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Real Techniques new Bold Metals collection: Social Media Monitoring 1

INTRODUCTION

The majority of present companies and brands start with their business or production first and then join social media. But now it is possible to do visa versa. This was a road map for Real Techniques. Real Techniques is a company which main product is brushes. As the company claims their brushes combine high-tech materials with innovative design. Its creators started with social network and only then came up with the idea of creating their own product. Above all things sisters wanted to help those women who are not quite sure where to start to easily choose right tools for doing their makeup.

HISTORY

Two persons who stand behind Real Techniques brand are sisters Samantha and Nicola Chapman. They grew up surrounded by makeup as their aunt was a top makeup artist in London, working with clients like David Bowie and Princess Diana. Their mum was makeup-involved too and promoted girls love for makeup. Sam and Nic chose makeup artistry was as their career path.The older sister Sam attended school for professional makeup artistry and worked on counters in London and started her career as a freelance artist. She worked with brands like MAC, Estee Lauder, and Chanel. Nic was following a similar path. Over time they both had built a reputation in the industry as respected makeup artists.By chance a YouTube channel Pixiwoo was created and latter in 2010 when it had reached around 30,000 subscribers, the idea behind Real Techniques began to formulate. The Real Techniques brush collection was launched in 2011. Brush quality was paired with professional, interesting and fun education from Sam and Nic. The launch was a success.Today the brand is presented in the US, UK and around the world. 

MARKETING CAMPAIGN 

This January about 8 weeks ago Real Techniques launched a new product - Bold Metals collection which is a new permanent Spring 2015 Collection of brushes featuring fiber bristles and a new gorgeous precious metal colors. The new line of luxury metal brushes was at first available on the company's website and exclusively at Ulta.

SOCIAL MEDIA OVERVIEW

Website

The company's website was launched in 2011 is very easy to use.There is a link to the blog page right next to the new product campaign page and videos collection. It almost calls customers to take part in discussions and leave their feedback, and also provides easy excess to the new product which is being actively mentioned in social media now.

The website is mainly devoted to products and, first of all, it is an on-line shop. 

There are almost no comments on the blog page of the site. I think because that the same posts are on their Facebook page and it is more convenient to use for commenting.

Videos collection has a very convenient feature - all videos have direct links to products used in them.

YouTube

Pixiwoo channel:

Subscribers: 1,784,146
Views: 222,442,991

Realtechniques channel:

Subscribers: 165,853 
Views: 7,477,496
In 2008 Sam started a YouTube channel called Pixiwoo. At the time she was pregnant and had moved to her hometown of Norwich to raise her daughters. When a friend asked how to get a smoky eye, the first Pixiwoo video was created. The channel had been becoming popular and people began request specific medias. Sam and Nic began to collaborate. They were pioneers of a new platform of makeup artistry.

In 2011 they started a channel specially for their product line, unlike Pixiwoo this channel features only videos with Real Techniques products.

Both channels have very positive feedback from the viewers.

YouTube is also the place where people tend to leave their complaints and Real Techniques answers them:

Facebook

Likes: 280,763
The page was started in 2011 with the launching of the product and is still one of the most popular places among many social media users. Facebook page is actively using groundswell engagement inviting people to discussions and asking for their opinion.

Twitter

Tweets: 16.8K
Following: 549
Followers: 58.3K
Favorites: 3,178
Real Techniques Twitter page is not very popular comparing to Instagram. Because clearly there is more to show then to tell about something like makeup brushes. The company use to announce about upcoming events, engage people in conversations asking them basic questions and tell them when a new video is uploaded on their YouTube channel. 

Instagram

Posts: 343
Followers: 208K
Following: 252
Instagram is one of the most popular company's social media page along with Facebook. It is very visual and gives a good perception on the products and campaigns.I like the fact that it contains both professional and day-to-day photosю But it is still very professional creating a main focus on their products.

Pinterest

Boards: 20
Pins: 443
Followers: 3,975
Following: 83
Real Techniques pinterest page has boards devoted to different topics, such as: our brushes, storage solutions, how to: contouring, runway to real etc.

Google+

Followers: 1,534
Views: 580,085
Probably the least popular company's social media page. It has mainly reposts from YouTube and links to their website. You can notice that some of the pictures look like they've been taken from the magazine (the ones with products and numbers next to them), that is probably because right now sisters are working on their digital magazine.

CURRENT METRICS

GoogleTrends

IceRocket

SocialMention

The new campaign also influenced the company's website popularity and increased the number visitors.

Compete

CONCLUSION

As you can see from above charts Bold Metals collection is quite popular. It is being very actively discussed on social media websites. This of no surprise, this is the second brush line by Real Techniques. People wanted something new and exciting since the first brush entered the market in 2011. The main and most important product feature - quality is still the same and even better, and of course company still uses high-tech materials. The new design is more slick and luxurious and very different from the old one.

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!

Airlines and their Instagram

It is commonly known that Instagram is an established social media that is the most popular one of a kind (online mobile photo and video sharing). 
In this post I would like to review a few airlines I like and see how they use Instagram to attract audience and encourage new customers. These airlines are Turkish Airlines, Delta and JetBlue. So lets take a look at their Instagram accounts.

As you can see, all of them have similar content as for pictures, but it only seams to be that way. For example on Turkish Airlines Instagram page you will find a lot (and I mean a lot) of posts with football players (for example Drogba and Messi) who are involved in its marketing campaign. Delta likes to draw attention to its heritage and history by posting plenty of retro pictures with #TrowbackThuesday. JetBlue likes to give tips to its customers using #TravelTip and offer new locations to travel to with #DestinationFriday.

The first airline I found interacting with people via social media was Turkish Airlines. One day I've been scrolling my news-feed in vk and my eye caught one of my friends's posts that was about a contest the company had at a time and a prize was two round-way tickets. That was a long time ago, so I couldn't find it now. Fortunately the girl works at the Turkish Airline office in Astrakhan airport that I used to work at and apparently promoting the airline on Instagram is a part of her job.

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As it turned out it is not the only contest the company have been helding on Instagram.

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Delta has no contests on its Instargam page (at least any recent ones) but there is something I really like it has. It's #Nerifly which is simply a random scientific fact related to aviation, but apparently is does the job.

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JetBlue which is my favourite airline for its JetPaws is also using contests in its marketing campaign.

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As is seen from above different airlines use various strategies and tools to draw customers and one of the best tricks is to held a contest because there is nothing more appealing as something for free!

Tell me what is your favourite airline and why you like it?