Mediaboss Marketing

By Jeff Beer 4 minute Read

For the past few decades, its been best known as Apples ad agency. The partnership between the Cupertino tech giant and TBWAMedia Arts Lab has been among the tightest ever between an agency and a brand. Read any Steve Jobs biography and youre sure tofind TBWAMALs creative chairman Lee Clow.

Afew years ago, the agency launched a separate social impact division called MALFor Good that focusedexclusively on marketing and advertising with a goal of making the world a better place. Its most high-profile workwon gold at Cannes Lions in 2015 forConservation Internationals Nature Is Speakingcampaign, and the agency helped Laurene Powell Jobs launch the non-profitXQ Super School. Other campaigns include work forChicago Cred, a job-training and anti-violence organization founded by former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, environmental law organizationEarth Justice,Best Friendsanimal rescue, theMuslim Public Affairs Council,and for-profit philanthropic organizationThe Emerson Collective.The agency is also creating content for theXQ Super School Liveshow, that will air on CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX on September 8.

But now, aligning witha rising trend in both consumer culture and marketing research, MALFor Good is expanding its scope beyond clients with a dot-org, and theyre aiming to help brands of all types use their marketing muscle to do some good while boosting their bottom line. While the agency says it wants to use its communication skills to help make the world better, recent studies suggest its also good for business.

A 2016 study by Edelman found 80% of global consumers agree that businesses must play a role in addressing societal issues. Unilever reported in 2016 that33% of consumersare now choosing to buy from brands they believe are doing social or environmental good. Deloitte reported that87% of millennialsbelieve that business success should be based on more than just profit.

Wieden+Kennedy Portland and Nike Foundation alum Julia Plowman was named MALFor Goods managing director in February, joiningglobal creative president Duncan Milner who moved over in October 2016 after leading thecreative team at TBWAMAL since 2000. Right now, MALFor Good has28employees and is growing with itsown offices on the TBWAChiatDay campus. Its alsoconverting a monster tour bus that Mitt Romney used during his presidential campaign into the MALFor Good HQ, a social impact incubator on wheels, connecting clients with creative communities.

Were growing because more and more brands are investing in social impact, says Plowman. Were here to help them do it right, do it authentically. And that takes strategy, planning, and creativity. You cant just knock-off authentic social purpose ideas; you have to build them deliberately and diligently. That takes real investment. And thats exactly what we specialize in.

After three years of helping a variety of organizations, Plowman says the time is right to expand the social impact agencys work. Milner adds tothat, saying it just makes sense asmore brands put their values into how they do business. When we started we were really focused on Laurene [Jobs] and Emerson Collectives needs, so we did that for a while, Milner says. But now we want to look past that into the future. Theres a desire for us to grow and build on that work.

Its an interesting move, to create an entire agency with this focus, given how much work traditional agencies are already doing in this space. State Streets Fearless Girl by McCann New York being the most high-profile example, but other award-winning work this year includes Ogilvy Brazils Strong Girls for Nestle, and Nomades Mexico Citys gender violence awareness campaign for Tecate. Or Nikes Equality work from Wieden+Kennedy. And thats just around gender issues and inequality.

The agency says the growthin consumer sentiment around social impact and sustainability is strong enough that it represents an entire new shift in marketing and advertising, much like how digital and then social media impacted the ad business. Before it became commonplace, there were specialistsand MALFor Good sees itself as the specialist for social impact.The agency has worked recently with Starbucks and Toms.

This is the forefront of a new focusits important to show brands how they can do it, says Plowman. Marketing is changing. Its becoming deeper, more complex, and more transparent. The work we do helps brands to communicate their values and beliefs outwardly, but also internally to employees. Ultimately, our work is about emotionally connecting a brand with its different audiences deeply.

The key for any brand looking to do more with its marketing budget is to look at it as a long-term investment. Social impact is not a gimmick.

Are you really in this or not? Your toe is dipped in but youre not committing, says Plowman. You cant change public schools, help health care or poverty with a one-off. These are long-term commitments.

The first questions to ask when incorporating social impact with a brand are: whats important to the brand, and whats important to itsaudience? The Venn diagram between the two is a good place to start in finding where that brand can make the best, most effective impact.

For me its always been about trying to find the truth, in the product, the opportunity, and work outwards from that truth, says Milner. It comes back to identifying that truth, what is authenticlets talk about that. Once you find that, and the audience it will connect with, then you have a path to follow.

Jeff Beer is a staff editor at Fast Company, covering advertising, marketing, and brand creativity. He lives in Toronto.

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From Apple To Advocacy: Why Media Arts Lab Is Doubling Down On Social Impact - Fast Company

July 17, 2017 2:57 PM

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) Get your hot takes and Twitter fingers ready because now you can major in social media at Kutztown University.

Thanks to the approval granted by the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Board of Governors on July 13, a bachelors degree in social media theory and strategy is officially available at Kutztown University.

Social media is intricately woven into our economic, civic and social lives, and those who dont become adept at producing and analyzing it are increasingly at risk, said Dr. Moe Folk, an associate professor of English. We are excited to offer a cutting-edge program that will prepare students for a variety of careers in the corporate and non-profit sectors and also allow them to take charge of their own content for any entrepreneurial hopes they have in mind.

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The program will involve coursework in business, communication studies and English.

According to the programs description, students will be equipped to sustain longevity and become leaders in careers rooted in social media content development, management, administration, marketing and analysis. Components of the course include lead generation, public advocacy, digital marketing management, concept promotion, e-commerce, digital content marketing, pay per click (PPC) ad construction and evaluation and content marketing.

The program will be available for the fall semester and Kutztown University is accepting applications throughout the year.

Anyone interested in learning more is asked to contact the Department of Communication Studies at 610-683-4251 or visithttps://www.kutztown.edu/SocialMediaTheoryStrategy.

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Anybody can have a platform in the democratized content-driven world we live in today. This allows us to learn from people all over the world, and share our own expertise to educate and entertain. However, this also means that its easier for someone that may be mis

Lets address some of the worst social media advice Ive ever heard, and dont worry, Ill explain why this guidance has no place in your social media marketing activities. Number one: you shouldnt sell on social media. This has a smidgen of truth, which makes it very dangerous. You shouldnt use your social channels to ONLY sell, you should provide value and build relationship and community, which help you sell. Social media is a marketing tool and the goal of a marketing tool is to introduce your products and services for sales. If you dont sell on social youre wasting your time.

Number two: you need to be on all the social networks; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, Snapchat, Pinterest, WhatsApp, YouTube, Linkedin, Google +, etc. This advice should be ignored because your audience probably isnt spending time on every one of these platforms. If the people youre looking to attract arent on these platforms, you dont need to be there.

Number three: fans and followers are the most important aspect of a page/profile. This, my friends, is a very common belief. It is also incorrect because fans and followers cannot be exchanged for cash to pay bills. The account with 10 million followers amounts to nothing if there is no engagement and sales. The numbers are nice, but theyre not the focus. Pay more attention to creating a space for users to be educated and entertained, and the number of fans and followers will take care of itself.

Number four: you should automate and/or schedule everything on social media. As a diehard automation-scheduler, I disagree with this advice because platforms like Facebook penalize pages that use third-party tools to post, the reach on those updates are deliberately stifled by the algorithm. Secondly, if youre automating everything you miss opportunities to be social in real life and engage directly with your audience.

The last piece of bad social media advice that Ive heard is that business owners can just use a young person (a relative, perhaps) to handle their business social media accounts. The risks of taking this advice is damaging the brand and negatively affecting the bottom line. The process of hiring someone to coordinate and manage your social media is difficult and shouldnt be taken lightly. Anybody cant do it. Weve heard and read about recent stories of large corporations coming under fire for content thats been posted on the Twitter account or uploaded on their Facebook page. Be sure that the person(s) representing your business online is well-versed in your company culture and voice, and knows the rules of engagement for your neck of the social media woods.

Its hard to separate the good from the bad when it comes to social media. My advice: dont commit to ANYTHING simply because you heard it from an expert, develop a habit of experimentation and youll be able to determine whether the advice is true (for you) or not.

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The worst social media advice I've ever heard - Sierra Vista Herald

Postgraduate students Karishma Sharma and Mani Mate. Photo: The University of the South Pacific

It has been observed that different forms of online and social media have been transforming the tourism industry in the South Pacific.

The most recent School of Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) research colloquium at The University of the South Pacific (USP) brought together various tourism stakeholders to discuss three ongoing postgraduate research projects in this context.

The first presenter, Marica Kalou who currently works as an administrative assistant at STHM, examined tourist satisfaction attributes of ecotourism in an online and offline nexus.

Based on a case study of Matava, Fijis Premier Ecotourism Resort, she analysed tourist interviews and TripAdvisor reviews.

This study employs Llosas Tetraclasse model to gain a deeper insight of the elements that influence visitors satisfaction and dissatisfaction levels.

The second presentation was by Mani Mate who worked in the hotel industry in the Cook Islands for over ten years prior to taking up postgraduate studies at USP.

His postgraduate research draws on a study of Aitutaki hotels, Cook Islands, and analyses how negative reviews are managed in an online environment.

Mr Mate argued that online complaints on social media platforms and review sites can have a negative impact on consumers evaluations.

Drawing on service failure and recovery, electronic word-of-mouth, complaint handling and reputation management literature, Mr Mate examined how Aitutaki hotel managers respond to negative online reviews, particularly on TripAdvisor.

STHM postgraduate programme leader, Alexander Trupp, explained that online and social media play an increasing role in many aspects of tourism, including marketing, decision-making behaviour and customer feedback.

These research projects he noted, were important and contribute to the emerging body of knowledge on tourism and online media in the South Pacific.

The final presenter, Karishma Sharma, has worked in various positions in hospitality, design, marketing, and customer relations in both Fiji and Australia over the past decade and currently works as teaching assistant at STHM.

Ms Sharmas research titled An investigation of social media marketing performance of Fijis hotel industry evaluates the marketing performance of 105 hotels in Fiji on various social media sites, according to the Digital Marketing Framework.

Feedback: jyotip@fijisun.com.fj

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Faculty Observes Social Media's Impact On Tourism - Fiji Sun Online

As a millennial, I am constantly bombarded with marketing content. And for good reason. In addition to being expert multitaskers, having extremely short attention spans, and our skepticism for traditional advertising tactics, millennials, as a group, are:

How do you take this information and use it to your advantage? Here are three simple guidelines that are important to consider when creating a social media strategy targeting this group.

Millennials are very sensitive to the timeliness of the content they see. Since we are constantly plugged into social media through our phones, it is important to be flexible enough to react to current events in a timely manner if you wish to use them in your strategy.

If a company waits even a couple of hours too long to react to an event, they missed an opportunity to be noticed by a massive number of possible consumers and instead are brushed off for being late to the game. As important as it is to have a consistent schedule for your social media posts, you shouldnt stress about going off schedule if an event or other happening comes up that might be relevant to your brand that you want to talk about.

Bottom line, if you cannot take advantage of a current event while its still fresh, dont bother at all.

Because millennials are a very skeptical group, we have an innate sense of knowing when we are being marketed to. This is why social media and non-traditional content marketing works better with us than blatant advertising. We crave meaningful interaction with companies and brands instead of simply receiving a lecture.

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One terrific approach used to help your audience tell their own story is to focus on gathering content that will help create a dialog between you and your audience. Posting User Generated Content (UGC) is a great way to both encourage interaction and to include the voice of your targeted audience in your campaigns.

Ask your followers to tweet a specific hashtag that you come up with, or post a picture of themselves using your product or service on Instagram. These types of posts will boost engagement and provide you with plenty of quality content to share over your social media platforms.

The goal of your social media presence is to get your message out to as many people as possible, and your current followers are an extremely important part in spreading that message. Your fans arent going to share your content if it is not valuable or entertaining to them at all. Even brands that might be considered boring have come up with unique social media strategies that are able to capture and keep the attention of their audience.

One brand that does a great job blending content that is both useful and engaging is Netflix. Netflix shares the information their audience needs to know and presents that information in a meaningful way that encourages interaction. The benefit for their followers is twofold.

Successful social media strategy should benefit both your company and the consumer by broadcasting your marketing message and entertaining your audience at the same time. This will increase your engagement rate and create a sense of trust between you and your followers. Try out some of these tips for yourself and see if you notice better engagement with your millennial followers!

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Marketing to Millennials: 3 Simple Tips to Help Make the Most Out of Your Social Media Strategy - Business 2 Community