Amanda Watson @amandawatsonposts - Tumblr Blog

Implementing Social Media

The implementation of social media can be scary for business owners. In their eyes, they may see it as a bunch of new technology they're unfamiliar with that can result in huge legal problems if used incorrectly. On the other hand, some organizations feel as though social media is an easy fix and substitution for traditional advertisements. They believe a simple tweet here and there can reach and attract their target audience but, that is not quite accruate.

Fortunately, my client sees social media for a completely different view. Though she may not be too knowledgable on it, she is willing to learn new features of the sites she currently uses as well as explore other sites that I have recommended may be useful to her. One of the main challenges organizations have when using social media is not understanding the basics of mass collaboration and how to facilitate an online community. My client and I have discussed goals she has for her company and I have given suggestions that I feel will help her reach her goals the best. Anotther huge hurdle for organizations to conquer when implementing social media is willingness. The entire team must be willing to learn and contribute in order for the usage of social media to be the most effective. Ultimately, as a social media consultant a main priority should be that the organization understands social media and the value it can bring to them.

Content is Key

Content plays a key role in the success of organizations. From funny gifs to blog posts, organizations take time to ensure they choose content that is relevant and valuable to their audience. Choosing the correct content can be the difference in creating a lifetime customer and losing one. It is important to understand that everything posted, retweeted, commented on, etc. by an organization reflects said company. As mentioned within the training, it is important to ensure the content chosen by the company is reflective of the organization and helps reach the social goals set in place.

The creation of a content strategy allows the organization to create a game plan and set goals. As with many other efforts, not having a plan can result in unorganized, repetitive and irrelevant content being distributed by the organization. The content produced and supported by companies can result in a boost in their consumers if played correctly. There is enormous potential for businesses to use social media sites to their advantage to reach the next level within their industry.

Online Communities

In the book “The Social Organization” authors, Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald discussed the importance of online communities and the most importance factors of them. First and foremost, a community must have a mission. When a group comes together for a purpose or to reach a common goal, there is a much higher possibility that all community members will be involved in interactions. Furthermore, it is important to understand when a community is necessary and if it is suitable for the goal. Ideally, communities are created to bring a group of diverse individuals together to share ideas, knowledge and opinions that help further the group as a whole. On the other hand, it is also very important to know what platform will provide the most value for your online community. Some organizations choose to use social media platforms as they allows a perfect way to gain reviews and insight from customers while also observing the needs and desires that aren’t being met by their organization.

Chapter 4 of the Hootsuite Academy Social Marketing Training focused on how to create communities on different social media sites. It is important to understand there is no specific plan that will work for every site. The social media site I am most familiar with is Instagram. Instagram features an assortment of community engagement tools that allow companies to engage with consumers. From liking posts to following hashtags, there are countless ways to engage with others and create a community atmosphere. Online communities introduce great value to organizations and learning to navigate them effectively can serve to gain an immense advantage over competitors.

Big Data

There is no doubt about it, our information is extremely valuable. Companies will pay large sums to simply obtain the contact information of consumers. With this information, they are able to create marketing or, my least favorite, begin the never-ending cycle of robo-calls trying to get people to sign up for some new program. If the information given to these big corporations is not protected sufficiently, the consequences could be costly.

Corporations such as Target, Neiman Marcus, and Home Depot are just a few of the many that have been hacked leaving the personal information of millions of their customers, in the wrong hands. Businesses should always be aware that they have control over an extremely large amount of important data and should take every precaution possible to protect it.

As consumers, we have the duty to ensure we take precautions when giving out our information. From sweepstake sign up sheets to renewing a gym membership, we are constantly giving out our information but, many never read the “Terms and Conditions” section which will detail how the information will be used.

In all honestly, in my opinion, the best way to protect big data is for consumers and corporations to do their part. Both party must ensure they are careful with who they provide information to and what they are doing it. Though it is possible to create precautions, I believe it is impossible to create a software or plan that is 100% promised to never be compromised. The goal should of consumers and corporations should be that they are doing the best they can to prevent breaches.

A Social Media Consultation... of Myself

There are many important qualities a social media consultant should have. They play a huge role in the creation and mantinence of an organizations image. In my opinion, one of the most important qualities of a social media consultant is versatility. I believe it is vital for a consultant to be aware and knowledgable on various topics and industries despite the exact industry their particular company falls within. It is important to understand the intersectionality of business and how to navigate the social media world as a business contender.

In terms of myself, I definitely believe I have room for improvement in terms of my professional social media presence. The first suggestion I would provide would be to increase the level of activity on professional platforms such as LinkedIn and Handshake. I believe it would be extremely beneficial to post interesting articles and my opinions on them, to comment on others posts etc. All in all, I believe the biggest opportunity for improvement would be to just make sure I am making my presence known and memorable in the most positive manner possible.

Junk News spreads like Fire

Algorithms

The algorithmic organization of social media sites can be quite inconvenient, annoying and harmful to consumers. Information is organized and delivered based on popularity or ability to get a “click” rather than being based on facts and the most recent information given. This can result in many individuals being relatively late to finding out information which can leave them uninformed when making decisions. One example of algorithmic organization that comes to mind is the Instagram feed. Over the past few months, Instagram has switched from showing posts in order and now shows posts based on popularity or which have received the most interaction. Facebook is a site that has also taken to this method. Algorithms also extremely affect social media creators. Content creators depend on consumer interaction to gain revenue from their posts and contents. Algorithms have definitely hindered if not completely halted the content creation platform for many.

Advertising

There is no doubt that the advertisement industry plays a huge role in the spread of junk news. As mentioned within the article, clickbait is a huge method used by companies and social media influencers to encourage consumers to click on links which direct them to webpages that they often get pulled into reading. One site that is very notorious for clickbait is YouTube. It is very common that a video may be titled something like “I PLUCKED EVERY HAIR ON MY HEAD!!!” followed by a photoshopped picture of them bald, only to watch the video and find they got a 1 inch of hair cut off at a professional hair salon. Sites such as YouTube and Instagram pay their creators for the amount of interaction they gain from consumers, which leads them to want to do anything possible to gain attention, even if that means lying.

Exposure

Exposure is by far the element that I can most deeply relate to. It is not rocket science; most people only want to see the information that aligns with their views and opinions (despite if they are right or wrong). Social media sites would lose an enormous amount of consumers if they constantly showed information that did not align with what the consumer wanted to see. The disadvantage to this is that consumers are not able to receive unbiased, factual information in most cases. The biggest example that comes to mind is election season. During the most recent election as well as those in the past, there has always been individuals who lean extremely to one side or another. Typically, those individuals are completely intolerant to any information that does not favor the candidate they are supporting, causing them to completely block out said information. This can result in the spread of extremely dangerous information and leave many uneducated on what is truly occurring.

So, what now?

In all honesty, it seems as if we’re running from one element and running into the next. It is nearly impossible to escape the algorithms, advertisement and exposure issues that occur within social media. A big opportunity I believe we, as consumers, have is the ability to seek out different information. We are able to go out and search for information that may be “hidden” and share that information on our own! Furthermore, I believe social media sites should be more proactive in altering their algorithms to incorporate more unbiased, and factual information.

The Social Dilemma

The documentary, “The Social Dilemma” was extremely interesting! It was amazing to truly be able to get an inside look at what social media companies do to increase their engagement. All in all, it makes a lot of sense that social media companies would develop plans such as these. They are interested in doing whatever necessary to ensure consumers continue to consume.

I do believe this is a slippery slope. With any product, it is important to be aware of the possible dangers in over-marketing and consuming social media. As stated in the documentary, the affects of social media can be deadly in some cases. Despite the age, consumers constantly strive to obtain more social interaction through social media sites.

On the other hand, social media sites can also be used for good. Social justice movements have been organized through social media as well as fundraising efforts for various causes. Social media is an outrageously powerful and lucrative business.

In my opinion, the usage of social media falls on the consumer. We, as social media consumers, need to be aware of the affects caused by social media and take the correct precautions to ensure sanity is protected. Particularly for minors, I believe it is imperative minors are not exposed to social media too soon and when they are, their usage and interactions within it are monitored and limited.

A Day Without Social Media

This week, I spent the entire day on Wednesday, without social media. In all honesty, it was a very interesting experience. On a typical day, I grab my phone shortly after waking up. The first social media platform I usually visit is Instagram. On this day, I grabbed my phone and did as I normally do, opened Instagram. I instantly remembered and closed the app. In that moment, I realized how much of an instinct using social media was and how intentional I would have to be in finding other things to do that were not using social media.

For the rest of my day, I did my best to do other things that would gather my attention and take time away from being able to use and/or be on social media. There were a few things I learned during this period. The first thing I learned was I am more likely to use social media when I am trying to avoid handling other responsibilities. For an example, if I am supposed to be folding laundry (which I hate to do). I am more likely to go sit down and scroll social media until I forget that I was supposed to be doing laundry, and eventually I move on to another task. Another thing that I learned from this experience was that social media really affects my outlook on the day/life in many aspects. There have been times where I have been having a great day, opened social media, saw something sad/hateful/upsetting etc. and it ruined my mood for a couple hours or sometimes the entire day.

During my day without social media, I had limited connection to the outside world, which allowed me to reflect on my own thoughts more without outside interference. I chose to do my social media log on Thursday, the immediate day after my social media free day. Unfortunately, the amount spent on social media on Thursday was the highest of all other days during the week. I am unsure if this was due to the fact I felt I needed to “catch up” on things I missed during the day or Wednesday or it was due to me having more free time this day All in all, I feel as though this day without social media was well worth it and definitely would be something I am interested in doing again in the future.

Nike

Hello Everyone! My name is Amanda Watson and I a senior majoring in Human Resource Management with a minor in Applied Business Communication and Information System. I am originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan. A fun fact about me is that I LOVE to travel. International travel is my absolute favorite. I love learning about different cultures, different languages etc. A career goal of mine is to be a talent acquisition Director for a Fortune 500. I aspire to be a corporate professional who breaks traditional stereotypes of being a Human Resource professionals.

In my opinion, Nike does a great job of upholding their social media presence. I feel as though they consistently make controversial posts on matters that are extremely important. It is important for organizations to be bold about the matters, organizations and issues they support and their stance on them. Customers, stockholders and partners care about Nike conducts themselves on social matters in all cases. Furthermore, Nike aligns their business practices and products with the stances on matters. From developing a sports hijab to choosing to support causes that many others are much too scared to stand with.

Within our course text, we learned about mass collaboration. Mass Collaboration is when a large group of individuals with no preexisting connections pursue a mutual purpose that creates value. I believe Nike does a great job of serving as an advocate for situations and helpings others have their voices heard.

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