Hair of the Dog Party

What sounds more relaxing than hanging out with some friends on a Sunday afternoon having some drinks? Doing it on the patio and bringing your dogs along. And that is exactly what Bark Happy did when they teamed up with Rock & Brews St. Louis in Chesterfield, MO to host their Hair of the Dog Party. 

The event took place on Rock & Brews St. Louis's newly refurbished indoor patio on Sunday, February 26th from 2-4pm and 50% of the proceeds went to Stray Rescue of St. Louis, MO. 

People in the community were able to buy tickets to the event which included a take-home goodie bag with an assortment of treats, prizes, and coupons. Tickets for the event were only $15 and came with about $80 worth of free gifts, so it was quite a deal. Plus if the person purchasing the ticket had the BarkHappy app installed on their phone then they got an additional 10% off the ticket price. 

The benefit consisted of several fun events such as an fastest dog treat eating contest for dogs and a raffle that included many goodies donated from places like Three Dogs Bakery in Chesterfield, MO. And if attendees could show their proof of BarkHappy app use, they received extra raffle tickets for free. Overall, the event went really well with many very satisfied customers. Bark Happy is known for such events as this, as they are a company centered around socializing dogs. For more information on any upcoming events or how their app works, contact their website at https://barkhappy.com/about/ or look them up on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Barkhappy/. 

T-Mobile, Killin' The Social Media Game??

In today's modern society social media is the way to get the news, to keep informed, to research topics or brands and T-Mobile is doing it right!

The company is known for being one of the best when it comes to audience interaction on social media. They answer over 85% of their customer inquiries on Facebook, not to mention the content they put out on top of it. But it's not just Facebook, T-Mobile promotes on many different social media sites, the company has a Twitter account, a Snapchat, an Instagram page, and they even put videos out on Youtube. There is even a "Press" selection on the company website that directs you to the "T-Mobile Newsroom" where consumers can view the company's media relations, blogs, news, and social media postings all in one place.

However, I will say this, the Twitter account featured on the page is that of John Legere, the CEO of T-Mobile. Therefore most of the posts of the social media portion of the "Press" page of T-Mobile's website, are just daily posts from his personal life such as his travels, dinners, and extracurricular activities. Personally I am not sure if I was looking for T-Mobile social media, that I would want to be constantly bombarded with what the CEO was having for dinner that night or what pants he wore on his plane ride that day. If that was the kind of information I wanted, I would make an effort to follow him personally.

And just to be clear, it is not like the actual company does not have it's own Twitter page, because there it does. There is an official T-Mobile Twitter page that is used to just as frequently (at least once a day) to promote the company, the products, the deals, the packages, the benefits of doing business with them, etc. So why there is a need to run the CEO's Twitter as one of the featured on the company's social media portion of the website is beyond me. Quite frankly, I believe Mr. John Legere's Twitter account needs to be taken off the site, it's distracting and taking away from the promotional posts from the company. But everyone has their own opinion and I would love to hear some others. I will post a link to the website press room below, let me know what your thoughts are. Am I over reacting to much? Do you think the CEO's Twitter should stay linked up? Do you think it is beneficial?

There is one other thing that I personally do not agree with about T-Mobile's use of social media however, was the start of the #DontGetVerizoned. I just think for one company to directly name and attack another is so tacky and unprofessional. And it makes it seem as if the company can't just let their product or service stand on it's own, but instead can only thrive by slandering others and making other companies look bad to try and lift their own. I would rather that T-Mobile did a generalization technique like many other companies do when they say "our competitors" in their advertisements and use a generalized image with it. The advertisement is much more tasteful that way and even though competitors are mentioned as a means of comparison, the are no direct companies named because focusing on their poor performance is the point of your company's ad anyway, the focus is your company's excellent performance. What do you think? Is it alright for one company to directly call out the performance of another or should names be left out of it?

Overall though, I would say that T-Mobile has really got the hang of this social media thing. There is constant content released on all channels and not just the same stuff either, it's all original, upbeat, and intriguing, thus drawing in viewership and in turn business. Nicely done T-Mobile!


Links
T-Mobile Press: https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/social-media/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TMobile
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TMobile
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tmobile/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TMobile/custom

The Importance of Social Media in Times of Crisis

Social media is used for many different reasons both positive and negative. People use social media to sell products, share important information, advertise a company, and even reflect and show respect in times of sadness and suffering. Regardless of what the reason is, one thing is for sure, social media is one of the first places to go to find out information on anything nowadays. Even if it is not the full story, social media is the main place that keeps people informed. 

So if people choose not to respond to a crisis or don't put out a statement or are just plain not quick enough when it comes to responding to a crisis on social media, then people of this modern day society tend to lash out pretty quickly. Take the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson for example. The police department took way too long to release anything and by keeping everyone in the dark like that about their decisions or even just plan moving forward, the tension in the community thickened. The outrage and anxiousness grew.

I am certainly not saying that by releasing information about the incident sooner and their plans with how the police were going to handle it would have made the situation any better because it certainly probably wouldn’t have. However I do feel like by keeping the community more informed from the beginning, keeping the lines of communication more open, the violence that followed, the destruction of the community may not have been as bad. #Ferguson may not have started trending like it did. But that is a fine example of how social media is used in times of crisis to get a point across.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/19/us/ferguson-social-media-injustice/