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Posts Tagged ‘entertainment’

My experiences with viral marketing have usually involved entertainment products, such as movies, music, or video games. In these cases, the entertainment companies would make teasers or snippets and post them to YouTube. From there, the videos are typically embedded on sites all over the Internet, including blogs and social networks. Whenever I participated in these viral marketing campaigns, it usually involved me watching the video on a blog or another site and then I also post the video on my social networks in order to inform my friends about the video or trailer. The most notable viral marketing campaign for an entertainment product that I remember was for the film, ‘The Dark Knight’. They had a site at http://whysoserious.com/ that provides teasers and bits of information of the story. This generated a lot of interest in the movie before its release.

Viral marketing is more likely to be successful for products with network effects because these products can be easily shared on a variety of networks. Entertainment brands have been able to use successful viral marketing campaigns because they typically make use of the audio and video sharing capabilities of sites like YouTube and Facebook.

In my opinion, whether or not Facebook should be banned depends on the type of company and what kind of work that company does. I think that it is perfectly fine for companies that deal with very important things, such as money or health, to ban Facebook at their workplace. My reasoning behind that is that if an employee is expected to work at a company that deals with very important, and often private, information, they should not be allowed access to a site that unnecessarily consume their attention. In addition to that, if they are working with very private information, they should not be allowed to access a site that easily allows people to share information with others. It is because of this that I agree with Goldman-Sachs’ decision to deny Facebook access to its employees.

On the other hand, there are certain companies that have no need to ban Facebook. Certain industries, such as the media and entertainment industries, have realized how much social media actually benefits their work. For these industries, it is almost even necessary for them to hire an employee, and sometimes even entire teams, that focuses on the company’s social media presence. These types of industries truly benefit by having the direct connection to their fans that Facebook provides. It would not make sense at all for these companies to ban Facebook.

For me, what it boils down to is if you’re spending time on Facebook at work, you should not be working in a position that requires much responsibility. If you’re working in a position that would not be negatively impacted by Facebook usage, that’s fine. Moderation and self-control will always be the two factors that will really stop somebody from spending too much on Facebook at work. In response to the second question, I most likely would not work at a company that banned Facebook. For what I want to do for a career, I would not want to be in a position where Facebook usage could negatively impact others and their personal information. If anything, I would probably be working in a position that required me to do social media tasks at work.