that you have.  The theory being that better, more interesting, or more popular individuals and content will naturally draw a larger follower base than those of lesser interest.  However, it seems that everywhere you turn there are individuals willing to venture into ethical grey areas to get ahead.  The New York Times wrote this lengthy but fascinating article titled The Follower Factory.

The article covers a number of topics including social identity theft and the practice of buying Likes, followers, YouTube views, and more.  The article states that nearly 15% of Twitter’s reported active users are actually automated accounts designed to simulate real people.  Facebook disclosed that they have up to 60 million automated accounts.  The range of people buying these fake accounts is staggering.  Professional athletes, politicians, entertainers, TED speakers, and church pastors are just a small sampling of the customers knowingly buying fake followers to boost their social media status.  These accounts are also used to support overseas governments, promote products and services, and promote pornography.  Some of these accounts are auto-generated but many of them are duplicates of actual people making it look like those individuals are the ones promoting those views, products, or services.

The article also discusses the incentives many companies put in place that unintentionally encourage people to participate in this activity.  Overall it is a very interesting article and could lead to a rich class discussion.

Facebook Changes News Feed Policies

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Social media marketing added a new and significant channel for businesses to reach customers.  However, when that channel is controlled by another entity it can create challenges.  In this press release, Facebook talks about changes they are making to their news feed policies.  They will start emphasizing social shares (posts from family and friends) and de-emphasize public content (think sponsored commercial posts).

How can companies adapt to this change and continue to benefit from the reach and popularity of social media?  The article, How publishers will survive Facebook’s newsfeed change, offers one perspective.  What do your students think?

 

Promotion Through Influencers

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While many promotional strategies are ageless, to be most effective you need to know how to fine-tune your strategy for your target market.  If you’re targeting a particular age-group of individuals, you may be able to capitalize on generational trends.  Authenticity is becoming increasingly important to consumers, particularly to millennials and Gen Z.  This article, “‘This Is A Business Now’: YouTube Stars Influence Generation Z’s Fashion Tastes“, discusses how one woman, Rhea Park, took her interest in fashion and turned it into a business by posting videos of herself modeling and reviewing various outfits.  She has over 250K followers and those followers trust her reviews more than they would trust content found on the designer’s website because Rhea’s videos are perceived as unbiased and authentic.  In Chapter 16 we refer to this as Earned Media, promotional strategies not directly generated by the company or brand, but rather by third parties such as Rhea.