In an age where technology drives creativity, innovation, and success, businesses scramble to gain every tool and advancement under their belt. It is no new concept that social media is an invaluable tool for marketing, branding, and advertising, but has it recently stepped up its game? Recently, Instagram has not only stepped up its game, it has changed the game.
On Monday morning, one of the largest technology companies in the world announced its biggest deal yet. For a price of $26.2 billion, Microsoft bought the professional networking website LinkedIn with the goal of creating “more connected, intelligent and productive experiences.” While Microsoft’s shares have fallen since, its acquisition of one of the world’s largest social media networks is unsurprising, given CEO Satya Nadella’s shifting focus from hardware and software toward innovation and enterprise.
What is a brand? According to Forbes Magazine, a “brand” is what your prospect thinks of when he or she hears your “brand name.” It’s everything the public thinks it knows about your name brand offering—both factual (e.g. It comes in a robin’s-egg-blue box), and emotional (e.g. It’s romantic). Your “brand name” exists objectively; people can see it. It’s fixed. But your “brand” exists only in someone’s mind. It is easy to confuse your “brand name” and your “brand.” To simplify the concept, think if your “brand” as a perceived impression or feeling that supports your “brand name”.
To help explain how a brand can grow your business, we’ve compiled 6 examples of companies that are doing it all right. Learn from some of the top companies using Social Media to build their brands. Take notes and try to apply examples to your own business as you read through. Who knows, you may even learn something new!
On Wednesday, Facebook rolled out the new emoji reaction buttons to Facebook users worldwide. Facebook reactions provides users with five different emojis to react to information in their News Feed – Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry.. “You can see the new buttons by either holding down the like button (if you’re on your phone or tablet) or hovering over it (if you’re on your desktop). Tap the Facebook reaction you want, and the icon for it will appear beneath the post, just as the like icon does.”
Are you ready to open up? Now we can all express our 
feelings! Read something bad, you can add your ‘angry’ emoji 
, maybe something makes you sad, add your ‘sad’ emoji 
. Interacting on Facebook news has reached a new level. Per Facebook’s blog, many users had complained that the like button did not accurately describe how they felt about a post. The emoji reactions will help bridge that gap. Let’s face it – social media is Social and if you’ve ever seen the movie Inside Out, we just can’t be happy and like things all the time. 
