IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: Twitter

  • Ron Paul, Who?

    Over the past eight years, the media coverage regarding Ron Paul has been very lackluster to say the least. Although most of the coverage he has received has been positive, the overall amount is significantly lower than the other candidates running. The messages he supports are often considered the most accurate and truthful by any candidate and many believe him to be the most qualified for the political office. However, the media seems to have its own agenda, and seem to have a different idea on who should be the frontrunner.

    Although there are four candidates, CNN seems to believe that only three are relevant. Missing from this photo is Ron Paul, sitting just left of candidate Santorum.

    Both CNN and Fox News are partially to blame for this so-called “media blackout”, and have not been giving fair coverage to Congressman Paul. When it comes to debates or discussion, Ron Paul seems to mysteriously disappear from the subject and is often overlooked. In a recent interview with Fox News, he states that he has observed that the amount of coverage on himself post-debate has a ratio of about 90:1 in favor of his opponents. This shows a tendency that the media does not believe that Ron Paul has the ability to win the candidacy and therefore neglects to give him adequate coverage.

    Although the media coverage on Ron Paul is largely absent from television and news broadcasting channels, he receives overwhelming support on major social media networks. Seeing as the majority of his supporters are those of a younger generation, Twitter plays a large part of his support and communication between his fans. During a recent poll, the Washington Post found that from July of 2011 to January of 2012 that the amount of mentions on Twitter significantly increased from about 30,000 to almost 260,000. Compared to Newt Gingrich who had 294,000 mentions, Ron Paul still comes in second. Luckily, thanks to his many loyal supporters there is still a good chance for him to succeed despite the media’s lack of belief.

    Leslie Tyler, Leanna Marshall, Bryce Koonts, Julius Roberts

  • Challenge: Build Your #brand In 140 Characters

    Social media is a growing evolutionary electronic forum around the world.  Some argue that Twitter and other social media sites are becoming the journalism of the 21st century. There are numerous social media outlets which allow their users to instantly connect with thousands of online communities and share a limitless amount of information.  From celebrity Tweets to Facebook events, wall posts to Pinterest pins, people are staying connected in a variety of forms on the Internet.  Twitter, founded in 2006, has become one of the leading social media outlets allowing users to stay up to date with current events. From international businesses to famous celebrities, Twitter allows its users to feel connected to whomever they choose to follow.  Celebrities like @Kim_Kardashian, @Heidi_Klum, @Ryan_Seacrest, and @Snooki all use Twitter to enhance their #brand and attract followers.

    The use of social media sites is becoming one of the most dependable and fastest ways to sell and promote products. In just a few clicks marketers can have access to any target audience they desire. Twitter is an efficient way to connect people to ideas and enhance their #brand awareness. It also allows marketers to engage their audience in a manner where the consumers actually want to receive information. Twitter can also be used as a research method to learn what their target audiences are tweeting about and incorporate those ideas into their marketing strategies. Twitter can be used to build and enhance a personal #brand by making connections with their target audience and answering their questions and comments directly.

    With each tweet, celebrities are promoting and advertising themselves in 140 characters or less. Some celebrities control their own accounts while others are maintained by their PR agent. Using Twitter for publicity increases their popularity while establishing their #brand.  It also allows celebrities to establish more of a personal connection to their fans. Sometimes celebrities will re-tweet and reply to comments, questions or concerns that their fans send.  This gives them an understanding of what their fans like and dislike about their #brand. Twitter provides these celebrities an opportunity to prove that they are just like everyone else.

    @Kelsey_Bendig, @Brian_Burch, @Andrea_Blanton, @Brooke_Keller

  • Will The Force Be With You?

          It’s Super Bowl season and we, as viewers, are ready for the stream of entertaining advertisements that keep us occupied between breaks. I’m sure everyone remembers last years buzz worthy Star Wars inspired Volkswagen commercial. How can one not be enamored with a little boy in a movie quality Darth Vader suit that genuinely startles himself by using “the force” to turn on his dad’s new Volkswagen? Beyond all the cuteness, the commercial relays the push-to-start feature that the affordable (and apparently fun) German car has to offer.
         To top its success from the last Super Bowl, Volkswagen has returned with yet another Star Wars inspired ad and the entertainment factor is undeniable. Yet what do barking dogs and Star Wars really have to do with the German automobile company?
         Advertisers take full advantage of the hype surrounding the Super Bowl to create innovative, touching, and entertaining commercials. Companies will pay extraordinary amounts of money to ensure that their commercial is seen by the millions of viewers watching the game. After all, this one time of the year advertisers can assume that almost every single American is tuning in. What company wouldn’t want their product showcased at this time? It’s like a black Friday Christmas sale for advertisers. These companies want to bring attention to their product in anyway possible, even if that means their product isn’t even mentioned until the last three seconds.
         In the Volkswagen ad, the viewer is unaware of the association between Volkswagen and Star Wars until the very end. This proved to be a very strategic move on VW’s part. Last year, companies were able to monitor which commercials made the biggest impact on viewers via Twitter, FaceBook and other popular social platforms. They measured the ad’s success by the number of times it was mentioned in the digital realm and were able to realize what struck a chord with the vast audience. What once seemed to be a hail marry concept of integrating marketing, advertising, and social media, is now an easy field goal for the IMC commercial championship. Volkswagen is betting that we will remember how fond we were of last year’s Star Wars theme and associate those same feelings with their brand this year as well. You can’t go wrong with puppies and kids, right?
    -Alexis Kapczynski, Kacy Cox, Sara Kaloudis, Josh Bowman

  • Another Day, Another “Gunman”

    It was not our plan to write another blog post about university safety communication however, for the second day in a row, one of North Carolina’s universities was faced with a crisis as a reported gunman was spotted on campus. Much like how the University of North Carolina Wilmington alerted their students, East Carolina University also utilized all tools necessary in order to notify their students. Officials issued a complete lockdown and notified students via e-mail, phone calls, text messaging and social media sites. However, the role social media played in UNCW’s crisis is far different from what happened at ECU.

    Reports of a gunman walking through campus started circulating around 10 am this morning and there was surveillance of a man with a cowboy hat carrying what looked like a large riffle walking on a 5th Street, a road that runs through the campus. As students were locked up in class, tweets began to flood in reporting the incident and some even saying that they saw the gunman and that there were hostages. However, after three hours of searching the Greenville Police tracked down the suspect and found that the “rifle” was in fact an umbrella. Greenville police Sgt. Carlton Williams stated that rumors circulating on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter caused authorities to “chase ghosts” and follow leads that were false.

    Although yesterday’s post focused on how social media has allowed us to share and cooperate in moments of crisis, there is also a negative side to the impact it has on the crisis communication. Officials utilize the tweets and posts on social media sites in order to gain information and as you can see from today, often have to take those tweets at face value. There’s always that “better safe than sorry” feeling, especially in the wake of the Virgina Tech massacre, but to what extent should authorities follow-up on information provided through social media?

    -Alaethea Hensley, Jessica Kingman, & Lauren Phelps

  • Osama=0, Facebook & Twitter=2

    Last night social media networks exploded with the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death. If you have a social media account, there was no way you did not hear the news before President Obama’s speech. Most people, especially members of the millennial generation, spread the news around the world like wildfire. On Facebook, statuses were updated every second with celebratory posts of the death of the most hated person since Adolf Hitler. Twitter set a new record on traffic, with an average of 4,000 tweets per second from the beginning to the end of President Obama’s speech.

    How does this relate to IMC? IMC incorporates social media, which helps create social capital. It is evident that last nights social media event fostered a community around the country and globe of American nationalism, helping to reunite the country once again as the United States of America. In all of our debates over whether social media inhibits social capital, it is now quite clear that social media is a driving force in creating social capital, and on a large scale.

    Here’s to you IMC, for helping create a community one status and tweet at a time.

    -Allison Day, Jessica Berinson, Megan Canny, Melissa Gagliardi, & Scott Burgess

  • IMC Rocks the Vote!

    Here at UNCW, SGA elections are in full swing. It seems everywhere you look around campus there are countless banners, flyers, bed sheet banners, and of course…CHALK. Everywhere you look you can see the candidates’ names written big in just about every color of the rainbow! I think just about every UNCW student would agree with me when I say that every student organization and the SGA utilize the abundance of sidewalk space to literally advertise for their organization, or in this case their candidates.

    If you want to advertise on this campus that means chalking, or painting the spirit rock. I myself have painted that rock and chalked this campus more times than…well, a lot. It is a method that everyone can’t help but notice as all you have to do is take a stroll down chancellors walk and especially around the center of campus and you will inevitably see some form of non-technological promotion and advertising. And when it comes to voting on the next student President, chalking up campus along with a Facebook fan page/group or event just might be the perfect combination. After all, basically everyone has access to the internet and everyone walks this campus on a weekly basis so these advertising techniques are without a doubt very effective in reaching out to students.

    Also coming up tomorrow however is Communication Studies Day and that means the fashion  show. Throughout the week, the popular social media outlet Twitter has been home base to creating buzz about the event and the models themselves. The audience will be able to vote on their favorite model via Twitter or in person. So just the fact that they are taking voting for model favorites and putting it online is very interesting and perhaps more intriguing for students. It also presents a way to have fun with the event and spark friendly rivalries. So come on out tomorrow and check out the 9th Annual Dress for Success Fashion Show, then pull up your Twitter and let everyone know who YOU thought was the best model!

    -Maxann Keller, Ryan Kelley, Eric Holtzman, Chad Graves, Katelyn Truss

  • Facebook vs. Twitter

    Social media has become such an important aspect of our culture and now provides businesses the chance to market to their potential and current consumers. It is interesting to notice whether having, for example, a Twitter or Facebook account will make a difference for your company.

    To keep with the theme of competition going for our IMC-Hawks blog, we’ll ask,
    Which is a better social network to market a business: Facebook or Twitter?

    Facebook: We all know the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his genius creation of Facebook in 2004. Facebook has now grown to have over 500 million active users and about 70% of those million are from outside the U.S.

    What makes Facebook appealing to businesses? It’s community based. Facebook allows you to know who is interested in your product and allows you find out what specific target market to aim for, as well as updating the users of any new information. Facebook gives the business an opportunity to upload multi-media information and gives users the chance to speak their minds about the specific product or service.

    Twitter: Twitter has 175 million registered users and about 95 million tweets go out a day. I like to think of Twitter as basically a site for multiple Facebook status’ (if you want to put it that way).

    So why choose Twitter for your business? The 140 character limit allows you to keep the message short while containing the most important information you want to deliver. Twitter is all about messaging at a fast pace. If you want to get something out fast, Tweet it! You also can see who is following you and what consumers are saying about your product (a similarity to Facebook). However, most tweets for businesses usually contain a link that drive the reader, if interested, to a specific site or article.

    Twitter offers a link for businesses on their website: http://business.twitter.com/

    If you weigh the comparison out, it seems that both Twitter and Facebook offer important social media marketing tools. It all comes down to what will be more appealing for your company or what will be more effective.  In my opinion, as a consumer, Twitter and Facebook work together in a positive way. You can tweet out a link to your Facebook page and you can connect your Facebook page to your Twitter account. Nowadays, having both Twitter and Facebook isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Involving your company one way or another on a social networking site is crucial for your company, especially on the customer satisfaction side. It is appealing when the company is involved and connects on a more personal level.

    Which one do you think is more successful in connecting with customers? Facebook or Twitter?

    -Micaela Fouhy