Christine Williams

Great Post! As someone who has watched several episodes of Friends, I think UK Comedy did a great job by promoting this event! For show that has been around for over 20 years to still have this much of a fanbase even in another country is amazing!

I agree. UK Comedy did a great job promoting this American TV show using social media at its core. I did come across an article that stated “Friends’ enduring popularity is undoubtedly tied to a desire to return to a time and place when British life (and the world at large) wasn’t undergoing such total upheaval”
Even as I watch reruns, I do feel that it does reminds me of a simpler time – before social media and smartphones, political turmoil. Its a time when people connected in person.

Also, it’s very interesting to see how Friends was able to keep the original show in UK versus recreating the series for their own audience. For example, Shameless was originally a UK show that was recreated for an American audience.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdqeqj/british-people-love-friends

I just checked out the Sonos twitter post you mentioned and can see why that campaign was a success. I permanently have my phone on silent, so subtitles are a huge win in my book. Also, I loved how they have a background graphic that grooves with the music – I can tell even without my sound on that it’s related to the song on. A 15 second video is key as we are so prone to quick scrolling, any longer and they would have lost me. It was smart of them to have launched it in October of 2017 to beat out the very competitive pre-holiday months against other audio assisted speakers.

Interesting note on Salesforce – after scrolling their LinkedIn feed I see the short text style you speak of. Their content spans between B2B facts, employee spotlight, and conference highlights just to name a few. At Microsoft I notice our main LinkedIn page shows off how businesses are succeeding by using our products such as Azure, PowerBI, etc. We also post a lot about our internal diversity and inclusion efforts. Both in longer form/traditional LinkedIn style. I notice we are doing a lot of cross posting between twitter and Linkedin. The Twitter text is much more summarized and they video auto runs whereas on LinkedIn you need to click into it to launch.

Christine, I feel the same way sometimes! For instance, take the company Lo & Sons, similar to Dagne Dover, they sell women’s accessories, handbags and backpacks. Lo & Sons partners with a lot of influencers in the fashion & travel industry on Instagram. While they do collaborate with macro-influencers to create sponsored posts (which I’ve seen and viewed), they also work with micro-influencers (<100K followers) to gift products in exchange for a post mentioning @loandsons.

Well this tactic worked because I had been hit multiple times with either a sponsored post or seeing the Lo & Sons O.M.G. bag in other influencers' pictures. I finally caved and bought the bag. It is by far my favorite work or travel bag and now I have it in the larger and smaller size. I agree with you that I don't mind this kind of content when it's relevant.

However, I have been hit with a re-targeting ad that was not appropriate, where it just got on my nerves when it continued to follow me around. I had been doing research for buying a friend a gift for her baby shower. After I had made the purchase, I was still being targeted by ads for new mothers or baby products that did not apply to me. These can definitely turn you off as a consumer and leave you annoyed.

How to Grow Your Business with Instagram Influencer Marketing

Christine,

Thanks for bringing up this topic! This reminds me of the Instagram page for Fashion Nova. They offer women’s— and now men’s, clothing at a discounted rate. They were one of the most searched brands next to luxury brands like Gucci, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton in 2017. You would assume that Fashion Nova is another luxury brand, but it’s quite the opposite. Fashion Nova is a “fast fashion” brand, meaning that they create fashion that is on-trend and usually mimics other luxury brands or familiar celeb looks— at a lower cost.

Because of their popularity and seemingly positive reviews, I quickly became a customer. It wasn’t until over a month later, and I did not receive my order. When my order finally did arrive, I discovered that “fast fashion” also means poor quality. Fashion Nova has dealt with some scrutiny because of their lack of originality by stealing from small designers or producing iconic luxury brand looks that are clearly fake.

Fashion Nova’s social media strategy made them a successful clothing brand without having an actual store. The visual appeal of their photos and models, create a desire to want to be and “look” like them. They successfully engage with their followers by using the hashtag, #FashionNova, respond to the majority of the comments in regard to sizing and shipping, and have celebrity endorsements. I haven’t purchased Fashion Nova since my first experience, but I know some of my colleagues who still do. Fashion Nova’ influence on social media trumps everything that people used to care when it came to their clothes and fashion.

https://medium.com/@dana.milani_5097/queens-of-the-gram-analyzing-fashion-novas-social-media-strategy-4234713d6db1

This reminds me of how I’ve grown to hate mobile devices at the dinner table, especially when at a restaurant. They are such a distraction and it is almost an involuntary reaction to look at them and then sometimes get sucked into a virtual conversation or task.

Hey Christine,

We talked about the Apple Watch last night during our Learn-a-Thon. It seems that most people agree that it doesn’t seem to enhance the mobile experience. In fact, as you pointed out, it can be quite distracting. However, I have learned to ignore the notifications, especially when speaking to my manager. Nonetheless, it isn’t easy. As soon as I feel a vibration, I want to flip my wrist to see who texted me or what crazy CNN alert just popped up on my screen. Recently I went on an interview and opted to not wear my Apple Watch so I would not be distracted. Interestingly enough, I came across an article that says that the Apple Watch is the least distracting smartwatch on the market. Check it out: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2015/04/26/the-apple-watch-gets-one-thing-very-right-its-the-first-smartwatch-thats-not-a-distraction/#6b51aec511c7

The article was written some years ago after the first Apple Watch was launched. I’m curious to know if the other has the same perspective now.

Another technology that seems to be distracting is the ability to text from your Mac laptop. If you have that function enabled, it can be quite distracting to see an iMessage pop up on your screen. My attention has been adverted several times while writing this response. I think it’s great that Apple has given its users the ability to access notifications from several devices, but I think that the mobile experience could be enhanced more so that users do not see notifications as a distraction but as an enhancement.

Hey Christine,

I’ve had similar experiences with my Apple Watch however it offers me the convenience to quickly view items and decide whether i need to interact with the notification then or if it can wait till later. With the iPhone, we tend to immerse ourselves within the notification/text/email right then and there causing even more distraction to conversations with others than the Watch. However, when I had the notifications for my work email on my watch it quickly turned into mayhem, not because I was reading but I was more annoyed and distracted by the continuous alerts.. This lead to me quickly turning off my notifications to my watch which allowed me to be more engaged in work meetings and happier moving forward. So while I agree that mobile technology can be very distracting, as users we forget how we can easily tailor our devices to interact with us in the way we want – allowing us to get back to living life.

We don’t use design thinking in my company and I wasn’t familiar with it until class, but I have found myself using elements in my day to day as I do some problem solving in areas that are not related to design. I find the concept really interesting and have done some reading on it. One of the readings was about using the process in your personal life and I wrote my post on it. I do agree it is not really a process but a way of thinking and that aspect is how it can be carried into areas outside of design.

Hey Christine! I loved your post. In my organization, I would say Design Thinking is more of an activity. As a group of video producers, motion graphic designers and designers, we sit at a table and brainstorm an idea to then bounce off one another. And this method has proved successful before, but your post has got me thinking about how different would the results be if we design thought using process and put our user first.