Temporary Social Media

Many people have heard of the application entitled "Snap Chat" in which a person can take a picture of themselves or anything for that matter, and the person receiving it can only view this file for up to ten seconds until it is automatically deleted. In a day and age where sending a picture message via text message or any other form of communication can come back and haunt a person for the rest of their lives, this type of insurance is highly sought after. In a not so innocent world, this type of app seemed to be more exciting to teenagers who "sext" each other. But when put into a different lens, this type of technology could be extremely useful in a business type setting.

Although this technology is still in its infant stages, an upgraded version of such temporary social media can allow for the transfer of important documents between businesses. Such things could ensure the deletion of confidential information instead of relying on the opposing party to shred the information. It could also allow other top secret information to be passed along, again with the added security that such information would only be view able for a certain amount of time before it would automatically be deleted.

Things such as credit card information when making a purchase online could be used with this technology as well. This would allow for an e-commerce business to make their customers feel more at ease about people taking information from their website and setting up false identification with it. Using the technological platform from Snap Chat and expanding upon it leaves the door wide open for potential uses and safeguards for peoples security.

Frito-Lay Chip Contest

Frito-Lay was very successful in a recent social media campaign that involved a contest of who can create and submit the best new flavor for Lay's chips. The general public then had to vote using social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook to voice their opinions on the new products. Frito-Lay actually produced some of the top chip flavor contenders and had them for sale in many stores across the nation, allowing consumers to try the different new products before voting on which one should officially enter the Frito-Lay lineup of products.

My Twitter and Facebook were blowing up in the final weeks of the competition, with everyone buzzing about which chip flavor should win and why. This was pure brilliance by Frito-Lay because many people went out and bought multiple bags of their chips so that they could try each flavor. This was a huge bonding moment for people all over the world, as they shared their experiences with the new flavors and carefully critiqued them.

I have to say that this campaign made me more likely to buy products from Frito-Lay, as I, too, was a part of the chip critiquing and bought many bags of each flavor for everyone around me to try so that we could have a fun activity to do. While this competition frenzy is now over, the Frito-Lay brand has boosted itself into the spotlight, where everyone sees Lay's as the fun and innovative chip brand that they will want to purchase from for a long time.

Welcome to the Square Market!

As some of you may already be familiar with, Square, Inc. is a company that provides mobile credit and debit card transaction services for businesses. By inserting the white square card reading device into your mobile device and utilizing the Square application that you download to your device, you can instantly transform your mobile device into a mobile payment center for your business, allowing customers to conveniently pay you anywhere, anytime a transaction takes place! 

Square is now launching Square Market, which allows sellers to create a storefront online for free with online payment processing capabilities. Square Market allows people and businesses to sell goods online, as well as help promote their physical store by allowing potential customers to search for specific items and have whichever sellers selling that particular item to show up. Unlike other e-commerce websites such as Ebay and Amazon, Square Market does not charge customers to post items for sale, it's completely free. Square does, however, charge a 2.75% fee on whatever is sold using their marketplace, which is still cheaper than many other competitors.

Square Market will help business tremendously, as many businesses are looking to move their business online, but either do not wish to run their own website or do not want to deal with paying all of the fees associated with building their own website. The instant access to many potential customers is also a perk for using Square's new web service.

Who remembers ALDI as "the stock-up store"?

Aldi has come a long way since their first popular television advertisements in the 1980's when they finished each commercial with a voice saying "ALDI-the stock-up store". Yes, ALDI was a store where you could stock up on their core range items. If you did not live near a store and were not able to visit inside to see their selection, many people thought ALDI was similar to today's warehouse stores like Costco and Sam's Club. Viewers thought ALDI was a bulk item store and they were not able to effectively get their message across via their commercials. Print ads were more effective in that they showed items with prices and sizes, therefore letting you know they were not selling in bulk.


With the advent of the Internet followed by popular social media Websites such as Facebook, ALDI has reached out to hundreds of thousands more people in very positive ways. Currently, the ALDI USA Facebook page has 561,915 likes with 9,400 people discussing the page. Via their Facebook page which can be found at <"https://www.facebook.com/ALDI.USA ">, they are engaging their customers by marketing not only their products, but recipes, weekly deals via their ads, as well as a way to contact Customer Service.

One of the best things about ALDI USA's Facebook fan page is that it allows people to share ideas, recipes, shopping tips, and form friendships. They even use the Facebook page to plug in another popular way to share recipes by showing a link to enter your favorite recipe for drop cookies on Pinterest via this post:
"Follow us on Pinterest and pin your favorite drop cookie recipe using ingredients from ALDI for a chance to win a $20 ALDI gift certificate. Click here for info on how to enter: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/52495151880054186/” What a better way to engage people into liking their company than to create a contest to win money doing something you love? ALDI USA has outdone themselves using this Web 2.0 technology by making sure it's all about the consumer. They make you feel like part of the Aldrich brother's family...the original ALDI pioneers.

Pin It to Win It!

While most companies have figured out how to use Twitter and Facebook, some are now catching on to the craze of “Pin It to Win It.” Companies like Campbell Soup, Elizabeth Arden, Volkswagen and now Macy’s are taking their contests to Pinterest and empowering users to simply “Pin It” to enter and win.  This idea is brilliant and I’ll tell you why!  Contest entries via an online form or mail-in postcard are a thing of the past.  Why wouldn’t a company want to capitalize on the opportunity to make their entries virtual and double as a cross-promotion of their product or service?  Again, brilliant.  Let’s focus on Macy’s “Pin It to Win It” campaign.  

Macy’s encouraged shoppers to create a Pinterest page and repin a pin (Pinterest chain effect 101) from their “The Magic of Fall” Pinterest board to be entered into their $1,000 gift card giveaway!  The content included on their Fall board consisted of on-trend Fall fashions that would carry throughout users boards across Pinterest.  

What is great about Pinterest is that you can create multiple boards and tailor its content to any theme you’d like.  This is an excellent feature for companies with constantly evolving campaigns or product lines.

I personally feel that a campaign such as this would encourage users to browse their website and increase the number of orders placed.  If you see that your friend Mary loves a certain sweater and it happens to be something you've been looking for, you're going to buy it (impulse or not).  As mentioned in the book Likeable Social Media, we pay attention to recommendations from our friends and family.  By having users add an element of personalization to their campaign (Mary "Pinned" this outfit), it takes the direct marketing ploy out of the equation.

The Social Media Stalker Strategy

I have a teeny, tiny problem. I think I may have acquired a stalker. In fact, it's a cyber-stalker of sorts. I have to say that I'm beginning to feel like they are literally following me around on the internet, especially on Facebook. Wherever I go, there they are. I'm really starting to feel suffocated and a little creeped out. It all started with trying to save a little money for my wedding...

I'm getting married next September (thank you, thank you), and have started the overwhelming process of planning a wedding. We have decided on an incredibly small inexpensive wedding, consisting merely of myself, my husband-to-be, my parents, and his parents. Our goal is to have a simple, no-nonsense shindig, using most of our saved wedding money for an awesome honeymoon in Hawaii. To help keep costs down, and to avoid pushy salespeople, we are shopping for wedding rings online. I found a couple of great websites that have the ring that I'm looking for at a much lower price than in-store and without all the hassle. Perfect! As soon as I found the ring on these two sites, I bookmarked them so I could find the pages later to decide which site to buy from. Phew! Ring shopping is a lot easier than I thought! Off to Facebook I trotted to check the latest news feed...

As soon as I got to Facebook, I noticed a little ad over on the right side of the page. It was the EXACT same ring that I had just bookmarked from one of the EXACT same websites! WOW!! This must mean that I am totally meant to have this exact ring!! I giggled inside, and pledged that I would only buy my ring from this said website, and not the other, since this was practically a sign from above! Off to Google to look at honeymoon locations...

As I clicked through the different links on Google's results to my search, "Honeymoons in Hawaii", I saw a ton of sites with great honeymoon info. I saw fabulous tips on budget travel, awesome all-inclusive packages, exciting activities, beautiful pictures of beaches and mountains and flowers.....and MY RING!! There was another ad of the EXACT same ring that I had just bookmarked from that EXACT same website. Coincidence?? It must be...

Back on my homepage of Facebook I saw a few cute and funny pictures of puppies, a funny quip from an old co-worker....and another ad of the EXACT same ring that I had just bookmarked from that EXACT same website. I was officially creeped out. How did Facebook know which ring I had decided to buy? How did the Hawaii honeymoon site know?? Was I going to see this ring every time I logged into Facebook??? IS MY FACEBOOK PAGE TURNING INTO A PUSHY, STALKERISH JEWELRY SALESPERSON?!?!?

The answer to that last question is an emphatic YES. Facebook had employed it's incredibly intuitive targeted ads to help an online jewelry store become the exact opposite of what I was hoping for in my ring shopping experience. This unnamed store had turned into a cyber-stalking, money-hungry, ring-slinging sleeze-ball. What was once a warm and fuzzy feeling towards this jewelry company quickly shifted into an annoyed and violated rumbling in my tummy. I impulsively (and vindictively) deleted the bookmark to "My Ring" from my browser, and left the competitors link all alone as the victor to my credit card information.

In hindsight, I can plainly see the intention of this online jewelry store: to get their products out to potential customers via social media, utilizing social media's intelligent forms of advertising. What I don't think they realize is how this kind of marketing campaign can become a bit overwhelming, not to mention intrusive and annoying. In my mind, they may as well have sent an actual salesperson from their virtual store to come to my home and follow me around all day, holding the ring, and shouting the price in my ear every once in a while. From time-to-time, he could even hide behind my sofa and jump out unexpectedly throughout the day, holding the ring and shouting the price. That campaign would have been just as effective as the creepy Facebook advertising campaign.

"Whistle" While We Work

Want to know what your dog does all day, every day, for the rest of his life? Even while he's asleep? I recently came across a new fun little gadget aimed at dog lovers. It is called Whistle, and is essentially a dog monitor that simply attaches to the dog collar. Once snugly in place, Whistle keeps track of all of your dog's activity throughout the day, such as how much exercise he is getting, how much sleep, and even who is spending time with your beloved pooch. Whistle collects all of this data, which can then be accessed by your smart phone, 24/7. You can set goals for your dog, such as the amount of exercise your vet recommends, or how much sleep, and Whistle will create reports which will show you the progress of the goal. When a goal has been met, you can even share the milestone on social media with family, friends, and even your vet (so exciting!) Speaking of the vet...Whistle even creates Veterinarian Insights for you to bring to your dog's next appointment. At this point, Whistle is sounding like a souped up, highly intelligent, dog pedometer to me. I'm definitely intrigued.

The feature that had my little heart all a-flutter, though, was the ability to actually report on times and lengths of dog walks throughout the day, as well as being able to see who your dog is hanging out with during the day, and when. You see, dog walking is my bread and butter. I am the manager of a dog walking company, and it has become my sworn duty to keep the sloth-prone dogs of the world up off of the couch throughout the day with super-duper fun 30-minute walks.  My army of dog walkers are out there 7-days a week, walking, scooping, feeding, and watering, and then providing an element of proof to the two-legged parents (and me) that a walk actually occurred. The walkers leave time-stamped notes which lets the parents (and me) know that the dogs did in fact get their walk. For some of the more "detail-oriented", tech-happy parents, notes are not enough, and they require text messages after each walk. These texts generally must include a potty report and an exercise status update, along with a snapshot of their furry little pooch. This info assures the parent that the walk was successful in making their little dog happy, and therefore worth the money. There is a very easy equation to keep customers happy in this business: Happy Dog + Healthy Dog = Happy Customer. And everyone knows that Happy Customer = Repeat Customer = More Money in the Bank for the Biz.

So how can I keep my tech-savvy customers happy, while keeping track of what my walkers are up to throughout the day? This is where Whistle comes in. Here is an ingenious little gadget that can not only keep me in the loop as far as what my employees are doing with the dogs, but keeps the owners in the loop as well, AND keeps the parents up-to-date on the health of their dog! LOVE IT! Being able to find out anything via your smart phone has become the expectation of essentially every consumer on the planet nowadays, and apparently info about our own dogs is no exception. Whistle would be a fantastic little addition to my dog walking empire. You can check it out for yourself here: www.whistle.com

"Right Route"-A new app that will revolutionize how you drive.

(Please note that this is not a real app available...yet. Also, my paragraph spacing would NOT save so I apologize. It shows in my editing but not my final published view) Wouldn't it be great if you had a smartphone app that would give you real-time driving directions to businesses that would allow you to skip construction and traffic congestion? Would you like to have LIVE satellite images along your route in case there is a place you didn't know about or an accident ahead that will alter your route? Well, now you have it! Right Route is the revolutionary smartphone app that is available FREE for download to Android and iOS users. This app is also available via the Internet if you would like to see the "bigger picture" before you leave for your destination. Right Route has been given five-star ratings from cnet.com, tigerdirect.com, and amazon.com as being the most accurate and easy to use application of its kind. Simply start by entering your home address and, if appropriate, your work address. These two entries will always be your default starting points and you will be able to choose which one you want to start from. Right Route will also sync with your phone contacts allowing you to quickly add destinations with the tap of a button on your screen. Right Route also allows you to add stops in between your destination along the route. If you turn on the "What's around?" feature in the main menu, it will also suggest places along the way based on the type of destination you have entered. The best part about all of the route planning is that it updates with lightning speed and accuracy. All you need to do is drag and drop one destination in place of another and it automatically gives you the easiest, safest, fastest route there. Right Route will also show speed limits along your route, as well as alert you with a tone when there is a major drop in speeds. The best part about Right Route's speed limit capabilities is that since it is connected via live satellite feeds, it can read your car speed and you will be able to see it next to the posted speed limit. The posted speed limit is on the left and your current speed is on the right of the main screen navigation page. One last feature is that Right Route has a voice activated search option that allows you to ask it questions pertaining to your trip. Simply speak towards the phone while the app is in use by saying "Right Route, where's the nearest McDonald's?” Right Route will quickly calculate the nearest location and speak its destination to you, asking if you would like to add this destination along your route. How easy is that? Right Route is the Jeeves of navigation applications and is waiting for you to welcome it to your phone!

eMarketing: One-Stop Shop

When I was twelve, I lied about my age on a job application (I was supposed to be thirteen) to deliver newsletters and flyers door to door. The owner of the marketing service would pick me up in his van and we’d go to neighborhoods where his clients wanted to reach new and existing customers – Door2Door Marketing 1.0. This was the first experience that helped me understand the importance of marketing and how some companies communicated with their customers. Oh, how things have changed since then!

Today, if your company offers products or services, chances are they’ve sent out newsletters via some email marketing service to reach new and existing clients, not to mention hopping onboard the bandwagon of social media. With the evolution of Web 2.0 technology, Constant Contact and MailChimp are two email service providers (ESP) to emerge as leaders in the field of user-friendly marketing tools and services. Both ESPs offer small businesses, organizations, and individual professionals an array of services including email marketing, event marketing, social media marketing, and online surveys all in one place.

Though users of these services are conflicted about which is better – almost in the way of Apple vs. PC – both Constant Contact and MailChimp ultimately do the same thing; they help organizations connect with customers in a Web 2.0 world. The platforms are designed to develop e-newsletters using existing or customizable templates. They also offer easy, yet sophisticated, ways to manage email lists and contacts ensuring customers and subscribers will receive your information in their inbox, and not as spam or junk. In addition to giving newsletters a chic professional look, both services allow for integration with social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and Pinterest, as well as providing reports to track the results of marketing campaigns.

Costs for the services range anywhere from free to $240 per month, depending on how many customers are contacted. Included with the services are help centers with live agents as well as application help wizards. With the growing demand to inform and connect with customers online, both Constant Contact and MailChimp provide an easy one-stop shop to promote your brand.

See It Through 'See It'!

Upon doing some research for my final project I came across See It, a new service being rolled out in November by Comcast through Twitter.  See It will be a feature on tweets related to television shows or movies which will enable the user to convert directly from a conversational topic to viewing a show or movie live.  With the click of a button one could choose to tune in live, On Demand, online, or through their mobile device.  They will also have the option of setting reminders, recording on DVRs, or purchasing tickets through Comcast-owned Fandango. While the service will be available nationally, Comcast customers will be the first to test this technology on NBCUniversal networks and literally be able to use their mobile device as a remote control.  However, they are already working on having it available on other networks and platforms.

An example of how it works: Let's say you were following @ChicagoBears on twitter this past Thursday and you read about Tim Jennings' interception for a touchdown in the first quarter.  By clicking on the See It button, you could have instantly viewed the game live or recorded it on your DVR.  This option eliminates the need to scroll through your television guide looking for a channel or even picking up your remote.

While television and social Web compete for advertising dollars and attention, this partnership is working together to integrate the two enhancing both experiences.  Surely there will be kinks along the way but imagine where this type of technology could take social media.

Jimmy Fallon - The King of Social Media

While many companies use social media to gain interest in a product or in the company itself, Jimmy Fallon has been using social media to create interest in him. Fallon uses various social media outlets not only to send out funny material to his fans, but uses it to help reach different audiences to bring ratings to his show. This use of social media outlets such as Tumblr, Twitter and YouTube has helped him grow his audience base, as well as helped push him into a more coveted time slot when he takes over for Jay Leno in 2014.

Fallon first began on Twitter in 2008 and quickly grew to have over 8 million followers. While not every one of his followers turns into a rating, he continues to pull interest towards him as a comedian as well as a talk show host. Fallon frequently incorporates social media into his show as well. He will hold contests with the use of hashtags. He gives his viewers a subject and then gives them a hashtag to put in their tweet. Weekly these hashtags are amongst the highest trending topics on the web. Then once a week he will read the ones he finds the funniest, or most appropriate to the original topic and read them on the show. Any one of his 8 million followers that submitted a hashtag saying could then be inclined to watch the show to see if their tweet gets read on the air. As the funny tweets get shared through Facebook and retweeted, the interest in him and his shows continues to grow.

Fallon also makes excellent use of YouTube. Fallon will frequently tweet about some amazing experience he had with a musical guest and put out a link his own YouTube channel. Within this channel he will create special videos that weren't shown on air, where he performs renditions of the artists songs played with children's toy instruments. These videos create an enormous buzz, and are shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook on a regular basis. In addition, he also posts clips of some entertaining moments from his show. Two of his more recent posts, one of a "Lip Sync Battle" that has over 6 million views, and one of a skit he did with Justin Timberlake that had over 16 million views, both went viral. These videos were played on news broadcasts, entertainment shows, and were reposted in every social media outlet possible, creating even more awareness of who Jimmy Fallon is and what TV show he hosts.

In my opinion, Jimmy Fallon does an excellent job of creating a buzz about him and his show, without saturating the market. If he posted videos everyday, eventually people would grow tired of him. But the marketing campaign he creates through his use of social media, by timely, and luckily for him, funny posts, he pushes his brand in a way like no other celebrity does. I had previously watched Conan on a regular basis, and while he does have a social media presence, the pure numbers of Jimmy Fallon reposts from my friends led me to see more and more of his material. The more I saw, the more I was entertained, and I can say that I now watch Jimmy Fallon on a regular basis, mostly due to the fact that I liked what I saw from his various social media outlets. Jimmy Fallon has successfully used social media to market his brand like no other TV personality has been able to.

The Fitbit - Taking Your Health to the Next Level One Step at a Time

When my wife came home recently with a receipt from Target that had an extra $100 expense I wasn't expecting, I was quite shocked to say the least. What is this "Fitbit" item listed on there? Well it turns out that it is the newest item in exercise technology and has only begun to reach its full potential. While there are many folks out there with conventional methods of tracking their daily activity, the Fitbit takes it to a whole new level not only for the person exercising, but also all of their friends.

The Fitbit is the most recent technology to take advantage of wireless Bluetooth connectivity, as well as the mobile smart phone app craze. The Fitbit is a pedometer in the old school sense of the word where it will measure the steps you take throughout a given day. However, with its advancements in connectivity, you can now sync your results on a daily basis to your PC or your smart phone to keep track of your activity. In addition to steps, the Fitbit also monitors your sleep schedule, total distance traveled, the number of stairs climbed, and works as an alarm clock to wake you up in the morning. All of this is in a small, lightweight piece of plastic that isn't even two inches long.

Once you are synced with your phone or your computer, not only do you get to see your daily progress in 7 day increments, but you also have access to track all of the food you eat, the number of calories you burned by your activity, and put it all together to tell you how many calories you have left for the day. This information will continuously update throughout the day based on your level of activity. You can let the Fitbit know what your goals are (weight loss or maintenance) and based on your current height and weight it will give you a recommended calorie count, and then update if you did something like go out for a run and burn 500 calories. Beyond all of the information that it can give to you, you can also link in with your friends, and give them access to see how many steps you took in a day. This creates a social contest amongst friends and shares the information as soon as you sync with any device. If you are like most people these days and always have your smart phone on you - the Fitbit creates an up to the minute account of where you stand - or step in this instance. Additionally, the app for the Fitbit allows you to link with other fitness apps to create a full scope of your workout and meal routine where it can all be traced back in your online tracker. From the online tracker, Fitbit will also give you additional encouragement, if your friends aren't enough, and provide you with status updates on your achievements to the goals you set.

The Fitbit has an enormous amount of potential going forward as well. With the social application the Fitbit has, the ability to post your achievements directly from the Fitbit to social media such as Twitter and Facebook can't be far behind. The more people that log their information on Facebook or tweet about how many steps they took will only gather more interest in the technology, and overall help everyone achieve a healthier lifestyle. As it is already drawing in people just from the Bluetooth technology it uses, the Fitbit continues to grow a following and will continue to expand its abilities. I guess I will have to retract my statement when I first balked at my wife stating, "You paid $100 for a pedometer???"

Do Us a Flavor

Do Us a Flavor

Lays potato chips asked the chip eaters of the world to help them come up with a new flavor of potato chip, not only did the winner of the contest get to claim bragging rights, there was a hefty financial award as well – ONE MILLION DOLLARS.  I originally heard about the contest from the Eva Longoria commercial and immediately I was hooked.

ONE MILLION DOLLARS to just come up with the best new potato chip, are you kidding??? 

Unfortunately my taste buds are not that creative but I was still hooked on the contest.  I was watching the facebook feed every day and loved how the commercials were giving updates on the newest flavors.

As soon as the top three flavors were released, they were added to my grocery list.   I could wait to taste chicken and waffles J  In the end my vote went to cheesy garlic bread, the eventual winner.  I have never bought the new flavor after my initial purchase, not sure why it was tasty but I can say that I Lays did a great job making me feel involved in the whole process and I was definitely convinced to purchase the new flavors because of their social medial marketing techniques.

Amber Schober Valdez

The Pinterest Phenomenon

With all of the buzz around Facebook and Twitter, it seems as though Pinterest is often overlooked for its amazing marketing potential. If you’re not familiar with what Pinterest is, it’s a place where you can create your own page of things that inspire you.  When I say things, I mean pretty much anything!  Food, photos, hair, clothes, DIY, home decor and the list goes on. So how does it work you ask? Let me give you the basics:

Pin - A pin starts with an image or video you add to Pinterest. You can add a pin from a website using the Pin It bookmarklet or upload an image right from your computer. Any pin on Pinterest can be repinned, and all pins link back to their source.

Board - A board is where you organize your pins by topic. You could pin ideas for remodeling your bathroom to your House Projects board, for example. Boards can be secret or public, and you can invite other people to pin with you on any of your boards.

Pin It Bookmarklet - The Pin It bookmarklet lets you easily pin things you see on websites and blogs. To get the bookmarklet or learn more, check out our Goodies page.

Follow - When you follow someone, their pins show up in your Pinterest home feed. You can follow all of someone's boards or just the ones you like best. To manage who you're following, go to your profile and click Following.

Home Feed - Your home feed is a collection of pins from pinners and boards you follow. It's updated every time someone you follow adds a pin.

In short, the pins create a chain reaction and all things popular show up on an endless number of Pinterest boards. From a business perspective, this is the ideal marketplace to market your product or service. Since the users of Pinterest are shared by common interests and tastes, they can great a network of interest for you pin by pin. Analytic support is also available to enable businesses to track which products or services get the most repins, who pins them and what the competition may be. Businesses can also add the “Pin It” button to their website or mobile app to enable users to promote the company and/or product or service. According to the Pinterest site, “Businesses who use the Pin It button often see big lifts in referral traffic. Just 3 months after Allrecipes.com added the Pin It button, people pinned more than 50,000 recipes from their website. This lead to 139 million Pinterest impressions.”  

With nearly 70 million users to-date, businesses should look to this social media phenomenon they call Pinterest.

Express Yourself! Through NikeiD...

Oh, how I miss the days of school uniforms. My son, Knowledge attended Woodlawn Community from kindergarten until 6th grade, and the students were required to wear uniforms: maroon polo shirts, khaki pants/skirts, and black dress shoes. But  now that Knowledge is 14 years old, and attends Kenwood Academy, where the students have the freedom of wearing what they like, all I can say is
I wish Kenwood required their students to wear uniforms. My issue is convenience and saving monies from buying clothes and shoes throughout the school year. Anyway, Knowledge is definitely finding his own individual style and expressing it.

Knowledge is a basketball player, so more then anything, basketball shoes are important to him. As a mother being frugal, I don't mind spending $80-$100 on a pair of good basketball shoes. However, Knowledge wears a size 11, and admires some of the most expensive basketball shoes, he has a bit of a quirky approach to how he goes about picking the shoes that he likes, too. Whatever, the case, I leave the basketball shoes buying up to Knowledge's father. Within the last 4 months, his father has spent about $450 on basketball shoes.

But the last pair of gym shoes I bought Knowledge, was this summer; he designed himself online at Nike.com using the company's NikeiD application. The shoes were gifted to him upon completing school, exceeding expectations, while also managing his sports activities, too. I asked him what he wanted as a reward for doing such an awesome job in his academics and sports and he immediately said a pair of NikeiD gym shoes. I agreed and he didn't hesitate any longer to design his shoe.

NikeiD is an application that allows you to pick from thousands of Nike shoes, apparel, and gear in which you can design yourself online, order, and have sent to you or you can pick them up from your nearest NikeTown. The application allows you to pick men, women, or kids' shoes and from various sports types. As it specifically relates to shoes, you can custom design your shoes by picking the colors for the soles, outer casing, shoe strings, eyelets, the tongue of the shoe, and the Nike Swoosh, and the type of material for the shoe such as leather, nubuck or mesh. You can do a combination of materials, as well.

So Knowledge opted for some Nike Dunk High Premium iD's. The shoe is a high top and can be worn on the basketball court or as a casual gym shoe. He choose the colors of midnight blue for the outer casing, shoe tongue, and sole, green for the shoestrings and gold for the Nike Swoosh. Knowledge had the option of picking leather, mesh, or nubuck for his shoes and he choose leather. The leather combination was stylish because of the smoothness and bold colors. Knowledge called the shoes his "All Star Dunks" because for as long as he's been playing basketball, he has always been known for his awesome sportsmanship! To complete his order for his custom designed Nike gym shoes, Knowledge had the shoes shipped to NikeTown at the downtown Chicago location. When the order was ready, Knowledge received an email letting him know his shoes were ready for pick up. The day we picked up the shoes, Knowledge and I made it a date. We caught the train downtown to NikeTown, made our way to the NikeiD department, and Knowledge submitted his receipt from his online purchase as proof for pick up. As promised, the shoes were ready and Knowledge was happy! I was happy for him!

After my son designed and purchased his shoes as a gift from me, I became a raving fan of NikeiD. I think the app is really cool after allowing my son to add his personal touch to a shoe, giving him the freedom to express his unique style through something he loves; his basketball shoes.

A social media scandal

Over the past few years some television shows have attempted to start some social media buzz by displaying  a hashtag at the bottom corner of the screen during the show to encourage viewers to tweet about funny or poignant moments.  Last spring, one show did this will phenomenal success and now some say the show's success is due to its widely successful social media campaign.  That show is ABC's Scandal. 

Last January during pivotal and dramatic episodes of the series, the show promoted two hashtags and viewers tweeted by the thousands.  These hashtags, #whoshotfitz and #whatthehuck were visibly promoted as part of the shows advertising and both trended worldwide.  Scandal's social media team also created the hashtag #askscandal in which viewers could ask questions about the show, watch live tweeting events, or just connect with other fans.  This hashtag alone has been mentioned in up to 2200 tweets per minute and it is estimated that the show has generated a total of over 4.3 million tweets.

The series has continued its success this fall and many credit the successful social media campaign for the continued high ratings.  Although many television shows gain viewers by word of mouth, the internet and specifically twitter have made it simple for thousands of viewers to promote the show to millions in a matter of seconds.  Reportedly, even media mogul Oprah Winfrey first heard about the show on twitter and has become a devoted viewer.  

Ipsy and Sneak Peeks

For those of you who have never heard of a company called Ipsy, please allow me to introduce you. Ipsy is a smaller company that provides personalized make-up and beauty products to their subscribers each month all delivered in a different make up bag each month. To begin, a person must go to their website, www.ipsy.com and take their style personality quiz. It ask questions such as how much make up does a person use, what colors does a person like, eye color, skin color, hair type etc. From this quiz the Ipsy team then chooses the products that will be sent to you on a monthly basis. For ten dollars a month each subscriber gets five different products, some deluxe sample sized and others full sized as well as a make up bag. Through links posted by subscribers on Facebook, anyone can subscribe.

When I first signed up for ipsy, i was extremely excited to see what types of products would be in my first bag. I then realized that they had a page on Facebook that had around 180,000 likes so I decided to join. It was then that I learned that at the beginning of each month, ipsy offers "sneak peeks" of the items that they will be offering in their bags that month along with a ton of makeup advice, coupon and discount codes and  links to forums and discussions on their own web page. These sneak peaks often come with cryptic messages and pictures so that it stimulates the discussion among users as to what each product could be.

This is an example of a "sneak peek" for October 2013

The caption was "Some of our subscribers will get the chance

to release their inner artist with the help of at least one of these

colorful products"

I think that ipsy is doing a phenomenal job with the use of social media by really involving their customers and building hype around the products and services that they are providing. Not only do they make it a fun way to start guessing what type of products that they are putting in the next ipsy bag but in turn they are able to create interactions with not only themselves but with their collective community as well. By offering tutorials in the form of videos on how to use some of the products they give away they add yet another dimension to make their company much  more desirable. They also provide a feedback option on the products that a person has received in their bags which helps them to better know what types of things a person like and what types of things they should no longer send in their ipsy bags. When it comes to social media, ipsy does it right! 

eCommerce on the Go

   Small businesses are no longer just your mom and pop stores down the block.  Today there are more than 28 million small businesses in the U.S. and over 22 million are self-employed with no additional payroll or employees (these are known as nonemployers).  SBA.gov states that approximately 75% of all U.S. businesses are nonemployer businesses and 52% of all small businesses are home-based.  So what’s the best and easiest way to collect on revenues when you’re based at home?  Technologies such as Paypal, squares, and many other similar systems allow these small businesses to collect payments on the go or at home offices with ease, possibly beginning the extinction of checks.

   As many of you already know, especially if you have ever used eBay, Paypal is a money transfer system that for a small fee allows payments to be made online.  Initially it was set up only to send money between buyer and seller for eBay transactions.  However, Paypal has evolved and now operates separately from eBay, expecting to process $20 billion in mobile payments in 2013 per their site.  It offers both personal and business use, accepting payments by credit or debit cards, bank accounts, prepaid paypal account balances, and most recently financing.  Because of its ease in usage and safety features, Paypal never shares financial information, it has become a global leader in its industry.  Check it out at www.paypal.com.

   Since Paypals inception, many other sites have followed suit.  Square, Inc. puts accepting credit cards right in your own hands allowing you to process payments on your smartphone.  The free downloadable application allows a person to manually accept credit or debit card payments, or with a small device you attach to your phone or iPad you can swipe a card and have the funds deposited into your account the very next day.  There are no monthly fees or set up cost, just a 2.75% fee on card transactions.  The attachable credit card reader can be purchased almost anywhere and has a onetime purchase cost of about $10.  The application itself resembles a cash register, is easy to use, and even has a screen for your customer to sign their name using their finger.  You can download the free application from the App Store or Google Play.

   Electronic transfers are nothing new and have been around for quite some time. However, you no longer have to drag yourself to the local currency exchange to send or receive money.  eCommerce has sent small businesses soaring.  And with nonemployers averaging $44K in revenues, it is an industry that will continue to grow and evolve.