Alyssa's Blog

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Reflection Post

After view the video on implementation, I think my client will have a few challenges. First, since my client has only one social media presence, they may have some challenges when it comes to implementing the new forms of social media. Not only are they unfamiliar with how to use Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest as a business promotion, but they are also unfamiliar with how each social media platform works. Another challenge I can see my client having is not having a clear goal in sight or mind. While a large company might have a specific goal for having a social community, my client may struggle to see the purpose of having one and implementing what I have tried to inform them of in the process. I truly hope my client will take my advice and start building an online community. 

In this class, I have learned so much about social media. More importantly, I think I have a good grasp on how to implement them into social media posts. I truly think I have come to understand what an online community really consists of when doing the client project. I really enjoyed learning the in’s and out’s of how to use social media as leverage to satisfy company goals. 

My dad co-owns a small event business called Deke’s Paradice & Casino. My dad and his best friend made their own black jack, craps, and poker tables and now rent them to people for parties. These also include dealers to facilitate the activities, Over the last couple of years, the business has grown to the point where the company is already booked in November and December fully for Christmas parties. I will be using the skills learned in this class to help them implement more social media influence in their business. With that being said, please go like our Facebook page and consider us for your next event:

@dparadicecasino

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Effective Content Development & Sharing

When it comes to a social media post, content is probably the most important part. Content can help a business reach its goals through creating leadership and brand recognition. Content also gives your audience the best understanding of what your company does and what its values are. A part of creating effective content is to understand, in depth, who your audience is and how you can cater to them. In my opinion, effective content caters to your audience and aligns with the company goals at the same time. 

When it comes to sharing, we have discussed this before. Being aware of the platform of social media you are using has a big influence on your post. Obviously, there is a correlation between sharing and content. Ensuring that your post is aesthetically pleasing and has good content will increase your chances of reaching company goals and creating a larger online community. 

http://www.grouphigh.com/blog/best-practices-placing-content-blogs/

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Week 6 Blog 2

From the Hootsuite modules, I learned that having an online community about planning more than posting. Another point that the modules touched on that was not in the text was the fact that you should focus on yourself as well as the communities needs. Another thing that was touched on was the fact that you should put a flare of yourself in the posts. I think this point is essential to having a truly unique approach on social media. That being said here is a little background on my client:

Poblano’s Mexican Grill & Cantina, located outside of downtown Frankenmuth, has little influence on any type of social media. They do not post often on Facebook, they do not post often on Instagram, and they do not have any other social media platforms other than those two. So far, I have advised them to start posting more often, gain some consistency in the posts by implementing a hashtag, and encouraging their customers to follow them on their new Twitter and Pinterest accounts. I also urged them to create more events on Facebook to promote their specials because it will notify their follows of “an event near them”. 

In the future, I would encourage Poblano’s to put some more personality into their social media posts. The biggest thing I would tell them to do is to start reaching out to their online community. I believe all the concepts talked about in these chapters and modules apply to my client because they have basically no social media strategy or plan. 

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Week 6 Blog 1

After reading Chapter’s 4 & 5 in the text, I feel I have gained some insight on what building an online community is all about. From my perspective, building an online community is similar to building a physical one. Members of both online and physical communities join together to share like-minded ideas and interests. A good example of one of these online communities is TripAdvisor. As most of you know, TripAdvisor is a website that many people utilize to book hotels and attractions because it shows the lowest prices. However, TripAdvisor is also used as a place people can leave comments about things to do in certain areas, reviews on places they’ve been, and how to save money while on vacation.

I did some more research on effective ways to create an online community with social media. Here are some tips I found from David Garland’s blog:

1. Create interesting content and keep consistency with your posts.

Making the content about the community and not you/the business will create more interest. Also, find something to make your content stand out. Most businesses promote their products in a similar way. Maybe you could try writing a “Tip of the Day”. Consistency is also important when it comes to creating an online community. Making sure you are posting on at least one social media per day/every couple days is essential. Another important topic when it comes to consistency is trying to create something replicatable so you don’t run out of things to post. 

2. Create content that is designed to share

Make sure your content has a good headline so that people will share it within your online community. Another tip is to make sure that the social media you are using has easy sharing (one or two clicks away).

3. Care about your community

This is my favorite post of them all. Engaging with your online community is the most essential. When someone posts a comment, you should try to respond to it. Caring about your online community is important in your strategy to grow your online community. A good example of this is Wendy’s. Their responses on Twitter may be funny, but it works! Since they’ve started replying to other people and communicating with other online communities their followers have grown a ton, which they can use to their advantage when it comes to advertising. 

https://therisetothetop.com/davids-blog/12-keys-building-online-community/

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Legal Side of Big Data

When it comes to big data, businesses should be aware of the effects of the ads they are posting. While it may boost your sales or followers, everything they do is being tracked. In reality, these businesses need to store data more securely and limit access to the data. Companies need to realize the issues they could be creating and hire associates to help those issues. Businesses should also be aware of privacy policies and how that might affect their company. 

In my opinion, consumers should be aware of who their information goes to. While having your birthday, full name, and contact information may seem like the “norm” it gives that information out to many people that may do harmful things. Knowing where their data goes and that no one is safe, may prevent some consumers from posting their information on the internet. They should also be aware of the legal policies that are in place.

The best way of balancing the opportunities and threats of big data would be to become more aware of the issue and how to resolve this information being miscommunicated.  This can happen by companies stepping up and publicly announcing what they are doing with this big data. Businesses could also give some tips to consumers informing them what big data is. Consumers could do a better job of researching what is going on with the information they put on the internet and understanding why this is such a big issue. 

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Good Social Media Strategy

For my example of a good social media strategy, I have chosen an individual that has multiple companies. Her name is Jessie James Decker. She is married to an NFL football player and is an aspiring singer. She has opened many of her own companies or partnered with companies to create brands to put to her name. While she had a lot of followers on instagram before, her brands have grabbed the attention of a very large audience. Currently, she has 2.6 million followers. Most of her sales come from her social media strategy. 

Below are a few examples of posts that she has made in the past:

She recently has started a swimsuit business called Kittenish as well. I think her strategies are effective because she knows the audience that will buy her products. She only releases certain items a few times a year to give incentive to buy them.  They are so successful that her brands are sold in target stores nationwide. She has also made separate pages for each of her businesses to promote them.

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Social Media Consultant Week 4

In my opinion you have to have the following qualities to be a good social media consultant:  

1. Have a basic understanding of social media

This point may seem obvious, but a good social media consultant understands social media and keeps up with every updated system and knows how to use it to their advantage 

2. Understands the audience that they are trying to reach

Advertising for a restaurant is obviously going to be different then advertising for a company that sells products 

3. the have unique ideas that help them stand out

If every advertiser had the same method of promoting a product, consumers would not be inclined to purchase anything. Having a difference stance can make or break a business 

So far I have used hastags in most of my blog posts. If I was a social media consultant this could be used as a way to link all of the posts together. To improve social media presence you could try to get help from someone already established on social media. For example, a blogger that is famous. 

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Week 3 Blog Post

After watching the “Data Brokers: Selling your personal information” video I wasn’t shocked. This doesn’t really surprise me because of certain ads I have seen on my computer in the past. For example, I will get onto a website and look at items I want to buy, and the next day the exact item I was thinking about buying is in an ad on the side of  a website, Facebook, or even Instagram. This tool is so powerful because it can influence people in such a huge way even when it doesn’t have to do with buying something. For example, it can be used to access personal information like medical records, social security number, bank statements, etc. The scary part is this information can be sold to a potential employer, or anyone really who wants to pay the price. In my opinion this can be decreased and fixed if people would stop posting so much information about their lives on social media. That plus if every computer had a security system I believe this data would have hardly any chance. As a society, I think that if these companies are going to use ads and websites to get your information, they could at least install real issues to ads. For example, there is a big plastic and trash barrier in the ocean that is the size of Texas, but we don’t see ads about how to help with that, we see ads about retail stores. 

After reading “The Internet’s Original Sin” by Ethan Zuckerman and watching Maciej Ceglowski’s talk about the “Internet with a Human Face”, I think that business models influence surveillance and data gathering a good deal of the time.  I can relate to his points about surveillance. Like I have mentioned in a few of my previous posts, I work in the claims department at an insurance company. We actually utilize social media surveillance and investigations quite often. For whatever reason, people do not think too fast when a new friend request comes. If that person has mutual friends, they seem to just add them into their account. This gives the investigator full access to the person’s page or information, which then get. This type of information and services may be carried out in other legal manners and gives business to people when you never thought that you could become a “Professional Facebook Stalker”.  Another good point in the article, this was also mentioned in the video, that computers don’t forget anything. Therefore, anything that you ever looked at or someone else looked at on your computer is out there for these companies to read. I think people should really be more careful when using this type of technology. Many people do not understand the consequences that come with it. 

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Social Media Experiment

Today, on 7/2/17, I did my social media experiment. I chose the 24 hour option which started last night at 10 pm. It seemed like it was going fine as I went to the Bay City Fireworks last night. Today I woke up and immediately tried to check my phone. Then I realized, I couldn’t. While I did not break my goal of a phone-free 24 hours, it was extremely difficult. After about 2 hours of trying to check my phone, I decided to track the number of times I went to unlock my phone for its use. The number was astonishing. From 10 AM until 10 PM, I touched my unlock button 102 times. That’s crazy! I didn’t think that I was on my phone or checking my phone that often. Instead of being on my phone, I found mindless things to do. I went to the park, set up my hammock, and I actually READ A BOOK! I just started reading Jacee Dugard’s memoir called “A Stolen Life”. For those of you who don’t know who that is, she was kidnapped when she was 11 and disappeared until she was 26. The book explains what happened to her, in disturbing detail, and how she feels her life is altered now. I would highly recommend it even though I am not finished with it yet. 

At times during this experiment, I actually felt out of place because my family and friends were checking their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and I was sitting there trying to have a conversation. I feel this experiment would have been better if I would have done it when I was with my good friends because we would have found something to do to keep each other occupied. Once the clock hit 10 PM I immediately unlocked my phone, and checked all my texts, snapchats, Facebook notifications, and Instagram posts. 24 hours doesn’t seem like a very long time until after you do it. My timeline felt like I had been gone for a week because of all the people that were posting pictures and stories about their holiday weekend. I didn’t make any posts after the 24 hours, but now I am thinking about what I could post. 

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“Before the Internet” Reflection

Recently I read an article title “Before the Internet” by a blogger named Emma Rathbone. The article gave many examples of how life “used to be” before the internet. I found the part when Rathbone talked about being at a museum and arguing with a friend about what something was. They had to look it up in a book. In ways I feel that I can relate to this, as the internet was just coming about when I was growing up. When I was little and I was bored, I would always find something new to play with even if it was the computer chair with wheels. Now, I feel that more and more parents allow their children to submerge themselves in games on ipads, phones, computers and this is affecting their lives dramatically. I honestly think this is turning young adults into less intelligent people. Instead of looking something up in a book, people just whip out their phones and google the answer. There are now apps that help you solve math problems, correct grammar, and even generate papers for you. 

When I was in high school we went on vacation to the Dominican Republic for a week. Yes, it was beautiful. Yes, it was interesting. Yes, there was lots of stuff to do. But, no, I didn’t have my phone. While at times I was upset about not having my phone, I feel that it actually gave me a better experience. I got to learn more about another culture, and actually did an extensive assignment in a previous course about it. I got to experience a beautiful sunset on the beach everyday without trying to get the “right shot” on my camera. I was able to make new friends as well. 

I don’t think it would be too hard to get rid of social media for a week, a month or even 6 months for me. I actually have done this before with my roommates at central. We all deleted our social media for a week. At times we felt deprived but for the most part life went on as usual. I think deleting social media all together would actually improve my quality of life. I would probably get more laundry done, make more meaningful relationships, and have more quality time with my family. For now, I think I should limit myself to one hour of social media throughout the day. While this isn’t going too change a whole lot, it will change something. 

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Response to Louis CK and Turkle

Sherry Turkle, author of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other”, was interviewed about her stance on social media. In ways, I agree with her. The video showed a group of friends who were not discussing anything at dinner, however they were all staring down at their phones. I feel that the generation I live in today does this. While I do conform to this sometimes, I would say that I do it less and less as I get older. To me, the company of friends or family beats any new social media post or what my friend texted me about her boyfriends dog. Social media is now used as a way of showing off your life, not showing who you are as a person. Turkle also discusses how this is changing us as a society. Many people would rather trust Google Maps to get them somewhere instead of asking someone on the street. Another example is that we rely more and more for education from the internet. While it is a great source of information, I don’t believe that half of the articles are actually creditable. Young children are adpating to this type of life style and it just makes me think, what will the world be in 25 years when they are in the workforce, or will there even be a workforce?

Louis CK’s information was very credible. I liked his stance on texting and driving. He stated that he thinks people text and drive because they do not what to be alone in their car. This is SO true. I agree with his comment that you look around and almost everyone is texting and driving. I was actually rear ended because of a girl doing this. I also have a lot of experience with this issue at work. I work at an insurance company and handle PIP claims, so basically when you get hurt in a car accident. This is a growing issue in the insurance industry. I would add on to his point about “feeling alone” without your phone. Many times, even at central, people will be with a group of individuals that they have never met before and instead of introducing themselves they just look at their phone. I have to admit, when I feel that I am in an awkward situation I do the same, however I wish that someone would break that habit.  So, I guess you could say that I’m a moderate when it comes to social media. I use it everyday, not that I post but I do view other people’s posts, however I do feel that it is affecting society in a bad way. I wish that there were changes, however I don’t know if that’s possible at this point. 

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All About Me

Hey everyone! I'm Alyssa! I grew up in the small town of Frankenmuth, MI and still live here with my parents. After I graduated high school I attended a year at community college in Saginaw and then transferred to CMU my sophomore year. This coming semester I will be a junior pursuing my degree in Human Resources management and a minor in information systems. In my future, I hope to work for a growing company like Dow or Nexteer or possibly even move out of state to experience life elsewhere. Since this is my first time blogging, I hope to gain knowledge of how this works, as well as improve my social media skills. While I am a typical college student who has social media, I do not post often and do not look at it too often either. I hope this course shows me how to use it in a professional manner. A business that comes to mind that has effectively used social media is charmin. They have a very catchy ad on pandora that comes on very often and I would say that when I do scroll through my social media I typically see ads for them.