Week 5, take a comfortable position and enjoy this blog post!

Week 5 started on Monday with lecture about marketing in social media, again held by Anna Ikonen. First of all I have to thank the teachers for the timing of this lecture because as I told in my last post, we had this assignment from Lacybox to make a social media marketing campaign for them. In lecture we talked about what have to be taken in consideration when starting campaign in social media. What, when, where, who and how is the main guestions basically in every marketing campaign but when going online there are lots of other things to think about. It is a long process from customer's awareness of product to actually buying it and there's different kind of buying scenarios too. Couple of scenarios are webrooming vs showrooming. In webrooming customer searches information from internet and make the purchase in store but in showrooming customer checks the product in store and then makes the purchase online. I thought this through and I came up that I'm mixing of these two. Usually I search from the internet the best solution and then go to store to check it out and then I decide is it cheaper or easier to buy from internet or in store. In my work I hate customers who come to the store and takes my time for half an hour asking questions about something and then says: "Yeah i get it cheaper from online",  that's why I search the information first so i don't have to waste salesman valuable time more than I have to.

Process of making purchase

Anna also showed us examples what kind of things can impact on our minds when it comes to marketing in social media. Especially in videos or pictures you have to think for example coloring, effects, sounds, lenght, pictures, face impressions, texts and much more if you want to succeed and get wanted outcome in marketing campaign in social media. Our group took the lesson and we tried to think all of those things when we did the assignment for Lacybox. Anna also showed us some examples how effective videos can be and this one below I've checked couple of times more because it was absolutely great and I felt united and happy after that. Try also think the combination of all of the effects I mentioned before. By the way I actually didn't realize the lenght of it at all. Enjoy!

                            


On Friday we presented our social media marketing campaign to Lacybox and feedback was mostly positive and owner of Lacybox Lynn-Marie Sederlöf Airisto thought that she could use some of the material in her future Instagram posts. She also liked our humor in the posts. Our team got also little bit criticism because we had used so many pictures instead of using same pictures in different platforms. Sometimes simpler is better. That actually reminded me that in last weeks post I forgot to mention team Funking's idea to SSM which was great. Their idea was that distributors also collect the adverts away from households and recycle them. Effective, environmental, doable and most of all simple. I'm, so idealistic, some also might say sometimes ADHD, I usually got so many ideas right away that I forget that sometimes simple solution could be more effective than hundred ideas. All in all Lacybox assignment was thoughtful and we learned a lot from it.

As wise man once said

That reminded me that Anna gave us also task to analyse one of the quotes she gave us. I chose Wendy Piersall's ''Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first''. In my opinion there's something wrong in this quote. I understand that it means basically that how popular you are in social media channels, how active you are in social media and how much followers you have there, the higher you get in Google. BUT something is forgotten... It's $$$ money $$$, you can buy your place in google if you have enough money. Based on this I made up my own quote '' Money rules the world if you let it ''. Somebody else might have made something similar but either way something to think about.

Right on

Friday's second lecture we got to the point that everyone had waited, presenting the promotion videos which all teams made for Superpark. WOW was the reaction after seen all of them. I really loved the different ankles and stories that teams had came up with. Got to give little bit respect to other teams, I've checked Funking team's and DigiInspiration team's videos again couple of times because I really liked them. But got to stand our team's ground I think that our team's video is supercool too and our ankle was to shoot it for (local) sport clubs and that's why we had our football jerseys on. Our second point was that Superpark should widen their target group because all of our team members are over 20 years old and Superpark's target group is 9-16 years old and we had so much fun there. They could advertise it more like an sport event than fun day at the park because sporty lifestyle is on the surface at the moment. So without further ado, below is our video, ENJOY!

Yours sincerely,

Miikka

Week number three is almost over so what's new?

On Tuesday we had two interesting guest speakers telling about companies they work for. First was representative from Superpark. It's indoor activity park where you can do lots of fun stuff for example skate, cycle, try baseball, shoot football in radar etc. So basically fun park for duracell bunnies like me. Superpark is actually first client for our team and our task is to make an advertising video for them and choose the ankle to whom we are going to advertise it. YEEES finally we get down to real business! In my opininon Superpark has very cool idea because they are trying to combine activity and digitalisation which is very important in nowday's world. Kids, youngsters and also adults should move much more to keep healthy lifestyle in today's digital world. Actually I've never heard about the company before and have lived in Vantaa for quite some time. Something is clearly wrong in their marketing because in my head they should've reached Vantaa already and this kind of activity park should be on everybody's lips. Hope our video will help them reach more audience. Their main target group according to presentation is young people aged 9 to 16. I think that there is a gap in markets for older people, I mean like ages 20 to 50 for example Christmas party's and for the sport clubs. They have mentioned those in their websites but when I asked my football team mates have they heard of Superpark, they hadn't'. I also asked from my working mates and neither had they. Oh did I mention that my football team is from Vantaa and I'm working in Jumbo which is walking distance from Superpark. Something to think about.

Even though you have reached one target group it doesn't mean that your job is finished

Our second speaker was from SSM (Suomen suoramainonta) and we got our second task from them. They distribute advertisements and their distribution channel reaches 85 % of households in Finland which is quite impressive. So 15 more percent to go;D. Question why stayed in my mind because according to presentation it's the key word of understanding things. After you understand why, you can move to the next questions how and what. Representative also talked about purpose of doing work. That is actually what I have taught of a lot. Companies main target is to make money but my purpose for working is not make money for the company. That's one of the main reasons why I got back in school, I want make something that matters to me, something I can be proud of, something I really like to do. Those are the motivators I need, if  I'm not interested in something, I do it with half a lights (puolivaloilla). Money should come to my pocket and company's pocket side of those things. We also talked about passion and how it's one of the key things which leads to actions. Got to agree with that because when I'm passionate about something I'm usually very good at it. In today's world money is not good motivator enough. Our task was to think some other things that their distributors can do than distribute and how to improve their communication and marketing styles. They got mounting to climb on that, got to say. Their only social media channel was Facebook and last post was two months ago. I also think that companies should understand how good actually message application Whatsapp is, we actually use it in our work everyday. In my first blog I told my rebellious attitude towards social media, I meant it in personal life BUT for companies it's crucial if they want to keep themselves in competition. There is no digital strategy anymore just strategy in a digital world. They have many young distributors in SSM working for them and to young people social media is everyday life. In my opinion that is huge possibility to think wider. There's a lots of other things that distributors can do side of distributing and we are presenting our ideas of it to SSM on Monday. On next week's post I will tell our ideas, did they like them and feedback.

Think of your purposes

Thursday Anna gave us a lecture about cultures and how different they can be. It is vital to everybody understand differences between cultures. Also companies should be aware of that going global doesn't mean that you are international, companies should know the differences between cultures where they are expanding to. Cultures can be categorized so many different ways that it is impossible me to open all of them to you. There's a coffee culture, food culture, time culture, cultures in different continentals and of course in different countries, Laurea has different culture than Haaga Helia etc. Everybody knows that Finnish people are for example more undemonstrative than Thai people but there can be similar behavior in Thailand also than in Finland. In my opinion culture is a behavior model that you learn when you are a kid and when you grow you add there continuously something. What I mean that everybody has their own culture inside of them because we are individuals. It is also important to think of your own behavior for example in discussion situations with somebody who's from the different culture. They might understand your tone wrong, your gestures wrong, your jokes differently. It is iceberg because you only see 1% of a person and other 99% hidden. BUT remember trying to understand the cultural differences is gesture itself and I think that it is one of the things that everybody appreciates.

Okay that was my blasting, see you on next week!