ASOS jumps onto the social media bandwagon

 At the end of January, ASOS will be launching an application on Facebook allowing shoppers to buy directly from a brand on the ASOS website without leaving Facebook. ASOS will have its entire stock on the Facebook application and also adding 1,300 products each week.

James Hart, ASOS ecommerce director, said, “We have millions of visits and millions of pounds coming from Facebook to ASOS. At the moment the Facebook shop doesn’t have real targets as such but in theory fewer clicks and barriers to purchase should mean greater conversions. We’ll have to see if it does lead to increased sales.”

The Facebook app will also have increased social media functionality including ‘like’ buttons and comments, which ASOS said it would later consider adding to its main site.

However customers such as I, shall be spending more money at ASOS as the site shall be easily accessible and shopping will be much easier.

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/asos-launches-fully-stocked-shop-on-facebook/3022396.article

I spy with my little eyes: Everyone's gone Drake mad!!!!!!!!

I spy with my little eyes: Everyone's gone Drake mad!!!!!!!!

Everyone's gone Drake mad!!!!!!!!

Last Friday, the 14^th of January, my cousin, sister and I went to a concert at the N.I.A in Birmingham. We went to watch a man named Aubrey Drake Graham perform also known as Drake. He is a Canadian artist born on the 24^th October in 1986. In June 2009, Drake signed a recording contract with Lil Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment. His album was released on June 15^th 2010 and since has gone platinum. Drake has collaborated with number of artist including Kanye West, Jay Z and Rihanna.

There were thousands of people at the sell out concert to see the 24 year old perform. The concert was packed out, too hot but still amazing. Everyone jumped around and sang along to every song. The astonishing fact is that Drake’s success was due to a social media networking site called MySpace. A few years ago, He uploaded videos of himself to show his rapping and singing skills. The videos reached audiences all across the world and more and more people started realising Drake’s potential. His breakthrough came when established Lil Wayne came across his videos and contacted him. The rest is history. Drake is now known worldwide and his albums are selling in there millions. 

Social media has helped Drake distribute his music to a larger audience and at a greater speed. Social media also allows fans to comment and subscribe to videos and therefore being able to follow the success of the artist. There are many other artists that have also become successful using Social media networking sites.

Another example is Justin Beiber. He was founded by Usher, a highly successful music artist on YouTube and then signed to his record label. Many international artist such as Jus Reign and AKA Amazing have been making videos and posting them on YouTube for thousands of people to watch them. These artists perform comedy sketches and homemade videos and have thousands of followers on YouTube, Twitter and Face book.

Social media has been very beneficial to all artists and performers and is free to use and allows a fan to hear a sample of the artists work before purchasing it so therefore can also be used as a marketing tool.

I am so grateful that networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace are available for free so I am able to listen to my favourite music and watch my favourite comedians whenever and wherever I want to.  

Experience Experience Experience

For the past 2 months I have been looking for work experience which I needed to complete for four weeks as part of my masters in public relations. I applied to which has felt like thousands of companies and had no luck till couple of weeks ago.

Majority of the companies didn’t even bother to reply to my emails which I found very rude especially as a key factor in PR is communication.

Out of the companies that did reply a lot of them declined due to the fact they didn’t have the office space to accommodate me for four weeks. This is because PR is a very small industry and most companies have a very small number of people working for them.

After many stressful weeks of emailing and replying to companies and when I finally had enough and was ready to give up I got an interview. I though I was dreaming when I read the emails but after a couple of seconds I realised it was reality and I was ecstatic.

I had an interview at a well know Asian television channel called BritAsiaTV.  I was very scared as it is an established business with a brilliant reputation. I met the director Mr Jaz Bal and we discussed the work experience. After a while he asks me “if I have any experience?” and I replied “no I do not.” His answer shocked me a little as he replied that “Even BritAsia TV’s interns have some experience before the carry out the work placement.” I didn’t really know what to say to him because the point of me being there was to get work experience and not an actual job. I don’t understand how can I and many other students get experience when nobody will offer us a work placement without experience in the first place. It’s a viscous circle and if anyone has the answer please let me know!

I was angry when I left as nobody was giving me a break and letting me work for them so I could gain valuable experience which would benefit me in the future.

Then my luck changed and I was contacted by a local charity organisation called Godiva Lion Club. My parents are part of this charity organisation and told them how I was looking for a voluntary work placement and they contacted me and told me to start on the 4^th January. As they say every cloud has a silver lining and I was unbelievably happy.

I carried on looking for another placement in the entertainment industry and managed to acquire an interview was at a company called Nitoonz Communication media agency in Leicester which was ideal as it was local. The interview went great, I met the manager of the company and we discussed what I was looking for in this work experience and what I had to offer. He offered me the work experience and told me to start on the 12^th January after I finished a week at the charity organisation. I was glad to get this work experience as it is in the Asian entertainment industry and this is something I would like to go into in the future.

Fingers crossed, after the drama of actually securing a placement the work experience itself it useful and something I will enjoy.

Weddings Of The Future

I have been studying public relations for just over 3 months and in my opinion social media is one of the most important areas of public relations. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Blogs etc can be used to share information, network and create relationships with individuals or organisations much more quickly than other mediums.

Social media has quickly become part of our daily lives. The majority of internet users will use some sort of social media. For example, Twitter has become one of the biggest social media networking sites with millions of users who follow one another to receive and share information about each other or their companies.

I came across a really interesting article titled “How to tastefully use social media at your wedding.”

The article suggests that a group can be created on Facebook for wedding guests to join to allow them to socialise online prior to the wedding day. This allows the guests to get to know one another before sitting next to each other at the wedding. This is a good idea but I believe at a wedding the guests should interact and get to know each other however if they have already done this before on Facebook then they may not talk as much in person.

The article also suggests that a shared Flickr account could be set up before the wedding. This is so guests can upload their photos from the wedding and share photos with other guests. The account details can be shared with guest on the wedding day . I think this is a fantastic idea as you never have enough photos and you get to pick your favourite photos from a larger bunch.

One of the best ideas in the article is live-streaming of the wedding. I think this is brilliant as I have family worldwide and live-streaming would allow me to share my wedding day live with family and friends who were unable to make it.

However the article also suggests the wedding could be tweeted about. The author suggests a chief tweeter could be appointed and they could tweet before, during and after the wedding to let other’s know what is going on.

I think this is not tasteful at all, a wedding and all the details and information about it is private and this shouldn’t be shared with the whole world.

This article provides evidence to how social media is co-operated into everyday life and how more and more events are being organised with the help of social media. I think these suggestions are really useful and one day in the future when I decide to get married I will use them.

http://mashable.com/2010/11/09/social-media-wedding-etiquette/