Blendtec

1. "Will it blend?"
2. Tom Dickson is the "scientist" who blends stuff together.
3. Either "Don't try this at home" or "Please try this at home" appears during the blending process depending on whether the product is safe to blend or not.
4. Yes. For example, once the iPhone 3G was released, Tom Dickson blended it.
5. Glosticks, iPhones, video cameras, golf balls, etc.
6. Yes, because they are only online and depend on word-of-mouth and social media.
7. According to ViralSEOServices, viral marketing campaign is "a marketing technique utilized to increase brand or product awareness through social media."
8. I think the reach is a couple of hundred thousand people.
9. No. I had never heard of the company or Tom Dickinson or the campaign before.

Social Media Communication

Vitamin Water uses Facebook to connect and interact with its fans. It has its own page and also created a "Flavor-Creator" app where fans could create their own flavor, label, ingredients, nutrients, etc. The packaging could be created by a person and up to two friends. Vitamin Water said that a created flavor would chosen as a winner by Carrie Underwood and 50 Cent. The winner of the naming contest would receive $5000 and Vitamin Water would create the winning flavor. The flavor that won is "connect" which represents how the flavor was created by the connection between the fans and the brand. It tastes like black cherry and lime. Its reach was about a million people.

Popchips is big on Twitter especially after joining hands with Ashton Kutcher. After noticing that Ashton Kutcher was a huge fan and kept mentioning Popchips in his tweets on Twitter, Popchips decided to make him it brand ambassador as well as publicist rather than hire a huge social media service firm. This saved them a lot of expenses and also gave them a huge reach because Ashton Kutcher is a huge celebrity and one of the most popular Twitter users. Ashton Kutcher now appears on the website of Popchips but his main contribution is his tweets and use of social media.

Twitter

Twitter is the latest big thing is social networking. Founded by three former Odeo employees, it features a status-type design where users can post blurbs about themselves or their day or their thoughts. The limit is 140 characters (the limit of standard text messages). It was first called "twttr", but was then changed to "twitter" because it was considered a better fit. In September 2010, a new version of the website was called created called "new twitter" where the user profile is much larger and accessing user information is much easier. While there are some who prefer the old twitter, most people love the new twitter.

Twitter is great for marketing purposes because it is such an effective way of communication. If a business creates its own page and has followers, any information releases can get to its customers/followers instantly. On twitter, communication is also two-way and interactive, so it's a great way to get feedback from actual customers. Now, the business can get specific feedback from actual customers rather than conduct vague studies that only give it quantitative data. Also, the business can give deals online to followers or advertise online for free rather than pay an advertising agency. Overall, twitter is a very efficient marketing tool because it provides an easy way of communication between businesses.

Twitter has unique aspects that make marketing easier. First of all, a page of a user, unless specified, is displayed to EVERYONE, not just followers or users of twitter, but everyone on the Internet. Followers get messages when someone sends out a new tweet but tweets can be seen by everyone, which makes information releases much more available to everyone and the business can gather a huge audience. Also, there's retweeting, where a user can basically copy an paste what someone else tweeted. This provides a better way to spread information quickly. Someone who is a follower of a business can retweet what the business tweeted and one of their followers can retweet what they said. This spreads information much more rapidly than any other social media website.

Twitter is an amazing social media site and marketing tool because it makes communication between customers and businesses much more efficient, makes business information releases much more easy to access, and has unique features that make information spread faster, therefore make marking easier.

The Basics Response

Chris Brogan explains the importance of the 4 Ps in his blog post. He says that marketers spend most of their time on promotion and not enough time on product and place, two of the most important Ps. He says that rather than creating a product of value and distributing it properly, marketers just do a lot of promotion and create excellent customer service to convince people to buy their product. He says that if we don't put value into our product, we're already down by 1/4 of our marketing strategy.

I agree with what he's saying because I feel that many companies, rather than improving their product and making sure it's distributed well, just make better ads, expecting people to buy it just because it has cool ads. I give this article a 4/5 because there wasn't really evidence to back his opinion up but it was really good.

The Twitter Response

I thought it was interesting that Twitter has the most influential customers but it was not really shocking. Many people I know use Twitter just to follow companies, so I kind of knew this already. Brian Solis states that Twitter is a complex, layered system where people are connected to people and things they are attracted to and can influence the subject of a conversation or discussion. He says that businesses are affected by outside activity and because Twitter is a projection of people's activities, it must be analyzed to see what people think and want. Also, according to a recent poll, 33% of people talk about brands, 32% percent of people make product recommendations, and 30% seek advice on what to buy, so this is the perfect website to analyze and study people's psychology and consumer traits.

I give this post a 5 because it was very coherent and informative.

Foursquare and Yelp

Foursquare and Yelp are social networking websites frequently used in marketing. Foursquare lets you check in to places and receive coupons and discounts for frequent visitors. Yelp lets you post and read reviews of businesses and products. Businesses are taking advantage of these websites to interact more with their customers and to promote their products. Foursquare lets people check in to places and if someone checks in more than any other person, he/she becomes the mayor that place. Special deals and discounts are offered to people who have checked in a certain number of times or are the mayor of that place. Yelp lets people post reviews and read reviews, rate businesses, write about experiences, etc. Both places promote latest products and businesses by letting customers know about the latest products through promotions, coupons, and ads. The chances are that a customer does not go to a store to buy JUST the thing on sale, but other things too. This is how businesses profit.

As a user on Yelp. a person can write about their experience, post reviews, or rate businesses. A person can also read the reviews and see the ratings and experiences to decide if they want to go somewhere or buy something or not. On Foursquare, after a person checks in, tips and suggestions from other users pop up to promote products in that place. I think Yelp is very useful because I want to know other people's opinions about the product before I buy it. Foursquare also seems great because of its deals but I think it would be annoying to check in everywhere I go. They are both amazing tools for businesses because it's so easy to promote products and to save money on advertising. It's also really effective because Yelp and Foursquare have a lot of users. I would definitely use this tool if I was promoting businesses because it's so easy, effective, and cheap. However, if the product was bad and I knew it was bad, I would not use it because I don't want people talking about it. Instead, I would use traditional advertising to just convince people that I have an amaizing product. If I have a good product, I would use this websites as much as possible to create positive buzz about my product.