Beeting the Dairy Crisis

For all you guys that don't live in Australia, in the past week or two, the topic of farmers and milk have been a hot topic all over social media. Basically, our farmers are being ripped off by the government, and are earning less from their milk than what it costs to produce, sending them into huge amounts of debt.

The power of social media has been crazy for this campaign. The fire started when Waleed Aly, presenter on The Project discussed the topic in a segment on TV. The clip was uploaded to Facebook, and was spread around and seen by thousands of Aussies. It was shared across multiple platforms, being YouTube and Twitter. Aly explains the milk crisis, sharing interviews with farmers, getting Australia to really understand the importance of backing Aussie farmers.

This is a perfect example of viral marketing - Not only did the video go viral, but it has also sparked a movement; people are swapping supermarket brand milk for SA produced milk in order to support the local dairy industry.

For more info, you guys can visit this link, or view the Wahleed Aly's video below.
What will you do to help?

Maccas Getting Jalapeno Snapchat

Snapchat has become one of the most popular forms of social media, and now has more uses than just sending sneaky dirty photos. Geofilters are a design, mostly used to broadcast your location - once you've taken a photo in Adelaide, you can swipe right and a geofilter of the city of Adelaide will come up. However, more recently they've also been used for advertising.

Earlier last week you might've seen a couple of Geofilters from Maccas. One put you in a thing of fries, and the other had a picture of a bag, saying you'd been on a Maccas Run. It's actually pretty originial, and hasn't been done much before, particularly by an individual brand.

What makes it so different, is that you didn't have to be at a specific location - these photos were taken at Flinders University, where there isn't a McDonalds on campus. While general geofilters rely on your location, it's a pretty smart marketing move to be able to put Maccas filters on yourself when you're not even there - what could make you crave some delicious, fatty, probably-really-old fries more? It draws people to the restaurant, making you want to go there, or actually do a Maccas Run!

Butter Get On Board With Apps

Diet and Foods apps - there's hundreds of them. Whether you use them to keep track of what you eat, get nutritional facts about certain food products (yes, as much as I hate to admit it, that bag of Grain Waves really does have 837 calories, just because they have fiber, doesn't mean they're healthy), or just have it on your phone to make you feel better about yourself (because you're GOING to start the diet soon, right?), they're an insanely popular type of app to download.

For example, Fooducate is an app that allows you to see the nutritional value of food after you scan the bar code (or manually search) using your phone. You can also see reviews of food by other app users, see alternatives that are a bit healthier than what you look up, track what you eat, and get diet advice. Another example is Diet Butler, who can tell you your ideal calorie intake ever day, based on your 'physical' data. Then, it has different features that keep people inspired, and sticking to their diet.

Using an app instead of a website to reach an audience can be a really good option. It's super easy to track it's success - just look at the amount of downloads. Plus, people can easily leave reviews and comments about the app, so you can improve it to make or more user friendly. It can also be harder to track your eating habits/your diet on a website. Apps make it loads easier and you don't have to go searching through the web to find your details, simply open the app, and all your stuff is there. Fooducate enables you to scan a bar code and receive information about the food - whereas otherwise, you'd have to go look up all that info online.
The only issue is, how do you make yours different from all the others?

Just Some Food for Thought

KFC's one of the biggest fast food chains in the world, and have shops in hundreds of different countries. Here's a quick video from 2014, explaining how they had a super successful social media campaign, and managed to majorly boost their online presence, and build a big audience. Leave a comment saying what you think!

Tipsy Bartender's Not a Whiskey Business

If you're in uni/college and even a little bit of an alcoholic, you've probably watched at least one - or all - videos by Tipsy Bartender on YouTube. They basically make all kinds of tutorials and recipes for amazing alcoholic drinks, their most famous of which has over 6 million views, and is called 'How To Make Rainbow Shots' which you can see below!

Like Mamrie Hart in a previous post, Tipsy Bartender has lots of social media accounts, using Google +, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, so it's super easy for them to get their content out their and seen by lots of people.

The way they market themselves on YouTube is great - they know their target audience and often post slightly nerdy, and unique drinks that they know their viewers will love. They also post a wide range of drinks - different types like cocktails, shots, and martinis, as well as different types of alcohol - gin, vodka, and whisky. So no matter what your tastes are, you'll definitely find something you like.

Because the videos contain a lot of relatable comedy, and lets get real, has alcohol in it, the videos are very popular online. Not just on YouTube, but they also get shared a lot across other social media. Have you ever seen this video above, or others like it, on your Facebook page? Probably. Chances are, someone's shared it, or tagged a friend in it, or one of those pages that you liked back in 2010 has posted it for everyone to see.

Twitter in the Lime Light

We can all appreciate Twitter as a place to stalk our favourite celebrities. But we know that it can also be a brilliant way for restaurants and cafes to reach their customers, and share their business - by doing some of the following steps!

1. Tweet and share plenty of photos
Although Instagram's the main place for sharing photos, Twitter's also a great place to do it because you can share information, and, unlike Instagram, links to websites.

2. Hashtags

I've talked about this in previous posts - but to sum it up, hashtags can create a wider reach, and allow people to see all the different things people have thought about the business in one place.

3. Links

Post links to other social media forms (such as Facebook and Instagram), websites, and online menus that people can see. That last one is particularly good for restaurants that offer take away/delivery, so then people only have to check the Twitter account for a menu, instead of searching around online

4. Use the 4-1-1 Theory
If people are following a Twitter account, chances are, they'll be interested in more than just photos and a menu. Posting about a range of things related to the restaurant, like four relevant posts about the business, one retweet, and one self-serving post, will generally increase how people that like the post will engage with the account. 

Penne for Your Thoughts - Or in This Case, Your Hashtag

Especially since Instagram has become popular, the influence of social media has completely changed the way food is marketed. In 2014, Virgin Mobile started a huge charity campaign with OzHarvest. They created the hashtag #mealforameal, where every photo that was shared using that hashtag meant that Virgin would donate a meal to someone in need.

This is a great campaign via social media because the hashtag means they reach a wide audience, as it means everyone following someone can see what they post, and can follow the hashtag to get more photos and information. Because it's a new hashtag, it also creates curiosity from the audience, as they'll wanted to know what the campaign is, and what the hashtag means.

It's also smart because it involved very little audience involvement - people constantly share photos of their food with lots of hashtags anyway, so one additional hashtag doesn't involve a lot of effort. People can also be hesitant to share posts, donate money, or write a whole new post -  things that they may not usually do. But because people understand the amount of food that gets wasted - just by looking in their own bin at the end of the day! - and know and recognise OzHarvest as a great charity, it means they're very likely to get on board with the campaign to make it successful.

You can find out more information from the video below, or having a look at Virgin Australia or OzHarvest's website. I really encourage you guys to use the hashtag - the campaign's still going on, it's a really good cause, and it's so easy to do!

Assalted By Hooking Titles

If there's one thing we're all familiar with, it's sites that have super exciting link titles, but really boring content. They have that line that hooks you in - "Girl Does a Thing... You Won't Believe What Happens Next!" And what does happen next? Not much, probably. Or at least, something that you don't care about. And it happens on every form of social media, from Facebook to Instagram, because people actually click on these links - which is exactly what advertisers and companies want to you to.

Having that hooking line is pretty common on YouTube, particularly as people get paid based on how many views they get - so getting people to click on a link is pretty important for people who make a living from it. Obviously, heaps of Youtubers do it, and one person who does is Joey Graceffa, who's a pretty popular person in the Youtube community.
One example of this was one of his video's called "EATING DOG FOOD!"

Pretty gross right? You might be expecting a video of him testing some dog food, maybe different types - lots of grossness, lots of laughs right? Wrong.

Instead, what you get is a ten and a half minute vlog of his day, with the part about eating dog food lasting a whopping fifteen seconds. Plus, he doesn't mind how they taste, so the whole thing's pretty undramatic.
But whatever gets view right? Unfortunately for all us suckers, it actually works, so it's pretty unlikely to stop any time soon, by Youtubers, or by any other marketing/advertisements.

Hungry Jacks' Egg-straordinary App

Hungry Jacks are obviously one of the biggest fast food chains in the country. They've had a super successful social media campaign surrounding their app (don't lie, we all downloaded it, hoping to get a free burger, only to end up disappointed when we only got a $2 discount).

Basically, you download the app, shake it, and you get a discounted or free item from the menu, after you post a 'check in' to your Facebook page.

This was huge a couple years ago, and was super successful for a couple reasons - 

1. Everyone's Facebook feed was filled with these kinds of posts - they were EVERYWHERE, which meant that people were constantly reminded of HJ's, and a bunch of people were seeing not only an Ad for Hungry Jacks, but getting a download link so they could check in to HJ's too.

2.  Lets get real, when you go to a fast food restaurant, you're not looking to be a 'little bit fancy,' you want a greasy, cheap burger, preferably with bacon. So, unless you're super picky with your food, there's not a big difference between Maccas and HJ's. Why go to Maccas to get a burger, when you could get a free one, or a discounted one at Hungry Jacks?

Get a Pizza Mamrie Hart's 'YDAD'

One of the funniest personalities on YouTube, famous for her puns, is Mamrie Hart. Mamrie runs two channels, called Mametown and You Deserve a Drink (YDAD). YDAD  is a brilliant show, where Mamrie makes cocktails for celebrities/movies/tv shows that she thinks deserve a drink, throwing in puns, and general hilariousness, that makes her videos so entertaining. 

For a YouTuber their entire career is on social media, so it makes sense that Mamrie, like other YouTubers, are on most social media platforms.
Mamrie has a big following on all of them - over a million subscribers on YouTube, almost 900,000 followers on Instagram, 500,000 on Twitter, and 32,000 on Facebook, and the way she, and others like her, use these platforms to market themselves is super successful.

Being across so many forms of social media, Mamrie uses it to promote her videos (and let people know when new ones are uploaded), and to connect with people all over the world. Aside from the regular ways to promote, because YouTube is also a kind of community, it means that YouTubers can make videos with each other, promote their channels, and reach an audience similar to their own - which means they can grow their own channel.
The fact that social media has grown so much means that not only can YouTubers make a career out of it, but it has also lead to world tours (The No Filter Show) and bestselling books (You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery).