Really enjoy the movie, or just missed a good one ? Part Ⅱ

As we mentioned before, a ‘bad’ movie makes a huge success. Since bad is a little strong, I’ll go with the word “average”. Another example is a recent movie in China; it’s called “Lost in Thailand -Tai Jiong”. This movie was the first domestic movie that sold more than 10 billions tickets and broke 10 records in Chinese Filming history. But as for the movie itself, is it really that good? I’m not sure it’s compatible to its success, at least not all the feedbacks are positive. but still, it’s a huge success and total surprised lots of people. The more people talk about it, the more success it can achieve. What you can do, the results showed everything. Now let’s see how they made a big advantage of social media. The total cost of filming this movie is 3 million, but the total investment in advertising is 3 billion. Even it is a huge expenditure, there is no TV commercial or advertising at all, it’s all about social media. Before the movie is on, the publisher released some funny clips and pictures from the movie to all kinds of websites, social networks and online video channels. And they ‘hired’ certain people to write reviews or blogs about the movie in social media networks, which is very vivid and believable. In addition, most of the time people can’t really tell whether it’s real or not, and don’t really bother to find out the reliability of it, they believe it’s true, and project the reflections on themselves. Since all people can reach is only part of it, and almost everyone around you is talking about it, it’s very possible you get intrigued and want to check it out. And all of these happened even before the movie is on. There is no harm and lost for people to buy one ticket and watch, right? 

Then when the movie is on, this buzz continues. People talked about it more, no matter they are good review or bad ones. Based on the effect of Sheep Flock, imagine you are in a social group and everyone else is talking about a certain thing and make fun about it, but you have no idea, don’t you want to join?Don't you want to find out ? The success of this movie played this physiological game of human beings very well, so it’s no longer about how funny or special the movie is, social media took the job over and made it to the next level.

If we think about it, this is a really interesting phenomenon, how people are played and nudged by the effects of social media. And that’s why sometimes we may watch an average movie but miss a really good one. For businesses in other industry, same working philosophy, how businessmen play with it is the real wisdom.

Really enjoy the movie, or just missed a good one ? Part Ⅰ

As much as people don’t want to admit, social media defines who we are, what we like, and what we are thinking about, before we even realize. People share their interests, tastes, and their dislikes online with each other. There are actual groups among these people, they join in, create virtual discussion groups and make friends, follow and “like” certain things, such as food, video games, or movies. And nowadays more and more people tend to do their research and gather more valuable opinions and reviews before actually do something, such as watching a new movie, trying a special restaurant. It’s acting exactly like a silent and low-cost advertising and the power is more than you can imagine.

But if you think about it, have you ever got lots of compliments online about a new Hollywood movie and then after watching it, you just want to shout out” It sucks”? I bet everyone has this kind of experience. Companies with deep pockets use social media for reach and profit is the new ‘guaranteed’ success they’ve been looking for. Let’s take a look at one movie, I don’t want to judge this movie in my personal opinion. “Alice in Wonderland”, which is based on fairy tale and it comes out as both 2D and 3D. Most people know the story well so besides the originality, this movie has to achieve more to win the audience. Disney launched a viral Twitter and Facebook campaign that allowed fans to become loyal subjects of the red queen, the white queen, or a disloyal subject of the mad hatter. The largest army of followers would then receive access to an exclusive trailer that no one else could see. It was an instant viral hit. Even today the Facebook page has 10 million fans. And finally this movie made a big success. Put the quality of the movie aside, in the movie industry, it’s more about creating exposure and becoming memorable, and then reaching huge profits for the companies.

How about a ‘bad’ movie made a huge success? Is that kind of ironic? Let’s find out. 

Social Media's Impact On Advertising

Before we get into discussing social media’s impact, I want to briefly talk about the World Economic Forum in Davos, some business leaders were asked: ‘how is social media changing how you do your business?’, and their answers provide some very interesting insights. Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault-Nissan points out that social media is particularly important when launching a new product, and he also touches on the crucial point of ‘collective intelligence’; a key business opportunity provided by social media. Social media tools allow for businesses to connect to customers and listen to them – this feedback, in turn, can either be ignored, or instead, turned into immense business leverage to enhance a product and/or service.  

Here we can get the idea that social media plays a crucial role on company’s advertising, engaging on social networks can promote company’s brand and connect with target audience. Content shared on social media amplifies your brand’s presence, while transparent social exchanges project its authenticity. This creates relationships with new customers and strengthens relationships with existing customers.

Companies with a future vision need to proactively leverage social media to drive their social media advertising efforts. Tweeting, posting and blogging help leverage their products and boost brand. It’s all about creating a buzz among the audience, people follow the product, ask questions, blog about it, make compliments or air opinions with their friends and colleagues, whether businesses are there to hear them or not. In today’s world, the more you talk about something, the more people want to check it out, and the more famous the product become. So it creates more invisible power and influence than TV and newspaper advertising does. In addition, these conversations between different people groups on social media can deliver valuable commercial information that may drive sales and customer satisfaction if the company is capable to take advantage of it. But this is easier said than done and takes a lot more effort than setting up a company page on Facebook or Twitter. We’ll discuss this more in the following blogs.

 Davos interview on Social Media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMNIK4CWk1g&feature=player_embedded

Good or bad ? Social Media's impact on Business

   Social media, dramatically changes the face of business at such a fast pace that business leaders that can not adapt to it now will end up lagging behind other competitors sooner than later. More and more companies start to take advantage of the snowball effects of social media.

    If you want to book a hotel, you go search others’ people reviews and thoughts before making a reservation; If you want to try this restaurant, you may hear it from a friend, or somebody’s blog review, or go to Facebook or Yelp and check its stars; If you want to buy a product you go Google other users’ opinions and how much they like it, to get a more round and comprehensive idea. Apparently, this is not only the companies’ effort to make the brand advertising; it’s social media’s. 

    The benefit of social media, apparently, is to give company a more effective and cost-efficient way to connect and communicate with the customers. And this kind of soft advertising really works on the customers instead of the routine TV ads, or newspaper.

    But every coin has two sides, unless you take control of social media, you risk social media taking control of you. That’s why many companies are afraid of the realistic downside of social media.

    Here is a well-known incident known simply as “United Breaks Guitars,” featuring Canadian musician Dave Carroll. While flying on United Airlines, a fellow passenger looks out the window after landing, and announces to other passengers, including David, “look at those baggage handlers throwing that poor passengers’ guitar.” Apparently, David’s guitar was broken. Attempting to seek reimbursement from United, he faced a mountain of bureaucracy and denials and, ultimately, a rejection. In the end he wrote a song simply titled, “United Breaks Guitars” and uploaded the video on You Tube. At last count, “United Breaks Guitars” has close to 13 million views. Resultly, the Carroll saw an increase in his recording business, and even published his first book. And United Airline, on the other hand, offered an apology, reimbursement, and now includes “United Breaks Guitars” as a customer service training video. For companies, the subsequent damage of this kind of public humiliation is just like a nightmare, and the makeup costs is inevitable.

    How to dominate social media and make the best use of it? This question may linger in people’s head for a long time. But the foremost point is, companies need to be true to their products and brands, transparent and socially responsible in order to survive and make a success. If their true actions are far from the image that they portray, people will eventually discover the reality behind it and broadcast to the world.