MicroExplosion Media - Social Media Blog

Old Spice continues to make great, though wacky and bizarre, ads that are viral video gems. What's interesting now is that they're cross-promoting various Proctor & Gamble products with Old Spice. As you'll see in this video, what appears to be a fairly normal ad for an actual new product from Bounce, is also a quite funny Old Spice ad. 

 

The bait and switch never pays off (although Lucy from Charlie Brown might disagree.) Just when I thought I was getting good at avoiding them I totally fell right into a multi-level marketing (MLM) bait and switch. I thought a guy was asking for advice but he just wanted me to watch a video about some vacation-based MLM thing he's part of. Pretty sneaky taking advantage of someone who thinks they're doing you a favor.

It's A Dumb Strategy
A bait and switch is a dumb idea if you think about it. It's just delaying the inevitable response. If I wasn't going to like your vacation video before I'm definitely not going to like once you tricked me into watching it. Or, if your product wasn't as good as you claimed, I'm going to be even more upset when it breaks because of the very claim you made in the first place. 

The thing about a bait and switch is that it destroys trust. MLM's are notorious for this but companies from well regarded industries do this too.

Getting people interested in something legitimately is what advertising and marketing are all about. That's bait. It's the switch that happens when the individual or the company knows their bait is a fake. That's the whole problem. That's the lie.

Why It's A Bad Idea
The funny thing is there couldn't be a worse time to be someone who does a bait and switch. People are more connected now more than ever. If a company does this thousands of people could potentially call them out on it on Facebook. If a person does a bait and switch on me I can write an entire blog post about it...and decide whether or not I want to name names.

Social media has empowered people to shine light in previously dark areas. Bait and switch tactics will fail faster than ever because of this. That's one reason not to do it. The other reason is because if your character and reputation are important to you in the least, you won't do it. I may have taken the bait, but I also switched what I think about you. 

Ever wondered how to increase engagement on your Facebook page? This study shows that photos get the most engagement of anything on Facebook. Video is just behind it followed by standard text. Facebook's changes several months ago made the timelines more photo-centric, so this isn't a big surprise but now we have data to back up the suspicion.

Google+ is now boasting claims of over 90 million users. Despite what appear to be general hesitations to jump into Google+, people are still signing up. You need to keep an eye on this if you're not already.

This was an interesting stat: 69% of American households have at least one HD television. This was a little higher than I expected but interesting nevertheless. 

Meanwhile on the smaller screens (though not for long), YouTube videos are now being watched four billion times per day. Per day. Read that again in case you missed it: 4 Billion videos PER DAY. Tell me again why you're not doing more with video? 

This video brings back a lot of memories of my own life growing up with a little brother. We probably have a video much like this one so the fact that these two brothers have now decided to go back to these "cinematic works" from their childhood and offer a commentary much like you get in the extras of a DVD is sheer genius. If you like this one, there are two more available also.

QR codes seem to be gaining a little bit of traction. A new Chadwick Martin Bailey study shows that half of all smartphone users have clicked a QR code before. The study makes it clear that consumers are now overwhelmingly aware (81%) of QR codes but they still haven't been convinced of their value. For the record, I believe that's a problem attributable to marketers using them poorly, not a lack of trying on the part of consumers.

We know Facebook is popular for business but this new report shows that 89% of nonprofits also use Facebook. It is the leading social network choice for nonprofits.

Gigya reports that visitors to a website who have logged into the site via Facebook tend to stay 50% longer than the average site visitor and visit twice as many pages. Social logins are a great way for companies to segment the kinds of visitors who come to their site. Users are telling you right off the bat if they're more serious (or less serious) about their interest in you. The big question, of course, is can you engage them differently. 

You may recall that Volkswagon had the most popular video of the Superbowl last year with their youg Darth Vader video. It looks like they're reaching back into the Star Wars inspired vault this year. Earlier this week VW released this teaser video called "The Bark Side" which is apparently a nod toward what they're planning for the Superbowl ad this year. Enjoy!

eMarketer reports that almost 65 million tablet devices were shipped around the world in 2011. There were only 17 million in 2010. The projections for tablets getting shipped by 2015 are just crazy (as you can see from this graphic.) And yes, iPad still leads the way.

According to a recent study from Conversocial, just over 32% of people who have reached out to a company via social media have been either ignored or neglected by the company. If customer service via social media is an increasing trend (and it is), this is one area many companies really need to step up.

There's a new report out that says personalized video increases conversion rates by 30%. Understanding what people are looking for, however, is always the hard part. 

Who says painters need a brush and canvas to create their art? This guy is just fine without it...except when he need birds in the painting apparently.

Pinterest, a visually driven bookmarking site, has continued to see explosive growth. A new study by Experian Hitwise from late December revealed that their site traffic has grown 40 times what the traffic was six months ago. Prepare to hear a lot about Pinterest in 2012.

Experian Hitwise also reported some interesting information about Google+ too. According to their tracking reports, Google+ traffic was up 55% over November traffic. I'm still not sold on the longterm success of Google+ but this is certainly an interesting number.

According to this New York times article, the top 1% of mobile users are using half of all the available bandwidth in the world. That's a lot of texting and other mobile media time!

I'm not a hockey fan and I had never heard of Don Cherry, the professional hockey analyst, but it doesn't matter. Whoever thought of adding the piano effect to this video had a moment of creative genius. Well done. (HT to Jeremy at ReelSEO for the video.)