Branding

Michaela Tuomenoksa
Assignment: Branding 9.6.2015

Sorry guys for not being active the past two weeks! I've been super busy and had to do a lot of work, but now i'm back on track with a new computer and time! So...


Branding - to make yourself noticeable

Branding is seen as a very important subject for companies. When I think about branding and it's importance I immediately think about a company's visual imago (due to my profession). For me I think the visual appearance is one of the most important areas when you want to turn your company into a brand. But of course it's also important to sell quality products or provide quality service, what ever the company sells/does. But alone the service might not be enough to turn a company in to a brand, it need the whole set. Unfortunately I've seen companies that are in my opinion brands, but rely too much on "being a brand" than actually keeping up the brand. How could I say it better.... They get lazy once they hit their branding goal! 

But about branding myself:

I take my profession very seriously and I aim to be one of Turku's most successful art directors ever, someday at least. That's quite a dream and a goal, but setting those high goals for me might actually push me into doing what I need to do to be successful! There are so many graphic designers and professionals wanting to make it, so how do you stand out from the crowd? Well first of all - be in the social media! Or you don't have to be in all the social media sites, but you should definitely be aware of what the social media provides, what's in and out at the time and witch social media site would be the best for your client to get in touch with their clients and brand themselves. You're working with branding, advertisement and visuality, so do your homework by knowing the social media inside and out.

www.michaelatuomenoksa.com (not active anymore)

I brand myself by having a homepage (unfortunately I've closed it down for now because I am employed and did not feel like paying for a domain when I'm not in need of a job), but I have a screenshot to show you. My advice is to keep things simple, tell the visitors what you can do, link some preferences and a portfolio. First impressions are important and you want to brand yourself in a professional way. I chose to have my homepage in english because I want foreign companies to understand what I'm capable of if they want to offer me an employment. By using english I also give the impression of being more international (I speak fluent Finnish, swedish and english). I think 

As I wrote in my recent post I also use LinkedIn. Getting to know people and getting more connections will get you further and people will know who you are. But it's also very important not to burn bridges! Do that and your career might be done. I was at a advertisment gala in January with my company and there where a lot of other advertisement companies from Turku. It was really interesting to see them, see what kind of projects they've done and just benchmark. 

To reach successful branding you need the be active, active in the social media, active in your work, getting new connections and just honestly working yourself up to where you want to be! Its not easy at all, but I'm sure that with a determined attitude you will make it. 

Slideshare, Youtube and Instagram as tools

ELLA HÄRKÖNEN
ASSIGNMENT: WEEK 7

With this assignment I must say that I did not fully understand what needed to be done? So, if I misunderstood, bare with me!

Slideshare was a new thing for me, I have not visited before! I found this Finnish based slideshow called "sosiaalinen media kasvun ja  myynnin työkaluna" (social media as a tool for growth and sales)  that was 112 brilliant pages long. It certainly could have included an audio as well to explain all the details, but all in all it was really great. One or two catchphrases a page and a photo, it was easy -and interesting- to scroll through.

Usage of YouTube in marketing

Finding an example to this one did not take me too long: Red Bull. Like the drink, LOVE their usage of social media space!

Red Bull is an energy drink that is associated with athletes. They are known for throwing big surfing competitions, cross biking events and supporting these dangerous ways of sports. They update their Youtube account often and is always filled with inspirational sport videos. Seriously, check them out! The cool thing is that they don't promote themselves per se, the athletes wear Red Bull gear and that's that.

Instagram and companies

Like discussed in an earlier blog post, if the company does not have a good social media page, what is the point of marketing them anyway?

Almost everyone at my age has an Instagram-account and when not posting selfies or  pictures of food, browsing through beautiful photos is a good way to spend time.

Of course, as companies has already figured out -one can promote a company without meaning to do so. For example, my friend posted a photo her wearing her new Saint Lauren purse and tagged the company. When I post photos of me and my co-workers, I add #Stadium hashtag. Even countries and cities are benefitting from Instagram, since when people travel they love adding their new holiday photos with the hashtag of the place.

The customers don't need an extra push to share company's photos: adding the company's name as a hashtag is just the way of using Instagram. A total win-win situation in my opinion!

Branding

ELLA HÄRKÖNEN
ASSIGNMENT: BRANDING 

These days I Facebook everyone. I had agreed to meet a new personal trainer to get new ideas on exercising and before meeting him, I Facebooked him to find out what kind of a person he is.

When I got my internship placement, I asked my supervisor afterwards that why did they choose me over the other candidates. She complimented my interview skills and said that my social media accounts seemed clean enough.

Depending on what kind of an image you want to give about yourself, branding is important. If you are a starting DJ who wants to have an image of a party boy, all the drinking photos can be fun in Facebook and Instagram. However, if applying to an office job with great responsibility, perhaps everything related to you online should be absolutely clean.

Creating a brand for an individual is relatively similar to creating a brand to a company.  First you need to decide on which kind of a brand you want to have, then through all the channels push it through. Maintaining is important -you don't want to waste the good start you have! All sorts of feedback is welcomed, either constructive criticism or just plain compliments.

So is it important to brand yourself? Absolutely. The more the better! Also in my opinion, the more professional the better. It surely can't hurt no one!

Many ways of using Facebook

ELLA HÄRKÖNEN
ASSIGNMENT 3

Other than being just a place to share your photos and thoughts, Facebook is also a great place to get advertised.
A lot of companies have taken advantage on that. Like Michaela mentioned on her blog post on the same subject, it IS a completely waste of marketing if a company doesn't have an informative Facebook-page.
What makes Facebook such a great marketing platform is the cheapness of it. It simply costs nothing for the company to update its Facebook page (well, the person doing that is getting paid, which is an expense, but you got the point!) and it is easy to do it. It also reaches people really fast! For example if a company is having a one day sales, it can just be informed in Facebook and people see it quickly.

What personally annoys me though, is how full of advertisements Facebook is this day. However, it blabs about something important: companies do use Facebook. I did a school assignment on Facebook and its innovative journey two years ago and was surprised of its corporate side. Companies are in a big role of Facebook so getting something "back" from it is the point of their usage.

The company, whose Facebook page I took a closer look is Coca-Cola. They have over 90 million people liking their page, which means that 90 million people gets updates of their favorite beverage company at least once a day.

What I think that is special about Coca-Cola's Facebook page is that even though it is an American company, they have people in Finland doing marketing in Finnish. It would have been easy for them to just do mass-marketing in English, but instead do it with each country's language.

All of the different Coca-Cola products (for example Coca-Cola Light etc.) have their own pages. A fan of Coca-Cola Zero can find new updates from its own page. I find this to be neat!

Using social media in job search

For the year 2014 I had two goals: open a Twitter account and make a professional LinkedIn- profile. I succeeded with both of my goals so now in 2015 I am reading other people's Tweets and getting emails daily from LinkedIn.

I witness job opportunities pretty frequently in social media -in Facebook and obviously LinkedIn- but haven't applied to any job through them yet. If I were to search for the job, I would totally picture myself searching through social media as well.

Blogs and businesses, part 3

ELLA HÄRKÖNEN
ASSIGNMENT 2, PART 3

Wikipedia, this website that every student has a love/hate-relationship with. Yes, I admit, when studying for a long hours has made its trick, it is so easy to go to Wikipedia and study theories from there instead. The only problem is that anyone (seriously, anyone) can write there and the accordance of those theories I just studied are questionable.

The Wikipedia-page I gave a closer look was Hillsong United's page. They are a Christian band from Australia and they are indeed facing some problems.

Not only do they have problems with references they are also lacking verifications. In order to promote the band better, I honestly think that the PR-team for the band should do its bets to improve the Wikipedia page as well. Knowledge is power and by providing lots of information (that is verified, of course) the band gains and gives knowledge based power.

This example shows how no matter what business you are at, the internet sides -and yes, that includes Wikipedia- has to be good and clear.

Assignment 2. (The good)

I chose to write about a blog related to independent movie news. http://www.indiewire.com/

It is a blog inside a main page It is also a commercial website. It is now owned by SnagFilms. It was first launched as a newsletter in 1996 focusing on news service for the independent films. But the website itself was launched in 1998 and also redesigned in 2011. It is meant to cover the lesser-known film events ignored by the mainstreams. It is good in its own way, since there is competition, they work hard to get some news and give something to the viewers to read about. There is something new in the blog every few hours. http://www.indiewire.com/blogs

What’s the purpose of the blog? The blog is made to provide news and rumors about what happening in the world of independent movies and documentaries. There seems to be number of writers writing on this blog. The website itself, write reviews of movies, updates about TV shows and movies it has all it takes to be one of the same old entertainment web pages. Because of the number of writers/bloggers, and the wideness of entertainment business, there are many things to cover and there is always something to write about. In my view this blog/website is successful because it has been working on the field for many years. This company seems to have wide network mostly all related to movies and critics. There are blogs from year 2004 to 2015 and also there are multiple posts per day. It seems to be one of the renowned website among TV-movies fanatics. I commented on a bloggers post asking why he blogs. The answer is yet to come I shall update if he replies.

I visited the Wikipedia of the indiewire itself. There seems to be information about who works in the company and how it all started and the current situation. There isn’t everything mentioned in detail but one can make a picture of what it is from reading the available information.

Blogs and businesses, part 2

ELLA HÄRKÖNEN
ASSIGNMENT 2, PART 2

Like I mentioned in my first blog post, I read a lot of blogs myself. Just to get an idea of how many blogs indeed, I took a screenshot from Bloglovin' - the platform where the blogs I follow gets updated.

The difference between good blogs and great blogs is the time and effort the blogger puts towards her work. Anyone can open a blog and write stuff there, but if you lack passion and focus, the readers will notice it.

One of my absolute favorite blogger's is Kenza Zouiten. She is Swedish (seriously, what is the thing with Swedish bloggers?! They are all so amazing!), born the same year as me (1991) and simply gorgeous. She has her own clothing line IvyRevel, has appeared in numerous of TV shows such as Let's Dance (Swedish version of So You Think You Can Dance) and done too many covers too keep account. But what makes her popular?
1) She is drop dead gorgeous. Hello, is it just me or does she just look perfect in every photo she posts? Being beautiful is not a criteria to start a blog, but it surely helps you on your path!

2) The effort she puts into her blog. She posts at least twice a day _every_single_day_ . Including weekends, holidays etc. Bloggers don't really have the luxury of taking time of, eh? Not only does she always write something witty or funny, she also posts photos that could be directly from a fashion magazine.

3) The way she writes. A lot of times bloggers pave away this picture of being perfect and living perfect life but she is not scared to tell embarrassing stories of what happened and being completely honest with the littlest things regarding on her life. For example, once a reader asked her about her exercise routines and she answered what routines? I'd rather have a smoke than go for a running and I thought that that was so funny,

4) Again, the dedication. She makes serious money with the blog: every time she recommends something, it is sold out within minutes. The blog is her job and she takes it seriously.

Ps. She gets hundreds of comments to each post and doesn't always answer. SO, my question was left out without answering. Nevertheless, i love her!

Blogs and businesses

ELLA HÄRKÖNEN
ASSIGNMENT 2, PART 1

A confession: I LOVE food. My favorite kind of day is one where I have time to go on a market, buy fresh and local ingredients and cook a delicious supper. Cook while listening to Ed Sheeran, perhaps having a glass of wine and just relaxing and making something heavenly good. Oh yes, Hi everyone, I am Ella, and I am addicted to great food.

Jokes aside- since I love cooking, I keep browsing for new ideas online. An essential for my requirements is that everything I make and consume HAS to be fresh. I am a celiac and hence by allergic to many things and since already watching what I am eating I have made a decision to always choose a healthy choice. I have been fortunate enough to travel and live almost everywhere in the world and honestly, my favorite parts have been discovering new delicious things (please don't tell anyone that while doing my hike at Himalayas, I ONLY ate rice, that would ruin my reputation!)

So when combining healthy and fresh with new frisky ideas, I go to Whole Foods food blog: Whole Story. They have great recipes, quality photos and fun text. It is visually satisfying to browse through the blog and the recipes are SO good! Warning: do not look at the blog when hungry.

When having a company blog it is essential to make it reflect your company's business. When I worked at the Embassy of Finland in Kathmandu, our blog was pretty dull. But you know what, it simply had to be to gain respect. No one would have trusted the word of an Ambassador if he would have posed in a swimming suit and discussed about what he had for lunch that day.

In case you are a young, fun company -such as Whole Foods- you have a niche to play around a little bit more: use twisting sayings and make the people drool with the photos. It's all about the business you are at.

Being a visual person, I think that photos and the lay out is the key. These days people don't have that much time to read kilometer long blog posts (yet I am writing one again...) so photos has to be clear and quality ones.

So looking at the bad example next...

I mentioned I am a celiac, right? So, Schär owns a big market share in gluten free items in Europe. When finding a food brand, I love looking at the recipes at their websites and blogs to get more out of the ingredients. And this is what happened:

Wa-wa-waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Italian or German, seriously? I love how their motto is: We care. In English.

Turns out that more important than big luminous photos or fun witty text is actually the language. If a multinational-company is failing to provide texts in English, so be it.

Company blog can be a deal breaker in so many ways. The worst scenario in my opinion is to start a blog and not update it (or start one and not having it in English). NOTHING is worse than seeing a text: updated in 2012. Having a clear, accessible blog can help companies to boost their business and win more customers!

Social Media and Me

Marjo

My first post in this blog! Better late than never and many more to come, right?

I use social media in studying to keep in touch with my group members and class mates, to share information and to organize the projects we have. In my private life I use social media mainly for networking and sharing information and to know what is going on – I read blogs, check Instagram daily, hang on Facebook way too much and check Twitter and LinkedIn every once in a while. At work I am a member of the company’s Facebook admin group in the customer service team. I do not plan or publish the posts but I reply to the comments and questions in the posts.

The type of my profile depends on the platform. My profile is not open to the public if the application does not require it. For example in Facebook I have different privacy settings for different groups and people who may view my profile.

In general social media is very time consuming – it is way too easy to spend time just clicking and browsing back and forth.

Social Media in my life

ASSIGNMENT 1
ELLA HÄRKÖNEN

Trying to identify oneself apart from Social Media seems like a challenge these days. How many likes did you get on your latest Instagram selfie, how many friends do you have on Facebook, what is the current state on your LinkedIn profile and -for crying out load- if my tweet doesn't get re-tweeted, what is the point of using Twitter anyway?
If I wouldn't drink tons of coffee, my head would spin from all of that.

Looking back my social media history, I started where many youngsters of my age -Michaela included- started: IRC-gallery. Gosh of the embarrassment flashbacks from looking back at that age! Nevertheless, it was a good learning platform: from the early age it got stuck to my head ONE CANNOT POST ANYTHING RECKLESS ONLINE. Luckily I was not the one learning the message by firsthand but a very unfortunate -and on that photo underaged drunk- girl from my class did. She certainly looks twice on what she posts these days!

From IRC-gallery to Messenger-chats, my teenager years were ludicrously spent away by chatting an hour a day with my friends. Only an hour though, because all my best friends were my neighbors and we actually spent time outside as well!

The first time I moved away from Finland without my family happened in 2010 when I was 18. I had a brilliant idea of writing a blog about my big adventures across the Atlantic sea and I wrote that blog for almost 3 years - all of the years I spent living abroad. The secret is out- this is not the first blog I'm writing to! Thank God, I don't have that old blog in anywhere public anymore with my continuous grammar mistakes and Photo Booth-selfies. Anyhow, last year I did both of my practical trainings abroad and wrote a blog then.

These days, being a 23 years old, the social media usage of my everyday life consists of Facebook, Instagram, blogs and Twitter. Somehow in my head that doesn't seem like much but writing it down it does look bigger! No longer am I not writing any other blog than this one -which is a good thing for the readers- but I myself love reading other blogs a lot.

I travel a lot and when being away, I feel like Instagram is a good platform to update your friends and family that I'm alive and doing goooood! Facebook is more of a habit that an actual posting place, but old habits do die hard.

When doing my second practical training in Canada, BC, twice a week I was working with the online marketing/social media team of the organization and oh man how much effort does it take to keep it all together. Comparing that with my personal accounts, it is a bit different. However unlike many people of my age, I do not like to have party-photos of myself online, because I see my personal accounts as my viral CV as well. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that that's bad publicity for an individual! One of my friends got headhunted based on her online accounts, so keeping that in mind, I want mine to be professional and clean- hence the removal of my old blog ;)

All in all, my social media usage is mild but continuous. Social media brings you a lot as long as you can keep your distance from your smartphone as well ;) !

Facebook in marketing communication

Michaela Tuomenoksa
Assignment 3

Today it's very common for companies to have a Facebook-page - it's free and it's an excellent place to interract with the target-group. I think it's a waste if companies don't use Facebook for advertisment and communication. When the main goal for a company is to sell and grow, every advertisment and marketing is crucial. What makes it even more easy is that you can find almost everything on Facebook and you don't have to go to the company's homepage to read about updates and discounts. Everything is in the social media today and that's the place to be if you want to reach out to your target-group. What I also find as a great thing about using Facebook for marketing is that companies make people a part of the company! They may have campaigns where people can take part in designing, photographing or what ever. I think it's a fun way to keep people intrested and aware of whats going on in the copmany.

When a company decides to create and use a Facebook-page they should make a plan about how they want to use it, for what, who updates the page and what is the goal. I have seen dosens of company Facebook-pages that eighter are successfull or not. First of all, don't update the page too much or too little. Depeding on the company 2-4 posts a day is enough. 

For example, the city of Turku updates their Facebook-page pretty often, but that's understandable. They post news and happenings like when Föri broke, they posted about it on Facebook (and also on their homepage ofcourse) and informed the people when it was working again.

I follow their page and I think it's very usefull, when ever something has happened or there's something I should know about I read it on Facebook. Ofcourse I read the news on Iltasanomat, but I'm always logged on Facebook so that's (unfortunetly haha) the quickest place for news to reach me. Once there was a train in Turku's railwaystation that had broke and there was some kind of acid (if I remember correctly) that had poured out of the tanks and the rescue department warned people to stay away from the area. I read about this on Facebook through Turku's page and would not have found out til later if I had read it on Iltasanomat. So the information really reaches people through Facebook.


Some companys update their Facebook-page way too often. They try too hard to be a part of the social media and often it just becomes annoying, because they don't have any intresting or relevant to post about, they try too hard. In everything - less is more! The posts should be short, informative and clear. I've also seen too many company posts that try to too hard to be funny or have a catch in the posts (but totally fail). You can have a catch in the post, but keep in mind that the post should still be understanable and not too complicated.

I have chosen our advertisment agency customer Cailap's Facebook-page for a closer analysis:

Cailap is a family business founded in 1977. They are one of Finland's most leading beauty supplier companies with 37 years of experience. They sell beauty products like jewlery, hair accessories, combs, sunglasses and everything between. I think they are very active in the social media and they know how to keep people intrested and aware of what's happening. They know how to advertise their business and they keep it simple.

Cailap uses Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. I think these social media pages are excellent for Cailap to use! On Facebook Cailap uses fresh pictures and makes short and clear posts. Working as a production-art director I can't emphasize enough how important it is to invest in good pictures and good advertisment! In the end good pictures sell us the products. People want to see concrete examples or inspiration ideas on how to use the products and this is very important in the food industry. If I see a raw steak it doesn't appeal to me... But put a grilled stake on a plate with sallad and dressing in a good environment - that's what will make me concider buying the product!

I really like Cailap's pictures. They are exactly what I am looking for in a good post and advert. Cailap uses their Facebook for advertising and informing people about what's going on. Their newest campaign is tutorial videos made by the advertisment agency I workt at. They post them on their Facebook page and advertise the campaing on other social media sites. This is a great campaign because so many women want to do beautiful hairstyles but don't know how to. These tutorials are simple and easy to do - but look amazing!

My use of Facebook and LinkedIn in job searching

I admit I haven't used these two social media sites for job searching so much... But I do believe it's a great place to search for jobs! Last fall I noticed two advertisment copmanies was searching someone for a position and I did search for the job. The first one, Vilperi Digimediatoimisto was searching for a graphic designer and they posted on Facebook that "send in a application and your CV before midnight and they will hire someone the next day. Well I sent my application two minutes before midnight and they got alot of applications. They did hire one person the next day but it wasn't me. I still thing it was a great way to look for a new employee!

The second company, advertisment agency Leimahdus was searching for a new graphic designer through Facebook. I saw their post and decided to apply for the job. They really liked my application and I made it to the interview! At the time I had searched for another graphic designer position and made it to another interview. I ended up getting the third job where I'm not, at Lycka Reklam as a production-art director. I'm so happy I got this job and I really enjoy working here.

But that's my short experince about searhing for a job on Facebook. I really recommend people doing that because you never know when a job position is available and the company may inform it first on Facebook! I have no experience searching for a job at LinkedIn even though I do have a LinkedIn profile. Right now i'm not even looking for a job so unfortunately I have no comments about that. I have seen people looking for jobs on LinkedIn and that's also a very good place to be in when you're eighter unemployed or employed. LinkedIn is great place for expanding your business connections!

My use of Social media

I still remember, creating a hi5 account for the first time. It was the first social networking website I was introduced to. It was almost a trend to have a hi5 account like it is to have a facebook account today. Then there was facebook which started to replace hi5 slowly. I have been using facebook for a long time, had few facebook accounts. I also have twitter, which I use once in a while but not as much as facebook. In the early years I was very much active on facebook. Commenting on photos, browsing friend’s accounts and updates, refreshing facebook wall, that was facebook for me. Sometimes, it was nice to find long lost friends in facebook. It was indeed helping to get connected with friends and loved ones. I am not that active in posting stuffs on facebook like I used to. I change pictures once in a while and share stuffs if I like and so on. I find chatting comfortable when communicating, and facebook has been one of the medium to do so. There is nothing in particular I use social media for lately. Its there and I visit it sometimes. There are few pages that I am member of and its nice to go through the updates or new articles.