In yet another testimonial to the pervasive popularity of Twitter, a Mexican soccer club has opted to replace players’ names on their jerseys with team members’ online Twitter names.
In case you don't know what a hash-tag is, it's a...well, one of these: #. And users on Twitter use this to designate an important word, a subject or a way of 'tagging' a Twitter post to make it searchable by other people using the same #. For example, if a news event occuring like the Queensland floods, then those posting updates on Twitter would finish their posts with #qldfloods.
Simple, eh?
Are our friends on social networks more important than our "real-life" friends? Are we changing the way we communicate and who we communicate with for the better? Or are we becoming more and more anti-social as technology advances?
I Facebook while I'm out to dinner. I tweet at networking events. And earlier this week I was caught checking for notifications and friend requests mid-conversation with my mum. Which, as you can imagine, didn't go down well.
Social Media. You can't ignore it. Or, maybe you can. But if you're too afraid to dip your toes in, your business may suffer the consequences.
I had lunch with a friend the other day who used to work for what I would describe as a traditional Brisbane advertising agency. That's not a negative way of describing them but they're established and recognised in what they do, and have a global presence. She's now setting out on her own in a new venture doing something similar but on a smaller scale. Even in her new venture, her and her business partner have years, if not decades of experience to call upon to sell their new business forward.
So just before we parted she asked me 'why do I share everything on my social media sites?'
Iiiiiiiiiin the red corner, we have one of the biggest global brands, sentinels of search, magicians of maps and wizards of Wave, one of the most recognized brand names in the world, weighing in at an annual revenue of $23 billion, ladies and gentlemen, I give you….Google.
If you want to take a look at a pop act who is also an expert in marketing, then you don't need to look much further than Lady Gaga.
In the history of music, there have been some great self-marketing acts - Madonna, Michael Jackson, Sex Pistols, Beatles, Eminem - groups and artists that have their very marketing built into who they are, and their image and route to market is as important as their music.
This could equally apply to Facebook as well as Twitter, and its actually from Facebook that I picked up this example.
