Linked In

          I have officially had my first REAL encounter with Linked In!! I have always had a somewhat negative outlook on this site, maybe because I could never figure out how to work it, or I just didn't care to figure it out because whenever i hear "Linked In", I'm reminded of growing up and moving into the big girl world of finding a career and paying bills. However, I was forced to give this website an actual try for my Research in PR and Advertising class.
          I was assigned a project that required me to create a survey and post it to Linked In groups so I could get answers from professionals already in the industry. The industry I chose was sports marketing. I honestly have nooo idea if that is even what I want to do with the rest of my life, so I had a negative outlook toward this project. I joined sports marketing specific groups and posted my survey as a discussion topic and included a short note about my project. I thought to myself, "This is dumb. No one is going to take time to fill out my survey, especially since most of the questions are open-ended."
          The very night I posted, I received an email saying that someone had responded and filled out my survey. There's something so rewarding about interacting with others, especially when you don't expect it! Ten other responses followed, and I quickly learned how Linked In can be helpful. The people there really want to help. They are obviously there to gain something, but I quickly realized that it's a two-way street. After my survey, they even posted comments asking me to share the results so they too could learn more about the industry.
          Even today, long after my project was due, I still receive emails all the time from these groups about different discussions about job openings or opportunities to go on talk shows. I now see why people are saying that written resumes will soon be a thing of the past!

Social Media in Campaigns

Everyone seems to be catching on to the social media phenomenon. I’ve already discussed how Hollywood and entrepreneurs utilize it, but politicians are in the mix now, too. An article I read from Toronto, Canada stated that they are just now breaking into it, but the benefits have not beat out the benefits from traditional methods, such as door-to-door. A major problem with their methods, though, is that many politicians are simply posting a Tweet or making an announcement, instead of actually engaging followers. Social media analysts of this campaign also said that the social media polls don’t translate over to the real polls because social media represents only a specific group of people, and they do not reach out to different groups.

I believe that in the near future, social media will definitely have a bigger impact on voters and elections. Even if an election candidate uses only the Facebook platform, it would be so easy to invite all kinds of people to events or post pictures of yourself helping out in the community. We’ve already learned that more and more people are getting their news from social media, so why not put yourself in the direct view of voters? This would be a great way to get younger people to be politically active.

Personally, I change the TV/radio channel anytime an election commercial comes on. It seems like all they do is bash the opposing candidate, which gives me no information about how they are actually going to help my community. With social media, I would have the opportunity to ask questions and get to know the candidate from the comfort of my own home, without having to go to a press conference or debate, which I would probably not do. I think social media can provide an outlet that will help take the “annoying” out of campaigning. Thoughts??

Social Media is Dead...?

          I recently read an article about James Franco in which he declared that social media is dead and he sees no future for the Twitters and Facebooks of the world. He said, "My thought was 'this is my Twitter. I can do whatever I want.' But certain companies I work with contacted me about what I was saying." He encouragegd everyone to make the time to actually write.
          I have to disagree with Mr. Franco. Social media is huge and it only keeps growing. More and more people are catching on, and companies are finding more ways to use social media to their advantage. I can see where Franco is coming from, because speaking our minds can sometimes be inappropriate or unneccessary for the internet. This kind of thing can get people in a ton of trouble, as I discussed in an earlier blog.
          I am concerned, however, that several celebrities may follow in his footsteps and realize that it's not worth it, just another way for them to get themselves in trouble and start rumors in the public eye. What's so great about it if you're so restricted? Another thought that's crossed my mind is whether celebrities do this kind of thing because they WANT to, or because their publicists told them to. What are your thoughts?
          Something else to realize is that celebrities are role models. If they start bashing social media, everyone else may follow suit. My question here is, do celebritites have the power to significantly downsize social media?

United Breaks Guitars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

          Social media has completely transformed how companies deal with customer service. This video was made by a band after they saw United Airlines baggage handlers throwing their guitars, only to find out that the guitars were broken in the process.
          They spoke to three employees after they saw their guitars being thrown, and were dismissed by all three. Over the next few weeks, United was extremely difficult to work with and Dave Carroll, lead singer of the band was directed to places all over the North America, including Halifax, Canada; Omaha; Chicago; and New York. United Airlines did virtually everything possible to not deal with Carroll. Even nine months later, they still refused to take any responsibility for the broken guitar.
          He posted a total of 3 music videos regarding his bad experience with United Airlines. After just one day, the first video had 150,000 views. Rob Bradford, United's managing director of customer solutions, apologized to Carroll and United mentioned it hoped to learn from the incident, and to change its customer service policy as a result of the incident. Bob Taylor, owner of Taylor Guitars offered Carroll two guitars and other props for his second video.

"United has demonstrated they know how to keep their airline in the forefront of their customer’s minds and I wanted this project to expand upon that satirically. I’ve been done being angry for quite some time and, if anything, I should thank United. They’ve given me a creative outlet that has brought people together from around the world. We had a pile of laughs making the recording and the video while the images are spinning on how to make “United: Song 2” even better than the first. So, thanks United!  If my guitar had to be smashed due to extreme negligence I’m glad it was you that did it.  Now sit back and enjoy the show." -Dave Carroll

          This story proves how big of an impact social media can make and how quickly things can spread on the Internet. This incident was a disaster for United Airlines, and they would have been better off responding to Carroll's complaint's right off the bat. The great part about social media is that when consumers post negative things about your business, you can quickly respond to complaints to soothe their negative feelings and ultimately transform their opinion of your company.

Fangager

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-engagement/brand-managers-rejoice-manage-engage-reward-with-fangager-010571.php

                I recently came across FanGager, a database that allows companies to see the activities of their fans on their social media accounts. Fans and followers can be sent emails from within the database, and the emails can be sorted according to certain demographics. This way, they can target different groups with information that would be more appealing to them. This will ultimately help them maintain strong customer relationship management.

                The article says, “Brand managers can assign values to the actions they consider to be top priority. Once assigned, you can begin to measure and identify the fans who are engaging the most. For instance, if you think it’s valuable when users comment on your Facebook page, then you can assign a high number or points to that activity.” With FanGager, you can direct fans toward different types of engagement, based on their activities, to get the feedback you want. Fans can then be rewarded for their actions.

                These types of technology are taking social media to the next level. For companies, this seems like an awesome venture and a great way to maximize the success of their social media. They can compare different timeframes of data and see how their different campaigns are working. However, I can see where some “fans” may see this as an invasion of their privacy – stalking, to some degree.

                I personally think that when you make yourself visible to the public through the Internet, you should expect for this sort of thing to happen. I do understand, however, that people hate being bothered with this kind of thing, especially on their personal email accounts and profiles. What do you guys think?

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/03/how-social-media-internet-changed-experience-of-japan-disaster-074.html

We are all familiar with the disaster that just happened in Japan. The article linked above comes from the perspective of a journalist who also covered the earthquake that occurred in 1995 in Kobe, Japan. At that time, he was living in Japan while he was reporting, but he says that he received more information today, thanks to social media, than he did when he actually lived where the disaster occurred.

There was access to information through TV, iPads, Twitter, and Facebook. He also notes that a photo slideshow on the front page of the New York Times a few hours after the earthquake provided interesting information.  

This phenomenon just goes to show how quickly social media has allowed information to spread. Not only is the rapidity a positive thing, but the author also notes that it has more impact on people than when there’s newspeople talking. He says, “The media and communication technology of course do not change the scope of the disaster but do change the way we are able to experience and share it.”

I believe that we can apply this to marketing for a company. When you have a product or promotion, get people talking about it through social media and it WILL spread...quickly. You can post information and send it to your followers and if it’s a good product or promotion, your followers are more than likely going to talk about it. We saw from the article that the information is like a virus.

Word-of-mouth marketing is arguably the most effective form of marketing, and social media is the best way to reach millions of people. GET PEOPLE TALKING!!

Getting People Involved with your Social Media Venture

At one of my recent sorority meetings, Dustin Lynch, an up and coming country musician, came to perform for us. He was a charming guy, and the fact that he played guitar and sang made all everyone at the meeting love him. One thing that him and his manager did was video his performance and he told us all that we were going to be featured on his website and facebook in that week's segment (they posted weekly videos about where his career was heading). The fact that we were going to be featured with DUSTIN LYNCH, someone who may be famous one day, made everyone that much more excited about it. Ten minutes after the meeting ended, I think it's safe to say that he had about 130 new friend requests on Facebook and 130 likes for his music page. He even went in and personally tagged everyone of us in the video after it was posted.


I think an important part of social media is actually going out and gaining a fan base, whether it be a service, product, or yourself. When you know you have something great and you believe in it, get people excited about what it is you're selling.


Dustin's proactive approach gained him huge support and started a word-of-mouth phenomenon about himself. We all wanted to see more about his music, and you better believe we went and told all of our friends and posted all of the pictures on Facebook! He also did a good job of targeting the right audience. So, moral of the story - there's more to social media than just having a blog or webpage; you have to be proactive about your approach and get people excited about your content.


http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=559541947769