been away for a while now I am back. I leave u with this. life is what u make of it so go out there and be awesome

this kitkat ad is a perfect depiction of what most people believe would happen if the internet took a break. #hilarious

If social media took a break would the world survive?

It is a cold winter’s morning in Cape Town, a young girl named Robin wakes to the sound of her alarm. While getting ready for class she notices that her cell phone is not picking up signal. Thinking nothing of it she continues getting ready. Before leaving the house she checks her laptop to see if she can access her Facebook or twitter account. Nothing is working? Her WhatsApp nor Bbm? How would she be able to contact her friend Zarinah to hear if she was attending class? How would she contact her boyfriend? No one buys airtime anymore. She is officially stranded.

Luckily that was just a fictional story but how would people react if social media ever took a break. There would be no checking the “interesting facts” on Facebook, Tweeting out what you had for breakfast, no selfies being posted on Instagram and no homework being passed over Bbm or WhatsApp. As a young adult social media and internet for that matter gets more interaction from me that my own family does sad but true. With social media I get instant responses to my questions and instant gratification.

Although the internet basically governs the way we live we once lived in a world where there was no internet (scary but true) and civilisation went on. Taking a break from social media would leave you with more time to do things that don’t require nearly injuring your fingers from typing and getting “square eyes” from constantly staring at your cell phone or laptop screen.

Corona, S (2014) the CTO of twitpic decided to take a break from social media for 30 days and found that not spending all those hours online allowed for more time spent on things like training for a marathon. Taking time from social media in my opinion will not end the world.

 

I asked a few people how they would feel if social media took a break

Michael J, 22 “as long as I can still be in contact with my girlfriend then a basic phone call would do”.

Angie, 45 “as long as the post office is still operating I can stay in communication with letters”.

Abigail Reynolds, 21 “no I would never survive because social media has become part of communication. It keeps me in touch with what is going on around the world and it’s so much quicker.

The youth of today as well as the adults of the world need to remember that before there was social media people communicated through other means.

#brandingbrat

hilarious vid about #

Has the world we live in turned into a #world?

I am speaking purely from experience but I cannot log onto Facebook and read posts without being bombarded by #posts.

People have taken the trend of # too far for example you post a picture of you and a friend at camps bay the post would say something like #campsbay #besties #beautifulday #capetown etc. I’m sure you get the picture.

Hash tagging became popular on Twitter. Now it is everywhere even news outlets and TV stations are using the #hashtag

Lifehack said it best “The hashtag is the “smiley” that Twitter doesn’t have. With hashtags, you don’t need to scroll through a list to choose the image best representing your emotional state. You can simply invent it on the spot, and combine multiple complex feelings as well as situational context”.

DIGIDAY (2014) says if the first couple of months are any indication, 2014 promises to be the year that traditional advertising fell in love with the hashtag.

Every new TV spot seems to include a hashtag. Sometimes it’s just on the end frame, and sometimes the entire ad is built around the hashtag. Brainstorming a clever hashtag seems to now be a creative mandatory for launching new campaigns. I have to assume that the objective in the mind of the agency is that people are going to be so overwhelmed with positive emotion when seeing the TV spot that they will feel compelled to go to Twitter to post about how amazing the spot was, remembering, or course, to include the hashtag in their tweet.

I feel advertisers are guilty of over using the #hashtag in adverts because they think it will appeal to the youth and young adults but over kill never attracts the attention you want. This Phenom does not really get people to act unless you giving away R 1 million.

So people let’s not over use #hashtags #brandingbrat #truewords #overkill lol.

here are some examples of # advertising

Celebrity spokespeople helpful or hurtful towards a brand?

The times (2014) wrote that the phrase “any publicity is good publicity” is regularly applied to celebrities and products alike, and it makes a pretty argument for why paying celebrities to endorse products is money well spent. What happens, though, if an association with a celebrity does more harm than good in consumers ‘perception of the product or brand? There is no doubt that celebrity endorsed products attract attention and draws the attention of consumers (who wouldn’t want to smell like Beyoncé or dress like the Kardashians or look like David Beckham in underwear?)

The problem comes in when celebrity’s bad public image gets associated with the brand. Nike has had many of those problems with their celebrity spokespeople. The world were in shock when the scandals surrounding Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods and Oscar Pistorius. Nike had to quickly respond because consumers started reacting badly towards the brand (well I reacted badly and kind of felt bad for Nike).

Some fake companies or false products use celebrity endorsements to attract customers and get them to buy their products. This can harm the credibility of that celebrity because those products almost never works.

Using celebrity endorsements also means paying out millions to these celebs for their status so in my opinion celebs should at least have the decency to behave in public and not land themselves in the tabloids for negative behaviour and they need to endorse the product or brand that the companies are paying them millions for (think about it Beyoncé endorsing Pepsi but seen drinking Coke for example now that’s just rude #hypotheticalexample)

Whether you believe celebrity spokespeople hurt or help a brand one thing is sure they will always bring publicity to any brand good or bad.

 here are some examples od celebrity endorsed campaigns (note that I am not promoting anything just simply showing a few examples)

 

 

don't be rude to nerds, they could end up being your boss one day

Social media friend or foe?

Social media has taken over the world as we know it in personal and business so is this a good thing or a bad thing?

In my opinion social media is a great way to communicate but I feel that our lives have been taken over by this phenomenon. You can’t walk out the door without seeing or hearing something about social media.

Pros of social media

Social network allows you to communicate with anyone anywhere in the world. It helps to build relationships with people from different generations as they can use social media as a common ground. (You can now chat with your granny about Facebook and Twitter who would have thought)

Businesses have used social media to their advantage by advertising and communicating with their customer. It is cheaper that traditional advertising and offers consumers a chance to interact with their favourite brands and companies are.

Social media and internet for that matter have made consumer lives simpler as you can so all your shopping with one click on your computer (which is awesome for someone like me who hates having to be in malls when it is so busy)

The list of pros for social media could go on and on but luckily I only have to mention a few

Cons of social media

Que the boo’s yes social media might seem like the best thing to happen to our boring existence but just as everything have pros to it our “can do no wrong “social media sites have cons to it.

With all these different social media site such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and so forth, friendships, relationships in all aspects have really become “social mediaships” (yes I made up that word) gone are the days when guys would court the woman who catches their eye with beautiful poems and flowers and awkward shy conversation now one gets a “hey are u on Instagram or hey follow me on Twitter and I would follow you”.

For someone who has never heard of Twitter having people follow would be so creepy they would run for the hills.

The power of advertising and product success has shifted from the marketer or business to the consumer. Consumers operate in communities and value the opinions of their family and friends rather than the word of the advertisers or people pushing the product.

For example you purchase a certain product and you find it doesn’t hold up to their promises you quickly log onto one of the million social media sites out there and complain and research has shown that negative product reviews get more attention than positive product reviews and consumers can gang up and tear down that product and people follow and could even boycott using that product.

Whether you think social media is a friend or foe the one thing I want people to take away from this article is that social media or internet should never replace the human interaction mankind is required and always use these platforms to their fullest potential and most importantly PLEASE USE SOCIAL MEDIA WISELY because criminals and your parents could be watching your profiles closely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                         

having a lovely day in the sun at sunnycove.. sometimes you just have to sit back and relax and let your body and mind revitalise.