#i ship them as a way of analyzing their characters and adding variety to my headcanons

[echothelover]

Anyway what I'm getting at is that sunnflower is my discomfort ship, and THATS why i like it

Not to say the ship is bad, or that anyone who finds it cute is wrong. Just that it is one possible avenue to go down if you want to mess up the characters just a little bit more

[earlgreytea68]

Hi! Some time ago a link to the fandom fic archives in LJ was shared, and omg, what a treasure chest it is for the new members like me! It’s very interesting to look at what people wrote about in the past, themes generally didn’t change that much, the approach did, not only because this was written pre.h. and now is now, but also because the world around us changed and a lot of things we view differently now. All of the stuff I managed to consume is amazing, it only confirmed for me, that there’s a ton of wonderfully talented people in the fandom at all times, it really warms my heart. I think someone who knows those things from the inside could describe all of this better and there’s a lot of little details, that you can compare and analyse. But one of the first things, that catches my eye, when I open a fic is the disclaimer, they were so colourful and creative at the time! It’s like genre on itself )) and in the “Pete is a genius” post you mentioned about his close involvement with the fandom, so let me tell you, the amount of variations of “Pete, if you reading this...” is endless!! It makes me smile every time ))

hahahaha I love the old school disclaimers warning Pete away! I honestly almost added one to my “Pete Wentz is a genius” post yesterday because I feel pretty sure Pete Wentz has a Tumblr lol. Look, on one of the episodes of Loud and Sad Radio Pete is shipping Rihanna and Drake, when I say Pete is fannish, I very much mean it in the shipping characters way. He’s on this podcast analyzing a Hallmark Christmas movie and there’s this part where he’s like, “What’s the deal with the guy’s manager, like, I thought *he* was in love with the guy,” and I was just like, “Yeah, Pete, because you think in Fanfiction.”

ANYWAY, I agree about how interesting it is to read the older LJ-native fics and contrast them with the newer AO3-style fics. If I ever went to school to get my Ph.D., I think my dissertation would be on the differences between the two, because I am so fascinated by them. Like, you can just *tell* when you’re reading an LJ fic, there are all these little differences to them, the pacing seems a little bit different to me, and I feel like the narration is slightly different, somehow, like an LJ fic has the narrator keep even closer to the character than even on AO3 (and AO3 generally has very close narration, especially when compared to non-fic styles of writing, it always startles me, the gap between narrator and character, when I read non-fic).

I’ve thought a lot about these differences, like, are those just the LJ fics that have survived to get passed around? Surely there is a much wider variety of LJ fic that got written, in the same way that AO3 fics cover a vast array of styles and it’s foolish of me to generalize. But nevertheless I do generalize lol. I feel like the AO3 style of tagging necessarily brought changes to both how you write and how you read a story. I feel that maybe it’s tagging, the idea of the categories you slot in, the leads to AO3 fics more often having more of a recognizable shape to them, a subgenre to slot in, whereas LJ stories will more often peter out into ambiguity.

But my favorite thing about stories of the LJ era -- my very favorite thing -- the thing that kills me every time I read an LJ-era fic -- THE DIALOGUE. REMEMBER THAT WAY OF WRITING DIALOGUE?!?!!?! Okay, this is not to say no one on AO3 can write dialogue, that is absolutely not true, there is lots of great dialogue on AO3. But there is this very specific style of dialogue that was in vogue during the heyday of LJ fic. I know this because this is when I was learning how to write dialogue, and so I recognize my quirks in there. We all kind of came of age steeped in Sorkin and Gilmore Girls when Sorkinese was briefly considered wildly new and different rather than a self-parody and I just feel like LJ dialogue pulses with this influence of what people were doing with dialogue in this period, how they were playing with it. Maybe tonight I’ll do an LJ reading binge and paste some examples of what I mean, but there was all this unconventional punctuation going on that I see less of these days. Like, it would mimic the starts and stops of speech, but not with ellipsis or dashes, with flat-out periods. Something like this:

“But that’s. Would you. Okay, look. This is what I’m saying.”

And I’m kind of obsessed with this style, there’s like this thing that gets conveyed by “Would you.” that doesn’t get conveyed by either “Would you...” or “Would you--” Those three are all very different things, and the “Would you.” resonates with me and it’s something that is ALL OVER LJ-era fic and then seemed to kind of fall out (heh) of fashion or something. Idk, there was a night I spent doing what you did and reading old LJ-era bandom fic and I was reading the dialogue and just being like OH MY GOD REMEMBER WHEN WE ALL DID THIS, THIS IS SO LJ, OMG.

The other thing I noticed specific to FOB LJ fic is that at least once a fic Pete says, “Yeah, no.” Haha I have tried to remember to carry that over into my fic, just a little private passing of the torch in my own head.

[thesublemon]

songs of impotence and experience

In the last couple years, I’ve revisited a lot of the things that were meaningful to me when I was younger. I’m not exactly sure why I did that. Some nostalgia. Some curiosity about whether they held up. Some sense that maybe I could get some insight into myself. Why did I love the things I loved at a time when my id was more unfiltered? What did the younger version of myself need art about that maybe the adult version doesn’t?

A lot of the works are superficially goofy genre shit, but space ships, aliens and made-up words never really felt like it was what I loved about them. My taste was just as indiscriminate as a kid as it is now, which meant I read and watched and liked a wide variety of things. Proper literary things, even. I don’t think it’s an accident that I often connect(ed) with superficially goofy genre shit. Just like I don’t think it’s an accident that a different person might connect with musicals or period movies. But that’s an aspect of my personality to analyze another time.

No, what I realized was that all of these space-and-aliens-stories…on some level, were impotence stories. They’re stories about being manipulated by outside forces, or having shit stuck in you against your will. Stories about parasites. Stories about going insane. And while those might sound like “intense” themes for a child or teenager to be preoccupied with (as if children and teenagers don’t feel things intensely), I realized that it actually made complete and utter sense. When you’re young it feels like things are constantly just happening to you. Adults make decisions for you. Society makes demands of you. It’s hard to know what power you even have, let alone how to use it. Of course I’d relate to impotence.

I remember being obsessed with Ender’s Game. I don’t even know how many times I read it between the ages of 8 and 12. There was something in me that identified with being a pawn in an adult’s world, where your intelligence or your allegiance could be used to fight their wars and you’d have no control over it, no understanding of it. This sense that you were hurting others by proxy, fighting the wrong fights, because you didn’t understand how your power was being used. But that you had power. The feeling that if you were smart and special enough to be wanted, or to know that something was up, then you should have been smart enough to change the game.

Of course there’s arrogance in believing that you, a child, are so important that all of these adults want things from you. Arrogance in looking at a 6 year old military genius and going that speaks to me. But the truth is, adults do want things from children, even “unremarkable” children. They might want a child’s validation, obedience, affection, loyalty or even something as simple and benign as happiness. Being an unhappy child when you know your parents just want you to be all right? What a feeling of failure.

There was a sense that all of these adults—including but not limited to my parents—were invested in religion, or politics, or personal narratives, or some view of the world, and I had the power to reinforce it. I could grow up to be a good exemplar of their ideological beliefs, I could give them the feeling that I admired or needed them, I could pay them attention, I could tell them I believed them. But I couldn’t know whether doing those things was what I actually wanted. I couldn’t know if twenty years down the line I’d be yearning for an enemy’s forgiveness, and speaking for the dead.

*

Fast-forward to Farscape. Farscape is about a character who looks like he should be the hero. A character who knows the same hero stories we know, and thinks he should live up to them. But then the narrative makes him alien, and incompetent, and strips him of his every bit of cultural context and familiarity. In a narrative sense, it “feminizes” him. People want things from John Crichton, and it never has anything to do with him as a person (“Don’t be jealous Frau Blücher. He only loves me for my mind.”). Everyone is always hijacking his body and putting things into it. Microbes, needles, knowledge, chips. He spends most of the show with the villain literally living inside his head. An inescapable, macabre companion that aggressively dresses himself in the drag of Crichton’s psyche.

Language is a constant motif in Farscape, because language is how you communicate yourself. If you lack language, you’re impotent. You’re alien. It’s no coincidence that Crichton’s first moment of alien-ation is that he’s injected with translator microbes. It’s no coincidence that A Human Reaction flips repeatedly between how the alien characters sound to humans, and how they sound to Crichton. It’s no coincidence that the final horror of Die Me Dichotomy is that Crichton loses his power of speech. It’s no coincidence that Aeryn starts learning English, and Crichton starts quipping in Spanish. It’s no coincidence that Crichton starts the show speaking in incomprehensible human cultural references to aliens and ends up speaking in incomprehensible alien references to humans (“Fred Scarran. From the Gainesville Scarrans.”).

And not to be unbearably personal, but as a teenage girl who was going deaf, I responded to all of that. On a basic, physical level I felt like I was losing my ability to understand people, and by virtue of not understanding, becoming unable to make myself understood. A feeling of standing outside myself and watching myself become an alien. A feeling of invasion because I could no longer exist without technological augmentation. But there was also a gendered level. Being a girl and feeling like the world’s reaction to my physical form suddenly had consequences that it was up to me to either mitigate or capitalize upon. That sexuality was suddenly something I was supposed to be able to wield, and I had no idea how. This feeling that my body was betraying me both functionally and as my means of mediating between my Self and the world. In other words, a feeling that biology and social narratives were conspiring, like the universe in Farscape, to “feminize” me.

There was a cultural level too. I was aware of being in this American social moment that seemed grotesquely material and political. So are all moments in their own way, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that all these people cared about PT Cruisers and Super Size Me and Idiocracy and The Simple Life and Fahrenheit 911 and freedom fries and cartoons of Bush as a monkey. All these adults were begging for me to take a side about these things that felt stupid and ugly and profane. And none their interest in my side-taking had anything to do with me, anyway.

So at that time I wanted a hero’s journey that wasn’t a hero’s journey. I wanted a story about saying “fuck you” to the forces of the universe that were clutching at my hems and driving me insane, and going off to live as an alien and eking what joy I could from it. A story about saying “no” to the two equally evil sides of any evil, pointless war. I wanted a story about how maybe that made you a monster, or maybe that was a heroic thing to do. Maybe there was something horrible about it, but maybe there was something wonderful in it too.

*

Rewind to Animorphs. The whole concept of a Yeerk in your head using your body and speaking out your mouth. If my attraction to Ender’s Game was in part about the fear that adults and institutions were hijacking my abilities, then Animorphs was about the fear that the adults themselves were hijacked. There’s real horror in the idea that your mom isn’t your mom and your friends aren’t your friends, but prisoners trapped in their own minds, being piloted by an outside force. The fear that you’d have to re-interpret your every interaction with the people you admired or cared about, looking for ulterior motives. The feeling that say, your parent isn’t speaking their own beliefs, but rather acting as a mouthpiece for their country or their neuroses or an ad on TV.

One might rightfully observe, well isn’t that just They Live or Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Rhinoceros for kids? Yes, in part. But there’s the additional, crucial fact that these Yeerks only steal people’s bodies because they’re planet-bound slugs otherwise. The Yeerks aren’t an impersonal disease, and Controllers aren’t mindless zombies. The Yeerks are Pilots, just wanting to see the stars. Pilots that didn’t wait meekly for a Leviathan to take them or a PK to tempt them, but went and conquered an empire’s worth of sentient creatures themselves. Pilots we’re primed to see as disgusting instead of pitiable or majestic because they’re just slimy little slugs, right? The Yeerks are the antagonists because they’re the idea that powerlessness begets powerlessness. They’re the idea that you may feel impotent, but growing up to control others just makes you the villain.

It makes sense that the Animorphs are shapeshifters, and young, not just because whatever, these are technically books for children and turning into animals sounds cool. I like to imagine there’s some symbolism about flexibility there. It reminds me of His Dark Materials and the way that a child’s daemon has no settled form. An impossible circumstance? You morph. You don’t take and conquer; you change.

(I’m not reading too much into things when I say that. The books draw parallels between the Yeerks and the Animorphs from the very beginning. Marco pointing out in #1 The Invasion that Tobias wants to escape his life as badly as a voluntary Controller does. Cassie worrying in #4 The Message that they dominate the animals they morph the way the Yeerks dominate their hosts. Later in #16 The Warning they’ll debate the morality of morphing people. “Controlling” versus “morphing” is one of the most central dichotomies of Animorphs, one the Animorphs themselves do not always land on the right side of.)

Disability themes are rampant. Everyone is trapped: Tobias as a hawk, Ax on Earth, hosts in their heads, Yeerks in their pools, the Animorphs in their war. To say nothing of the times the books get explicit about it, like the Andalite taboos around vecols or that final arc when they give the ward of disabled kids the morphing power. And the question every time is, which of two non-ideal options for dealing with some limitation are you going to take? Do you live as a hawk, or do you give up? When the Animorphs give the Auxiliaries the morphing power, it isn’t a triumphant moment. They do it so the kids can fight, like the Animorphs themselves had to. They do it knowing that the kids will die.

That sort of thing was the appeal of Animorphs. They were exciting, funny, imaginative page-turners, sure. But half of the reason they were page-turners was because they centered these terrible ethical quandaries, and devastating emotional choices. That’s the kind of thing that makes you pay attention in fiction: situations where you don’t know the way out, so you don’t know what will happen. The same way you don’t know what will happen once you realize that the adults can’t be trusted, or your life isn’t entirely your own.

*

Here are some things I think are interesting.

I think it’s interesting that both the morphing power in Animorphs and Leviathans in Farscape are the things those works treat as something that can be profaned. Morphing may be described in gruesome, body horrific detail, but nonetheless an animal’s power is treated as something to be respected and used to fight. So David abusing morphing is profane. Visser Three morphing is profane. Similarly, forcing Moya to give birth to a gunship is profane. Cutting Pilot’s arms off is profane. The clones eating the walls of the ship in Eat Me is profane. And both of those, morphing and Moya, are symbols of transformation. Morphing in the obvious sense, and Moya in the sense of a guardian or shepherd or mother. The sacred instrument of your journey.

I think it’s interesting that the protagonists of all three stories change, but not necessarily for the better.

I think it’s interesting that all three stories involve loving and understanding the Other. Both Farscape and Animorphs are full of important interspecies relationships: Tobias and Rachel, Elfangor and Loren, Dak and Aldrea (it’s potentially relevant that Jake and Cassie are an interracial relationship too), or John and Aeryn, D’argo and Chiana (and Lolaan), Zhaan and Stark, Scorpius and Sikozu. Both Animorphs and Ender’s Game involve the protagonists—and the audience, by extension—learning “humanizing” things about the aliens that they’re fighting against. Aliens that have forms that they are not inclined to empathize with.

I think it’s interesting that Animorphs has a lot of the same parasitism versus symbiosis themes that Farscape does, but takes them in a direction that has less to do with sex and breeding (because as unbelievably dark as Animorphs gets they’re still books for kids) and more to do with authority. Where Farscape is full of half-breeds and genetic atrocities, Animorphs is full of gods and Galateas. In Farscape, parasitism versus symbiosis is about becoming alien in a positive way, or a self-directed way, versus being forced into alienation. Loving the Other versus being made Other. Birth imagery versus rape imagery. Whereas in Animorphs parasitism versus symbiosis is about control versus autonomy. How are people supposed to satisfy their competing desires without taking away other people’s agency? How much power should authorities have over the people they’re responsible for (and responsible to)?

#26 The Attack was always one of my favorite Animorphs books because of the way it drew parallels between all of these pseudo-children and their creators. The Pemalites made the Chee, Crayak made the Howlers, and Elfangor “made” the Animorphs. Then those children duke it out for the souls of the Iskoorts and the Yeerks. A literal war of symbiosis versus parasitism. The existence of the Pemalites and the Chee might lead one to think that creating children in your desired image is reasonable and ethical, because we all love dogs don’t we? And then you meet the Howlers, who are simultaneously pure innocents and terrifying killers. Creatures that think of killing as play, as a game of fetch, because that’s what they were made to be. The Howlers are dogs too. You realize that the Animorphs are their own kind of created beings. They were given powers to fight a war for someone else.

In other words, if you look at it a certain way, all of these children have been co-opted and controlled as much as Yeerks co-opt and control their hosts. Animorphs is deeply anti-war. And one of the main ways it’s anti-war is by painting war as something essentially parasitic. Something that chews people up. Something that traumatizes its protagonists from the word go. Something that forces you to make awful moral choices. Something that only happens when competing forces can’t resolve their needs in any other way. War is parasitic and parasitism leads to war.

I think it’s interesting that all of these stories involve war, and none of them are fond of it. They each question and deconstruct the genre of war story that they seem to belong to. Instead of telling a militaristic scifi story about crushing alien Others, and being led by nigh-mythological generals, Ender’s Game tells a militaristic scifi story about child soldiers, bureaucracy, misunderstanding the Other, and how although true genius and leadership exists, it can rarely outsmart the military apparatus that controls it. Instead of telling a campy Power Rangers tale about the wonders of friendship, Animorphs was intended, by the author’s own admission, to be a “grunts-eyed view” of combat that showed the “honest cost” of war. A group of guerrilla soldiers may form bonds and accomplish remarkable things, but their story will not end with medals or Ewok revelry. Instead of telling a utopic Star Trek story where humans are powerful and advanced and have near-imperial influence, Farscape tells a story about how humans are weak and clannish, and advanced imperial powers wage wars based on nothing better than conquest or mercenary interest. Crichton becomes a kind of warrior to defend himself, but he never becomes a soldier. He leads no armies or rebellions. He is nothing more than a bargaining chip in other people’s conflicts. The protagonists of all three stories wrestle with the guilt of having had to kill their enemies on a massive scale, and innocents along with them.

I think it’s interesting how embodied these stories are. There was something novel and arresting to my young brain, reading Peter’s jokes about pubic hair, or the descriptions of Ender smashing a boy’s nose. The feeling of a monitor in your neck, gravity and anti-gravity, the grappling shower fight. It feels uncomfortable and deliberate that these children are described in the “gross”, physical way that adults in boot-camp war stories normally are. There was something mesmerizing about all those descriptions of morphing. Every book there’d be paragraphs on paragraphs about teeth rearranging, legs sprouting, eyes popping, bones liquefying. Descriptions of the hunger and fear (and sometimes delight) of animals. Descriptions of horrifying battle wounds. Limbs removed, intestines spilling out, being eaten alive by ants. There was something affirming in how sexual, and how disgusting Farscape was. That even the puppets got horny, and John and Aeryn kissed like they meant it. That people ate and farted and were full of goo.

Change, symbiosis, bodies, war. I’m not going to overreach and claim that those themes necessarily go hand-in-hand with impotence, or that these three stories I happened to love indicate anything other than that they’re kind of story I happened to love. I recognize that I’ve glossed over potential interpretations or criticisms of these stories in order to draw the parallels that interest me. But I do think that war, i.e. super-personal conflict, and bodies are two of the most fundamental ways that power and selfhood get taken away. You lose yourself when you sign your will over to forces bigger than you, and you lose yourself when you die. Bodies are inextricable from mortality, and are a kind of shorthand for every natural circumstance you can’t control. Whereas change and symbiosis are the hopeful alternatives. Symbiosis means merging with something other, even bigger, than you, but in an inherently mutually beneficial way. You don’t get lost, because it wouldn’t be symbiosis if your needs weren’t being met, but you do become “more.” Change, in turn, implies agency. Nature and circumstance may transform you—transform you to the point of death—but you can also transform yourself. Change is a neutral force that anyone can potentially wield.

*

I don’t know that I need those stories anymore. I still love them, still find them meaningful (in fact I re-read some Animorphs to write this and I was taken aback by just how much I still honestly loved it). But I don’t recognize myself in them in quite the same way. Precisely, I think, because I do have power now. Not a lot. But I have a sense of what I’m good at, and what I can control. I dress how I like, think about what I like, talk to who I like. Having a body is a still a crock of shit, but that isn’t new information anymore. None of the ways I lack control over my life are new information anymore. And so there is less of a need to process the horror of it via fiction.

It was interesting rewatching Buffy, because Buffy was never something that I identified with when I was younger, despite the fact that it was a show about a teenage girl. Possibly because fundamentally, Buffy is a story about empowerment. Buffy has power. That’s the key thing about her. It’s true that like the characters in the other stories, she has been conscripted into a supernatural war against her will. She struggles with her agency, and is increasingly traumatized by the choices she has to make. But she wins. That is the point of her. She’s a classical hero. Her heroism is moving and satisfying because it’s never emotionally easy. It’s earned. But it’s still heroism.

So I was surprised that as an adult, I found myself relating to it. You might look at a season like season six, and think that that’s an impotence story, because a lot of it is about depression and when one is depressed one certainly feels impotent. But I see it more as a story about having agency and not knowing what the hell to do with it. The terror of “you have to make your own decisions now.” And most of the seasons are like that. They involve Buffy accepting some aspect of her power and growing up about it.

I notice a number of the stories I’ve been drawn to in my 20’s have had themes like that. I’ve found myself lingering on stories about women, and stories about confronting one’s agency. As a teenager, I loved Slings and Arrows, because Geoffrey Tennant was yet another character buffeted by outside forces (Art and Social Constraints On Art), with his own, art-related Harvey. But as an adult I was excited by Cayce Pollard instead. Someone who on the one hand is practically crippled by her responses to aesthetic stimuli, but on the other hand (a) uses this to practical effect, and (b) actually spends time examining to what extent her responses are disordered. I was similarly excited by Clarice Starling learning to pursue her taste in Hannibal.

It’s a weird shift, to realize you’re not powerless. It’s not necessarily a pleasant shift. It’s why I’ve never been compelled by empowerment stories that treat it as a triumphant, unambiguously positive thing. Stories that conflate having power with having the judgement or moral authority to use that power well. With great power comes great responsibility, but how do you know what the responsible thing to do even is? If you’re empowered by a story, all it really means is that it made you feel confident enough to make your own mistakes (or not-mistakes, of course) instead of someone else’s. Which can be quite a good and exciting thing. But it also means that if things go badly, it’s no-one’s fault but your own.

So I find that the stories about power that are most satisfying to me are actually stories about things like truth, judgment, and perseverance. Stories about solving problems. Stories about making decisions. Stories about fucking up and carrying on afterwards. Stories that treat self-possession as the hard work that it is.

*

I’m curious about what comes afterwards. Already I find myself itching for a new kind of story, but I’m not sure what. Maybe I’ll go back to needing the horror of powerlessness. Maybe I’ll find religion (the wonder of powerlessness). Maybe I’ll go full nihilism, or full hedonism. When I look at the next fifteen years of my life, I see work, but what stories does one need for that? Stories that explore the ideas that you want to explore yourself? It feels open-ended, in a way. For all that I’ve done all this talk about relating to stories, I’ve never actually explicitly gone looking for stories to relate to and identify with. That’s why I wrote this, really. It’s easy to see why I (or anyone) would be drawn to stories about people who looked me, or had the same experiences as me; less easy to see the deeper, more abstract concerns that speak to what one is preoccupied with. But even given that I’ve never had a very identitarian approach to art, I find myself caring less about relatability than ever. And maybe that’s a phase of development too. The phase at which you don’t so much need to process yourself as focus yourself. The phase at which your ego is secure enough that you can let your ego go, and be curious about other things. 

[so-shiny-so-chrome]

Witness: Owlship

Creator name (AO3): Owlship

Creator name (Tumblr): v8roadworrier

Link to creator works: https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/owlship

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: i am still asking myself this question! something about fury road grabbed me at just the right point in my life to interest me, and the people & community i found have been just wonderful at keeping me feeling interested & connected. i love that the world presented is clearly well thought-out and cohesive, while at the same time allowing for a huge variety of explorations even while staying strictly within the bounds of canon.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: well, it's pretty clear that i adore the relationship between max & furiosa, since they star in 90% of my fics, and au's are kind of my thing. i don't consciously have a style that i write in- i just try and write more-or-less what i think could reasonably happen, i suppose, and to be honest i think of my actual writing as pretty utilitarian, rather than anything with a nice artistic style. probably the most frequent recurring theme in my fics is pining leading up to a happy ending, and i like to think i flirt with miller's idea of "engage to heal" pretty frequently as well.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: i have fun with all my fics, or else they don't get written! i'm not good at making myself do things i don't want to do, especially if the only reason to be writing fic is to have fun in the first place. most difficult would probably be "birds in last year's nest" (the omega!max fic) because i really wanted to handle the issues in it well, while the easiest to get written was "out of the bag" (cat!furiosa) despite its length because it basically just wrote itself. my most popular is definitely "around the corner" (petshop au), which has a very dear place in my heart even if it's not the most polished of my fics. my favorite is usually whichever i've published most recently :)

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?

A: hopeful above all, with a good balance of gritty and soft, depending on the particular fic. i like to explore the realistic effects of things, but i'm also happy to gloss over the tricky details in favor of fluff. i've only written one fic with an unhappy ending so far and i don't see myself adding to that number anytime soon, and i am just not great at humor so i avoid trying to be funny.

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: my writing process is simple: i get an idea (usually i steal it), i bundle myself up in bed, and then i do other things while writing a sentence or two every few hours. sometimes i get into the groove and can bash out a few thousand words in a day, other times i flounder for weeks without anything holding my interest. when i do write i always work chronologically, which means finding the actual start of the fic can take a few tries, and figuring out the end can be difficult if i haven't really filled in the details in my head yet. for rough patches i put my head down and try to force words out, but if it doesn't want to happen i just let it go and move on, unless it's for a gift, or something like nanowrimo where i want those bragging rights. i don't use written outlines or keep notes of anything, which is a bad habit but one i can't shake. if it's not important enough for me to remember, how important was it really in the first place?

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: right now it's finding the motivation to write when i've got other stuff going on in my life, especially on days when i am tired out even on my days off. other than that- staying focused on a project long enough to get it finished! i also struggle with juggling multiple characters especially in the same scene, making sure that everyone gets their turn and sounds authentic.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: my writing, both in terms of technical skills and how i compose a story, has just improved leaps and bounds since i started writing fics, thanks in large part to the feedback i'm lucky enough to get, as well as the sheer volume i've been able to put out. i've definitely learned a lot about what kinds of ideas interest me to write, which is not necessarily the same things i want as a reader.

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: i probably relate to max the most, or at least the version of him that lives in my head- it's easy for me to get inside his pov, but that means i have to stop myself from making *every* fic his pov! furiosa is a close runner up in terms of how much i like writing her, which is lucky because she's the other 50% of my fics, but it's a lot harder for me to get inside her head, so i have to pay attention more to what i'm doing when i write her.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: i probably do, but not intentionally. of course i use my own experiences and feelings when writing, but i always try to translate them to the mindset of whoever i am writing. it's just been drilled into my head too many times that writing yourself as a character is not what you are supposed to do, i think.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: max & furiosa, 100%. platonic, romantic, as soulmates, as enemies- i love every possible permutation of how they can interact with each other since they're so similar but still very distinct. i love how much of their relationship is unspoken but perfectly understood- or not, and how that can set up their interactions.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: i pay a hell of a lot more attention to what's happening in canon, and pick apart even minor gestures or bits of speech to really drill down into the character's heads. if i was just watching the movie(s) to enjoy them, i'd stay a lot more surface level instead of analyzing details like what the interior of the war rig says about furiosa, or what's in max's kit at the beginning of the movie vs the middle, etc.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: nearly all of my works are unrelated. i love coming up with little tweaks that don't really effect anything but might contradict each other (which of the wives takes on what role post-canon, how long it takes before max comes back for the first time, etc), and writing in a single series would mean i'd have to address those differences. short fluff or pwp pieces where the entire fic is just a single scene tend to share enough similarities that you could imagine they take place in the same 'verse, but to be honest, that's just me being lazy ;b

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: canon is fake and the author is dead! that said, i do actually try and stick as close to the canon facts as possible unless it's something i'm deliberately changing, because after all without canon there wouldn't be any shared understanding of the characters that makes fanfic possible. this is one of the trickiest parts about writing an au, because i have to find the right balance of familiarity to canon with what's different about each au in order to have the changes i make to the characters/setting/etc make sense to the reader.

Q: Where do you get your ideas for your AUs?

A: all sorts of places! some of them are given to me- i love prompts- others i steal from other fandoms, like bodyswap or wings or turning furiosa into a cat, some i search out via idea generators, and at this point i honestly can't watch/read any new stories without going "but how can i turn this into an au??" i also like to say "what if" almost *constantly* and sometimes that leads to full fics, other times i just make a post on tumblr with some half-baked ideas of how it could work out. what if furiosa's mother didn't die before the movie? what if max had a pet dragon? what if it started raining and didn't stop? it's honestly harder for me to write a strictly canon fic at this point :)

Q: Share some headcanons.

A: i actually don't have a ton that apply to every fic, because i like switching things up- but here's some ones taken for granted in 99.99% of my canonverse fics: furiosa lives after the end of the movie without any major complications, max comes back to the citadel at some point, furiosa has her own room with not much more than a bed, a workbench, and a window, the war boys are willing to accept the wives as the new rulers (and that the wives form a council rather than a dictatorship), and somehow the bullet farm & gastown fall into line with the citadel's new way of thinking. also, max has a sweet tooth and furiosa doesn't remember most of her dreams.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.? 

A: something i try to keep in mind at all times is: write for yourself and not your audience. does your heart of hearts want to ship those two characters? hell yeah make 'em kiss. have a scene that is super cliche or over the top but you can't stop thinking about? write it! your stories need to be interesting to you first and foremost, because a reader absolutely can sniff out the difference between a scene you thought would be "good" and one you had fun with. you can always edit later to shape your fic into a different direction if you feel like you need to.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: i've been to wasteland weekend twice now and hope to visit many more times in the future! it's a super fun experience in general, and it's also helped me get a feel for what a mad max world would really be like, rather than just relying on my imagination. i'd love to visit australia some day, both for mad max and other reasons, but ideally not while there's an apocalypse going on.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: *throws dart at gdocs* let's see.... i've got a fic started where furiosa is a viking, and after a raid gone wrong she ends up injured at max's farm where she has to learn the language and customs and come to terms with being his slave (until they fall in love, obviously). haven't worked on that one since july but hey, it's not going anywhere.

Thank you @v8roadworrier

[frickengreenfrickyeah]

An Irreverent Intro to the Iliad

A/N:I’ve taken the introduction to the Lombardo translation and condensed it. Any time I says something to the effect of “don’t quote me on this” that means I’ve added my own analysis or thoughts that I cannot back up in any way, so don’t, like, put it in an essay if you don’t plan on doing your own research.

Anyway, you don’t care about that stuff, you came here to read about the Iliad.

It’s really fricken long, so, for the sake of mobile users, everything’s under the cut except for this:

“Rage. Bitch, lemme tell you about the time that Achilles fucked over the entire Greek army by Rage-quitting.”

Timeline for the Noobs 

Ten years ago:

Aphrodite bribes Paris so she can win a beauty contest between herself, Athena, and Hera. Paris’ reward for his ‘heroics’ is Helen

(There’s probably an essay’s worth of symbolism you could dig into here, what with the goddesses all representing different priorities: erotic love, wisdom/justice, and familial duty. I wonder what Paris’ choice reveals about his character?)

There’s some disagreement about whether or not Helen when with Paris willingly

Seeing as literally no other woman in the Iliad (and maybe the entire Cycle? Don’t quote me on that) willingly went with her kidnapper, I’m calling bull on that. Do with that what you will.

Menelaus gets really mad that Paris stole his wife, so he rounds up the Greek army, and they go to war. (It’s worth noting that Athena and Hera are both on his side here.)

Present day:

Agamemnon(Boo), Menelaus’ brother kidnaps a girl. Then he has the balls to get upset that the girl’s father called Apollo’s plague down upon the Greeks until she’s returned

Achilles points out that Agamemnon’s being a dick and people are literally dying because he won’t let go of one girl. Agamemnon says, “Fine. If I have to give up my lady-war-prize, I’m taking yours as recompense.”

Achilles allows Agamemnon to take his girl, then Rage-quits. As consequence, people die.

Hypocrites. Hypocrites everywhere. If you wanna analyze that for an essay, I think there’s plenty to talk about. 

The Theme Worth Giving a Shit About (Because it Drives the Narrative)

Heroes risk their lives on the battlefield in exchange for Prizes

Ie. riches, bitches, and clout

Honor <--> Shame is how they judge the value of others and themselves. Honor wins Prizes, Shame loses Prizes

3 Characters Worth Giving a Shit About (Because They Explore the Aforementioned Theme)

Achilles: Main character. Rage is his thing. Also, pouting. 

His honor is insulted by Agamemnon(Boo) taking away Briseis, his lady war prize. Since war prizes are how their society rewards heroes for risking their lives, Agamemnon is basically saying he doesn’t care of Achilles dies or not.

And that hurts Achilles’ feelings because he knows he’s gonna die. There’s a prophecy about it. 

The only reason he’s fighting is because society conditioned him to believe that Prizes and eternal glory were worth dying for.

Now that he doubts everything he knows, he refuses to fight for the Greeks.

The entire poem is the consequences of his Rage-quit

Agamemnon: fuck this guy

He loses his lady war prize, so he takes Achilles’. Because short-sighted spite is the best motivator.

He and Achilles start the poem in the same place, believing that material goods should equally compensate a loss. Achilles is the one who learns that that’s not how that works.

Agamemnon starts as a dick and ends as a dick. Google Iphigenia if you want to learn more. And that shit he pulls with Cassandra? Major dickbag. Fuck this guy. 

Hector: The Trojan hero, and honestly the only likable guy here. 

He is Achilles’ foil. 

Just like Achilles, he’s separated from society - but, unlike Achilles, it’s not because he rejects their values. It’s because he never questions them.

He’s basically the perfect hero, and he suffers for it:

His son is scared of his war helmet

He can’t stay closer to home to fight defensively because that’s ‘shameful’

And he can’t even stay in the city that long on his breaks because wine and women are too tempting. 

Side Characters to Maybe Give a Fuck About

Patroclus: The most important of the supporting cast, and he’s only in it for, like, maybe a book

Achilles’ BFF and probably more

(Read: Definitely more. If you listen carefully, you can hear me chanting OTP OTP OTP every time you open your book.)

He is Achilles’ double

He never doubts society but supports his bestie’s midlife crisis anyway

His death at the hands of Hector symbolizes Achilles’ death because he was wearing Achilles’ armor at the time

Achilles causes Patroclus’ death btw

When he Rage-quits, he asks Zeus to help the Trojans (because short-sighted spite is the best motivator). Patroclus goes to help the Greeks wearing Achilles’ very recognizable armor, causing Hector to target and kill him

His death redirects Achilles’ Rage at the Trojans instead of the Greeks

Diomedes: a badass fighter

Greater Ajax: a badass fighter

and (I think) the guy who talks sense into Achilles at some point

Ajax the Lesser: a badass fighter (are you sensing a theme in these characters?)

Odysseus: the only smart guy here

The Odyssey is about him btw

The Trojan horse was his idea, according to the Aeneid (and maybe other places? But definitely the Aeneid.)

WTF is an Epic Poem Anyway?

Epic Poem: recounts events with far-reaching historical consequences, sums up the values and achievements of an entire culture, and documents the full variety of the war

Basically, if “’Murica, Fuck Yeah” sums up America, then the Iliad sums up Ancient Greece

(Actually, Hamilton is a better comparison, but I needed to make a joke. Fite me.)

That “full variety” thing is why Book 2 and a couple other places just list off a bunch of ships or leaders and their dads. That shit is boring. Skip it. 

But also, that ‘full variety’ thing is what makes other parts of the story so interesting. Homer will sum up a dude’s life story right before he kills them or some shit. It magnifies the scale of the narrative by showing how insignificant one person’s experience is - no one person can stop the war.

That’s what makes Achilles’ story even more powerful --> because his impact on the war is significant. His Rage controls the ebb and flow of it. 

He can’t stop the war though. No one can. 

The Gods are Petty as Fuck

Homeric gods look/act like humans, but they’re different mainly because of two things:

1. They can’t die.

That means they treat the events of the war less seriously than the mortals do.

2. The gods know about fate

To the modern reader, it seems like the humans have no agency, but that’s not really the case

Knowing fate is a bit like knowing the plot of a movie. It gives insight into a character’s actions that would otherwise seem random.

By reading this poem, you’re basically a god. Don’t let it go to your head. (But, hey, there’s a reason I’m majoring in this shit)

Bards like Homer would more directly be gods because they changed and adapted the story as they told it, just like the gods influence human actions in the story.

Don't quote me on that tho

Character choices are usually doubly motivated - by the human, and by the gods

Ex: Achilles chooses not to kill Agamemnon because Athena tells him not to.

This is personifying the literal thought process he had so that the reader understands what’s going through his head.

Fate doesn’t force anyone to act out of character --> fate is the consequence of their life choices

The gods not caring about death and his own lack of foresight is what Achilles messes up on

He asks Zeus to help him get revenge on the Greeks because he assumes Zeus cares about that sort of thing, but Zeus is bigger than that.

That leads Patroclus’ death, btw.

The “Enduring Heart” Shit

Achilles is really butthurt that Agamemnon wronged him

The lesson he has to learn is that even if material goods can’t make up for losses, there’s no other option --> you can’t bring people back from the dead, so you have to move on

That’s the Enduring Heart shit

also, if you abstract that concept it sounds kinda like entropy to me (Don’t quote me on that tho)

He learns that lesson by feeling pity for Priam (Hector’s dad) instead of perpetuating the Rage Train

And, hey, that Enduring Heart shit is a lesson that all of us could take to heart. None of us want to die, but it’s gonna happen. Maybe that’s not fair, but throwing a temper tantrum isn’t going to change anything. Really, the only way to avoid being miserable is to embrace our mortality so we can appreciate life while we have it

don’t quote me on that tho

In a nutshell, Achilles has to accept his mortal-ness. Otherwise there’s a lot of unnecessary suffering. 

That’s why we don’t need to see him die in the Iliad even though everyone makes such a big deal about the prophecy about his death. His journey was completed as soon as he found pity in himself instead of Rage - essentially rejecting the godly side of himself (oh yeah, I forgot to mention. His mom is a goddess) and embracing his mortality. 

because gods don’t have to deal with death, they can Rage all they want, remember?

Also, if he never dies, he can’t be reunited with Patroclus. 

OTP OTP OTP

You could probably write an essay about how Achilles died as soon as Patroclus did.

Honestly Boring Historical Context (That might be interesting if you’re a nerd like me?

The poem was basically historical fantasy even when it was first written. There are gods and super strength and shit

Greek History Over-Simplified: The Mycanaean Period was prosperous but ended suddenly. The Dark Ages of Greece followed, and we don’t know much about what happened during that because they forgot the written word was a thin. 

The events of the poem probably take place during the Mycanaean Period because they use bronze weapons. 

But warfare is described from more of a Dark Ages perspective. Like, they don’t use chariots the right way

Which suggests that chariots were part of the source material, then the Dark Ages made people forget how they were supposed to be sued, so the bards just kinda made shit up to explain their presence. (Don’t quote me on that tho)

The Oral Tradition of the poem means that this story was told thousands of times over hundreds (thousands?) of years. So the narrative is hones at shit.

it has the sculpted body of an Olympic athlete. Each muscle toned to do a specific job and everything works perfectly together to accomplish the sporty feat of interest. Every verse is packed with character, setting, plot, and cultural significance

Except for that Catologue of Ships shit. Boooo boring ships.

There were probably lots of other versions of the poem, but Homer told it best. His version was written down as soon as the written word was (re)invented

Side Note that wasn’t in Lombardo’s Intro

The Iliad and Odyssey are both parts of a larger body of work known as the Epic Cycle 

(The Aeneid is basically Caesar Augustus-insert fanfiction at that, btw. Virgil was a satirical fanboy and I’m living for it.)

Characters and events are introduced with the assumptions that the reader already knows their importance

But we only have fragments of the rest of the Cycle today because it was either never written down or the manuscripts were lost

I’m looking at you, Burned Library of Alexandria

*sad fiddle music plays in the background

Videos That I Learned Shit From (Only, like, the first two links are relevant to the topic at hand, btw)

Basic Plot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faSrRHw6eZ8

More about the Epic Cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bn0eKt4Rw 

Iphigenia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifFsKCrH3GM 

Oresteia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kpGhivh05k             

The Odyssey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-3rHQ70Pag&index=4&list=PLDb22nlVXGgfwG1qbOtNgu897E_ky_8To (Also, this story is my favorite of the Epic Cycle)

The Aeneid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRruBVFXjnY&list=PLDb22nlVXGgfwG1qbOtNgu897E_ky_8To&index=5  

Ancient Greek History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzGVpkYiJ9w&index=2&list=PLDb22nlVXGgexsbafIwirG6Tk9uww9dSW    

And, yeah, these videos are all from the same channel. I’m a basic bitch and a ho for not leaving my comfort zone. Fite me. 

Honestly, if anyone has other sources, let me know. Youtube history/video essays are my shit.

I hope this was helpful.

[putris-et-mulier]

Marvel's diversity is a problem because it doesn't represent enough white conservative able-bodied straight cis males

White conservative able-bodied straight cis males are technically a minority you guys

sick All in the Family reference

So, someone sent me this guy's argument and you can read it here for yourself. I'm just going to hit the big points because I could write for the rest of my life and still not cover everything that's wrong with this.

This gentleman, Jon Del Arroz,  is upset that Disney is being too politically correct (they only own the Avengers movie franchise so what has to do with the comics I don't know) and it super sucks because he already got kicked out of sci-fi fandom and conventions (there is definitely a story there) 

I don't have to explain why this is hilarious, right? If this were a tweet it would say "Disney is the reason I get kicked out of conventions" and also awwwwwwwwwwwww.

So, he suggests that the diversity Marvel (he never addresses Disney again) needs is in political and social philosophies so they can put out a variety of books preaching an array of propaganda.

And I'm with him on the classification of what Marvel Comics and Disney separately put out is their own propaganda. Propaganda simply means information released that is biased or misleading. Both Disney and Marvel Comics are corporations so of course they are going to use propaganda to do whatever they can to get their audience to stay loyal. What I'm writing now is propaganda. Jon Del Arroz is using propaganda. Everyone is biased and no one has all of the information. The problem with propaganda is if you don't know where it's coming from and can't contextualize the bias.

The assertion that "social justice propaganda…is dangerous when it comes to creating art" is a little too ridiculous for me to address in whole so I'll just say: You're right bro, art has never been used as a social and political platform and any that has never ever becomes a piece of classical art. Frida Kahlo totally loved white people.

On that note, let's talk about the writers and artists. This gentleman contends that Marvel (again, where is Disney?) only hires social justice warriors. He looked up all of the current writers and investigated their twitters to give you proof of their liberalism and every single one of them has unequivocally stated that they are anti-Trump. He says that like it's a bad thing. Hhere are some of my favorites

Gerry Duggan – Constant Anti-Trump posts, retweets Bernie (he can still win!)

Al Ewing – British, and doesn’t seem to post a lot of American politics, but very heavily steeped in globalism in immigration “rights” in his posts. Anti-Western civilization

Kate Leth – Regular anti-Trump posts. Constant complaints about some boogeyman “privilege”, rambles at racist, sexist, etc., “white dudes”.  Rants about queer issues

Greg Pak – Complains about “representation” of different races. Lots of anti-Trump posts

Dan Slott – Anti-trump rants all the time

a-Nehisi Coats – brand new to twitter, most of his posts anti-trump. Writes fake news articles for the Atlantic on “micro-aggressions”

Jason Latour – anti-trump tweets regularly, regularly makes fun of Christian culture

Sean Ryan – Anti-American tweets, Women’s March tweets, ran podcast “horrifically misinformed” which championed left-wing causes

Mariko Tamaki – not many posts, but encouraging fans who speak of him as “homophobic, misogynistic and racist”, social justice posts, anti fox-news posts

G.Willow Wilson – “Muslim” Ms. Marvel writer, rants anti-Trump posts all the time

I'm honestly not sure what he means about Mariko Tamaki (she writes Hulk) and he uses incorrect pronouns so I'm doubly confused.

I do agree with him on one, Gerry Conway calls himself a “passionate libtard” in his profile. Stop using that word and variations of it, Gerry, but continue complaining about the government.

"18/18 Marvel writers, 100%, are extreme left wing ideologues who hate half of the country, have nothing nice to say about the USA or its president ever" (he went back and added the 12 he forgot and the percentage remained at 100)

It should be no surprise that people in the art industry, especially ones who freelance and publish independently, tend to be into activism and not very into conservationism.

You can make an argument that publishers intentions can be analyzed based on who they hire but at the end of the day these people are themselves, not Marvel. They work on commission. I don't think I could pick out anyone who only writes for Marvel.

He also argues that no one reads Marvel comics that aren't long-term dedicated fans and that even they are not reading as much. Source?

Take Spider-Man/Deadpool for example. The series was created based on the interest of the two of them and specifically how popular their ship is. From my personal experience most of the readers are brand-new to comics and the cells have been astronomical, especially on fan markets for first printings.

It stars Deadpool, one of the queerest characters at Marvel, and the premise revolves around his romantic pursuit of Spider-Man. It's pretty out there, they now have a child together and the sells numbers haven't been below 45,000

And just look at the sales numbers for comics in general. 2002–2006 they were making over $300 million, 2007–2012 they were making over $400 million, and 2013 through the present they've consistently been over $500 million. That's just North America and those are just the numbers for the ones published by Diamond, no one knows how much is being made by digital comics yet but it's a lot.

Source, it's apparently extremely hard for you to take two seconds and Google that information.

"This is why your sales are in the toilet, Axel Alonso (Editor in chief)"  

That's the opposite of how math works.

“heeeeey maybe we shouldn’t, in every single book we publish, stick middle fingers up at our overwhelmingly primary audience of 18-35 year old white males who buy comics, as about 2/3 of them voted in a way that is contrary to the social narratives we’re pushing”

Don't judge him, he's not allowed to go to conventions so he doesn't actually know how diverse the audience is. And it should be noted that a target audience is separate from an actual audience. A great example of this is 

Young Justice on the Cartoon Network had great ratings but the ratings weren't from their target, 18–30 white straight men, so it got canceled. The reason? They didn't want to sell merchandise to them despite the fact that sexual and gender minorities overwhelmingly keep this industry afloat in the majority of their purchases are merchandise. Remember when only 18–30 white men were buying comics in the 90s and everyone had to file multiple bankruptcies?

46.67% of comic book readers are women. We don't know the percentage of non-binary readers but it's safe to say that cis men are the minority and you hate minorities! I guess?

This is weird but he tries to back up his points by explaining that his wife would never buy Iron Man comics again because the current character using that legacy title looks like this:

Muslims "think American pop-culture is evil" so they would prefer not to have representation in comics

Don't get offended because in his web comic "I have a Female, half-Asian protagonist. I didn’t do so out of any desire for representation or to show that she can be just as physically strong as men"

And this: "Peter Parker doesn’t sound like Peter Parker when he’s sitting there fretting about beating up an actual criminal because of their race (seriously, it’s in a bleeding cool preview)"

Peter Parker, well known racist? I don't remember ever seeing those particular issues but I'm a girl so I wouldn't know.

I agree that there should be comic books of all types, even ones that might even offend the shit out of me but that's what we have different publishers for. If you don't like liberalism, don't read Marvel or DC. You have many other options. More so now than ever because web comics and digital comics are only gaining in popularity and because of that it's incredibly easy for anyone to put out a comic that is listed right alongside Marvel's.

Read these:

[hbwidfimoufq-blog]

The Definitive Guide to Get Followers On Instagram For Free

Putting together a marketing is the simplest it's got ever been. Now it is reachable to straightforwardly enter your username, make a purchase of the followers every of rapid or gradually after some time. Our company is a hundred% legit, essentially character release to open our recommendations.Finding associates By natural means could be a extensive laborous retrieve and no situation how in point of fact hard you are aggravating you might craving an other Improve. ProjectInsta can support you acquire observed by mounting your Instagram aficionada add up by 80K. As soon as you build happening a nice aficionada base they will just preserve rolling in! Wow! What a gigantic site for receiving Instagram followers. It's totally fine and in action correctly. I adore to use This page! WOW! I'm impressed at how briskly they delivered followers. I attempted the free dealings and received followers promptly behind they mentioned. I bearing in mind to suggest this to anybody who demands likes or cronies upon Instagram.Info of Instagram If the thing is it, it is no question thesame to Twitter and Facebook. gone you construct an account upon Instagram, you'll acquire your profile as without difficulty as the news feed of your folks.

Free Followers On Instagram

Nowadays no one can deny the usefulness of adhere to four abide by and follow4follow applications are used by an unbelievable number of people all exceeding the entire world. I'd the thesame as to leave this evaluation to give access a large thanks for every of my forgive buddies on Instagram, I last but not least appear to be Im preferred lol xD. Even so, if a persons account is non-public, you receivedt have the skill to look their posts Unless of course you inherit in the same way as them. You must try to locate the web site which will gift you next the release Instagram buddies hack. In this exaggeration you should be accomplished to acquire as lots of partners as ou want. We've got the most up-to-date hacking Instrument (not in fact hacking, its afterward ad system and 100% safe and unquestionable as we are not inquiring your password and and appropriately on. Observe all your Fb mates upon Instagram, and great quantity of will succeed to afterward you again. To complete that, conveniently just go for your Instagram profile and click practically the three dots icon on the top right of the monitor. choose Obtain fine friends and after that Uncover associates on Facebook.As you follow them, you website will be dexterous to see their routines in imitation of your wall. on the extra hand, your close friend wont be proficient of see your routines Except if they take over similar to you. create use of a Instrument bearing in mind Crowdfire to analyze how your Instagram posts have an effect on your follower/unfollower stats. taking into consideration you are a consumer of Instagram, you are going to revelation that you'll after that have the achievement to look some pics of Individuals whom you have got not followed. forty nine. Organize co-promotions once additional buyers. Discover users inside of a approving specialized recess that have a same aficionada depend and arrange for mentions or

Get This Definition

shout outs that can incite create one anothers audience. You might have entirely nothing to cause problems nearly taking into consideration utilizing the Instagram relieve at ProjectInsta. We lecture to Each individual aficionada using a 256bit encrypted private proxy and are be active it this fashion For many years. ProjectInsta will be the primary location to get leading excellent Instagram partners unconditionally release of cost. We permit you declare upon nearly whatever stirring to eighty THOUSAND partners shipped to your account instantly or drip fed in excess of a couple of days/weeks, this provider is one hundred% Protected to utilize and will NEVER place your account in danger. understand that in the world of social media having extra followers implies that you'll be other profitable. Men and women will generally save to the accounts that already have supplementary followers. There are various metrics apart from this that's much more crucial and willing to help taking into consideration what number of persons engage along when you upon common foundation, what amount of revenue it truly is driving and simply how much traffic to your site is driving by your social endeavours. It labored instantaneously appropriately I purchased one hundred subs. all functioning Great! Btw. I'm not a bot this stuff is basically Functioning.Our facilities is affordable, Tremendous fast, you will not get banned and every of our previous buyers are unconditionally content. We even gift free instagram followers encourage with verification. We could right of entry out to the ideal Section at Instagram.One can enrich the validity and reliability from the business enterprise that has a large range of Instagram followers. Obtaining much more partners will enable you to attract more and more people in the government of your account. It won't on your own boost your attractiveness and moreover you can entice prospects meaning the sales of your company will create improvements to. The first event that the consumers will endure on your own account would be the cronies that you've got. subsequently they're going to statement that you already have more cronies they will have faith in the proficient facilities you provide and star pursuing your account. ezinstafollowers is Web-site providing lovely dependable skilled services. I thoroughly have confidence in This website and craving to discover it at the top. Best of luck acquire more info men! Brilliant, youre within the queue at this moment. Be certain to wait regarding right until the queue involves you and don't

Things To Remember

Close the web site. Thank you for tests our provider! This is often incredible! I did not Imagine it would realize the job, but similar to I tried it and began to see included followers, I was astonished! announce it now! Utilizing our facilities will generate further visibility upon social media marketing. Use this for getting genuine liking followers, all this is prompt. I used to be fittingly surprised, but it surely in fact labored! This provider beats most additional comparable applications or Web sites to free instagram followers choose from that judge your data And attain not have the funds for followers. I essentially advise!ezinstafollowers offers you the unplanned to test our Instagram providers we have been featuring a clear dealings for any variety of accounts. Our buddies demo package deal is one hundred% clear The unquestionably first get older For each and every other account. We guarantee the safety of the account as we dont call for your password.

[rodneyevesuarywk]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[christinesumpmg]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[mercedessharonwo1]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[conniecogeie]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[kraussoutene]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[christinesumpmg1]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[byronheeutgm]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[fairchildlingpo1]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service���it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC

[mariasolemarionqi]

11 Companies That Are Killing It with Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it can be hard to truly examine what works—and more importantly, what doesn’t. A great place to start is by looking at the brands at the forefront of the digital marketing world and analyze what worked for them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

However, there is a lot of misinformation and poorly executed digital marketing strategies out there. It can be hard, but not impossible, to execute a digital marketing strategy that connects with your customer, increases your brand awareness, and adds money to your bottom line.

So, to help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 companies we believe have implemented a dynamic digital marketing strategy that increased company ROI and added value to customers. The companies below are not just doing digital marketing—they are creating experiences and content that captivate their audiences and bring outstanding brand awareness. They are the best.

We have also added a bonus section at the bottom of this post of four companies that are absolutely killing the social media world. Social media campaigns are part of digital marketing, of course, but these brands are doing such an impressive job that we had to spotlight them.

Seeing is believing, so without further ado, here are our favorite eleven companies that are doing digital marketing right, and four social superstar companions.

1. Zappos

Zappos, a leader in online shoe commerce, sets the gold standard for online customer care. In fact, their CEO wrote the book on it. It’s no shock that they have a stellar digital strategy.

Not only does Zappos provide a 365-day money back guarantee, but they also have free shipping both ways as well, should consumers decide to return or exchange products purchased on the site. As a result, Zappos doesn’t have to work hard to market its online presence—its policies are so appealing to consumers that shoppers are eager to sing the company’s praises to one another in a completely organic (and viral) fashion.

Of course, Zappos does still invest heavily in online marketing, and its social media campaigns shouldn’t be missed! Notice how they focus on what the customer wants and needs, not on what they want the customer to want or need. This is a key part to any effective digital strategy. Listen to your audience and plan accordingly.

The Lesson: Content marketing is the way of the future, but it must be managed appropriately to be effective. Online content marketing campaigns should strive to produce measurable results in proportion to the resources committed to them.

2. American Express (AMEX)

Plenty of companies talk a big game about “the communities” they’re creating online and the inherent value of the “online conversation.” However, very few actually create any community of value. Far from being all talk and no game, American Express puts its money where its mouth is by leveraging the value provided by industry experts on its Open Forum website.

Open Forum is a collaborative website, on which American Express invites guest authors from a variety of sectors to share their business knowledge and wisdom. The result is a content-rich mega-site that’s popular with the search engines, all created without American Express needing to shell out cash to content contributors.

The Lesson: The creator of your content does not need to be you. Find industry leaders that produce great content, and ask them to write a couple articles on your blog. It will build their audience and your traffic, as long as the content provides value. Good content marketing strategies draw on a range of user-generated sources to both grow online communities and minimize financial investment.

3. Mint

Entering the crowded personal finance niche (or any popular niche) is a daunting task for any new startup, but the approach that financial tracking tool Mint took proves that it’s possible to stand out in a crowd through well-executed online marketing strategies.

Although the company was a relative unknown amongst its more popular predecessors, Mint committed to a digital strategy publishing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, from informative blog posts to viral, attention-grabbing infographics (like A Dude’s Guide to Not Going Broke during Wedding Season) to grow their business. As a result of Mint’s digital marketing efforts, the tool gained a massive online following before being sold to Intuit for a whopping $170 million.

In a podcast on Growth Everywhere, Neil Patel discussed why he spends up to $30,000 dollars on content and gives it away for free, and how it is all worth it in the end.

The Lesson: Investing in content marketing often requires significant amounts of time and money, but committing to content production and high-quality standards can build substantial market attention in a short period of time.

4. Dollar Shave Club

Shaving is the epitome of a boring routine, right? If you answered “of course,” then you obviously haven’t seen Dollar Shave Club’s now legendary launch video. DSC shook the notion of its drab, buttoned-up industry and kicked it out the window.

Today, this company has over a million subscribers, its promotional video has been viewed over 24 million times, and it was recently acquired for $1 billion by Unilever. During their hyper growth, Dollar Shave Club continued to share cheeky content such as “Is It Bad to Pluck Nose Hairs with My Fingers?” and “Do I Really Need to Wash My Hands After I Pee?” These guys know how to let loose and get attention.

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to have some fun! DSC doesn’t take itself too seriously (or at all seriously, for that matter). Everything from its marketing to its onboarding, from its packaging to its social engagement is lighthearted, silly, and tongue-in-cheek. And its customers love them for it. They’ve made something as tedious as buying razors and shaving hilarious and entertaining, and that’s what stands out in people’s minds.

5. The Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing can be a bit sleazy, but it can generate big results when done properly and genuinely. The Wirecutter has set the standard since its launch just five years ago. Labeling itself a simple “list of the best gadgets—like cameras and TVs—for people who don’t want to take a lot of time figuring out what to get,” the site generated $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015 and was recently acquired by the New York Times for $30 million.

They write reviews for products they love, embed a link to buy it from someone like Amazon, and take a cut of each sale. Their reviews take anywhere from 20 to 200 hours to complete, involving experts and other interested parties depending on the product. It works because they’re real.

The Lesson: Trust more in the power of real people. Modern consumers are wary of ads, banners, and paid search results. They want real recommendations from real people. And that’s what The Wirecutter delivers with such sparkling success. They’ve made the review (a.k.a. the “ad”) the product. People share them, like them, and rely on them to decide what to buy. The only marketing they have to do is sharing their top-notch reviews. Their fans take care of the rest.

6. Slack

Slack is a collaboration tool that allows teams to communicate more efficiently and share files, all on one easy platform. They’ve had a pretty spectacular rise, with 15,000 users at launch in 2014, just north of 171,000 six months later, over 500,000 in less than a year, and currently sitting at roughly 5,000,000 (nearly one and a half million of which are paid accounts).

Their “secret sauce” is delivering a high-quality customer experience. The company responds to 8,000 help desk tickets and up to 10,000 tweets each month. Even their Twitter feed contains a bunch of 140-character #SlackTips.

The Lesson: From day one, Slack has been about selling a solution, not a product. They’ve focused on customer experience, believing that one positive experience does more than a big marketing budget could ever hope to accomplish. As their tagline says, they’re “on a mission to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Make it all about solving your customer’s’ pain points.

7. Airbnb

Airbnb has changed the way we travel and look for accommodations. Launched when its founders couldn’t afford their rent, the site now boasts 100 million users, 2.3 million listings, and a total valuation of $31 billion in 2017.

Their marketing strategy is aimed at getting both travelers and hosts for the platform. Its digital marketing relies primarily on user-generated images and videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (highlighting the cities and properties in its stable), how-to videos and posts geared towards owners, and popular city guides. Their Instagram campaign matches humor with compelling images of different travel locations around the world, making it more than just a service—it’s a travel forum as well.

When it comes to social media superstars, Airbnb shines the brightest. During a 2015 Instagram campaign, the company received 13.3 million interactions and increased followers by 341 percent.

The Lesson: Create demand around your product or service by finding a topic related to your business that’s interesting. For example, Airbnb is ultimately a crowdsourced hotel business, so interesting content for them is related to travel sites around the world. Generate interest with content, and the dollars will follow.

8. JetBlue

One of the biggest mistakes we see companies making when it comes to online marketing strategies is the tendency to post self-promotional materials only. Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself long enough to post something of real value!

JetBlue, the popular discount airline, is one company that gets it. Instead of using Twitter to post fare discounts and special offers, the company uses its handles to provide fast and easy customer service. In fact, the effect is so profound that nearly all the messages in the company’s feed include @ replies, which is highly unusual in the world of social media marketing for businesses.

The Lesson: Make it a priority to balance self-promotional materials with information that followers can actually use, and respond to users whenever they interact with your web profiles in order to boost rapport and consumer confidence.

Nobody wants to follow a company that can’t stop talking about itself. Click To Tweet 9. Yelp

It may seem obvious now, but the idea to combine social networking and online reviews was a “Eureka!” moment for Yelp’s founders in 2004. It wasn’t that review sites were unheard of at the time, but this company approached it a little differently with the social angle. Today, Yelp has 160 million unique monthly visitors, 2.8 million claimed businesses, and 121 million cumulative reviews.

The social element cashed in on the “people trusting people” component that made The Wirecutter and other similar brands a success years later. Reviewers are real people, with real names and photos, and are encouraged to develop a reputation and a following. Users can even review the reviews of other reviewers!

The Lesson: Keep the focus on building a trustworthy brand and a trustworthy community. Yelp wanted to provide the best recommendations for every kind of business. To do that, they need fantastic reviewers, they need the businesses themselves to buy into the program, and they need users to believe what they read. Trust is essential, and that’s what they focused on in their early marketing efforts. Today, a one-star increase on a Yelp rating can lead to a five to nine percent increase in business revenue according to Michael Luca of the Harvard Business Review.

10. Mastercard

Mastercard is the king of “Priceless” surprises. The financial services giant has a knack for creating engaging experiences that excite and retain their customers.

As a major sponsor of the MLB, the company wanted to execute their “priceless” strategy and take advantage of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series for the first time in 71 years. Why? So they could be a part of history if (and when) the Cubs won.

Their main objectives were to (1) connect with suffering Cubs fans and (2) insert themselves into the World Series conversation.

Mastercard went out looking for the perfect way to implement their campaign and came across a great piece of content: A player on a rival team had accused Cubs fans of lacking passion for their team. This was a perfect sound bite to build an entire campaign on, so Mastercard ran with it, titling their campaign the “Sound of Priceless.” They built a sound meter and placed it around Wrigley Field to measure just how loud the fans were. After measuring the sound and learning how loud the fans truly were, they created a piece of video content around the story.

In order to create the ultimate impact, Mastercard released the film online and on social media just as the Cubs won the final game of the World Series. The results were priceless.

The Lesson: When you are trying to create viral digital marketing campaigns, look for content that is already out there, and put a spin on it that will benefit someone else as well as your brand. Also, notice how Mastercard was patient enough to wait until the very last game to release their content in order to maximize the reach. This is key to any great digital campaign. Timing does matter.

11. Uniqlo

UNIQLO is an innovative Japanese apparel company that urges the world to dress casual. Their mission is to provide simple apparel that makes your life better.

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have probably seen a Uniqlo advertisement or shopping bag, but the company wanted to help customers see Uniqlo as a technology focused company, not just a fashion brand. They wanted to build on a statement made by UNIQLO’s President and CEO Tadashi Yanai that said, “We [Uniqlo] are not a fashion company. We are a technology company.”

The best way to do this? An effective digital marketing campaign. Uniqlo created a world-first “fast-moving” image campaign and activated it in 100 locations and online. The campaign utilizes fast moving images to deliver a unique product code which is indecipherable to the naked eye.

Shoppers were then asked to upload the five digit code to the campaign website to redeem a sample from the HEATTECH clothing range. Once on the site, the viewers were directed through a series of informational screens that described in detail the technology behind Uniqlo products before displaying a winning page.

This experience was shareable on social and encouraged friends to uncover their own unique code through similar YouTube and Facebook videos. The results were terrific. Online videos were viewed 1.3 million times, and over 25,000 people signed up to receive the UNIQLO newsletters. In total, the campaign reached over four million people, resulting in 35,000 new customers.

The Lesson: Digital marketing can be a great way to creatively engage with your customers and teach them about who you are and what your product does. By taking control of the conversation with your customer, you can create your own brand story that you want to resonate with the target customer. You don’t need to go to the lengths that Uniqlo did to interact with your customers, but you do need to take control of the conversation.

Other Social Media Superstars 1. Doctor Who

This long-running BBC show attracts millions weekly to follow the adventures of the Doctor and his companions. When it comes to social media, the Time Lord eclipses all other television brands through the integration of a Tumblr blog, Twitter feed, Instagram, and a strong online presence. It’s a match made in heaven—or perhaps near Gallifrey—and a winner in our book when it comes to promoting a brand via integrated social media.

2. The Shelter Pet Project

The Shelter Pet Project uses Facebook to help..

http://ift.tt/2rZPFuC