Social Media Use: Observation, Industry Report, Essay.

For this assignment, you will be conducting a small case study of social media, focusing on one of the following aspects:

1. Corporate branding
2. Non-profit based organising and campaigning
3. Consumption and production (prosumer)
4. Youth and leisure

Your study can be on social media in the UK or any other country.

Your aim is to observe and evaluate forms of social media use in your particular case study; and to assess social, political and economic factors that shape it. Your observations and evaluations will be initially recorded in your field notes. The final outcome of your case study will be an industry report – a report that could be used by a business, policy makers, a governmental body or a non-governmental organisation, that might require information on social media use in a specific sphere.

Then you will conduct on-line observations of social media use, on one or more relevant social media platforms.

The language of your observations can be informal- focus on what you see, what you find interesting and perhaps unusual. Your field notes should also include a brief reflection,on the usefulness and limitations of on-line observations  (What did it help you notice you would not have noticed otherwise? What could you not see?

The report should include the following:

1. Executive summary to include brief background on your case study, and a summary of your observations and evaluation.
2. Background on your case study plus information on social media use in the country .This section will need to include references to your background reading
3. Your observations, key findings, and evaluation . This section will rely on your field notes but needs to be written in a formal yet clear language. You will need to make references to relevant academic literature on social media use in journalism, education, or organising, pointing out whether what you have observed differs from what is described in the literature. Does it differ from how social media is used in the UK?
4. Recommendations. This section will include recommendations for how social media use in your selected case study can be improved, expanded, reduced or otherwise changed. This section will need to be written with an intended audience in mind: a social media developer, an NGO, a professional body (teachers, journalists etc.), a pressure group, the government.

 

Field notes

Field entry

A campaign known as “Shot on iphone” have been trending for number times in the social media platforms. Apple launched this social media campaign for the first time in March, 2015 to advertise the features of iphone cameras worldwide. The campaign was a huge success all over the world. More than 24 countries and 70 cities participated in the campaign by sharing their iphone clicked pictures in their twitter handle, Facebook and Instagram with the hash tag “shot on iphone” (Rowles 2017). The purpose of this case study is to analyze the importance of social media in corporate branding. The main objective of the campaign is to demonstrate the high definition camera of the iphones. In “shot on iphone” campaign, Apple and the media labs shortlisted around 77 pictures for displaying in their wall gallery (Sturken 2017).

Apple, with the help of this campaign well demonstrated how its camera is unique from the rest of the other products in the market. They started their first campaign of “shot on iphone” before the launch of iPhone 6.

First observation- Twitter

Apple launched its iPhone 6 in the month of September 2014. Other than having an updated hardware, one of the most distinguished feature of this model is its high definition camera. In order to market this product Apple initiated the campaign of Shot on Iphone. It is observed that the within a short span of time twitter was seen flooded with the hash tags “Shotoniphone”.

People participated with great enthusiasm in this campaign demonstrating the features of the Apple’s camera. In the very first campaign Apple was mentioned 6.5 million time in the twitter and it was found that 95% of the mentions where due to the online campaigns (Chavaglia and Filipe 2015). Apple selected number of photos for their world gallery clicked by people who are not professional photographer. Apple having 1.68 million followers in twitter has successfully implemented its world gallery campaign in twitter. Starting form celebrities to business professionals, the youth have taken the twitter handle with storm. It is observed that the Apple continued this campaign even in the consecutive years in order to portray there newly developed models worldwide (Neto and Filipe 2016).

Iphone 6 is incorporated with new sensors that could take images with high clarity and precision (Treem and Leonardi 2013). The campaign was all about to focus on what the camera can do rather than focusing on what the device as whole can do.

 In the year 2017, Apple Inc created an official instagram account. Instagram being a platform for the passionate photographers, this will attract more number of individual to the Apple’s world gallery campaign. Apple took to instagram for sharing their videos and images related to their campaign. Currently, this instagram handle is known to have 4.3 million followers.  Apple already shared 134 posts till date all related to their shot on iphone campaign.

In order to be a part of this campaign in the instagram, one has to post their clicked images from their iphones with the hash tag “ShotoniPhone”

Apart from sharing of images, Apple also took interviews of some of the renowned artists and posted the interviews as the voice track for the video galleries. In each of the Instagram post, the photographer’s description regarding the picture is also posted as the description.

Part one – Field notes

In order to gain more attention of the instagram users, Apple decided to create themes for the campaign such as self pictures, setting themes as per the trends thus portraying diversity across the world.  This was the objective of the company to capture the diversity across the world with the help of its phone’s camera, thus defining the high definition of its phone’s camera (Montalvo 2016).

Apple also took to Facebook for expanding this campaign. Currently, Apple has more than 11 million followers in Facebook. Extending this campaign to this platform has enabled wider access.

In the Facebook handle Apple shared number of posts related to the shot on iPhone campaigns. The videos and photos which are posted got millions of views and shares, thus making more and more people aware of the campaign

The campaign even got trending in Facebook, number of blogs and posts regarding this campaign where shared by individuals and groups all over the world. In the present date, Fcaebook have more than 2 billion users, thus posting articles and pictures related to this campaign have gained much attention among the social media users (Phua, Jin and Kim 2017).  People became more aware of the campaign from the posts shared in the Facebook. People also took to Facebook for sharing their pictures clicked with iPhone. People shared the world gallery pictures in their Facebook account.

The above discussed observations regarding the “shotoniPhone” campaign in the various social media platforms have been instrumental in creating a healthy market for the product. The social media pages and groups on “the shot on iPhone” images have made the campaign a success. It is observed that although Facebook have more number of users but Apple did not took much initiative to extend its campaign in Facebook unlike Twitter and Instagram.

Social media campaign- Case study on “shotoniPhone” campaign

Executive summary

The purpose of this report is to analyze the impact of social media on corporate branding. Social media plays a crucial role in marketing. In the present date, billions of people are actively using social medium, thus social media marketing can reach out to maximum number of people. In this report, with the help of a case study the utilization of social media in corporate branding is analyzed. The chosen case study for this report is the “shot on iPhone” campaign carried out by Apple Inc. The campaign is all about demonstrating the camera features of the iPhones. Apple aimed to portray how a single phone camera can create wonders by capturing diversities all over the world. The campaign flooded the social media platforms with picture that are clicked form the iPhones. This strategy of Apple, of marketing their phone camera in order to increase the demand for their newly developed phone models has proved to be successful. Apple carried out this campaign in the following years to make their product launch a huge success. The report discusses the usefulness as well as the limitations of the “ shot on  iPhone” campaign. Lastly, the report concludes that the campaign was a huge success considering the number of hash tags that were trending on the social media sites and nothing can be a better mode of demonstrating products compared to the social media platforms. Additionally it also suggests some valuable recommendations which can be used for better business performance.

Part two Industry Report

Apple Inc after launching the iPhone6 in the year 2014, decided to start a campaign that would showcase the highly impressive camera of their product. This started six months after the launch of iPhone6s. The camera being the main centre of attraction of the phone, Apple decided to demonstrate the cameras in the social media platforms (Gensler et al. 2013). In a short span of time it was observed that the hash tag “shotoniPhone” have taken the internet by storm. One of the reasons of launching this campaign was to compete with the renowned android brand Samsung. As a part of this campaign, Apple decided to choose the best of all the shots that has been taken from the iPhone. The best shots will be displayed in the World gallery of Apple. In order to participate in this campaign, one has to click a unique picture with his/her iPhone and hash tag the picture with “shotoniPhone” (Scott 2015). The best pictures were selected by the Apple to display on Billboards, hoarding on bus stops, train stations and shopping malls.

The foremost reason behind the huge success of the “shotoniPhone” campaign is the vast usage of social media that is prevailing worldwide. Considering the case of UK, there are nearly 39 million active users in the country. As per the statistical analysis, Facebook is the most visited site in the UK.

In the UK the frequency of browsing the social networks increased steadily. In the year 2015, it was observed that the users logged in their social media accounts more than 10 times a day. The younger generation is the major users of social media in the UK. As per the reports the number of women accessing social media is 11% more than that of men (Kannan 2017). Other researchers suggest that the average percentage of user of Twitter is more likely to be male, whereas vast proportions of the Fcaebook users are females. Apart from using the social media sites such as Facebook, Twiiter, Instagram other channels such as emails and chats are also prominently used by large number of peoples in the UK (Rose 2016). Considering this statistics, it can be said that social media campaigns such as the “shotoniPhone” campaign is sure to provide great exposure to the product. In the recent times, companies started spending more on the social media advertisements.

Researches also suggest that the penetration rate of the social media user in the UK is likely to increase to 62.46 percent by the end of 2022 (Chaffey 2016).

First observation- Twitter

The most accessed social network in the UK is Facebook, which is used by 70.88% of the population in the UK. The second social network on hype is the twitter with 10.79% of the users in the UK (Silverman 2016)

The usage of social media in journalism, education as well as marketing is widely witnessed in the recent times. Considering the number of users of these social media sites, nothing can serve as a better platform to reach out to masses in order to convey news or information. The platform also serves as a platform to unite for common cause. Apart from this, Social media is of utmost importance for educational purposes as well. In the present date, number of universities and schools upload their lectures on Youtube as well as Facebook, thus making easy availability of the study material for the students’ convenience (Ashley and Tuten 2015). Social media network can also serve as a platform for organizing campaigns as well as marketing. Such campaigns reach out to maximum number of people thus making the strategy a success.

It is observed that the “shotoniPhone” campaign is expanded to various social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Considering the total number of users of Twitter worldwide, launching this campaign in twitter can be considered as a healthy idea. The number of retweets and posts regarding the campaign has only popularized this campaign more effectively. There are millions of twitter users worldwide, thus launching in a campaign related to a newly launched product can reach out to maximum number of people (Wamba and Carter 2016). It is found that the twitter flooded with the “shotoniPhone “ hash tags. Twitter has also been a useful platform from gathering news to learning about the new trends and Apple took this advantage of Twitter to launch its showcase its camera features.

The initiative of Apple Inc to launch this campaign on Instagram has also proved to be a success. Instagram is such a platform where people across the globe appreciate and share their photographic skills. Extending this campaign to Instagram has enabled people to appreciate the new features of the iPhone camera. Considering the statistical report, regarding the social media usage in the UK, it can be said that the number of Instagram users is much less compared to that of Facebook and Twitter (Duggan and Brenner 2013). Thus, Twitter has helped the campaign to reach out to more number of people compared to that of Instagram.

Second Observation- Instagram

The results of this campaign were also witnessed in Facebook. Although, the Apple Inc did not took much initiative to officially launch this campaign in the Facebook but its effect was visible in certain posts. People shared the world gallery pictures, certain pages and groups were also created by the Facebook users. It is observed that in the UK major numbers of active users of social media sites are Facebook users. Considering this fact, if the campaign was officially launched in Facebook, the campaign could have got more exposure compared to that of Twitter and Instagram (Hudson et al. 2016).

Considering the statistical researches regarding the number of users of the various social networking sites it can be said that, if the campaign is extended to Facebook with much more initiative the campaign could have been much successful. Other than Facebook, Instagram and twitter, the campaign could have been expanded to other social networking sites such as Youtube. Creation of a Youtube channel related to the campaign could have also helped in reaching out to m ore number of people. Improvement could have been made in the campaign plan. More number of the shot on iPhone pictures could have been selected for displaying in the world gallery; this could have created more enthusiasm among the people. Other campaigning strategies such as gifts or offers for the best shot could have also helped in gaining more attention of the people. The observations suggest that the more advertisements regarding the campaign, advertisements that could increase the attention of more number of peoples could have been a good idea. Apart from this, considering the percentage of different age groups present in the social media sites. Apple could have created different themes for different age groups for the “shotoniPhhone” campaign. Specific themes such as wildlife photography, scenery, and wedding photography could have been given for the campaign. This in turn would have showcased how the iPhone camera could capture different types of picture with the same precision. Other than this celebrity participation would have also helped in the making the campaign more popular among the mass.

References

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Chaffey, D., 2016. Global social media research summary 2016. Smart Insights: Social Media Marketing.

Chavaglia, J.N. and Filipe, J.A., 2015. Consumers economic behavior and emotions: the case of iphone 6 in neuromarketing. International Journal of Latest Trends in Finance and Economic Sciences, (4), pp.1041-1047.

Duggan, M. and Brenner, J., 2013. The demographics of social media users, 2012 (Vol. 14). Washington, DC: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y. and Wiertz, C., 2013. Managing brands in the social media environment. Journal of interactive marketing, 27(4), pp.242-256.

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Kannan, P.K., 2017. Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), pp.22-45.

Kim, J. and Hastak, M., 2018. Social network analysis. International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals, 38(1), pp.86-96.

Montalvo, R.E., 2016. Social media management. International Journal of Management & Information Systems (Online), 20(2), p.45.

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