Fashion at Work

Work outfit by rmlaflam featuring a sterling silver mother of pearl ring

Quiksilver shirts blouse
$22 – quiksilver.com

Gray mini skirt
$22 – shoptaintedkiss.com

Type Z round toe high heels
$49 – zappos.com

Sterling silver mother of pearl ring
$53 – amazon.com

Spike earrings
$28 – topshop.com

Ray-Ban ray ban shades
$145 – parkandbond.com

Revlon Vernis à Ongles Couleur N°022 All Fire Up
€11 – placedestendances.com

Spring Break Fashion

Summer Play by rmlaflam featuring a rose dress

Topshop rose dress
$72 – topshop.com

Wet Seal slingback shoes
$13 – wetseal.com

Juicy Couture stone jewelry
$78 – endless.com

Wildfox Couture peacock necklace
$59 – shopthetrendboutique.com

Forever 21 fedora hat
$11 – forever21.com

Ray-Ban aviator shades
$251 – asos.com

butter LONDON ‘3 Free – Spring/Summer 2012 Collection? Nail Lacquer…
$14 – nordstrom.com

11 Stats about Pinterest

1. Pinterest is retaining and engaging users as much as two to three times as efficiently as Twitter was at a similar time in history. (via RJMetrics)

2. Etsy is the top site in terms of “source domains.” (Source domains are the sites that content on Pinterest links to externally.) Google is second, followed by Flickr, Tumblr, and WeHeartit.com (via RJMetrics)

3. Pinterest accounts for 3.6 percent of referral traffic, while Twitter just barely edged ahead of the newcomer, accounting for 3.61 percent of referral traffic. In July 2011, Pinterest accounted for just 0.17 percent of referral traffic, proving the site’s blockbuster growth. (via PR Daily)

4. American users of the social network spend an average of one hour and 17 minutes on the site, well ahead of Twitter (36 minutes), LinkedIn (17 minutes), and Google+ (six minutes). (via AllTwitter

5. Top corporate Pinterest boards: Real Simple (34,517 followers), HGTV (17,824 followers), Nordstrom (9,886 followers), West Elm (11,547 followers), ModCloth (11,813 followers), Whole Foods (14,217 followers), Better Homes and Gardens (15,127 followers), Kate Spade (16,371 followers), Etsy (53,784 followers).

6. Daily Pinterest users have increased by more than 145 percent since the beginning of 2012. (via Mashable)

7.  The biggest demographic for Pinterest: Women ages 25 to 34. (via Ignite)

8. In the U.K., the majority of Pinterest users are male (56 percent male vs. 44 percent female). (via Ragan.com)

9. Top interests on Pinterest in the U.S.: crafts, gifts, hobbies/leisure, interior design, fashion designers/collections. (via Ragan.com)

10. Top interests on Pinterest in the U.K.: venture capital, blogging resources, crafts, Web stats/analytics, SEO/marketing. (via Ragan.com)

11. Pinterest has 10.4 million registered users (and growing). (via AppData)

Tips taken from 17 Pinterest stats to show your boss or client by Arik Hanson

Brand Personality

Just like people, all brands have personality. Whether it is shallow and bland, or deep and emotionally charged, this personality is crucial! Why? Personality is key in our society! Just look at politics: most of their popularity is personality based. In the same way, personality gives life to a brand and creates likeability and loyalty among customers.

Brand personality should be clearly defined. Like the personality of an individual. You should be able to describe the personality of your brand using words and character traits that you would apply when describing a person.

The identity of a brand (who/what it is) and the consumers creates the roots of the personality. Brand personality is then expressed through advertisements, visual aspects of product/brand, the brand’s behavior, communication, etc. Here is a diagram that helps explain this:

 

Here are some brands that each have their own unique, distinguishable and recognizable personality!

Disney

Brand personality: Magical, Family-oriented, creative, feel-good

Red Bull

Brand personality: professional, energetic, loves life, unpredictable, innovative

Campbell’s

Brand personality: wholesome, warm, nurturing

 

Twitter Chat

 

[View the story “Twitter Chat ” on Storify]

Red Bull Media House: #2 in the world!

In a recent article from Fast Company, Red Bull Media House (RBMH) was declared the #2 most innovative media company in the world (Right behind Twitter!) and #29 out of the 50 Most Innovative Companies. When Red Bull Media House was launched in 2007 in Europe and last year in the U.S., the goal was to create a revenue-generating media business parallel to Red Bull’s beverage business. RBMH’s film Art of Flight released in 2011 has mind-blowing scenes of the most wicked snowboarding you’ll ever see caught on high-speed cameras. Although costing a reported $2 million, Art of Flight directly reaped the benefits when it reigned  atop iTunes’s sports, documentary, and overall movie sales charts for a week, at $10 a sale.

For a company whose main business is caffeinated beverages, Red Bull is taking the media industry by storm.

Social Media: Friend or Foe?

As a Public Relations student, and member of Generation Y, I believe every company can be using social media! However, some company CEOs view the maintenance of social media websites as a lot of trouble, with little return. Their focus is numbers and many times it’s difficult to quantify the impact of activity across various social platforms.

In a podcast I recently listened to from a Ragan Communications Conference; Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communications, plays the role of an executive who is unsure if social media is right for his organization while a panel tries to answer his questions on the adoption of social media and communication channels.  The panel consisted of David Biesack from SAS, Shel Holtz from Ragan Communications, Vida Killian from Dell, Terry McKenzie from Sun Microsystems, and Jim Ylisela from Ragan Communications.

Blogs?

The panel jump started on the topic of blogs. Although blogs do involve a commitment of creating posts, they allow customers to have a conversation with the company and it builds relationships and brand loyalty. Something I learned was that blogs also allow the company to be more transparent to their customers because it exposes the people of the corporation. Transparency in return builds trust! Although there is a chance that customers may post negative comments, one of the panelists stated, “There is no such thing as bad publicity”.

Negative Website?

Another question that was brought up was what to do if a website arises that shines negative light on your company? Mark Ragan asked if he should get his lawyers on it and write cease and desist letters. Surprisingly, the panel said that he should not do that because then the publicity would come back that the wealthier, more powerful man shut down the “little guy”. Instead, what the company should issue a response to the website.

Employees?

One of the great points brought up was about employee retention rate and keeping your employees happy! Many times, companies only focus on their customers because that is where their revenue is coming. They believe they will keep their employees as long as they are getting a paycheck from the company. However, looking at ROI, it costs a lot of money to replace an employee because of the training period and such. Dell came up with an internal site called EmployeeStorm in which employees can post their ideas with their name attached and the company can then take the top ideas posted and make changes necessary.

Although many times, the benefit of social media for a company isn’t easily quantifiable, it does not mean that it isn’t impactful. To hear this entire podcast follow this link!

Acura 2012 Super Bowl Commercial

TOW #5

This year’s Super Bowl didn’t really seem to have too many stand-out commercials. But the Acura commercial with Jerry Seinfeld was my favorite out of all of them. People are usually already in a great mood watching the Super Bowl because many of them are at parties, with family, friends, and eating food! So during the commercial breaks, they are hoping to be entertained and watch feel-good, funny commercials.

Having Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno in this commercial were pure genius! I love Jerry Seinfeld in the first place, but even if you don’t, everyone knows that he is a comedian and therefore they expect what he does to be funny. In this ad, Seinfeld wants so bad to have the new Acura NSX that he will stop at nothing to get it. He pulls out all the stops and in the very end when he thinks he won the “number one” guy over… Jay Leno swoops in with his “jet-pack-flying-squirrel suit” and wins the Acura NSX. This is funny on multiple levels because Leno is also a comedian, so it hints at rivalry between the two.

The target audience for this Super Bowl ad is middle-aged men. I’d say it is especially targeted at businessmen because of the negotiation aspect of the commercial. However, even if you aren’t a middle-aged man, you understand the humor of the commercial and get a good laugh at the witty and unique things that Seinfeld brings out to try to score the new Acura.

Energizing the Groundswell

How does a company go about energizing their audience to buy their product?

In Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff write about the importance of companies energizing the “base” (the most enthusiastic customers) so that positive publicity spreads naturally through word of mouth. Li and Bernoff write, “According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), word of mouth ‘is the most honest form of marketing, building upon people’s natural desire to share their experiences with family, friends, and colleagues.'”

3 Basic techniques for connecting with your brand’s enthusiasts:

1. Energizing with Ratings and Reviews. Enabling customers to write reviews on a brand’s website makes the site more credible. Groundswell states that:

• 96% of customers use online reviews to help them make purchases
• and 80% of reviews tend to be positive.

One certain company, eBags, used a negative review to energize one of it’s customers. Jim Noble, a computer security engineer from Georgia and frequent traveler, bought a laptop bag from eBags and the zipper failed. Ebags sent him a new bag the next day! What energized Jim was that the people at eBags actually listened to the review that Jim posted on their Web site, contacted him, and then improved the product.

2. Energizing by creating a community. People like to feel like they are apart of something. Companies should create community amongst their customers, making them feel like stakeholders in their business. Once a customer feels like a stakeholder and feels like they are part of the success, why would they ever want to leave?

3. Energizing an existing community. Some products develop such enthusiastic supporters that communities spring up naturally. When this happens, a company needs to respect the community. Groundswell states that “Community is about people’s needs to connect, not your need to control.”

One community that has a natural following already is Red Bull. Between Red Bull racing, Red Bull Flugtag, New Year’s No Limits, Red Bull Crashed Ice, and not to even mention the multitude of athletes sponsored by Red Bull! In order to help energize this community, Red Bull created the Student Brand Manager program. In which they recruit college students to be apart of their global brand and take charge of their own college campus in energizing others for Red Bull!

Take a look at this commercial from Red Bull… Now tell me you aren’t pumped up after watching this?!