Enter Bryce Harper

The next baseball phenom has made his Major League debut and he has taken the league by storm. Bryce Harper was the number overall draft pick of the Washington Nationals as a 17 year old in 2010. He is now playing at the big league level at age 19. He has his whole future ahead of him and he will be a cornerstone of the Nationals franchise for years to come. He has helped the Nationals sell out their parks because everyone wants to see him play. Even the other team's players say he plays with the most heart they have seen. Not only will the Nationals gain revenue by advertising this young star but the MLB is general will gain large profits from him. In my opinion I feel that he will live up to the hype around him. Only time will tell at this point.

The Avengers

One of the most anticipated movies of the summer comes out this Friday. They have been advertising The Avengers on television and the internet pretty much since the end of last year and it's less than a week away from premiering in the United States. I was never a comic book reader growing up but I have watched all the superhero movies that have come out that preceeded this movie. The movies are compiled of A-list actors that have helped bring comic book characters to real life. If you haven't seen The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 1&2, Thor or Captain America, I would advise you to if you plan on seeing this movie. The sky is the limit for the revenues this movie can bring in because of the nicely done advertising and how well the movie incorporates all the ones that proceeded it.

Using Twitter and Facebook for marketing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-small-business/post/how-do-you-use-twitter-and-facebook-for-marketing/2012/04/20/gIQA7NXwZT_blog.html

As Facebook and Twitter grow, so does the need to use these sites to marketing. This article states that companies share three types of content on these sites: Useful information, information that is on-brand and fun and to share special opportunities with our fans. Companies are using these sites more because it is easier to get their information out there and consumers use it because it is free. They are able to look up products easier before they decide to go out and get them. I feel that as social media continues to grow, companies are going to focus more on marketing their products and brands on social network sites because of the opportunities you can get from them.

Naming new sports arenas

As the Sacramento Kings are looking to build a new arena and stay in the Sacramento area, some company will be bidding to get their name on the new building. This is a good way to advertise because the company's name will always be mentioned whether it be on the ticket stubs or just numerously mentioned when the game is televised on T.V. Teams don't have the money to spend on their own so whichever company bids the most, helps pay for the new arena. Almost every arena, football stadium or baseball stadium is named after a company with the exception of Yankee Stadium because obviously the Yankees can afford to keep their own name and it's one of the most well-known stadiums in the country. You have Citi Field for the Mets, TD Garden for the Celtics/Bruins, Gillette Stadium for the Patriots and so on. So it may cost the company a large sum to get their name up there but in the long run they are advertising themselves as long as their name stays on the building.

WrestleMania 28

Just like a lot of kids growing up, I loved to watch wrestling. And just like a lot of people I know, I grew out of it in middle school or sometime around there. When I heard The Rock was going to wrestle at WrestleMania 28, I knew I had to watch it. WrestleMania is the Super Bowl for the WWE. It is watched worldwide by millions of people who want to be entertained. I know the WWE is staged but they know how to put on a show on for the fans. These wrestlers are great athletes and have unbelievable skillsets. Everytime I checked my Twitter during the event, there were four or five things trending worldwide that were related to the show and it really showed how social networking is evolving everywhere. Watching WrestleMania really brought me back to my younger years and I'm not going to lie, it was really fun to watch; it made me feel like a kid again. Did anyone else watch WrestleMania or into wrestling when you were younger?

College athlete recruiting and Twitter

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/post/_/id/31280/twitter-poses-fine-line-for-players

As a competitive college team, you want to recruit the best high school athletes to be on your team. The NCAA has a ton of rules of what you can and cannot say to prospects during certain times. One thing that there really isn't a rule for is social media. There is no rule set in place that if a current player tweets or writes on a prospects wall on facebook so that makes it fair game. Since there is no rule about social media from the NCAA, then college coaches tend to not have rules because they are not "up-to-date" with the times. So basically the college athletes can do their own recuiting of high school players that they want on their teams. In my opinion, I think it's fine for athletes to try and recruit prospective college athletes using social media. There is no such rule forbidding it and social media is continuely growing. The NCAA is not going to be able to look over everyone's twitter or facebook that plays college sports. In my mind, it isn't breaking any rules and it's going to be difficult to try and stop since it is continuely growing.

Twitter vs. Facebook

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-is-growing-faster-than-facebook-in-the-us-stats_b19200

I found this article very interesting. We all know that Facebook is the social media giant, but if you compare the growth of both of these in the United States, Twitter is actually growing faster. At the end of 2011, Twitter was growing at a rate 31.9% while Facebook was growing at a rate of 13.4%. At the same time you have to keep in mind that Facebook is much larger with 133 million US users while Twitter had 24 million at the end of 2011. The article also goes on to state that at some point both networks are going to plateau but Twitter will grow four times higher than Facebook going into 2014. I have both Facebook and Twitter and at first I didn't really like Twitter but it has deffinitely grown on me. It's more of a site that you use if you have a smart phone because you can constantly tweet and follow what other people are doing such as athletes and celebrities. I do feel that Twitter will continue to get popular as time goes on because people are always willing to try something new out. What does everyone else think? Do you like Facebook or Twitter more or does it not even matter to you?