24 hours of happiness!: Social Media lessons from Pharell's new video.

After years of success, there comes a time when some people can just start doing whatever they want. Pharell Williams is one of those people, although despite how many years have past, he still puts passion and innovation to his work to break the boundaries.

Just today, I shared on Twitter this article which first lesson to become socially engaged is to “dothings differently”. Well, Pharell has (and lets considerate him as a brand). 

He launched the first 24-hour-long music video. And anyone would think “what the heck for?” No matter his reasons, the video made it to every news channel, just for being the first of his kind.

It is not on YouTube, but it’s own platform called 24hoursofhappy (“Happy” is the performed song by the way). 

This means:

Direct clicks

What every brand wants. People are actually going in to this page designed exclusively to showcase Pharell’s new idea. If he made a bet with any brand to prove he could make it and get those direct clicks, he won.

Impact

You must have seen it in the news. Everywhere. Shared by your friends. And now in this blog. I bet, if you haven’t; now you want to see it.

“Shareability”

That 24-hours-long doesn’t mean you can share it. Actually, Pharell thought about this strategically, and the platform is designed so that you can share just your favorite part.

Viral and catchy

The tune gets deep in your subconscious. I’m sure that if you see the whole video, not at once but a few hours at the time, you’ll easily learn the whole Happy song that is constantly repeated along.

I read in “The Guardian” that by the end of the video Pharell has exhorted the viewer to “clap along” 8,640 times (would this involve a subliminal message?).

A little influencers help

The video also involves the appearances of some celebrities like Magic Johnson, Odd Future, Jimmy Kimmel and Steve Carell.

In the end I think I shouldn’t ask what’s your favorite part of Pharell’s new video, but what’s your favorite “time”?

Feed junkie

Whatsapp. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Pinterest. LinkedIn. Personal E-mail. School E-mail. Work E-mail. Blog.

The listed above are the main networks I’m engaged to every day. During the past months, I’ve been working intensively with managing multiple accounts, and this has kind of given me the sensation of being packed of it.

It’s funny because social media supposedly gives us insights of other people’s life. These channels are supposed to makes us feel part of their best moments, closer to their feelings, especially from those who are way.

But what’s really happening is that, lately, I’m not really paying much attention to what anyone posts on social media but me. Sounds selfish, I know. But this is probably one of the most sincere analyses I’ve written lately.

Am I becoming a “feed junkie”?

I ask myself this kind of modern-existential questions every once in a while.

The fact is that with the imposed fake necessity of keeping the pace of my updates and the rest of the time that I expend “living” the real life, I ain’t got much time left (or desire) to keep in track with everyone else’s lives. I’m in, see what people have to say about what I posted, and I’m out. That’s it.

Then someone asks me “did you see the pictures I posted about my trip”? And you probably know what the answer is. If I'm not directly involved in it, I might not. (If I wasn’t tagged there, forget about it).

Only when I’m waiting on a line or for the bus to arrive, I get into the stories of the rest of the world, but this might be no more that 10 minutes. And by my amounts of shared content, people think I’m connected all the time, but the truth is I’m more disconnected than ever.

The interesting paradox here is that by being so into “social”, I’ve become an “antisocial”.

Is this happening to you as well?

If we reach a point where the answer of this last question is mostly yes, there will come the evolution, and the networks would have to be reinvented again to drag us back in into their game.

More about the experience, less about shopping.

Last Thursday I visited the Uniqlo store in 34^th street. Lot of people had mentioned me the store, so I decided to give it a try. I really liked it. The design, the structure, the clean layout, the way everything is so organized, the restrooms and the spaced halls. The store mainly offers basics in all possible colors. And some pieces that you could easily substitute with cheaper versions found in department stores. But after being around other packed places, I liked shopping there. It was comfortable and satisfactory.

This pic is from Uniqlo at 5th Avenue
Taken from JSBG

 The shopping experience is one thing you can’t trade. And that’s something managers must understand these days. People is doing more online-shopping these days, so when they decide to go out to store, they’re looking for that temporary fulfilling feeling that comes after purchasing something new and not for a stressful time.

That reminded me an article I recently read at BOF, about how stores like Opening Ceremony are concerned about creating a whole “retail entertainment” strategy to bring in those customers that use to play the shipping and return game.

What we are seeing now is more in-store parties, fashion shows, tastings and sprees. Stores that are hiring producers to create their own music sets and fashion films (found on LinkedIn a company focused on this) to showcase inside the establishment’s screens. And shelves that are being displayed following a mobile-friendly strategy or even integrating e-commercefunctions in the operations of the physical store.

The pushers

As in other aspects, Apple has been one of the innovators when it comes to In-store experience. The model of their Apple stores, have been reproduced by other technology brands that want their customers to try out their products.

Apple Store in 5th Avenue

Make the store an interesting place to visit

Architecture matters. As if it was a touristic venue, Starbucks opened last year a store built out of recycled shipping containers, converting this in a spot anyone would like to visit and take a picture of. They’ve been using this kind of strategy for years and it has worked to build brand equity.

What else can you offer?

You can give something extra to your customers by partnering with another company that can add up to your in-store customer experience. Like Verizon did last year with Kitchen 67, offering good food with bites of technology to their visitors.

What experiences have you enjoy lately in your favorite stores? 

Dominicana Moda 2013: Giannina Azar

Giannina Azar siempre presenta piezas muy usables, por eso suele ser una de las preferidas de las masas. Este año fue "a todo color" para ella, con piezas muy elaboradas y cargadas de diminutos detalles. 

La colección se llamó Tribal. La puesta en escena estuvo bellísima, con la pasarela transformada en una selva de bambú. Y la gente enloqueció cuando se vio a Amara La Negra desfilar bellísima como toda una modelo. 

Amara La Negra

Carlina Durán

Fotos del Fan Page de Dominicana Moda

Dominicana Moda 2013: Sissy Bermúdez

Sissy Bermúdez es una de las diseñadoras criollas con mayor trayectoria. Sin embargo, por alguna razón nunca había participado en Dominicana Moda. Pienso que como ella, muchos diseñadores más tradicionales no habían entendido lo importante que resulta esta plataforma para la exposición de sus marcas, aún si ya tienen un mercado fiel. 

Lo importante es que con su participación, esta diseñadora celebró 30 años en la moda dominicana. Su colección se llamó "Origen", marcada por un toque de etnicismo. La paleta de colores cambió del blanco más puro, hasta el más oscuro negro de la noche.

Fotos del FanPage de Dominicana Moda

Readability!

For my Social Media class this week I was asked to talk about a social tool that I like. I choose Readability, an app that I discovered recently and that I wanted to share with you guys. So this is what i wrote: 

Readability View

With so many things to read on the web and so many content to curate to feed our final project account (@SocialVilleNY), my personal account (@YanerisM) and to contribute to our class’s hashtag (#Mkmc5102), there’s a lot of interesting readings I come across everyday but I don’t have the time to read them all completely while I’m surfing pages.

I already have a million bookmark folders I never come back to. So, to keep saving pages this way was not an option.   I considered using Evernote, but they had so many features on their description video that I felt a little overwhelmed. I wanted something simple as I like simple things. 

"Read comfortably - Anytime, Anywhere!"

That’s when I noticed the Readability button. I spotted it in one of those pages, right next to the usual sharing buttons. Readability is an app that lets you bookmark something you want to save for later. It saves the articles for you in a clean format, without the advertisements and you can even choose to read them in your Kindle format, if you have one. You can organize your readings in an archive and also add tags to classify them better.

Sharing options in Readability

For me is perfect, because it works in a very simple way. You log in using your Facebook or Twitter account (where you can also share what you’re reading). And you may also install the Readability button on your browser, which works exactly like the “Pin it” button from Pinterest.

Readability button