Social Media at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

Social Media is everywhere nowadays.  With almost everyone in the world having some type of social media account, it is not just a trend; it is a whole new way of connecting and interacting with each other.  Tweets and status updates give followers up to the second updates of their favorite celebrities and industry figures.  Thanks to these new technologies, previously closed-door events are now open to public viewing and critiquing such as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which takes place twice a year in one of the major fashion capitals of the world, New Year City.

Within the last four seasons, a season being the new spring or fall collection every six months, social media has taken a more dominant role at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (MBFW).  MBFW now has their own Facebook and Twitter pages so everyone can follow the action as it unfolds live over the course of fashion week.  Social media has a huge impact on how fashion followers can keep current with the industry.  Even before fashion week starts, MBFW releases productions pictures and schedules of the tents at Lincoln Center, the heart of MBFW, being built.  The day of the each show, MBFW sends updates about daily schedules of the different designers and what tent they are showing in.  TwitPics show the latest fashions as they march down the runway and show off celebrity sightings of who is at what show.  MBFW tweets about the latest announcements as they happen in real time and unveils all the surprises of fashion week.  What use to be exclusively seen and read about in newspapers and magazines the next day now all happens in real time.  Social media helps followers feel as if they are sitting right there, next to the runway.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City is just the beginning for social media to connect more people to otherwise limited or closed-door industry events.  Video game conventions like PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts are starting to tweet on the official PAX Twitter page with insider info for their show.  The E3 Expo is doing the same thing but has partnered with GameTrailers to have them be the exclusive tweeters for the show.  E3 has gone even further by having Spike TV's Games & Gadgets be the official cable TV provider.  Social media is going to get bigger and better as the technology evolves and I for one am very excited for the increased interaction and coverage that social media can provide to otherwise inaccessible events.

Digital Marketing in Streaming Content

Nowadays almost everything is online in some form or another.  With the coming of reliable high speed Internet, it is now easier than ever to stream digital content through all sorts of devices from desktop computers to laptops, media servers, tablets, and smartphones.  Many of these are designed with specialized apps to make playing the streaming video simple.  With this rise of these new distribution methods for TV shows and other content, the advertising and marketing must change and evolve to keep up.

            There are tons of ways to watch TV shows and other content online at your leisure.  As a result of these free streaming sources, digital marketing has had to step up its game.  There are still traditional TV advertisements on cable television and they are not going away anytime soon.  They are only getting bigger with more production value thanks to the numerous cable providers and now web series, and streaming services out there today.  Comcast, Optimum Online, Road Runner, Time Warner, AT&T Uverse, and Verizon Fios are just a few of the traditional cable companies.  These companies run traditional paid commercial ads.  They offer on demand services normally with ads before the free on demand content.  Technology has now allowed for mobile streaming on smartphones and tablets in addition to streaming on desktop computers and laptops.  There are now special products just for streaming like Apple TV.  YouTube and Hulu are both popular sites for streaming free TV shows among other things.  Due to their popularity there are now commercials being shown before the media.  Web series have even become a new way of multimedia story telling thanks to the Internet complete with commercial ads.  Mortal Kombat: Legacy is excellent example.  The revenue from these ads keeps the free content on these sites, so it is worth it, as many of these web series are quite good with high production value.  Even the big three gaming consoles, Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PlayStation 3, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 are in the streaming business.  They all host one of the premium subscription streaming services, Netflix.  Netflix lets you stream TV shows and movies to every device under the sun.  HBO is another company following this route with their HBO GO service.  There are even rumors of announcements from the E3 conference this week of a Microsoft Xbox 360 Xbox Live Diamond subscription TV service coming soon.  Makes me wonder what kind of digital marketing this service will bring.

            As these companies and their subscriptions and services continue to grow and expand along with technology and the Internet then digital marketing and advertising will certainly grow and expand with them.  New ways of integrating ads into streaming content apps and similar distribution centers will have to be created to keep up.  With cloud based products beginning to emerge, it will definitely be interesting to see how digital marketing takes hold and adapts itself to these new cloud based services in the future.