About Sida Li

Sida Li is the Social Media Director at fishbat, a digital marketing agency. He has managed social media accounts for brands in multiple industries, including baked goods, convenience stores, beauty products, apparel makers, jewelers and tourism boards. Sida is a published poet and writer. His other hobbies include blogging and maintaining his YouTube channel. You can find his digital footprint at http://about.me/sidali.

The Rise of “Fake” Viral Videos

June 29, 2012 by 4 Comments

Fake Viral Video

Every marketing department or digital marketing agency dreams of hitting it big with a viral video that is not only popular, but also benefits their brand in some way. There’s nothing wrong with a branded viral video. Pepsi MAX & Kyrie Irving Present: “Uncle Drew” is one example of a branded video done right; it takes a genuinely entertaining concept – NBA player Kyrie Irving dresses up like an old man and plays in a pickup game in New Jersey – and dabbles in a minimal amount of product placement (there are a couple shots of onlookers, probably placed there by Pepsi, drinking Pepsi MAX). Unfortunately, many brands are attempting to hide their involvement in viral videos by making it seem like the video was created by ordinary individuals.

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Filed Under: Featured, Social Videos-Images-Music, YouTube Tagged With: , ,

Social Media Spells Trouble for Movie Ads on TV

May 9, 2012 by 2 Comments

Hunger Games

A report from Reuters recently came out stating that marketers are entertaining the idea of spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on social media campaigns. According to Lions Gate Entertainment Corp Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer, studios will look to spend less on TV ads and more on online promotions. The Hunger Games (over 5 million fans on Facebook) is used as an example of a successful movie that relied heavily on social buzz. According to Feltheimer, their marketers saved $15-$20 million by taking an online-heavy media approach.

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Filed Under: Business Social Media, Featured, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Strategy

3 Common Sense Tips Before You Create Facebook Ads

April 21, 2012 by 2 Comments

Facebook Ads

Have you ever spotted a poorly designed Facebook ad? It seems like the simpler an ad platform is, the more people tend to create poor content for it. You might wonder how advertisers can mess up an ad unit so small (Facebook ads have a 110×80 pixel image limit, a 25 character title limit, and a 90 character body text limit), but I have seen it happen on a too-frequent basis.

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Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Strategy, Social Networks Tagged With:

Pinterest and Its Copyright Issues

March 23, 2012 by 7 Comments

Pinterest Snapshot

Pinterest has been notoriously slow to address copyright issues. Because the “Pin It” button works on any website that has not opted out of Pinterest, users can grab images from almost anywhere on the internet, regardless of copyright issues. This affects artists the most because the photos are not always credited properly by the original user who pinned it. In addition, there is no way to track the source of the original pin after multiple repins, unlike Tumblr and its reblogs.

Printerest, a new website that allows you to print Pinterest photos into posters and books, complicates things further because it makes it possible to make money off of someone else’s work. Additionally, Ecoconsultancy estimates that round 90% of brand URLs on Pinterest are being squatted on by individuals not affiliated with the brand (check out http://pinterest.com/fedex/ for an example).

Here’s an excerpt from Pinterest’s Terms of Use:

You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services. […] The failure of Cold Brew Labs to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not constitute a waiver of future enforcement of that right or provision.

Pinterest words their Terms of Use in a way that absolves them of legal responsibility for users pinning copyrighted content, and right now there is no clear policy in place to remove items that have been flagged under the Terms of Use. There is no way of completely vetting every pin for copyright authenticity without destroying Pinterest’s ease of use, but they should have a more responsive system for taking down pins.

Some might argue that users pinning copyrighted content is beneficial to brands since someone else is spreading your message on social media for free. However, the more worrying issue is for individual content creators. Imagine an artist who uploads artwork to his or her blog – a Pinterest user could potentially save that image on his or her computer, upload it onto Pinterest as his or her own, and use Printerest to make money off of the work.

YouTube went through a similar phase as it grew; as complaints and legal pressure from brands increased, they started developing technology to respond to complaints and weed out copyrighted material. I expect the same process to happen at Pinterest as they receive more negative attention on the subject.

 

 

Filed Under: Pinterest Tagged With: ,