Showing posts with label Doctor Who. Show all posts

In Ten-ant more days, Whovians are going to take over social media.

Wednesday, 13 November 2013 § 0

The Doctor Who 50th anniversary is coming up. The event needs little promotion, given the massive fanbase who have been eagerly awaiting The Day of the Doctor. The fans have been instructed by the Doctor himself to use the hashtag #SavetheDay for any Who-related content.



The BBC has compiled all the Whovian Generated Content on their website. The more UGC – or WGC – that is created, the more golden “nodes” of the TARDIS appear, and the more nodes that appear reveals more exclusive 50th content, such as clips of the special and behind the scenes photos.

The #SavetheDay campaign highlights the benefits of user-generated content:

  • It provides an outlet to share and read consumer opinions. Whovians around the world can speculate how The Doctor could possibly cross his own timeline to save the world from the Zygons on social media, forums like Reddit, even on Youtube comments.
  • The content is authentic. When seeking information, users trust peers more than they trust companies. Moffat lied to us about Paul McGann. Rule #1: Moffat lies.
  • Virality of positive WOM. The response to any and all new content that is released to the public is immediate sharing, especially on the social media Big Three (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
  • Brand advocates provide free advertising and increased brand awareness. Whovians are the best at putting the spotlight The Doctor.
  • Fresh content and back-linking can help SEO. Whovians can spend hours perusing the BBC Doctor Who website. In response to this, the BBC is constantly posting new Who content. 
  • Reveals insights and allows better engagement with community. The BBC caught onto how Whovians react to Who-related content (through fangirling and spamming the Big Three). The BBC has essentially created a vicious cycle of fangirling. They’ve developed a website that is powered by these natural reactions to uncover new content that will in turn, cause more fangirling. Amazing. 
There are, however, a few disadvantages of UGC:

  • Poor moderation of content on website can drive traffic away. I’m assuming this isn’t the case since I haven’t seen any non-Who related content on the site yet. But perhaps a couple instagram shots of wedding invites could be hidden in those nodes somewhere. I highly doubt that a couple unrelated images would deter a die-hard Whovian from leaving the site. 
  • No control. While the BBC rarely has any issues with Whovians posting content to their detriment, sometimes you really just don’t want to see weird Who fanfiction. 
  • Virality of negative WOM. Just as Whovians can quickly spread the word about positive news, they can do the same with negative news. When Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, criticized Moffat for not contacting any of the pre-reboot Doctors to appear in the 50th, claiming to be regarded as “surplus baggage,” the news was everywhere from social media to Canadian Sci Fi talkshow InnerSPACE.

And if you weren’t convinced of how confident I feel in the Whovian social media domination on the 23rd, we’ll also be competing against Miley Cyrus’s birthday and “One Direction Day.” ALLONS-Y!
 
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Maslow's Hierarchy, Revised

Friday, 11 October 2013 § 0



(From my friend Trevor)

If you’re like me, this is now how you function now. A couple weeks ago, I moved and I’ve only just been connected to the Internet. As an iPhone, iPad, smart TV, and Macbook owner, not being connected left me writhing in my shame cave and spending disgusting amounts of money on coffee for my wifi fix. Now that I’m connected, let’s talk about how great being connected is over some food, water, shelter, and warmth.

A recent eMarketer report outlined the multi-device habits of tablet users. Essentially, tablet users are connected all the time, but across different web-enabled devices.

The majority of tablet owners use them at home. Their pattern of usage is predominantly: smartphone in the morning, desktop at the office, and tablet at night. For tablet users, the device is a complement to household activities (like following #DoctorWho on Twitter while watching Doctor Who on your smart TV while texting your friend[s] about Doctor Who), rather than something you take with you when you go out.



Despite the fact that marketers will now have to play a game of “catch me if you can” with their consumers, multi-screen exposure opens up a multitude of opportunities:

  • For brands with online communities (like BBC Doctor Who, for example), this increases the user’s ability to access, follow, and participate in online discussions. Additionally, consumers will always be up-to-date with brands they are interested in.
  • Tablet users are always “on the grid,” which means they’re highly accessible for most part of the day. eMarketer recommends targeting messages by device, time of day, and context of the user.
  • Brands can customize messages to the consumer’s context, time of day, and device. If a consumer is constantly switching between devices, it’s easy for brand messages to go unnoticed and become forgotten by the time another “switch” happens. With a customized message, brands can better capture the attention of the “habitual multitaskers” that are tablet owners.
  • Familiarity with a brand can generate interest, or at the very least, salience in the consumer’s mindset. eMarketer references a study in which
“users who were exposed to an automotive brand’s messaging across two screens exhibited a 57% jump in regional dealer lookups and test drive requests as compared to users who saw the brand’s messaging on only one screen.” 


By focusing efforts on tailored messages to always-on-the-grid consumers, marketers can effectively to reach their consumers in the "Awareness" and "Consideration" phases of the Consumer Decision Journey, much like the "Magician's Hat" Model.  


What do you think? Is being connected all the time over multiple devices more of a threat for marketers than an opportunity?
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