Last Blog

After six months, this will be the last week of the course Business Information Technology. Because of this, this will be the last blog post. After ten posts in total, the visits and comments will be analyzed through Google Analytics. I've promoted my posts to reach visitors like you all. Thank you for that and I hope you enjoyed it.

I wrote anything what caught my eye during this second semester in school. All messages are new media related and through different subjects and promotion I tried to find out how to get the most viewers. For example, I choose to write the first blog about a local juwelry store. The store is familiar to my close social connections because we all live in the same small city. The numbre of viewers was quite high, the post even appeared on the social media pages of the jewelry store itself.

Another example I tried, was chosing a breaking news topic like the riots in Egypt. I got some inside Information from the interview with my cousin and I promoted the post by putting the link as a reaction at news messages about Egypt on news sites.

The thing I tried last week was about announcing that a new post is comming and try to involve potential viewers before they even read a word. I posted on my Facebook wall: as input for my new blog I want to know what your favorite App is!

I got about twenty reactions on it in a couple of hours. After that more posts appear and my post got lost in attention.

Anyway, the most reactions showed the major popularity of the WhatsApp. The free message service is the most popular among my friends. Besides WhatsApp, picture service like Instagram are popular too. Through Instagram, you can edit and share pictures online. I want to add one of my favorite Apps as well: the Albert Heijn app. It's an app from a major Dutch supermarket chain. Through this app, you can choose your dish out of 4000 recepies. The app makes a shortlist and by choosing which store you go, it shows you the route to walk to get your ingredients as quick as possible...

Back to the promotion through an anouncement. I am wondering if everyone who react on Facebook post, is gonna read this blog after recognize it after another Facebook post.

Let's find out. I am gonna start to write my final paper now. Thanks for following me the past months and enjoy summer!

Take care.

Pete Philly Open Loops: ‘selling’ your master work through new media

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OuTXj4Ll7U


Through different download devices everybody has the opportunity to gain free music. Good or bad, legal or illegal? Something I don’t want to discuss in this blog. For most artists this is the start of the end of the music business. But in this blog I want to point out the new campaign of Pete Philly. Philly used the fact of illegal downloads as an advantage for his promotion: his new album “Open Loops” appears online one track a week, fourteen weeks in a row, all for free.

On petephilly.com you can download every week one of his new tracks. After fourteen weeks his complete new album is available for free. The look and feel of the website is fantastic. Very characteristic an graphical. But also very easy to use. You can see all the important information: his name, his face, his next show and the latest song. And by one mouse click you can share any of this information on your own social media. Perfect.

In this way, Pete Philly is promoting himself very creative and intelligent. In the world of music the offer is major. Because of the illegal free downloads not every euro is coming back to the artist and we buy the music if we are sure that we like it. Before that, we need to check the new artist first. For free through radio, YouTube, social media or illegal downloads. Philly get round this by offering his music for free. In this way, he is getting very nice exposure but also interesting marketing facts about “the brand Pete Philly”. How many times is his music downloaded? How many pageviews? How many more tickets are sold after launching new tracks for free? Very smart.

Enjoy this very nice “business card” at www.petephilly.com :)

See you next time.

We made a video blog!

You all know, as fanatic followers of this blog ;) that this all is part of the course Business Information Technology 2011 at Tilburg University. A school project always has all kind of requirements. In my opinion this kind of requirements are most of the time more boundaries. You are forced to modify your idea and creativity into some ones assignment. It needs to be suitable, so you are not allowed to go out of the box. Anyway, in this case, we formulated goals, analyze the blog, the blog needs to consist of 2000 words minimum spread out over ten blogs. And at the end this whole road of online blogging will be described in a nice report. One of the requirements in this phase of the project was developing a video blog. A video blog were one of the Tilburg University lectures will be introduced and tells something about his or her research, total time ten minutes max.

With my co students we tried to shoot a nice ten minute video with humor, recognition, new information and a nice balance between formal and informal information. Actually, we all were quite happy with the result. Some evaluation points: use a tripod next time and a microphone during an interview ;)

Hopefully you will enjoy the final result, check it through this link and let me know what you think! Comments are welcome below this blog. There are only two blogs following, the project is coming closer to the end.. So don’t hesitate to share this blog on you Facebook, keep following me and keep on posting your comments below each blog on blogger.com. Thank you very much!

See you next time.

Wanna shine on YouTube?

The past years YouTube formed a start for the rise of many stars. People upload their own videoclips and share their talent, joke, action or whatever with the world. Some classical examples of people who become major stars through YouTube are Justin Bieber and Esmé Denters. Both uploaded a song and got signed by major record labels. Also, everybody probably know the clips of the sneazing panda, dancing babies and epic failures of athletes, dads and little children. All these clips have in common that they have a major amount of hits. If you want to shine on YouTube and get millions of hits be creative and take these things in mind:

Before you start you definitely need:
- A camera
- A talent or the luck that you witnessed a extraordinary fact
- Some skills with a video editing program
- A YouTube account

The ingredients of a YouTube hit are:
- “How-to-do” clips: These video’s are very useful for desperate people.
- Humor: if it’s funny you want to watch it.
- Sports: We like sports!
- Music: Everybody likes some music..
- Failures: because there is no better delight than malicious delight..

Of course, you can combine some of these ingredients! To give your idea a better chance to become the next big thing on YouTube, you finally need to think about a catchy common name to generate more views.

I want to give you this YouTube link, my favorite of this moment. Because I like it, it’s funny, catchy and it is going to be the next big thing on YouTube!


At a certain point I am going to create my own YouTube hit, wanna shine with me? ;)

Kunnen we nog wel zonder?

Hij was een goeie avond op stap. Ze waren met z'n vieren. Vier jonge honden in één piekmoment. Vrienden. Hij sprak haar aan, weinig reactie. Hij lacht t weg met een bijdehante counter aanval en richt z'n zoeker weer op z'n omgeving. Er wordt tegen elkaar opgebokst. Hoorde je wat ik zei, zag je wat ik deed, ik durf echt wel naar haar toe, wat? Hoezo kan ik dit biertje niet atten? Alles wordt vastgelegd, getweet, gepost en geliked. Wij zijn op jacht en kijk 's wat we kunnen. Zij die moesten werken, elders hun lente kriebels verdrinken of morgenvroeg moeten werken worden op de hoogte gehouden via een groeps-whatsapp. Vrijwel alle communicatie gaat via het toetsenbordje en als ze al face-to-face met elkaar 'praten' wordt ie in ieder geval stevig in de handpalm gehouden. Je bent niet met z'n 4en aan het pieken, 4 iphones pieken mee, net zoals iedereen die gedwongen wordt mee  te genieten. De kater komt later. Hij wordt wakker, vage herinneringen, gelukkig heeft hij z'n telefoon nog: foto's, filmpjes en z'n posts zullen weer een hoop aan het licht gaan brengen. Het is warm, hij installeert zich in z'n raam. Lekker zo in de binnenstad. Die baggy trainingsbroek is top voor dit brakke moment. Horizontaal op de vensterbank. Zo, nou eens kijken hoe het gisteren ook al weer was. PATS. Tien meter lager op de stoep ligt de stille getuige van de vorige avond. De zwarte box die zo doorslaggevend geweest had moeten zijn, gebarsten en gebroken. Weggegleden uit die te brakke broekzak. Geen telefoon meer... Paniek. Wat nu.....?? 

Volgens mij kunnen we niet meer zonder onze (smart)phones. Ik vroeg me dit van de week af en kon het meteen verwoorden, op m'n iPhone........

The IPad 888GB, a tablet out of heaven

Last winter I became the proud owner of an iPad Wifi 32GB. A Nice device wich I use for study (this blog is written on it), fieldhockey coaching and fun. As every technological device, I knew there would be a numbre two, three, four and maybe we all use the iPad 5 in 2015. I don't have to be the early adopter, I just had some positive price advantage for being in the states at that time.

Anyway, a couple of months later the pretty brother of my new toy entered the market: the iPad 2. Regarding to the selling success of the one, the iPad 2 was sold out soon all over the world. This shows a tablet revolution, Apple-mania or a world economy based on luxury goods (chose your option). We want it because we think we need it, because we think we like it, because we think we have the money, because we think it makes us happy, because we think our lives become more easier (again chose your option, I chose all)

At the moment, all Chinese people in the world are celebrating the Qingming-festival. Its name denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime and tend to the graves of departed ones. One of the aspects of the festival is burning paper replicas of luxury goods for the departed ones in the after live. And guess what, the paper iPhones and iPads are even in the market for mourning articles completely sold out! For just $1,- (instead of at least $499,-) you could buy an iPad for your deceased grand mother. Especially, the iPad version with 888 GB was the most popular choice for heaven. Chinese people believe that 8 is the number for fortune.

I don't criticize any cultural tradition. For me, it's just very typical that in countries like China and Malesia (major Qingming-festival celebrations) the paper iPad 888 GB is as scarce as the real ones! You will agree that our technical developments are influencing our worldwide cultural traditions. I don't see an iPad as a status symbol! We found gold in the tomb of tutankhamun, will our offsprings find iPads and iPhones in tombs or graves after 1,000 years from now? I use my iPad and iPhone every day.

BUT,

when I die (in 70 years from now), I want a peaceful and happy after live (if something like that excists, I didn't form an opinion about that yet), without any disturbance of ringtones, angry birds, fruit ninja's or app updates!

See you next time!

Sent from my iPad..........

Zero Budget Marketing - Kyteman

This fourth blog is a blog about a young man who had a dream. In a couple of years, this eccentric, stubborn, gifted, talented young trumpet player made his dream come true. Kyteman played with his own HipHop orchestra in sold out places, entered the charts and sold over 50,000 records. The keys of this success are his talent and passion for his music but also his gift to  bring the right people together. Niels Aalberts took control over Kyteman’s marketing program. He made Kytemans dream come true with a budget of €53,10,-. Welcome in the world of Zero Budget Marketing Online.

Niels Aalberts wrote a book about this fantastic marketing story. The book “Doorbraak!” (“Breakthrough!”) is a typical boys story and marketing book in once. Literarily two books in one. The hardcover part describes the rising of Kyteman. When you turn the book around there is the marketing part with a soft cover. Aalberts is a big part of Kytemans success but what is his vision?

1. Your Story – “The biggest bar in the world”
Through internet we are able to spread our interesting thoughts and stories very easy. Different kinds of (free!) social media are the most important tools. Think of, Tweets on Twitter, posts on Facebook, songs on MySpace or blogs on Blogspot for example. Actually, it is kind of the old school ‘mouth-to-mouth’ advertisement. The biggest advantage is the wider range you have through internet. If you make sure your own story is interesting and unique, people will read it. Instead of telling it to one or two friends in the bar, in this way the internet will form the biggest bar in the world.

2. Your Reliability – “OK, you made up a story”
What’s wrong about “you made up a story”? You don’t make your story! Your story need to be reliable, not made up. Your product (book, music, movie, whatever) needs to be yours. Your own story is fact, true and reliable. The internet will help you to spread out your story easier. The biggest differences with traditional marketing and promotion are:
a. Your story needs to be real. Back in the days, marketers didn’t have any trouble by making a wrong (under)statement: “Now, new better taste!” These days, the product you point out needs to be 100% real.
b. Your story needs to be part of you. Don’t shoot around reckless with your story is a blind cowboy. You need to participate with your target group and you use your story to start op communication. Then, your target group starts following your ideas and start thinking with you.

3. Do It Yourself – “Do It Together”
In the 21^st century you have many opportunities to ‘do it yourself’. Different media are easy to access and free to use. That’s why, ‘Do It Yourself’ is a growing attitude amongst entrepreneurs. Although, the power of a well smeared machine is still important for success. Therefore, the next years ‘Do It Yourself’ will become ‘Do It Together’. Don’t be afraid to add people to your dream team to success (Kyteman and Aalberts).

4. Your own sender – “Your own media must be the epicenter”
There are many platforms to focus on as promotion. Radio shows, TV shows, newspapers, magazines and so on. These platforms are important because they reach the bigger audience. You are not the only one to reach these platforms, so you get a ‘Yes’or ‘No’, it’s ‘On’ or ‘Off’. To increase this risk you need to use your own sender (for example a blog). Use your own sender to feed the big platforms when you are ‘On’ and use your own sender as the constant flow of your news, promotion and publicity.

“Doorbraak!” (“Breakthrough!”) is a very nice book with a great story about Kyteman and practical information you can use yourself. Nice detail, is the ‘free’ publicity Aalberts choose to promote his book. He distributed some of his books with a note: “read this and seven days and pass it through to someone else”. So people left the book in trains, passed it through to friends and family. So the same book was read by a bigger public. I like these ideas, but I bought the book. I have another very nice story on my book shelf :)

See you next time.

Whoopaa is launched! The next big thing in social media?

This is my third blog for Business Information Technology at Tilburg University. During weekends you have a lot of social activities. Bars, restaurants, sports facilities, theatres, all these places are crowded and very joinable. You have fun, laugh, meet people and nowadays it’s not very uncommon that some conversations are very business related. During one if these last quick conversations, a got my first introduction with Whoopaa…

In the beginning of this week three young business men launched their brand. Whoopaa is a social network intergration for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Three social media sites were a lot of people have accounts. So, sounds as a good idea: your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn account combined in one application on your phone.

But doesn’t have my three accounts three different purposes? I use my facebook for friends, my twitter for quick posts to tell what keeps me busy and to communicate for school with students and lectures, and my LinkedIn? I hardly use it. But I should use it to keep in touch with students of my earlier studies, people I met during internships, etc. So more business wise. Whoopaa, noticed these different purposes of different social media very well. With their application you can switch between your ‘private’ social media and ‘business’ social media by just one button! Fantastic, if you want to post a picture of a great party? Only for your friends on facebook! And when you wonder how things going at your last internship company, just check LinkedIn! Simpely by switching one button. The application will be available at the end of February, but I already saw a very quick preview of a demo version. Your social pages will appear in blue on your screen, your business pages will appear in black on your screen. You can switch in between with just one button (like you switch from picture to video mode on the Iphone). Easy and clear.
Whoopaa doesn’t only combine these three existing social media sites in one application. They also add certain things. Like the Whoopaa timeline. This unique timeline shows you a perfect overview of all your activities. This will make it easier to have control over all your different pages. Besides the timeline Whoopaa offers a social media integration. Therefore, you won’t miss any update, message or post because your whoopaa will be integrated in your social pages. Whoopaa shows you very clear with post is sent from witch media (Twitter or Facebook) and if it’s social or business (LinkedIn). Besides the three existing social media, Whoopaa gives you also the opportunity for new Whoopaa contacts. Like a new social media.
I sketched a scene at the beginning of this blog which I think is not very uncommon for the most of you. As a student or business man you work on your social and business network. Social media are playing a bigger role in this more and more. I think Whoopaa offers a unique option to keep your business and social activities divided on your social media. You don’t want to share everything with this business environment. Whoopaa gives you the opportunity to manage all your social media through one platform, but keep your privacy in consideration like you want to. So if you’re tired by switching between your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts all time, start thinking about Whoopaa.

I like the idea because I agree with the philosophy that it’s getting very crowded with all those social media where I need to catch up with. Therefore also, I don’t see a big opportunity for Whoopaa as a new social media. That makes it even more chaotic! But the idea of one social media platform in one App on my phone, sounds very interesting. I am curious for the new Iphone application at the end of February. You need to be able to use it on your phone. But will there be an Android App as well (to reach a bigger target group)?

Whoopaa is young, enthusiastic and there is a good idea. But will it be the next big thing?

What do you think?

See you next time,

thijs.

check also: WWW.WHOOPAA.COM

Twittering a revolution

She wanted to get rid of the regime of Mubarak in Egypt. She didn’t know that it was possible. Internet activist Mona from Cairo turned out to be a keystone during the revolution in Egypt the last weeks.

My cousin is a cameraman for the Dutch national news. During his first days shooting the revolution in Egypt, he met Mona. A 24 year old internet activist. Somewhere in an old apartment building in Cairo, Mona built a social media centre. From this place they collect and spread out a non-stop flow of information about the protests on the streets in the whole country. In a country as Egypt where 60% of the people lives beyond the poverty line, Twitter and Facebook are only accessible for the higher educated students. But by organizing this small group all together on the 25th of January, the national media attention spreaded out their voices over the rest of Egypt. The mass got the message and a revolution was born. Egyptian Google manager Wael Ghonim got kept responsible for this first major protest and got arrested. Besides starting the revolution through social media, by all this tweets and posts activists are also able to keep the momentum of revolt. As Mona told my cousin: “I saw people beaten up with batons, rubber bullets and teargas. They separate as a group, but reorganize in a couple of minutes and keep on going with their protest”. That quick reorganization, the keeping of the momentum of revolt, is made possible by the posts and tweets on Twitter and Facebook.

Besides keeping the momentum, the social media are also very useful for support. Because of the social media, people all over the world can support the activists by posting messages and Tweets. The activists got moral support out of all these worldwide posts. And from the other hand, we all got informed very quickly and very well because of all the international journalists who were in Egypt and sent messages, pictures and video’s back home. Mubarak recognized this online threat and shut down the Egyptian internet. Mona kept going on Twitter. She had a Blackberry Twitter application. Something Mubarak couldn’t reach. Such as he couldn’t reach the international journalists. They keep on filming, taking pictures and sending Tweets. They became a target of violence by the pro-Mubarak people. My cousin got threaded, beaten and literally runned for his life. They left all their equipment, because that was the only chance to leave the country safe…

Today is Saturday, February 12th. We all know that Mubarak left his office yesterday. Fortunately the people in Egypt ended a very bad period of thirty years and they can start building a new future. Wael Ghonim got out of jail. I am happy for the people in Egypt. I admirer Mona’s and Ghonim’s work, courage and effort. I am glad that my cousin got home safe.

Keep in mind that we were witnesses of the first Twitter Revolution in the world.

See you next time,

thijs

My cousin shooting a revolution in Egypt:

Welcome to Jewels, Apples and Eggs

I welcome you on my first blog. The next ten weeks I will post messages about my study Business communication and Digital Media (BDM) at the Tilburg University. Just random, anything that crosses my mind during one of my classes, walking on the campus, waiting for the train or studying at home could be the inspiration for a new blog. It started as an assignment for the course Business Information Technology, but probably I am going to like this. I appreciate any forwards, reactions, questions or messages referring to my blog.

Sometimes people are asking me why I study Communication. I like talking, I like sharing visions, I want to hear the stories of other people, I want to understand other ones decisions in life (maybe that’s why I like to read autobiographies?), let’s say that I am a normal young guy who is filling his backpack with life experiences and information. One of the things I start liking during my education the last years ( I studied Sportsmarketing, Communication Design and now BDM) is the communication of companies. That’s very wide I know, but I like the creative and funny commercials, the ideas of companies to communicate to customers, how they try to build a business network, how these companies try to manage this relations, the struggle of companies how to use social and other new media (sometimes very successful and sometimes too stupid), and so on, and so on. Thinking of all those things which I like about the communication in businesses, I make the conclusion that communication is the only tool that can distinguish your business of other businesses. There is no business without any competitors. Every product of service is offered more than ones. Think about everything you paid money for the last year, with all those purchases were decisions involved. Which brand, which product, are you going to buy it online or offline etc. Untill the time that the nano technology will gives us the opportunity to develop a new kind of products, communication will be ‘the’ tool.

This asks for a lot of creativity and that’s why I really like this next example of a jewellery store in Den Bosch. As a jewellery store in Den Bosch, you are not the only one. So you start thinking about something that will increase your name popularity. Jeweller Verdonk created a run on their Facebook page and on their shopping window. As many jewellery stores, Verdonk has nice watches, bracelets, necklaces and earrings. But on some of them was no price tag attached. One day a watch appeared in the shopping window accompanied by a little note: ‘for an apple and an egg’. Funny joke or a nice way to give your sales some attention, were the most reactions. Until, somebody really entered the store with just an apple and an egg. It turned out to be a promotional stunt! That guy bought a very nice watch for literally an apple and an egg. The same day, Jeweller Verdonk communicated their first prize winner through Facebook. Everybody started checking their website and facebook for the next clue. People started to talk about it on the streets and passing the shopping window more and more for clues. The next watch, with the next note: “For one Dutch guilder”. Within a very short period of time the second prize winner was a fact, some one still had an old Dutch guilder and got a brand new watch for that.

This example shows the creativity of a local business. There are probably ten Jewellery stores in downtown Den Bosch. Verdonk used creativity and new media to introduce itself in the business. Creative, funny and effective. They didn’t spent millions on a campaign, that’s not realistic for a local business. The distinguished themselves of the competitors by a funny, creative and modern way of communication. And that’s what I like. That’s why I keep filling my backpack with this study. Cheers to Jewels, Apples and Eggs.

See you next time,

thijs