Earn Your Armour

Under Armour is currently emphasizing its “Earn Your Armour” campaign using the hash-tag #EarnYourArmour in the majority of its posts across social media platforms. They are asking consumers to show them how they EARN their ARMOUR by posting a photo or video of them giving it all they've got. Each week Under Armour picks winners to receive an ARMOUR prize pack and a chance to be featured on Under Armour Record. The campaign has received a lot of great participation and feedback. Under Armour has even gotten some of its sponsored athletes

Under Armour Record

Under Armour has released the world's first ever social media network for athletes and fitness enthusiasts. I present Under Armour Record. UA Record allows these workout warriors to gather in a single place and interact with one another back and forth just as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Athletes and fitness people alike can share anything from workout regimes to diets. They can even promote any team or organization that they are affiliated with. It is a great way to allow consumers to create content for Under Armour.

Blog Post Comment: http://campusmotors.blog.com/2015/02/09/explore-the-world-with-land-rover/

Instagram Announces Clickable Carousel for Advertisers

Up until now, links on Instagram have not been clickable, save for the one on a user or brand’s profile page. This means that while brands could certainly advertise on the platform, the lack of a unique link on individual posts made the effectiveness of a campaign an unattainable data point.

On other social networks, primarily Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+, marketers have been able to use links to track referral traffic from specific marketing campaigns, using that data to measure market permeation of the brand message or even conversions, depending on the ad in question. Instagram’s ads, on the other hand, as Spector points out, have been used primarily for brand awareness and influence, rather than immediate site traffic or sales.

This is no longer the case.

Instagram will now allow advertisers to post clickable carousels, meaning a fashion brand can showcase a #TBT look, with clickable links to each of the products, for example. This move will likely generate increased revenue for the platform as brands increase marketing spend for Instagram, now armed with data-driven proof that the social network is producing sales.

“If a brand posts an image of a product, shoppers no longer have to physically type in the URL of the store to track it down -- only the most interested buyers would go to that trouble. With a direct link, brands with significant Instagram followers will see site traffic and conversion rates increase because they have given captivated fans a simple way to get to their product pages, making purchasing easy.”

Certainly while this is good news for brands looking to turn social followings into increased revenue, advertisers and marketers must tread carefully. Instagram built its popularity within four years, and the photo sharing app now has more than 300 million users. By refusing to render URLs as links, Instagram differentiated itself from Facebook and Pinterest, giving users a more cohesive in-app experience. This new announcement is a sharp pivot from the company’s startup strategy.

For brands looking to utilize the new advertising offerings, Spector has a few best practices to help maintain a loyal Instagram following without pushing products too heavily:

• Use clickable carousels for marketing campaigns only: Not every post needs to be an ad. Follow a 70:30 ratio for lifestyle versus advertising content on the platform
• Put your product in context: A beautiful, high res image of your product on a white background is nice, but if you put that product in context -- say, sunglasses on a smiling woman on a beautiful beach with her friends, fans are more likely to relate with or aspire to that image.
• Don't overdo the branding: Let your fans connect the dots with how that product will fit into their lives and they'll be more likely to want to buy.

Blog Post Comment : http://ugacollegetrends2015.blogspot.com/2015/03/it-was-good-while-it-lasted.html

I went to Miami for the break and enjoyed every bit of it. I too did not wish to return back to class. I am looking forward to finishing the remainder of the semester because I am graduating. 

Black and Blue Or White and Gold?

On February 26, This dress took over the lives of millions! It became a featured story on major news channels such as ESPN, CNN, and even NBC News. A nationwide debate was created as to the what the colors of this dress are. A Tumblr user posted a picture of the dress asking readers to state what color combination they saw: black and blue or white and gold. What would happen next, no one could have imagined. No one could come to an agreement. Here are some interesting statistics following the chaos, of what I believe to be a white and gold dress:

#TheDress was mentioned 11 million times on Twitter

The Dress Debate was mentioned at a rate of 5.7K TPM, with celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Anna Kendrick chiming in; garnering up to 192K retweets in total

28 MILLION (and rapidly increasing at each refresh) people have viewed BuzzFeed's article on The Dress

A record-breaking 670,000 web visitors were on BuzzFeed's website at the same time
500,000 of these web visitors were on mobile devices (quick reminder to make your website responsive!)

16 million people shared The Dress article in the first five hours, which is 10  million more than the article that previously held the "most shares in least time" spot

Three-fourths of all countries have smaller populations than the amount of people who tweeted about The Dress. COUNTRIES.

#WhiteAndGold received more votes than the Governor of Iowa in the most recent election. More people voted in a "What color is this dress?" poll than in an actual election.

It was a fun debate and it showcased the power of social media and the velocity of how fast things can spread in today's time.

Blog Post Comment: http://bmacieblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/post-6-georgia-basketball.html

This could be potentially one of the biggest upsets in college basketball in quite some time. The Dawgs have a team capable of winning, but how many truly believe that they will outside of Dawg Nation. Social media will without a doubt be all over this one, especially if UGA makes it interesting.