CC's PR

Hardworking Communication Student Seeks Career That Will Allow Her to Use Social Media Skills

2008-04-23T15:32:00.024-05:00

CONTACT INFORMATION

Christina Castro
Communication Student
St. Edward's University
Email: cstina.castro@gmail.com
Blog: http://hilltopperspot.blogspot.com

Hardworking Communication Student Seeks Career That Allows Her to Use Social Media Skills

Working in a challenging PR or Advertising environment, using social media and technological skills is anticipated after college graduation.

Austin, TX - May 2008

PROFILE

• Christina has been described by classmates, co-workers and supervisors as a hardworking and easy to get along with person who is organized, diligent, passionate about her work and constantly seeks projects.

• The past semester Christina has worked with Erebelle, an Austin-based women's clothing company, as a social media director with Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, co-authors of Citizen Marketers. She has researched fashion blogs and social networking sites to pitch Erebelle stories and created an online advertisement and other social media content on a Facebook page that circulated company awareness and revenue.

• Since June 2007, Christina has worked at the St. Edward's University Media Services office as a student worker supervisor where she troubleshoots classroom instructional technology, i.e. computers, projectors, online programs, digital cameras, etc. for helps students, faculty and staff. As a supervisor, she is also responsible for training new student workers.

• In the Spring of 2007 she provided advertising work for LifeWorks, a non-profit family and youth shelter. She organized a creative campaign for LifeWorks and designed a logo, banner, and magazine advertisement to assist with re-branding the LifeWorks Relationship Recovery program.

• Activities Christina is involved with include the Public Relations Student Society Association, St. Edward's Communication Society, SEU Roteract, Meals On Wheels and More, the Boys and Girls Club, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

• She received the Dean’s List award in the Fall and Spring of 2007, and Fall and Spring of 2008.

• Computer skills include proficiency in PC and Mac use, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro. She also has experience in blogging and is social media literate.

MULTIMEDIA ELEMENTS

Podcast Project:Social Media in Politics

Web Video Project: "Starving Africa"

ABOUT CHRISTINA

Christina is a recent graduate with a B.A. in Communication after attending St. Edward's University for 2 years and 1 year at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Christina has been on the Dean's List for the past two years. She likes to work with non-profit organizations and travel the world, exploring new experiences everyday. Christina hopes to gain knowledge in PR and Advertising and is enthusiastic about beginning her professional career.

My Facebook Ad

2008-04-20T08:07:00.000-05:00

The internship that I have this semester is with a women’s clothing company Erebelle. The fun thing about is I work on a social media campaign for Erebelle with Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell…you know the co-authors of Citizen Marketers. It’s really an experience working with them. One of my projects has been to create a Facebook Page for Erebelle (which looks excellent I might add) with pictures, notes, events, and video. Facebook began working towards implementation of these pages so that organizations, clubs, bands, companies, etc. don’t create profiles. Pages allow users to become “fans” of certain things. Once you’re in the fan club you can receive updates and exclusive info from that page. It’s really about the same thing as a profile. You can use most of the same applications and even create your own. I didn’t create an application, but I did experiment with the Facebook Ads option. Jackie, Ben and I were curious to see the workings on an ad and how successful an ad would be. So using my advertising skills, I created a well-structured ad with a headline and a 125-word body. You can’t get too crazy with these ads, there’s a limited amount you can change or ad. Most of the ads look the same on Facebook for this reason. What I found kind of confusing was that you choose to set a spending amount between cost per clicks (CPC) or cost per impression (CPM). At first, Facebook advised me to use a CPC of $.50- $.64 so naturally I chose in the middle: $.57. Then I set the maximum spending amount per day to $10. For four days this ad was running and I never saw it. Apparently nobody else was because I would check at the end of each day and $0, zip, nada had been spent. Facebook then advised me to raise the CPC. So I uped the bid to $1.62. The next day my $10 were spent, and the day after that and the day after that. I was getting 10, 000 impressions everyday and I guess about 10 clicks per day. So I raised my bid again to $2.00 and the maximum daily spending amount to $15.00. I spent all of that the last four days my ad was running. I guess what I really need is some insight from anybody who has played around with Facebook ads and knows what their talking about. What I see know is that my ad wasn’t all that effective. I was getting traffic to the Erebelle page but I don’t know how much that actually did. Any suggestions or secrets to creating a successful Facebook Ad?

Starving Africa Web Video

2008-04-17T12:46:00.006-05:00

Here's a web video I created for a class assignment
Starving Africa

I went with the idea of America's obsession with overconsumption. We have food eating contests and world's largest burger contests...the U.S. throws away over 50 billion dollars worth of food every year. Maybe we should put some of this effort to better use because in Africa $7 can feed feed one person for a month, educate 2 children for a school term, save one person's life from malaria, or provide clean water to seven Africans for a year Here's an organizations I find is really worth checking out:

The Mocha Club

forget advertising huh?

2008-04-10T13:06:00.007-05:00

Everyone knows about that ridiculous jingle that plays on your favorite radio station(s) a zillion times a day. That jingle that plays over and over and over in your head and refuses to leave no matter how hard you try...and like everyone, I've always thought that advertising, like this that annoys people, doesn't work. Although my advertising classes have put up a good fight to teach me otherwise, I made up my mind that if any ad is that annoying, I'll swear NOT to buy or support them! Sure I'll recognize that company's name and services and be able to sing along with it, but I won't be happy about it. It's like I blame these horrible creative people in these ad departments for coming up with such a lame jingle that stays in my head all day, so I refuse to buy things from them. So yesterday, as I hate to admit it, the annoying jingle DID work.

My car brakes started sounding really bad a couple days ago and being the typical girl who doesn't know much about the inside workings of cars, (this isn't easy for me to admit so don't make fun) I reverted back to the first thing that popped into my head--"Just Brakes, we really do care." Yes, I started to hum that irritating jingle as I thought about what to do. I proceeded to look on their website to find the closest location. On the way, I passed four other "brake specialist" shops. Four shops that were all closer, all just as qualified, maybe even cheaper, but I continued to my destination of Just Brakes. I turned around twice because I missed the entrance to the garage, BUT I still had to have Just Brakes. So while reading the 95 theses, #74 caught my eye.

"We are immune to advertising. Just forget it."

Not only would my advertising teacher have a cow over this, but I can't agree with it ESPECIALLY after the events of yesterday. I couldn't help but tell the greasy mechanic boys there (who did a fine job btw. Thanks Just Brakes!) that the only reason I was giving them my business was because of their stupid advertisement on the radio...that and I was scared for my life due to the screeching noise of my brakes. They fully agreed that the ad is horrific, but I couldn't help but think how effective it was on me. Me, someone who is studying advertising, someone who thinks of herself as a "sensible consumer"...we've all taken those classes. But I chose Just Brakes not because my dad told me to, not because of friend suggested them, and not because they're the leading brake specialists...because a dumb jingle registered in my head the moment I decided my brakes were in dire need of some help. I actually thought to myself on the way over, "they have to be good if they have the sense to advertise, right?"

Radio: one of the worst mediums (in my opinion) to have good advertising...and absolutely the one with the most annoying commercials. Nonetheless, a place in which people will subconsciously, and sometimes defiantly, get advertising that works.

Death by Blogging

2008-04-07T00:16:00.006-05:00

We all know how hectic keeping up with just two blogs a week can be...but the constant demand of streaming news and comment that prolific bloggers have everyday is hard for me to think about. It might sound silly...oh poor bloggers, working from home with a computer and iphone at their fingertips, looking for the next big thing to blog about. In coffee shops, at lunchtime, over a glass of wine...how hard it must be to write about whatever you so please wherever you so please. But really, when you get paid by the number of posts and your audience is a news-hungry crowd, things can get a little crazy. The non-stop action have bloggers complaining of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders and exhaustion. Two weeks ago Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects, died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. And Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December. Although this might be coincidental, Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog told NY Times "I haven't died yet. At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.” The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. One of the most competitive categories is supposedly technology blogs about developments and news. "They're in a vicious 24-hour competition to break company news, reveal new products and expose corporate gaffes," says the article. I guess since people now depend on blogging and it's become so popular, more and more jobs in home offices are present. More people depend on blogging and the pressure is on to meet the demands and deadlines.

BMW steps up to the Social Media plate

2008-04-07T00:15:00.010-05:00

BMW comes out with its new sporty, and smaller coupe and is relying heavily on
Internet advertising for its introduction. Smart choice, since the market for this car will be younger and less affluent than the current BMW lover. Advertising like this is sure to attract the target market.

The campaign tries to reassure potential buyers that the 1-series model is still a “pure BMW” despite being smaller and less expensive. Collaborating agencies for these ads are Austin's own GSD&M, which is part of the Omnicom Group, and Dotglu in New York, part of the Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners division of MDC Partners.

What's so great about this campaign is that almost half the spending for the campaign is going to be devoted to online media comparing to the usual 1 percent to 15 percent of the total ad budgets of other BMW models. Just in case you're wondering, this campaigns budget is about $15 to $25 million.

Now you'll be able to send personally designed virtual cars to you friends on Facebook. You can also send cars on virtual road trip from one profile to another and send car keys to eachother. I know, a bit ridiculous but this will get the name out there, which ultimately shows to be effective. Since Facebookers aren't shy about expressing their angry opinions about overload of advertisements, BMW is really working to make this fun and entertaining. Other elements include buying dominant positions, known as take-overs, on the home pages of msn.com and yahoo.com and posting video clips on YouTube and developing a microsite devoted to the 1-Series.

NY Times reports that "The campaign is indicative of efforts by mainstream marketers to alter their media mixes as consumers change their media habits." A recent survey by PQ Media projected that by 2012, advertisers will increase spending by 82 percent from 2008 in areas like search-engine marketing, online video and e-mail messages.

The goal has become “to give people a reason to engage with or participate in your advertising,” said Patrick McKenna, manager for marketing communications at BMW of North America in Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

Basically, BMW is having fun with this and trying to experience new things for a new market. They realize that the 20-somethings and 30-somethings demand controlling their brand experience.

It's Olympic Time!

2008-03-31T18:18:00.009-05:00

With the talk of the 2008 Olympics becoming more apparent in the months before, I wonder how social media can make its mark in the Olympic world. I had heard that an Olympic team of several competitors was getting together to learn how to blog and such. The point is to give people at home a version of what it's like for the Olympians during the exciting and high-stress time. I'm sure it's also planning on helping give the Olympics a new audience and better publicity. All of this gets me thinking about a friend I have who has been in China for the past year getting ready for the Olympics. How cool would it be to have someone like her blogging? A normal person who will be around all of these amazing athletes. I think blogging is making its print in so many aspects of our lives, why not the Olympics. For those of us not fortunate to ever be an Olympian or even travel to China, this can give us a better feel for real life situations than CNN or MSNBC. I'm so excited to pitch this idea to my friend, she doesn't blog currently, but hopefully I can convince her to find time to.

Tibet's PR

2008-03-31T18:18:00.008-05:00

As we've seen the 2008 Olympic madness start in Beijing, we also see a lot of controversy on Tibet's front. What's interesting is the use of PR, or soon to be use of PR and social media that is used for this issue. I stumbled across the Students for a Free Tibet Facebook Page today and did a little research. Apparently, the situation in Tibet is really working in the social media world to gain awareness and support with what little money they have. What better way than free media like Facebook? This page has about 37,900 members and a YouTube page where organizers post reports and footage from protests. Students for a Free Tibet, which is a member of the international organization, sends out its own talking points, press release templates and protest plans to its 650 chapters, supplemented by the cause page on Facebook.

S.F.T. member told the NY Times, “S.F.T. realizes that the media is a very effective tool getting our message across. One way that we ensure that our message stays on point and is disseminated to audiences it’s targeted to, is by training our S.F.T.-ers to be the best media spokespeople themselves.”

While working toward eye-catching demonstrations that will get coverage, S.F.T. also holds weeklong “action camps” four times a year. Attendees learn to organize protests and deal with the police, and receive training in attention-getting activities like rappelling and guerrilla street theater. Sessions for pro-Tibet groups are held by the S.F.T. to give media training, focusing on anything from artfully answering reporter's questions to delivering a good sound bite.

This has really put pressure on China to do something, and not just with Tibet but on behalf of their PR representation. It's no secret that China needs a better rep and frankly, with the Olympics coming up I'm surprised they haven't been advised to do so earlier. Gene Grabowski, a crisis P.R. specialist at Levick Strategic Communications who worked on the Chinese toy recalls, told the NY Times that he was'nt surprised that the protesters were winning so far.

“The Chinese government is still new to the challenges and the game of playing on a world stage, and playing on the world stage today doesn’t just mean understanding how to control the messages that come out of formal government ministries or the messages that are prepared and disseminated to the global news media,” he said. “There are the blogs, there are Web sites; there’s a whole world of Internet-based communication that the Chinese government still doesn’t seem to understand or appreciate.”

The 2008 Viral Politics

2008-03-31T18:17:00.013-05:00

I stumbled across this article from USC's Online Journalism Review while researching for my podcast. Since Obama Girl and the Soprano's spoof, people have really taken notice of the impact and popularity of viral politics. The article talks about the 1984 Apple Super Bowl ad that stars Hillary. The famous commercial continued in popularity with the new twist because Web citizens found that she was saying one thing and doing another online, said Rasiej from the article. "She claimed it was a debate, but the questions were all preselected and filtered." Rasiej believes that Clinton's campaign managers wanted to capitalize on the online community but "didn't understand" that the dialog has to be free and open to gain the trust of the Internet community. Four million viewings later, Clinton's campaign has "woken up" he said. It's interesting to see how these videos are generating so many viewings and comments. What I've found is that the majority have feedback from viewers who don't like the candidate and bash them several times. This creates an online conversation between people to debate their favorite things or dislikes about each candidate.

Political blogging

2008-03-31T18:17:00.007-05:00

My group podcast decided to go with the whole political blogging theme since the subject was very present and very new. The amount of social media tactics we've seen in this election is truly amazing and deserves to be noted.

While doing this project, I specifically focused on John McCain’s Presidential Campaign. I found that his site has a blog that is probably the most successful of any of its other social media strategies. They regularly blog, although it’s nothing much compared to Barack Obama’s blog. Rather the blog be used as a tool in getting the Republican’s message out about the campaign, it is more of an after thought to report on nomination wins. A couple unique things on the blog is readers can rate the blog posts as well as leave comments to each post. Digg and Delicious are on each of the blog posts. Also, the blog allows for posts to be emailed to friends. Search Marketing Gurus, a blog that includes a group of professional search marketers, points out some unused options of McCain’s blog, including the tags feature. Most recent posts have no tags which makes it difficult to categorize the posts. Another fault in John McCain’s blog is that it doesn’t allow for a reader to subscribe to the entire blog through RSS feeds but only to five separate issues such as Health, Economy, Spending, Campaign, and Iraq but one cannot tell what posts are included in each issue because the posts aren’t visibly categorized.

John McCain’s presidential committee started off early last year showing high expectations for social media usage within its campaign, but has since dropped the ball somewhat on promoting the five social media strategies they launched. Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Veoh, and Yahoo! Answers are online projects the committee uses to actively interact with Americans and in turn, voters can engage with John McCain and learn about issues. National eCampaign Director Christian Ferry says, "People are fed up with politics as usual and Facebook and MySpace are giving them the opportunity to organize and influence the process in ways that could not have been imagined during John McCain's last campaign for President”. Although his committee recognizes the advantages of social media, they have done little to show they truly understand these sites by not playing on their key opportunities. The website doesn’t offer an easy way to locate the campaign’s social media strategies and the initiatives they’ve taken seem to be a result of “jumping on the band wagon”.

Search Engine Optimization for McCain’s campaign is somewhat successful. The official website ranks #1 in Google and Yahoo! for “John McCain” but not in Live nor in Ask. The Splash page was removed early this year and has since done little to improve SEO. As far as social networking sites, there isn’t a direct link to his Facebook page from his website, but one must physically search for John McCain once signed into the network. McCain has a personal social network called McCainSpace similar to Barack Obama’s but a major problem with this network is that it doesn’t reach out to intergrate with other social networks. It is a gated area for the McCain community that doesn’t spread the campaign’s message. Two video channels were created on YouTube and Veoh to host the same videos available at John McCain.com. In addition to these outlets, Yahoo! Answers initiates discussion with Americans about wasteful spending.

It's great to see that our politicians are trying to reach out to us in ways that make it easier and more enjoyable to get involved. Although the fact that all of this content is on the internet can make the elections even more of a popularity contest than in past years.

Podcast

2008-03-18T13:31:00.009-05:00

Hey all,
here's my group's podcast project. Podcast Politics 2.0 is a show we created to discuss Social Media practices in the 2008 Presidential Elections. You'll here Patrick Kirby, Gabriela SiFuentes, and me talk about the leading candidates.
Podcast Politics 2.0

"Tools of the Trade"

2008-03-16T17:46:00.011-05:00

Paul Gillin discusses in the chapter titled “Tools of the Trade”, the necessary use of products and services that alert you when the media is talking about any topic. If he hasn’t yet convinced you to become a part of the blogosphere, he at least stresses the importance for a business marketer to know what is being said about him/her, a company, or product.

Gillin points out that some of these tracking services can cost a pretty penny but luckily, monitoring engines such as Google Alerts, Ask.com, and Yahoo! provide these services free. You can specify any topics for regular searches. An e-mail is sent to you when new results appear that informs you of the mention of your name, your company’s name, or a product name. People want to hear what the world is saying about them to better prepare themselves in case something such as a blog swarm occurs. Our class has seen first hand how these alert systems can be useful for big, bad, important CEO’s. Within an hour of posting about the new Jawbone viral ads on her blog, Christina Timms had a rather long comment from the CEO of Digital Axle. (See here and here) Most likely, this quick response was made possible by Bruce’s Google Alert or some other alert system that showed his name, Digital Axle’s name, and Jawbone all tagged. Because of the controversy with his firm's relation to the ad, he probably receives alerts on all of those names so that he can know what's being said and can quickly respond.

Gillin notes that familiarizing yourself with the advanced search features of any engine you choose to use is a good idea because many make searches even more specific and easier. In Yahoo!’s search engine a command called “linkdomain” gives a list of links to the page or domain that you specify and also allows you to choose one particular website to search.

Searching blogs is different because of the RSS feeds that bloggers use to show their blog was updated. The RSS feeds are monitored in blog-specific searches but are less effective when it comes to filtering the results of a specific search. Opinmind.com is really interesting. It classifies your search results by bias, which means the tone of a blog post is analyzed to display whether the opinion of the post is for or against the searched topic. Basically, you can separate the mean people from the nice ones by having Opinmind.com show if someone was trash-talking you, or praising you. Technorati is also a good tool to measure the popularity in blogosphere to determine how influential a bad post or good post will be for your search.

Podcasts also sometimes require different search engines due to the difficulty in indexing the content. Podscope.com and Podzinger.com are two that list podcasts that mention a specific search term. You can further use their services to listen to the exact segment in the podcast where your term is spoken.

Some Tips for Social Media Creation

2008-02-24T18:09:00.007-06:00

Once again I have come across yet another article that has further convinced me that social media is not just a "shiny new toy that will get tossed back in the toy box" when the children grow tired of it. I received this from MediaBistro's PRNewser. They are skeptical about whether or not blogs, podcasts, and social networks are here to stay but nonetheless, Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications, blogged about the content creation process. In this post, you'll find 14 steps that companies and marketers should follow in order to address company resources and consumer needs through social media. There's everything from researching audiences, to locating your stakeholders, to choosing the best initiative. His book Now is Gone also guides executives and entrepreneurs into social media. If these professionals are writing books and speaking to other CEOs, I have to believe it's foot-printing its way into our lives for a good while.

How does Advertising hold up?

2008-02-18T08:44:00.007-06:00

Forrester Research released a new study that reports social media won't be seeing as many budget cuts as traditional media will. Marketers are more likely to decrease spending here than in areas such as word of mouth, blogging, and social networking. AdWeek reported this last week. Some might be apprehensive to how much advertisers are going to invest in these new practices, especially when the experimental stage isn't over yet. Starting a Facebook page or a blog doesn't cost a company much, unlike the big-media campaigns everyone is doing. The study shows that social media initiatives will withstand budget cuts because companies are beginning to understand them and make smarter choices, instead of jumping into something just because all your competitors are doing it.

Forrester found that Procter & Gamble's online community for adolescent girls, BeingGirl.com, has been 4 times as effective as an almost equally priced marketing program for traditional media. Advertising on Facebook has become even more widespread with the use of "pages", where a company, product, music group, non-profit organization can create content. These pages allow you to buy advertising that's seen by your "fans" or "members".

For your podcast pleasures

2008-02-13T21:16:00.004-06:00

Since our podcast project is coming up, I figured I'd share a bit of an article that I found on eMarketer. I know Corinne has really emphasized the popularity of podcasts, but maybe some of these numbers will convince some of us who might be hesitant to believe.

Research has shown that the podcast-user base if growing due to:

Greater ease of consumption for podcast content
Growing awareness of podcasting
Terrestrial radio’s use and promotion of podcasting
Increased penetration of portable players
The evolution of smart phones and proliferation of affordable mobile data plans

Just like Corinne discussed in class, the majority of users experience their podcasts on PCs instead of cell phones or iPods. That's right. The estimated 18.5 million of us out there are listening to this stuff on desktops. This means the peak hasn't even been reached. Nope, by 2012 we'll be up to 65 million...that's 251%! And out of these millions and millions and millions, 25 million will tune in at least once a week.

Along with the podcast audience increase, there's bound to be some more advertising money spent. A projected $435 million in 2012, up from the $165 spent this year for sponsorships and all.

Thanks Corinne for the practice!
The full eMarketer report from Paul Verna can be downloaded here.

When Sandwiches Duel

2008-02-13T21:15:00.011-06:00

We've all seen those commercials that star people on the street as taste-testers. A person is blind folded or the brand name of the product is hidden, and they get taste two products to see which is better. Then the product name is revealed and it's usually the underdog brand, who claims its superior taste. Pepsi did a lot of this to show its resounding preferred taste over Coca-Cola products. We've also seen the user-generated videos that have made it to commercial stardom. Consumer brands like Doritos, Dove, Toyota and Heinz have run promotions of this sort because "they generate publicity, usually at a low cost to the advertiser", and can lead to some nobody making a clever commercial. So what do you get when you mix the competitive taste-testing with user-generated content together? A rivalry between Quiznos and Subway to see who is the meatiest of them all.

The toasted sandwich chain created a contest online at a site Quiznos had set up called meatnomeat.com, as well as on iFilm that would invite the public to create commercials that would show Quiznos sandwiches superior to Subways.

It's all in competitive fun right, the rivalry between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Miller Lite and Bud Lite, Colgate and Crest. Personally, I think the bashed brand still gets a little advertising time by having its name shown. But not to Subway. They're suing Quiznos and iFilm, owned by Viacom, claiming that these ads contained “literally false statements” and depicted Subway in a “disparaging manner.” They're also suing for the ads Quiznos itself created that show passer-bys choosing Quiznos over Subway.

So companies are always suing each other over ad disputes but what about the video contest. Should Quiznos really be sued for what other people created if they just facilitated what costumers already express? They did provoke it and give incentive, but what happens to user-generated video contests like this? This was a short-lived fad that, if Subway wins, will surely be killed off.

At least Quiznos finally got smart and realized that any ads they produced were at best horrible and tried something new. This is better than the talking baby or whatever THIS is:Yes, anything is better than THAT.

Cashmere Mafia reveals the new trend

2008-02-03T15:24:00.001-06:00

Thanks to a fellow classmate, I've become obsessed with ABC's new show Cashmere Mafia. It's executive producer is Darren Star, sound familiar? He's also the creator of Sex In the City. I really wasn't interested in adding a new show to my list of "must sees", but I can't help but want to watch the trendy and glamorous lives of these 4 women who live in NYC. The stars of the show (Lucy Liu, who is always fun to watch on screen, Frances O'Connor, Bonnie Somerville, and an "ice queen" performance that you just can't help but love by Miranda Otto) unite as a female "boys' club" that dominates the finance, media, publishing and advertising worlds.

Now I'm not writing to give a critic review, but to point out what's really interesting about the show. The fact that it places the power in these women's hands, or shows them repeatably as victors over men is fun to watch, BUT I was particularly drawn to (don't get me wrong, I'm all for a sitcom about strong successful women) its references to modern technology such as blogging, Facebook, and BlackBerrys. I love that in every episode the women are so in tune with this stuff and it plays such a big part of their professions. Of course, I do enjoy that they are marketing execs and publishing editors since this is along the lines of what I plan to do in a few years. Blogging is something that pops up every ten minutes with shout outs to Media Bistro. One character is even a blogger who's made enemies with these women by posting gossip about each of them. Two young entrepreneurs appear on the show to sell their "Facebook clone" for a pretty penny, and Bonnie Somerville's character tells how she receives instant alerts every time her name appears online. It's cool to see how the things we discuss in class are making their way onto primetime television. I'm sure more shows will continue to shed light on trends like YouTube and Myspace.

Swag for Beauty Bloggers

2008-02-01T14:14:00.000-06:00

We can see in many ways that bloggers are no longer seen as whiners, free loaders, or bitter customers. In the cosmetic world, for instance, two years ago bloggers were seen as an annoyance. Now, it's hard to leave their calls asking for free samples unanswered with such a big possibility that one blog could inadvertently or (let's be honest) purposefully send a product's sales through the roof. Even Alison Brod PR founder admitted that these bloggers are no longer seen as bottom feeders, but influential journalists. The firm has recently created a new position whose job is to get bloggers to write about clients.

In Kristen Kelly's case, her BeautyAddict blog generates 3,500 visitors daily and is thought to be one of a handful of other bloggers to trigger the first waiting list in Lancôme's history for her approval of a limited-edition lipstick created by the designer Behnaz Sarafpour. Bloggers like this have the influence that companies want...and are receiving the benefits because of it (and these guys aren't stingy with their $250 face cream or luxurious trips). All the free makeup they want, designer purses and all-expenses-paid trips to Paris are in some cases the swag that keeps these bloggers happy. Beauty editor turned blogger, Nadine Haobsh, receives 20 to 50 products every week for her blog Jolie in NYC.

Unlike beauty editors and directors, these bloggers aren't obligated to decline these lavish gifts that cost more than some of our monthly rent! In the last six months beauty companies have specifically planned events for bloggers...companies such as Chanel, who flew 15 of them to Paris from places all over the world to meet with its master perfumer and a tour of Coco Chanel's apartment!

Magazines like Allure and Glamour have now started blogging about beauty products to rank the newest thing for their readers. In the last year or so, more women turned to blogs for this advice because of the attraction to a more personable and relatable tone. Not only is beauty blogging appealing for readers, but inspiration for more women to start their own blog in hopes of freebies. I just hope this doesn't mean these beauty bloggers become beauty whores...nobody wants these once trusted blogs to turn into similar- sounding posts that reek of promotion.

There isn't an approximate count of beauty blogs, but there is an estimate of thousands, says Julie Fredrickson, a founder of Coutorture (a network of 240 beauty and fashion blogs and Web sites!). I see unbiased product reviews that bloggers once not unafraid to publish, disappearing as more bloggers are treated to champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. Even though aspirations to become a "beauty addict" might result in an over abundance of beauty blogs, make no mistake, companies look for the best blogs out there to treat: a fresh look, tons of views, comments from active readers, and bloggers with personality are all requirements...misspellings are viewed as a blemish.

Check out the NY Times' article here.

I want to be a 1 Percenter

2008-01-27T22:53:00.000-06:00

In our textbook "Citizen Marketers" by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, the second chapter introduces the idea of the 1% rule. Simply stating that "about 1 percent of the total number of visitors to a democratized forum will create content for it or contribute content to it." From the legendary tale of the 1 Percenters that arose from a motorcycling magazine about mayhem that broke out during an annual motorcyle race in Hollister, California, the authors use the 1 Percenters as an analogy to descride citizen marketers.

I never thought about contributing to sites like Wikipedia or Yahoo Groups even though I might use, see, or hear about them everyday. The authors bring up interesting numbers from their research of this 1% rule, such as in June 2005, 7.4 million visitors of Wikipedia had the opportunity to add to the site's content but out of those millions only 68, 682 people did. This is a whopping .9 percent that has been pretty consistent since the start of Wikipedia. Similar numbers for other online communities like QuickBooks Community, Channel 9, Discovery Education, and Yahoo Groups were presented. It's interesting to see that even when people are given the egalitarian opportunity to create something for the world to see, few take advantage. Our book describes these people as sharing many characteristics with citizen marketers. David Megegan, Boston Globe reporter, says they are "higly educated, intellectually curious, sociable, interested in many things and in finding new interests." I don't know about you but I'd like to be associated with that group, and I plan to come up with something to submit to Wikipedia in the future.

YouTube's Korean Site

2008-01-27T21:30:00.000-06:00

Last week the NY Times reported the launch of a Korean-language interface to YouTube. The launch of local sites in Ireland and the U.K. happened last year. Plans were also made for YouTube's expansion of international reach with local language interfaces and domain names including Brazil, Japan, Italy, France, Poland, Spain and the Netherlands.

I was suprised to read that this hadn't already been done in Korea, what with its popularity and high-level of broadband Internet penetration and streaming video. It was one of the first countries in the world to have TV Networks' websites offer their full programming live and on-demand. YouTube will have competition though, with established local video sites such as Daum and Pandora TV, which has been within the top 15 sites in all Korean websites.

YouTube could follow in the mixed success of its owner Google, but the people of Google are definitely taking the neceassary steps toward success in Korea by last year building a local office in Seoul. In May, Google gave its Korean homepage a face lift with the addition of a toolbar and animated icons that act as shortcuts to site features. This is the furthest the Google homepage has changed from its simplistic design we are used to viewing.