Amr Elkhashab

CMU--Finance major--Information Systems minor

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Final Reflection

I had to take an elective course for my minor and what made me take this class specifically is the name of the course which grabbed my attention. I always loved surfing over social media but never had a chance to look at it from the other view I experienced throughout this class. This class is a big gain for me as I did not know that there is social media consultant and it uses a lot of strategies to implement.

New start-ups and future businesses are in need of social media advertising as I believe as we go on all upcoming generations will have access to those ads.I really enjoyed Hootsuite lectures and will always have it as a backup in the future.

The client project gave me a lot of experience when facing the real world because this is what actually happens from A to Z. Going step by step applying what I learned in Hootsuite to my client was really interesting and more of a practical work.

All in all, i realised the big difference of a basic user and what happens behind the scenes which are the setup to all what users are discovering and exploring. It is not easy to make a social media page as brilliant as I saw in many companies and requires a lot of experience that I think I gained most if it and would like to learn more in the future 

[angellwinnega-blog]

Principles of Effective Content

When becoming a social organization it is important to use and follow the right principles.  This will help grow your organization to the biggest and most well known it can be.  When following the correct guidelines it will help readers understand your company better. This way they will be able to comment and share your posts.  You should always keep up to date when posting to help grow your business.

Sharing your posts is very important when starting and growing a business. Sharing your posts will help them reach more viewers.  Always be sure to communicate with the comments people write on your social media. Whether it is good or bad feedback there’s always something you can say to help the situation. Talking with your viewers help them feel a sense of connection with your business, which in return can help grow it.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

following guidelines is always an effective way to be well organized and deliver tot the customer what they are expecting.

[ardentambition-blog1]

Building a Community

After reading the assigned chapters on online community building, it seems to me that those strategies are very similar to in-person community building. However, they are just executed in different ways online. 

The definition of a community is, “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.”

The definition of an online community is, “a group of people with common interests who use the Internet (web sites, email, instant messaging, etc) to communicate, work together and pursue their interests over time.”

As we can see, the definitions are incredibly similar; the ends are the same, but the means are different. Because the means are different, there are some specific strategies that can be beneficial when building an online community.

1. Give it some time.

Like any sort of relationship, it can take time to build and develop effectively. Something that many online contributors lack is patience: you need to let your users have a chance to get to know you online, and find those niches that the community has in common. The online community definition includes the words, “pursue…interests over time.” Nothing great is built overnight. 

2. Don’t be afraid to invite.

Many campaigns remain internal, and basically hidden from users that would fit very well into a community. Never be afraid to send out an email, advertise a little bit, and reach your market in an efficient way. Part of building community is the building part, and to do that, you can’t stray away from different methods of recruiting.

3. Decide and Commit.

If you decide to start building a community you need to commit to it. It takes a routine effort to create a community that users can depend on and look forward to checking out. The facilitator needs to use consistent posting strategies, integrating photos and other media to keep users engaged. If you’re going to decide to do it, decide to do it right.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

it really necessary not to be afraid and give away advertisements as worldwide as it takes to make it viral and to make everyone know about your product.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Principles Of Effective Content Development and Sharing

According to the “Social Organization”  a company meets the criteria to be a social organization company by contributing in the mass collaborations with the skills and goals to create collaborative communities. always beeing up to date with guidelines and outlines to meet customer’s satisfaction. Always the first thing is to make customers understand your company.

Having a content strategy to follow is very good way to always stay on track and deliver customers expectations on the expected date and time. Keeping a content calendar in advance for every month will always be a backup that can be referred to in time of need.

As I said before some social accounts could be eliminated and focus more on other accounts that will make the scope smaller and sustain at the same time a good image about the social media accounts and how they all should look alike in a way.

Visual posts is a must that grabs the follower’s attention at first sight and if creative it can make the reader more motivated and read more about my product.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

How Effective Content is Developed and Shared

After completing hootsuite 5 annd 6 i learned a step by step process in developing and sharing what is most useful to achieve the goals of the company and also get beyond those goals. First step is to set clear objectives that should always be followed and adressed to know exactly the right track to follow and to always be up to date witg customer expectations. knowing who are our customers to which we are trying to send a message or to make them happy with what we offer and at the same time spread postivity among others. 

Second step is setting up a a schedule calender in which to be well organised and know what to publish on a daily basis without conflicts or overlapping of posts. having a schedule at least one or 2 weeks in advance gives the social media consultant time to manage any updates wether it is internal or external to always meet customer expectations.

Using the help of others is a very good stretegy to deliver my message through a celebrity for example or a blogger that is famous and has many followers and to make them publish my product or service i have to offer thgem a sample of this product trying to convince them and make them want to advertise my product for a reason that they are really satisfied with what i offered. 

We have to always keep eventual posts ready for publishing, like anually events we have to show that we are going with the flow and not forgetting about certain dates by always storing historical data in the “Bank” for further use and to also compare my performance over the years.

Next we have to stick to visuals as they have a large impact on grabbing the readers attention and stopping them from scrolling down and skipping my post one company i found very creative is oreo. They post their simple oreo with different flavors with a glimpse of sketches and backgrounds specially the last picture which tells that ore is a necessaity when starting to work and you just cannot work without your oreos.

[ardentambition-blog1]

Building a Community

After reading the assigned chapters on online community building, it seems to me that those strategies are very similar to in-person community building. However, they are just executed in different ways online. 

The definition of a community is, “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.”

The definition of an online community is, “a group of people with common interests who use the Internet (web sites, email, instant messaging, etc) to communicate, work together and pursue their interests over time.”

As we can see, the definitions are incredibly similar; the ends are the same, but the means are different. Because the means are different, there are some specific strategies that can be beneficial when building an online community.

1. Give it some time.

Like any sort of relationship, it can take time to build and develop effectively. Something that many online contributors lack is patience: you need to let your users have a chance to get to know you online, and find those niches that the community has in common. The online community definition includes the words, “pursue…interests over time.” Nothing great is built overnight. 

2. Don’t be afraid to invite.

Many campaigns remain internal, and basically hidden from users that would fit very well into a community. Never be afraid to send out an email, advertise a little bit, and reach your market in an efficient way. Part of building community is the building part, and to do that, you can’t stray away from different methods of recruiting.

3. Decide and Commit.

If you decide to start building a community you need to commit to it. It takes a routine effort to create a community that users can depend on and look forward to checking out. The facilitator needs to use consistent posting strategies, integrating photos and other media to keep users engaged. If you’re going to decide to do it, decide to do it right.

[ricoabro-blog]

I agree that it is important to invite people to grow an online community. One comment that I have about invitations, is to make sure that the organization is inviting the right kinds of people. Organizations should focus their efforts on inviting people with similar interests or beliefs. By doing this, the organization is more likely to gain followers that will interact with them and collaborate within their online community.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

I agree that invitations would bring up a tree with the word of mouth which will lead to increasing followers and interactions between users. commitment is a goal and by commitment, awarness should always be there and up to date.

[taylorrichey10-blog]

Online Community - Hootsuite

Being able to effectively and efficiently grow an online community comes with a lot of hard work. The ultimate goal is to build your brand and allow customers to better interact with the company. By building relationships and continuing to maintaining previous ones it becomes beneficial for the customers and the company.

Growing an online community allows the company to foster deep personal connections with people that are interested in the company. The three main ways to create a successful online community is to engage in conversations, become a resource and a customer advocate. By engaging with customers it makes them feel like to actually care what they have to say and want to fix any issues with the product or service. By creating a diverse community with great discussions and inspiration customers are more likely to return to your store or continue using your products. 

To ensure satisfaction companies need to engage in a positive way. Creating good customer satisfaction will create returning customers which then leads to customers that can become brand advocates. A company needs to be able to respond to positive and negative feedback. Thanking customers for positive reviews shows that you care if they enjoyed the product or service and responding to negative feedback shows that you want to fix what was wrong and that you want them to have a positive experience with the company.

The company I am working with for the Client Project is the American Marketing Association (AMA). AMA has an online presence through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and an offline presence through weekly meetings and social events. AMA mainly utilizes their Facebook page where all members are asked to join a private group for frequent updates. I think that by creating more events and commenting more on general members comments the community could grow even more. 

[amrelkhashab-blog]

I agree that interaction with customers should always be a number one consideration that will give a very good impression that you are respecting customer needs whatsoever 

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Hootsuite Community Growing

It is always beneficial to understand what your customer needs are and know what exactly they are thinking in depth of your product or service to address them similarly. Negative comments is a very important factor to consider for improvement and a better development. A guiding philosophy is very important for every business to always know the path which they should stick to for reaching their goals. Its never about number of followers but rather have smaller but dedicated community.

 Providing value for costimers is very important to engae them with your brand, even if the customer is asking or providing a nonsense comment they have to feel they are valued and carfully responded to their questions. Concerning influencers, I think product trial with a small description is the best method delivering desires, when influencers are obsessed with a product they would as hard as they could praising what have been influencing.

 From my experience with my client project i think small businesses should know exactly what social media account they need the most because having accounts on account that they don’t maintain like others will always reflect negatively and not only this but will also affect the other accounts which are active. Facebook events would be very useful for my client as to invite their followers to the games since they are not many.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Principles on online community building

After reading chapter 4 and 5, i find it very necessary for the company to firstly discuss their goals and work for it to know who exactly they are willing to address and thus plan accordingly. This would help a lot in building an online community that reaches its customers quickly and is always easily accessible. Keeping always up to date with daily real life situations is always meeting customers expectations and making them feel that the business appreciates their customers.

Companies must always know their vision statement as it is the most important step to Meeting customer expectations is a critical aspect there should always be answers to customers because a delay can make the client change their mind of your business. 

Beats by Dre is my favorite example since it focuses most on celebrity endorsement and this, in my opinion, reaches every customer thinking of buying headphones they always update pictures of celebrities in live event situations. Beats are always up to date and entertain their followers by the videos they publish.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Starbucks: Success in Social Media

To capitalize on the current popularity of social media, many businesses and organizations are creating and implementing social media strategies. To better understand how businesses are using social media to their advantage and discover best practices and techniques for using social media, we can look at one company who has had great success with the creation and implementation of social media strategy.

Starbucks

In my opinion, Starbucks is one of the most successful businesses on social media. This is largely due to their commitment to collaboration. Starbucks encourages its customers to interact with them on social media and creates unique ways for consumers to give input.

One example of this took place this past December at the start of the holiday season. During the previous holiday season (2015), Starbucks released the holiday design for their coffee cup. The design was minimal and was instantly criticized by many for lacking “holiday spirit.” The next year, Starbucks used social media as a platform to announce that they would be holding a contest for the design of their cups for the next holiday season. The company encouraged their followers to submit their own designs and when the 2016 holiday season rolled around, Starbucks’ customers were able to see their own designs come to life as the winning designs were embossed on the holiday coffee cups.

Of course, there are many other practices and techniques used by Starbucks that add to their social media success, however this example clearly shows how Starbucks engaged their customers to collaborate on a project with a common goal.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Starbucks try to share joy and happiness with all of their customers which make you not only want to get their coffee but also take a shot and instantly post it on snap chat and Instagram which is a brilliant idea to spread their way of serving their customers

-Amr

[katelyndetwiler-blog]

Successful Social Media Strategy

The company I found that had a very successful social media strategy was McDonald’s. McDonald’s posts on twitter very often and their posts are interesting. They post a variety of videos, pictures, and they even post links to articles about themselves that people could read. McDonald’s also does a very good job at responding back to customers who are craving their food or even have a comment about McDonald’s. Not only does McDonald’s keep up to date on their Twitter account, they also keep up to date on their Instagram account. McDonald’s posts pictures/videos of their new products on a regular basis. By keeping their social media accounts up to date and responding to customers, they are making their business more successful. The more often a company posts on social media, the more customers they will bring in. This is because someone who is hungry or trying to decide what to have for breakfast, lunch, or dinner can see one of their ads and may choose McDonald’s over other places. Overall, I think McDonald’s does an excellent job with their social media strategy. Below I have placed some pictures of the types of posts McDonald’s has.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

It sounds like McDonalds is doing well with posting content to their social media platforms. I agree that it is important to post fresh content and respond to customers on a timely basis. One thing that I would be curious to know is how McDonalds provides ways for their audience to collaborate via social media. Just like the text, The Social Organization, points out, it is essential for businesses to provide ways for their audience to collaborate via social media in order to move toward becoming a social organization.

-Chelsea

[amrelkhashab-blog]

McDonalds is doing a very good job with social media advertising, also knowing that they have links to their own article is a thing that is easily spread to other people because nothing reach customers and sticks to their mind better than reading an article

-Amr

[amrelkhashab-blog]

The legal side of big data

After watching "The Legal Side of Big Data I had more understanding of how it is a major thing to companies to make sure they are securing their big data. Hackers are becoming more and more these days and have their ways to steal data as mentioned in the video 56 million home depot credit cards were hacked in 2015 this affects the company negatively and lets customers lose their trust and of course the company has to pay all of this. Precautions must be taken in advance to stop such an act from happening by limiting the access of certain type of data to experts and keeping these data always safe. 

On the other side, consumers should be aware of to whom their data is presented online or offline and not fall into the hackers hands by tricking you over the websites that ask for your details. As Lalone discussed in his video by only holding a cup of water your fingerprints could be copied and more identifications could be made about you. These cloud storages are increasing these days which if hacked have all my personal data which could be accessible to everyone anyway. 

Keeping a balance to protect this data isn;t easy but companies should have plans and strategies trying as much as they can to keep their data safe from hackers and on the other hand customers must know who they are giving their data to and try to keep this only if really needed and try to keep your data on your phone rather than synced to the cloud, Apple is a big company but that doesn’t mean it could not get hacked one day .

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Social Media Strategy

There are lots of strategies that could be used to address different customers with different desires and needs. But top companies always find their way to maximise their loyal customers and always bring out what they are looking for. 

A company that I found has a unique yet more expensive strategy is beats by dre. Beats’s strategy is celebrity endorsements, every person has their own celebrity that they admire and by just a picture of this celebrity uploaded on Instagram with a specific kind of headphones, it is purchased. Beats maintain an up to date posts with what is going on in real life, for example a video was posted of tom Brady just before the super bowl which had an impact on a lot of football and Brady lovers, others listening to Pharell when he publishes a new song and Serena Williams the tennis player before her final match. This strategy is targeting different people with different hobbies and interest but yet selling its products to these different customers.

[ricoabro-blog]

Important Qualities to have as a Social Media Consultant

Along with being knowledgeable about current social media platforms and industry best practices, a social media consultant must possess a variety of important qualities. The qualities that I believe are most important in social media consulting are: strategic analysis, listening skills, flexibility, and improvisation.

First, it is important for a social media consultant to understand strategical analysis. They must understand what is working and what is not, why something is or is not working, what variables will affect the outcome, how to produce the best outcome. Like Dr. Melton said in his lecture video, clients usually do not have their problem pinpointed. It is up to the consultant that they hire to be able to identify the problem and look across all variables to find the best solution.

The next quality that I believe is important for any consultant to possess is listening skills. Consultants must be able to listen to their client with an open mind to hear their input and ideas. Since consultants are hired directly by the client, they must listen to what the client wants to achieve to be able to give the best end result.

Flexibility is another important quality for social media consultants to have. Along with this is improvisation. When working in social media, it’s important to know that unforeseen changes can happen very quickly. Since the audience, or “followers,” can leave feedback or comment on a certain business’ reputation with little control, consultants must be flexible in changing their plan and be able to improvise to respond to current situations.

While these are not the only qualities that a social media consultant must possess, they are the ones that I believe to be most important.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Listening is a very important quality, being a good listener will make you know exactly what this customer is seeking and would save a lot of time when it comes to implementing these ideas.

[zacharyhaywardcmu-blog]

Social Media Consultant

    The most important qualities for a social media consultant to have are charisma and the ability to be flexible. It is important for a consultant to be charismatic as their posts will be seen by many people. It is also important for a consultant to be flexible since the audience they have will change based on who they are consulting.

     Charisma is an important quality to have if you are planning on becoming a social media consultant. Your goal is to have an audience agree with the message you are trying to share. If you come off as mean or rude then that might hinder your ability to attract people to who you are representing. 

    This is why being flexible is so important as well. The audience you are trying to sway will change based on who you are consulting. Being able to recognize and plan an approach to this change is an important part of being a social media consultant. 

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Charisma is a very important factor that gives an impression of the person you would do work with and having a positive charisma will make you trust this consultant.

[amrelkhashab-blog]

improving my professional social media presence

2 years ago I never thought about professionalism in social media, it was more of an entertainment for me and never thought it could have an impact on my job search or my position. After creating a LinkedIn profile I tried a lot day by day to improve it and add to it experience and other stuff. Creating a LinkedIn profile was a very strong motive in my career.

improving my social media presence would require real job experience and awards. After doing my internship I found I added about 50 more people to my connections on LinkedIn, being on the field is the best way to make connections which are the best thing to enhance my social media presence.

Also, joininng organisations, volunteering and going to conferences all over the world is a great opportunity to meet new people and have more connections on social media worldwide,

I as an Egyptian transfer student feel I have now a linkage between Americans I met here and had connection with them and my connections which I already have in Egypt. This mutual connection could do a lot in connecting different sectors of business world wide just over social media

[amrelkhashab-blog]

Qualities of a social media consultant

Consulting is a very efficient method to deliver an experience to another field. Social media consulting specifically requires a lot of experience and above all creativity. It requires a lot of planning and organising ideas to perfectly reach the customer’s attention. Social media is a diversity in all fields and areas but what makes a page or a post unique is its creativity and clearness of the message that is delivered to the customer behind this post.

The first thing any consultant should make their first priority is where they are placed on a search basis so for example if they are a coffee brand they want to come first using effective keywords. Your brand won’t be always on top of the search list as users don't pay much of an attention to what follows underneath. So searching the most used hashtags to implement them and using keywords that are easily accessible is very important 

Now technology is rising more and more in social media that gives the option to a consultant or a user to make their profiles user-friendly and very good looking that users wanna dive more deeply to discover more about this profile. So any social media consultant must be up to date with each and every update that comes out which makes him a step forward than any basic user. Grabbing more followers isn’t easy but coming to a certain point where this consultant knows what the customer wants and implementing this on social media will make them feel comfortable with your brand.

Connecting profiles over different social media is a very efficient method for marketing, facebook users are different from those on Instagram and from those on Tumblr and so on. Linking these profiles and making users surf among them gives them better chance on trusting your brand more and more when it comes to consistency.