Week 5 Original: The Influence of Social Media

Recently, I found it strange that "eating fried chicken and drinking beer in snow days" suddenly became a hot topic in Asia. McDonalds and KFC, as well as beer retailers in Asia area, are enjoying the sales increasement of fried chicken and beer. More surprisingly, not only fried chicken and beer, but also certain brands of cosmetics and clothes have their sales enhanced within last two months. So what brought to this phenomenon?  The answer is, a famous Korean drama, "My love from another star," draws the attention of Asian people. 

MV of My love from another star

"My love from another star" is so clever to make good use of the powerful influence of social media to help advertise the drama and embrace the groundswell. After the drama came out, it took no more than a week to become a hot issue in various social media. After a couple of weeks , almost everyone is talking about the scenes and lines in the drama, no matter whether he/she is a fan of it. This is the influence of word of mouth. Just as Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff explain in the Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies, "[word of mouth] is self-reinforcing. Hear it from one person, and it's intriguing. Hear it from five or ten, even if you didn't know them before, and it has to be true." Now, no one can stop the drama from going viral.

The drama mainly talks about an alien landed on earth from another star 400 years ago in the Joseon Dynasty and had fallen in love with a Korean top star in the modern society. In one of the episodes, the actress mentioned that it was the most enjoyable thing that having chicken and bear when it snows in winter. Right after this episode came out, having chicken and bear in snow days became  the No. 1 topic in Weibo, having over 3,500,000 posts related to chicken and beer. People were talking about this "fashion" crazily. Under this circumstance, more and more people became aware of My love from another star, even though some people were not interested in Korean drama at all!

the official poster of My love from another star 

As a Korea drama fan, I am also addicted to this drama since it first launched. Let's see what My love from another star has done in social media to increase its fame. Firstly, it applies a variety of social media tools in order to gain the popularity. The drama creates topics that attracts people's attention on Facebook, Twitter, Line, Youtube, Weibo, Instagram and Wikipedia. Impressively, the director was so smart to use scenes to emphasize the importance of using social media. The actors and actress in the drama always use different social media to contact each other. This definitely helps catch audiences' attention. 

"My love from another star" official page on Facebook

Secondly, The staffs of the drama established an official page on Facebook, and updated the news of the drama everyday. We can see there are nearly ten thousand fans following that page. Compared to many other dramas, this number is not impressive though, you have to notice that the major target audiences are not able to log in to Facebook. Besides that, the staffs also applies "Line" to increase the fame of the drama. Line invested the drama without knowing the rapid increasement of the drama's popularity. Now, Line is one of the most famous and frequently used social media in Asia.

                                     The leading actress is using "Line"

Twitter is another social media that all the fans discuss about this drama. Among these fans, they do not only come from Asia, but also from other areas in the world. It is Twitter that connects these fans with each other, providing the platform for them to exchange their thoughts on this Korean drama.

Fans' discussion of the drama on Twitter

In this case, we can find how important it is to utilize social media tools in publication. I will keep on following this drama and see what social media applications can bring to increase the reputation of "My love from another star".

Week 1 Original: "LINE" Up the World, Free Chat Together!

Are you still sending messages to your friends, your family, and your colleagues by texting or email? Well, Line's debut shocked the world. It changed the way we communicated with each other. 

“Hello World, We Are LINE!” This was the first greeting that Line said to its worldwide customers.  Shortly after it came out, the number of users increased greatly from 47 million native Japanese users to over 230 millions worldwide users. So what is Line? Here is a short video to give you a brief concept of Line.

"We are LINE USA!"

Isn't it fun, my friend? As shown in the video above, we know that Line uses a lot of stickers to attract people from all over the world. Line believes that "expressive stickers convey more than words."  "We hope Line can become the common language in the world," says the Chief Executive Officer of Line. 

       Stickers are very popular on Line

So why Line becomes popular around the world? Let's see how convenient Line is and how smart the marketing strategy it uses. My own experience can be an example. When I was in the study abroad program in Europe last summer, my American friends always told me that their phone bills were incredibly high due to the oversea communication fee. Additionally, the signal was so poor that they seldom called their friends and family. However, they could always see that I was on the phone or sending voice messages, which made them curious about me. Yes, I was using Line. All the text messages, phone calls and video chats were FREE! And all I need was a

smart phone. Line didn't just save my money, but also save my time. Its pretty stickers were not just for fun, but also very useful. For example, I could send an "eating sticker," a "party sticker" and a "happy face sticker" instead of typing words to tell others that I was having fun at a long table dinner with my group mates. During the project discussion time, I even set up a group chat, inviting my group mates to discuss our group project on Line because we went to different places to do researches.

Tens of thousands of stickers can be chosen to use

Using free apps such as Line is a trend. Users do not need to worry about which network carrier they are using because they can use Line freely even without a Sim-card. Moreover, Line is very easy to use, even grandpa and grandma can learn how to use it in 10 minutes. If you are too lazy to type, that's fine; just press a button, hold it, and talk; when finish, remove your finger, then a voice message is sent. Want to share your favorite photos to your friends? Sure! There is a "Timeline" function on Line. You can post everything you like on Timeline just like using Facebook -- but Line is more private and safer. Being a social media application, Line can let you add whoever you like, and block whoever you hate. An interesting function of Line is "Shake it!" This function allows you to add friends by accident. By accident I mean the system will help you find another person who is shaking his/her phone somewhere in Africa when you are shaking your phone at your home, then Line will "line you up" with that person, and you can make a decision that whether to be friend with that person or not. It is fun, isn't it? 

LINE: Use It Anytime, Anyplace!

There are still a lot can be talked about Line. Line is not only an app simply for chatting, but also for entertaining and social. It is growing fast, and become more and more popular. Meanwhile, more and more functions are added on Line, such as searching, billing, shopping, and playing games. Last year, Line finally entered North America market, which is very different from any other markets in the world. Let's see how far Line can be in the coming future.

Business models and strategies

 

Reference:
http://www.inside.com.tw/2013/08/21/line-event-2013