Spotify Rocks!!

So just as I quasi-predicted a few blogs ago, my love for Pinterest has somewhat fallen by the way side...
But I now have a new love and it goes by the name Spotify - only this time I don't think I'm going to fall out of love so easily (don't worry Pinterest I still think you're great I just haven't had much need for you of late).

EXCEPT that I'm trying to spice this blog up with a little bit of music c/o Spotify and I can't seem to get their 'Spotify Play Button' feature to work - can anyone help me???? Does it have something to do with the fact I'm using Blogger??? Spotify appear to be affiliated with Tumblr but there is nothing to say that it won't work with other blog hosting programs. Hm...

But it's ok Spotify cause you've redeemed yourself with pretty quickly with the 'Clean up your MP3s' feature i.e. your collaboration with Gracenote. How good is this!!! I am horrified every time I look at the list of songs I have in iTunes - and now those days can be a thing of the past - I'm a little bit excited right now!!

So now to the point of this blog (sorry I promise I had every intention of getting to the point quickly this time round but I keep finding new things I want to talk about).

Point no. 1 - Spotify and Advertising
Despite their best efforts to convince companies to advertise with them http://www.spotify.com/au/work-with-us/advertisers/ they're not really selling it for me. Yes Spotify is popular and it can offer all of the great little targeting techniques that a lot of other social media can offer but from what I can see all you get is a banner ad when you login, albeit a big banner ad smack bang at eye level, but still just a banner ad. Their partnerships on the other hand seem to offer a more attractive marketing opportunity because it gives companies the opportunity to associate Spotify with their brand and that means some of Spotify's great image can rub off on the brand. Apps are another good way that companies can leverage off Spotify's success but these only appear to be good for companies/brands that are either music related and/or working in the digital realm.

Point no. 2 - Spotify and Artists
Unless your the Beatles and Led Zeppelin (not on Spotify), an artist would be crazy not to want their music on Spotify. On second thoughts I think the Beatles and Led Zeppelin are crazy too - they may not need any help in getting their music heard (or extra cash for that matter) but unlike music piracy, they'll continue to get the royalties they so rightly deserve for their music. Now back to everyone else - Spotify offers a really easy to use platform for people to access and listen to music, all the while paying royalties every time a song is played.  Furthermore, the ability to post songs on Facebook, share music with friends and follow friends on Spotify means people are spreading the word about an artist's music i.e.the holy grail of eWOM that all brands (and that inc.artists too) strive for. Features such as Top Lists, Related Artists, Artist Radio and some of the available Apps all help in getting an artist's music heard.

So I guess the verdict is Nay for non-music related brands and Yay for music related brands. What do you think - Yay or Nay??

To Tweet or not To Tweet??

 SM Experiment - Observations Pt 2 (final - I'm bored already!!)

Ok so the second part of my experiment didn't quite go to plan. Why? Because I had absolutely no idea what to tweet!!

I tried easing into it with a retweet and then followed it up with a "what I ate for breakfast" type tweet... and then nothing.

I considered using it to have a go at Officework's Same Day delivery policy until I reliased the order was placed at 11.34 and their cut off time is 11.30am (sorry Officework's call centre guy...)

In desperation I even considered replying to one of @Coca-Cola's "What made you smile today?" posts, but then quickly came to my senses.

I thought my experiment had failed miserably until I realised - perhaps I'm not alone. Perhaps people aren't using Twitter to tell everyone about what they had for breakfast and sure there are people who respond to @Coca-Cola and @Red Bull's post but are they just a minority? So perhaps the real question I'm supposed to answer is How do people use Twitter?

Here in bullet points is some of the info I found (from various sources) to help answer this question.

• Twitter has 500M registered users but only 200M are active
• 40% of users don't actually tweet, they just use it to follow what's going on in this big crazy world of ours - told you I'm not alone
• 36% tweet at least once per day, with an average visit time of 11:50 minutes
• Only 8% of all adult(18-65)internet users use Twitter on a typical day
• One in five smartphone owners (20%)are Twitter users, with 13% using the service on a typical day
• 55% of all Twitter users use the service to share links to news stories, and 53% retweet others
• 92% of retweets are based on “interesting content.” Only 26% are due to inclusion of “please RT!” in the tweet

So what does this mean for marketers??? Well just my opinion, but I tend to think marketers should leave the engagement/conversational stuff to the likes of Facebook and use Twitter as more of a support/broadcast medium. But use those 140 characters to their maximum potential to encourage users to want to follow you, to increase the chances of the message being retweeted and to lead them to wherever it is you want them to go (e-commerce site, instagram, facebook etc.)

What do you think?

Twitter never sleeps...

SM Experiment - Observations Part 1

Setting up your Twitter account to get push notifications on your mobile from all the brands you're following, and then forgetting to put it on silent before going to bed, not so much fun on a  Saturday morning at 8am. It seems to be a hot time to tweet.... perhaps on a weekday (people on public transport making their way to work checking their smart phones)... but on a Saturday - another hour or so please!!

Aside from that my first week of Twitter has been ..... how shall I put it.... non-stop!! Tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet.  Admittedly more irritating thanks to the push notifications but particularly irritating if brands are tweeting for the sake of tweeting.... I'm looking at you @redbull. 

Probably the most active of all the brands I chose to follow in my first week of Twitter, it's as if their Twitter person purposely trawls the Internet looking for material (non-brand related) to post that they're fans might appreciate and is in line with the brand - some of it gets a reaction and some of it doesn't. Then when they can't find anything they'll send out some inspirational line to get a conversation happening.  To their credit their followers seem to respond and before you know it the Twitter person is now spending his time replying to each individual response but it all feels a little TOO contrived, repetitive and ultimately boring for my liking.

Now take @karenwalker for instance, their tweets include broadcasting pics of celebrities who have been spotted wearing their fashion pieces, and in light of their upcoming appearance at New York Fashion Week, have been posting tweets about their journey. Sure their marketing team probably sat around a boardroom table and came up with the idea to post tweets about the journey, just as celebrities wearing their merchandise isn't always by accident but the timing of the posts is a little more scattered and they're broadcasting  news about the brand that is worth shouting about at the time that it happens. The overall feel - a little more spontaneous and interesting to follow.

Am I being a little biased because I clearly have a greater interest in what @karenwalker has to say over what @redbull has to say? Perhaps... so let me know what you think. Check out their twitter feeds here and post a comment below.

http://twitter.com/redbull
http://twitter.com/karenwalker

My SM experiment...

No it's not a YouTube video/blog, and it's not an ad on Facebook. It is ... wait for it....

(scroll down)

(keep scrolling)

I'VE JOINED TWITTER!!!!!!!!

Something I once vowed never to do - after all it was just another place where people could toot their own horn - at least that's what I thought. I've since learned (and not through experience) that it can be a really useful tool for staying in the loop - whether it be headline news, or news from your favourite brands, people etc.

So I've joined and carefully selected a range of brands to follow; from the ones we love to hate and always seem to talk about(Woolworths and Wesfarmers), to big brands (Coca Cola, Red Bull), to brands I like (Karen Walker, Gorman). I even threw in richardbranson out of curiosity. 

Over the next week, with the help of mobile push notifications, I'm going to observe what these brands post and report back in next week's blog. 

I have also opted in for Twitters tailored suggestions - a new function it is currently testing - and monitor how well this function works.

Then next week I shall begin tweeting - in response to posts, referencing brands, re-tweeting etc. I have also opted to Tweet with my location as I am interested to see what location-specific tweets I get in response.

So that's my "experiment". I guess the only question I have before I get started is - are there any other brands that I should be following?