#original 3# How top music festivals use social media

Q: Have you ever participated in a music festival?
A: Yes!! I have participated in various music festivals. I quite enjoyed it!!
Q: So...which one would like to recommend for me?
A: Em..... Tomorrowland, Coachella, La Route du Rock, Bestival, Field Day......

So how about you? Are you interested in participating in music festivals? Which one do you like best or most?

Music festivals provide fantastic examples of creative social media use. They put emphasis on using social media to do some advertising and attract more attendees to join the music festivals. If they promote the same thing as last year, it will not be attractive enough for people to participate in. Therefore, the marketers of music festivals rack their brand to use social media to do some innovations.

Tomorrowland is Belgium's massive electronic dance festival, which used YouTube to attract almost 50 million viewers to watch their 2014 official aftermovie and gain about 250,000 likes on their video. When it compared to some biggest festivals in the world like Coachella, Sziget or EDC, Tomorrowland got 10 times more views than all of their clip combined. The success of the Tomorrowland clip is not only due to its amazing production but also understanding how a YouTube users think.

So how to let people gain the latest information about the music festivals?
Tomorrow land disseminates their information by using Twitter. They are not only sharing information with their followers but also answering questions on Twitter as soon as possible. But I think another music festival Coachella, which does a better job on properly monitor their Twitter feeds. For example, they shared logistical information.

It is so warm, isn't it?  I have a bad memory, so I will feel touched if someone reminds me of some important things that I forgot. The post just like a message sent by my boyfriend. 😬

When you look at the music festival of Electric Dasiy Carnival, you will find they use Twitter in a unique way. In fact, it is more accurate to say how Electric Dasiy Carnival makes Twitter work for them. The marketers of Electric Dasiy Carnival uses a hashtag(#EDCHELP) to collect attendees' questions. Instead of emailing or calling, attendees can post questions online. Also, anyone who with the required knowledge can see the questions and reply the asker.

The way that attendees help attendees is good for those participants getting closer. It will give you a sense of belonging in the big Coachella family.

The Frech festival of La Route du Rock utilized the SocialWall because of the value of crowd participation on social media. SocialWall is used to display Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts on a big screen at your event. Attendees posted festival content to social media and an administrator select some posts and displays photos, videos or messages they like. In this way, attendees are not only gaining information from the host but also gaining useful messages from other attendees. If your post being shown on the big screen, I can make sure that you will feel thrilled at it.

If you have an interest in participating in music festivals, the link below will show you the 50 best music festivals in the world.
https://www.timeout.com/london/music/the-50-best-music-festivals-in-the-world

#Reading Reflections 2# A niche brand: Purefactor

👉🏾Have you ever heard of the brand Pure Factor? 😄

I'm sure that many of you have no idea what it is. 😝 Let me show you how others describe Pure Factor: Skincare product, natural, new brand, the young generation, David Wu, and so on. When we talk about how brands use social media for corporation branding, we always think of big companies like Coca-Cola,  Nike,
and Amazon. However, some niche brands like Pure Factor also do a good job of branding on social media.



Pure Factor is a skincare brand in China.  Although Pure Factor
is a niche brand, you cannot image how successful it is using social media to attract and maintain its customers.

Listening to the Groundswell
Pure Factor puts emphasis on its customers' feedback. It always encourages its customers to give feedback online and asks customers to put questions on social media like Taobao and Sina Weibo. Pure Factor collects customers' feedback and regards their feedback as references to improve their products. Besides, online services of Pure Factor answer customers' questions as soon as possible and give them constructive advice on how to take care of their skin. What's more, the most interesting part is that the workers of Pure Factor always chat with their customers under their posts, and their conversations' topics are not about skin care issues or products. Pure Factor also listens to their customers' life experiences, which is a good way to get closer to their users.

The snapshot on the left shows customers asking questions and getting advice under the post of Pure Factor. The snapshot on the right is the post in which Pure Factor encourages customers to leave comments under the post.

Talking with the Groundswell
The founder of Pure Factor is David Wu, an online celebrity who has 6 million followers on Sina Weibo (a social media like Facebook in China). It is no surprise that David Wu can do advertising of his brand on Sina with minimal cost. Due to David Wu's fame online, most of his fans support Pure Factor by using its products. In addition, David Wu encourages his fans to recommend their friends learn about Pure Factor. Sometimes David Wu gives gifts like masks or skin care sets to those recommenders as rewards.

Living streaming apps like Inke is an important platform for Pure Factor to do corporation branding. Pure Factor used Inke to broadcast their new product launch press conference on January 7th, 2017. Reports show that the live streaming of their launch attracted 3.27 million viewers. We know how successfully Pure Factor lets their customers gain information about the new products immediately. In addition, Pure Factor invited a lot of online celebrities to their product launch, which attracts many potential customers, the young generation, to watch the live stream.

Energizing the Groundswell and Helping the Groundswell Support Itself
Novel and interesting activities can attract users to actively participate in and enhance the interaction between Pure Factor and its customers. Pure Factor always gives gifts to its loyal customers by drawing a lottery, voting and offering free film showings.  As mentioned above, those who recommend Pure Factor to their friends also have chances to receive gifts. What's more, Pure Factor highlights users who frequently write reviews and assign ratings to its products online. Reviews and ratings are good references for other users to evaluate the products. Not all the skin care products are fit for everyone. People with various skin textures will use different skin care products. That's why the users' experience is essential for customers to learn about the products. In addition, it's a way to save money on the social media workers. Customers' reviews online can answer some questions of other users.

After reading this blog,  I think you will understand why Pure Factor has become so popular in just a few years. As a customer of Pure Factor, I always can find the right product for my skin. Although Pure Factor is a niche brand right now, I think it will become a large brand in a few years.

Some products below are excellent!  You should try them!!

Mask

Makeup remover

＃Original 2＃The live streaming app Inke

Have you ever used the live streaming app? The old form of live streaming is what you can watch live through different forms of media. In this blog, I will introduce a new form of live streaming to you.

When we talk about live broadcasting, we mean live football broadcasting, Super Bowl broadcasting, basketball broadcasting, and so on. People watch the live broadcasting of sports games, concerts, and performances through mobile phones, computers or TVs as if they were there.

Maybe you have broadcasted one of those events, but have you ever thought about broadcasting yourself? 

Now, in China, the latest trend in live streaming is people broadcasting their own lives online. The live streaming app Inke in China enables users to earn money from their content. This unique monetization model of live streaming is different from what we knew before. Let me tell you some details of the amazing app, Inke.

Inke live streaming is like a video version of a selfie. The social live streaming on Inke offers users video chatrooms where strangers gather to watch and chat with a broadcaster. This is an interaction between  broadcasters and their viewers. Anyone can become a broadcaster to share his or her experiences. There is no limitation on being a broadcaster on Inke, which means no matter whether you are a superstar or a normal person, Inke offers a free platform for you to express yourself. Broadcasters can do the live streaming anytime and anywhere. For example, some broadcasters will do the live streaming when they are eating meals, driving to work, having classes, or just walking on the street. But why do people streaming their daily lives attract such a large audience to watch them?

The Inke app makes the interaction between broadcasters and audiences easy. When you tap into one chatroom, you can watch the live streaming of the broadcasters for a few minutes to evaluate whether you are interested in her or his life. If you find you like the broadcaster, you can send him or her public questions. The broadcasters will choose questions to answer. Also, viewers can send their favorite stream hosts digital gifts through in-app purchases to grab the broadcasters' attention. The hosts will receive 30 percent of the value of the gift. It is no surprise that some popular broadcasters can earn about 10,000 yuan ($14,530) each month.

                                                                  The digital gift

Therefore, the broadcasters need to have their own methods to attract viewers and keep viewers. Expanding their fan clubs and getting digital gifts from their followers requires that hosts stream high-quality content. Sometimes, broadcasters will sing for their viewers as a reward for sending gifts. Popular broadcasters will have millions of viewers to watch their live streaming at the same time. However, the hosts on Inke do not need to pre-plan much of their content. What they need to do is just open the app and engage with their audience. 

Do you think is too easy for broadcasters to get money from their followers on Inke?

Yes, it is!!!

Many brands see Inke as a tool for marketing and selling their products.  Brands use Inke to do live streaming of the launches of their new products and pay for popular broadcasters to introduce their products on Inke. This kind of advertising is more acceptable to viewers because people dislike watching formal advertisements on social media.  

What's more, many superstars become broadcasters. Due to the convenient characteristics of Inke, those celebrities use the app to interact with their fans. Fans can access the latest information about the stars and communicate with their heroes. 

We can see how successful Inke has been at gathering people together to share ideas on its platform. Unlike the original forms of live streaming, Inke puts emphasis on the extensive interaction between users and broadcasters. People tap into the chatroom because of the broadcasters, which means they expect to have interactions with the hosts but not with other users. People on Inke rarely build relationships with other users. One of the reasons why people enjoy using Inke is that no one exactly knows who you are in real life and no one can track your messages when you leave this platform. Audiences on Inke only need to offer a little information about themselves, which provides them with a sense of security in the online world.

After learning about Inke, do you have any interest in being a broadcaster or a user on this app?

[Reading Reflections #1] The opportunities on social media

Have you thought about the question that the emerging of groundswell is by chance or destined? 

The event of Digg that mentioned in the book Groundswell was one of the important triggers of groundswell. The public could not be satisfied by electronic media like TV and radio anymore. Therefore, it is no surprise that why things went out of hand after the year of 2007. With the advancement of scientific, technology has changed our life in various aspects, including the ways to access and share information on social medias. Technology is mysterious, which getting people together on the Internet. The core of groundswell is relationships but technologies. The way how people interact with others online decide the changes of organizations or institutions.

                                                                

How many people use social media?

The chart below shows us the number of users on different platforms. From the data, we know that Facebook ranks first with about 1971 million users. WhatsApp and Facebook messenger rank second with 1000 million users. There is a huge netizens base, which means it has a lot of opportunities on social media.

 Based on the large users in the online world, how individuals or institutions can seize the opportunities on social media?

How much is the Internet of everything worth?
Let's look at some data, which shows us the huge opportunities on the social media. 

It's no doubt that public benefit a lot from our online world. However, companies and brands have the feeling of threatened which come from the enormous power online. The appeared of online business is to satisfy our customers, and the online economics can drive groundswell to become stronger. Many companies regard the online world as their primary marketing. Each year, people pay trillions of money online, and various kinds of industries can benefit from it. According to the number shown above, we can know that many companies seize the business opportunities on social media to expand their customer base and broaden their network market business. As told in the book that "The Social Technographic Profile is a way to group people based on the groundswell activities in which they participate." Refer to the different characteristics or properties of each target, marketers can adjust their marketing strategies and come up with effective ways to attract and maintain their customers. That's one of the opportunities institutions can seize through groundswell.

How to seize your opportunities on social media?

The groundswell technologies have changed rapidly, which means our marketing strategies also needs to adapt to the change quickly. Unfortunately, this phenomenon causes some part of the people in society have groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome. 

Therefore, the four-step planning process call POST provides people a useful guideline to make effective groundswell strategies. The four element of the method of POST is people, objectives, strategy and technology. 

First, it is important to pay concentrate on people. It is necessary to understand what your customers are ready for and how they engage with each other online. Second, ensuring your objectives or goals of groundswell strategies. If you do not have a specific goal, you will easy to lose your direction during doing your marketing works. Third, groundswell strategy makers should forecast the changes in the future and how to deal with the potential threatens from those changes. Fourth, the most important one is to choose appropriate technologies to assist you to achieve your goals. 

Seize the cooperation opportunities with business people on social media
Some people may doubt that is the strategy only use for our customers? 

The answer is absolute NO. The groundswell strategy is also a link between business to business. Many people forget the fact that businesspeople are people as well. Therefore, during the process of making strategies, we can consider businesspeople as one group of our customers as well. It is because the groundswell strategies influence a lot and also connect to the company running performance, we need to listen to some constructive advice from others or gain useful experiences from others. When you are making a groundswell strategy, considering what things could go wrong in the future is a necessary step. Therefore, it's important that "Plan B" is always there when something goes wrong with your approach.