Interview with Dave Demarest at Food Lion, LLC

Emily - Tell me a little about your position and the type of company you work for:
Dave - I work as a Corporate Communications Specialist for Food Lion LLC, a grocery store company with 1,200 stores in 11 Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states, under five banners - Food Lion, Bloom, Bottom Dollar Food, Harveys and Reid’s. Our department handles all internal and external (media) communications for the company. There are currently six of us.

Emily - Do you think Internet Marketing is important to your business? Why or why not?
Dave - Yes

Emily - Do you think Social Networking is important to your business? Why or why not?
Dave - Yes. Everyone is doing it. If you're not moving forward you become stagnant.

Emily - What types of Internet Marketing tactics are used by your company?
Dave - E-mail blasts, coupons especially for customers who sign up for certain online programs through our Web site.

Emily - Does your company belong to any Social Media sites? Which ones and why?
Dave - Twitter and Facebook. These are the "hot" sites currently. I'm sure if others gain steam the company will jump on their train.

Emily - Do you think Internet Marketing and Social Media have influenced your company either positively or negatively? Please Explain.
Dave - Both. The good aspects of your company can be easily spread online, but so too can the bad. It forces your company to always be on its game. "Information travels faster in the modern age." Death Cab for Cutie

Friends with a Celebrity?

With advancements in new technology and innovative social networking tools comes the increase of competition among those who strive to rise to the top. People are constantly trying to be the first person to introduce a new idea to a culture craving groundbreaking advancements in technology.  One area of social networking that is appealing to the masses is the ability for the normal, everyday person to find out instant updates about their favorite celebrities. Websites like Perez Hilton, Celebuzz, NameDrop and Twitter are frequently visited by tech-savvy individuals looking to learn the latest gossip on famous athletes, actors, and musicians. While Twitter is probably the most popular mobile applications used in this regard, NameDrop recently created a mobile application for their services.

After reading an article about NameDrop’s dive into the ocean of mobile platforms, I felt a little uneasy about the future of this company’s efforts. For a fee of $2.99 per month, subscribers to NameDrop are given information updated by their favorite celebrities. Now with the free mobile platform, the creators are hoping that more people will subscribe due to the increase in accessibility of the information provided. Why would anyone pay for this information when they could get it free via Twitter?

Twitter offers the same type of celebrity information as NameDrop, and it’s free of charge. Hundreds of celebrities have joined the Twitter network, some gaining thousands and even millions of followers. However, I checked out the NameDrop’s website, and I didn’t know a single person on the celebrity list. Either I’m really out-of-date or this site hasn’t been lucky enough gain as much support from celebrities as Twitter has.

One advantage NameDrop has over its competitor is that the messages sent out don’t have a character limit. Twitter offers mobile platforms for its subscribers like NameDrop, but it only allows people to type 140 characters per message, which limits the amount of information sent out and forces people to condense their ideas. Limitations like these could be seen as a disadvantage. People could prefer to use NameDrop, because there are fewer restraints on the streams of communication.  Thus far, Twitter has reigned over other sites for their dissemination of celebrity gossip on the mobile platform.

NameDrop also guarantees that all the information given out is from the actual celebrity being followed. This type of guarantee sounds sincere, and I sometimes question if Ellen is really “cutting a rug” when her Tweet says that she is. However, I don’t think we’ll ever be certain that these types of messages are genuinely being delivered by who we think is delivering them no matter which site you use. I don’t know how many times I’ve text messaged people from my friends’ phones, because they were driving or from my mom’s phone because she’s not as familiar with such methods of communication. Regardless, the possibility of imposter information will always exist.

Because I think that getting up-to-the-minute celebrity gossip is more of a luxury than a necessity, I don’t think that many people would be willing to pay for this type of information. Social networking sites have made celebrity gossip available instantly so people don’t have to wait for the tabloids to leak news. Also the information is said to be “straight from the source”. Along the same lines, celebrities have used social networking to clear up lies that have been spread by tabloids. Whether people are paying for NameDrop’s services or taking advantage of Twitter’s free information, they are experiencing some of the benefits that social networking has given our culture.

An article by Chris Harnick from Mobile Marketer inspired this blog entry:http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/social-networks/4273.html