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It's time for a Digital Detox!

“Groundswell technologies are exploding. They're cheap and easy to create and improve, they tap easily into the Internet advertising economy, and they connect people who naturally want to connect.” (274 Groundswell)

All of it sounds good and when you first think about the pros of the groundswell you don't seam to find any cons. But sadly, it might be rather devastating. The groundswell has already embedded within every activity in the real world.(275)

There is no doubt that social media with all its entertainment and communication opportunities can cause an addiction. And just like with any other types of addiction, sooner or later there comes a concern and then a detox.

Social media addiction can cause FoMO which stands for Fear of Missing Out which I've already talked about in one of my reсent posts. And just like with anything else in the Universe there is an opposite phenomenon called JoMO - Joy of Missing Out. While term FoMO has been out there for quite a long time, JoMO appeared rather recently in 2012. The term was first mentioned by a blogger Anil Dash.

Joy of Missing Out: enjoying what you’re doing in the here and now and not on social media broadcasting or seeing what everybody else is doing.(urbandictionary.com)

JoMO touched the right chord. The Huffington Post has named 2014 “The Year of JOMO”. JoMO became so popular and has been extensively discussed, that in 2013 term 'digital detox' was registered in Oxford dictionary.

Lets take a look at how people in different countries give up on the Internet and cell phones in order to come back to “normal” lifestyle.

Wisdom 2.0

Large IT-companies were first who experienced information overload. Google for example is practicing silent lunches and has meditation rooms for its employees; Facebook and Twitter made meditative practices essential part of weekly work routine. Digital corporations exchange their practices resisting digital-slavery on annual Wisdom 2.0 conference held in winter in California. Conference headliners are top managers of LinkedIn, Twitter, Cisco, Ford, spiritual instructors and philosophers. First Wisdom 2.0 conference counted 200 attendants, by 2013 the number reached 1700 attendants.

Hamburgers vs. Facebook friends

Burger King held anti-digital Whopper® Sacrifice campaign under the slogan “Friendship is strong but the whopper is stronger”. Burger King promised to grant a free whooper to everyone who would delete 10 friends via Whopper® Sacrifice app and announce it on Facebook. After 233 906 friends sacrificed Facebook closed the app as it contradicted its policy.

Off-line camps

Two summers in a row hundreds of people come to Camp Grounded located in California to do a digital detox. Any kind of digital devices including photo and video cameras are prohibited here. Instead there are lake swimming, talent contests, songs near fire and other scout activities. There are no real names and work talks. No fast food, alcohol and drugs. No kids. Instead of Facebook there is a face art, instead of email – normal mail box.

No Wi-Fi hotels

Some hotels now ask their guests to leave all electronic devises on the reception desk or offer special digital-detox programs. For example some hotels in Caribbean Sea offer a seven-day detox program developed by Department of Tourism and psychologist Louise Gillespie Smith. The program provides couches helping people to overcome the demolition.

No cell phones party

For those who suffer from FoMO and get a good hold of their cell phones even on a party Singapore geeks invented Social Rehab. It's a kit including color lens glasses (replacing Instagram), “Like” stickers, note cards to write down tweets and sketch pads. The kit can be used in everyday life and on special Social Rehab parties.

Anti-tech clothes and accessory

The Way We See The World - NY product design consultancy came up with the idea of creating a tech accessory called Phonekerchief. It's a cover for your cell phone blocking incoming calls and texts. This invention aims to help people not to get distracted by the technology during person to person communications.

Japanees designer Kunihiko Morinaga created a line of clothing that blocks cell phone signals allowing people wearing it to focus on physical life.

Apps vs. apps

There are quite a few digital detox apps:

Headspace – aims to better your life quality and teach how to fight stress and tiredness with simple yet effective meditation lessons;

Keepmeout – temporarily blocks access to social media websites;

Digital Detox App – shuts down your electronic device for a set period of time;

Accountkiller – provides links to instructions on how to delete accounts from all popular networks;

DeleteMe – deletes all personal information from some biggest social networks including contact information and photos.

As said in the book “when the groundswell surrounds you like a cocoon, when you breath it like air and depend on it always, the world will feel very different.” (275) And it already does feel different! It's time to make a right decision whether to dive into the world of technology with our heads or learn how to know when enough is enough. What are your thoughts?

Can't stop checking your social media accounts? Fill anxious about missing out? - You have FoMO.

Do you ever find yourself worried that everybody else is doing something fun without you? 

You may have FoMO.

 FoMO stands for Fear of Missing Out, it is a psychological phenomenon that may have devastating effect on your life. Andrew Przybylski defines FoMO as "a pervasive apprehension that others might behaving rewarding experiences from which one is absent, FoMO is characterized by the desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing".
 However Andrew Przybylski was not the first one who define FoMO, Dan Herman was. He observed this phenomenon back in 90's and was the first to come up with the term. He's been listening to consumers who "...expressed a clearly fearful attitude towards the possibility of failing to exhaust their opportunities". It appeared to be a new phenomenon  in customer psychology. Later on he began researching FoMO more as a socio-cultural phenomenon and as a personality factor. And it is no wonder that Dan Herman inspired other scientists to study this new phenomenon.

 Surely enough social media and social networks in particular are a good thing as "they connect people who've moved apart even as they enable people who live close together to keep up with one another...help to create new relationships" (23 Groundswell). But sometimes there is a dark side. And it is FoMO. It has been out there for probably forever, but now with all these social media websites at our fingertips we may suffer from it more then ever before. If you are an active social media user there are chances you may experience FoMO. And when you miss out on some important peace of information your level of stress and anxiety jumps up.

 It may sound naive or even impossible, but people should probably learn how to use social networks and on-line technologies moderately. It is important to know the limit as an overuse of social media is an addiction which is just like any other kind of addiction. It also a good thing to identify your priorities. What is more important to you, what party your BFF crashed without you or the fact that your project deadline is tomorrow.

 If you are curious what your FoMO rate is, you can take an online questionnaire that was used by Andrew Przybylski and other scientists in their study featured in the article "Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out".

 And you may end up with this result, just like I did:

According to latest studies around 70% of all adults in developed countries suffer from FoMO.

 Stop FOMO! Fight it! Figuring out your own priorities will help you stop feeling overwhelmed by what other people do without you. To fight FoMO Andrew Przybylski recommends “knowing not just what your plans are for Saturday night, but what are your reasons for wanting to do that thing on Saturday night [...] why the heck you’re going out in the first place.” Ones you understand what you want you will be less bothered by what other people do.

Coca-Cola Company and Social Media Engagement

The topic for this post is going to be something that almost everybody have tried in their life and many of us loved it. It's one and only 

First of all lets observe all of Coca-Cola Company brands, because there are quite a few!

Just look at that! You wouldn't probably think that Coca-Cola owns that many, would you?

It must be really hard to keep an eye on all of them in terms of developing right marketing strategies and campaigns.

All companies struggle answering the question - what does the customer want? And sometimes they chose to do something that would satisfy every customer out there. That's what Coca-Cola Company did.

I hope everybody has tried or at least seen this marvel of science and technology! 

Meet Coca-Cola Freestyle!

Never seen it before? Don't you worry! I will tell what it is. It's a Coca-Cola fountain where you basically can add any kind of flavour to any of Coca-cola drinks. Sounds like fun, right? You can get more than 100 drink combinations of some regular and low-calorie brands, this includes varieties of waters, sports drinks, lemonades and sparkling waters.

But even having this miracle of miracles Coca-Cola uses crowdsourcing and maintains a visible appearance on Facebook and other social networking sites. With millions of fans Coca-Cola uses the power of social networking to spread its word and to here what its customers are willing to say. Using social networking helps it to stay young and fresh. The brand always wants Coca-Cola products to be associated  with positive feelings. 

Coca-Cola likes its social media engagement to be transparent and even shows its Social Media Principles on company's website.

The majority of companies use social networking sites to get feedback, and most of the feedback is usually positive. Knowing that you’re doing right surely can be helpful, but positive feedback isn't enough to drive progress. Instead of spending an enormous amount of time and money on market research companies can successfully maintain their relationships with customers in social media. Companies should simply ask customers in their posts and tweets. "[...] customers don't take long to tell you what they want. They use your product and interact with your company; they know what's wrong and how things can be fixed." (183) However companies shouldn't expect that customers would tell them what to do - "they just make suggestions [...] companies are listening to and acting on many of these suggestions." (194)

Coca-Cola Company is one of the biggest companies in the global marketplace. It constantly launching new campaigns. Here are some of the huge and recent ones: 

- Coke Zero campaign on eyeka.com - a contest for the best Video/Animation which captures a tagline ”It’s possible!”;

- Coca-cola Design+ Award campaign in Germany - a contest for developing concept ideas for the bottle crate of future.

And there are many more others that were done and yet more to come!

Whether it's a big or a small campaign it encourages company's customers to use social media and help promote the brand.

The good news about social media is that it’s very good for trying out something new and talking to customers and all at once.

Let me know whether you like the idea of Coca-Cola Freestyle or not? And if you tried it, tell me know what your favourite flavour is!

Cats and the Groundswell

Let's face it, everybody loves to watch good cat videos every once in a while! I do! And YouTube is one of the best places to do it. There are quite a few famous internet cats such as Snoopy Cat, Maru, Grumpy Cat, Nala Cat, Lil BUB, Hamilton, Oskar&Klaus and even a cartoon Simon's Cat! Each of them is unique in a certain way and has a vivid personality.

I'm sure you recognize at least some of them unless you've been living under a rock!

Besides entertaining videos these lovely creatures participate in commercials and cooperate with famous brands. Right before Christmas 2013 Friskies aired a music video called "Hard To Be a Cat at Christmas" on its YouTube channel starring some internet-famous cats - Oskar the blind cat, Nala Cat, Colonel Meow, Hamilton the hipster cat and Grumpy Cat. The commercial claimed that Friskies will donate a can of wet food to cats in need for every video view starting after 500,000 views.  The video has over 3 million views. BTW Grumpy Cat is featured in at least 13 videos on this channel and has a separate playlist Grumpy Cat & Friskies®! And this isn't a coincidence - Grumpy Cat got Lifetime Achievment Award at The Friskies in 2013 for the best cat video. Since then Friskies and Grumpy Cat started their partnership. She was also named 2012's most influential cat by MSNBC.

Hands down Grumpy Cat is probably the most popular and richest cats in the world. Grumpy cat - a.k.a Tardar Sauce - known for her grumpy facial expression, has a fortune worth $120 million which is more than some Hollywood's biggest celebrity humans have. Tardar Sauce became Grumpy cat over two years ago when her picture was posted to the social news website Reddit on September 22, 2012. Since that time her popularity hasn't stop growing. Internet is full of memes with her pictures and funny sayings. She is everywhere!

Of course there is an owner behind each of these cats whom we not necessarily know by sight, but who started all of THESE and boosted the popularity of their beloved pets. They started their involvement in the groundswell and it looks like there is no way back.

These felines prove that the groundswell is not only for humans.

With this kind of involvement in the groundswell with millions of views and thousands of followers there is a whole market waiting for the buyers. You can find any kind of things featuring famous internet cats from wall calendars and look-a-like plush toys on out to books and films.

Maybe someday these cats will have stars on Hollywood Boulevard or monuments to perpetuate their names.

We can draw a conclusion that owners can use their cats to help other animals via the groundswell. Cats are a good tool to attract and engage people.

Even a cat can swim like a fish in the groundswell so why can't anybody?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumpy_Cat

https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/new-idea/real-life/a/25713506/grumpy-cat-worth-a-whopping-120-million/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2864212/Not-grumpy-Cat-internet-star-owner-64million.html

Online clothing shops and the groundswell

So the reason why I chose this topic is simple...recently I ran out of new videos in my YouTube subscriptions feed so I dared to find new channels to watch and subscribe to. The first thing that came to my thirsty for shopping mind was my favorite online clothing shop - ASOS. I was very much surprised by a small number of subscribers (comparing to some entertainment YouTube channels that I watch) so I decided to check out a few other popular online retailers' channels such as Topshop, Macy's, Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters. And I found that non of them were any close to pitiful 100,000 subscribers! How come? Do these companies even participate in the groundswell?!

Let's first take a dive into the theory! Shall we?

In Groundswell, the authors mention the marketing funnel that shows the way people become buyers (101 Groundswell).

Where do online clothing shops meet the groundswell? Well, everywhere! But I would like to turn your attention to the part where communication happens.

The Social Technographics ladder

The authors of the book point out that marketers have little control over what happens in the middle of the funnel as it is heavily influenced by the groundswell, which means that customers here are engaged in conversations on different social networks (101 Groundswell). The conversation includes customers of all Social Technographics Profile groups, however the dialogue itself is made by Creators and Critics (posts, blogs, comments, etc.) and never goes unseen by Spectators(43, 102 Groundswell).

In the modern economy companies should not only keep their eye on this activities - they should participate in the communication! And the better they participate the more buyers they will get.

Nowadays this kind of company-buyer communication happens on social networks. What are the most popular social networks that are used by the modern companies? Some of them may vary, but the most common and widespread are Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.

Now we are turning back to the first page. Let's compare social network involvement of those popular online retailers mentioned in the beginning of this blog:

as of 2 February 2015

	Facebook	Twitter	Google +	Pinterest	Instagram	YouTube
ASOS	3,596,057	798K	2,260,567	402,111	2.6M	38,962
Topshop	4,130,773	1.06M	2,255,927	97,805	3.7M	50,128
Macy's	14,718,980	734K	-	104,258	254K	16,643
Nordstrom	3,096,476	548K	-	4,418,975	744K	20,650
Urban Outfitters	2,127,314	967K	-	155,125	2.4M	20,282

As you can see it's just YouTube that isn't quite popular, there are more participants on other social networks. And you can see that ASOS and others are doing quite alright after all!

But we all know that having a big number of followers or subscribers doesn't necessarily mean that the company is keeping up in the groundswell, but it still gives the general idea. I doubt that unsatisfied costumers would not unsubscribe from those social networks, and by "unsatisfied costumer" I also mean those whose issues and concerns got no answer from the company.

Have you ever had a good/bad experience communicating with a company via social networking website? What would you like it to improve?