Colton Bradley

General Management Major - Central Michigan University Baseball #7

[bradl1ct-blog]

Personal Reflection

As this class comes to its conclusion, I have realized that I very much enjoyed the information that has been provided over the course of this class. With the continually increasing importance of social media in business, I feel that the information provided has been greatly beneficial for the future. 

From learning how to prepare ones online profiles to how businesses need to utilize social media to grow their online communities, all of this information is key to what I will take into my future. Even just entering into an organization that may have limited social media usage, what was learned from this course will be very beneficial when helping organization to grow their online communities. 

Another aspect that really caught my attention was reality about what occurs online. I have always realized that websites track purchases and place banner ads about what sites we have recently visited, but I did not know to what extent personal information was taken. After learning about all of the personal information that these organizations are possibly taking and making a profit on makes you realize how careful you really need to be online. 

When it comes to personal social media accounts, one can never be to careful with what they post. I have never been a frequent poster on any of my social media accounts, but I now am even more contentious of what I may elect to share with my followers. Ensuring that your personal social media accounts have a professional look to them can definitely help when you are a candidate for a job. 

All-in-all, I really enjoyed this class and felt like I learned a lot of valuable information. I will be able to continually improve all my current social media platforms to ensure the most professional look as well as take what I have learned into the business world with me. I now feel as if I could help a company start/run their social media strategy with what I have learned in this course. 

[katelyndetwiler-blog]

Principles of Effective Content Developing and Sharing

In order for a social organization to become effective with content development and sharing they must interest their customers in some sort of way. This could include having posts that are effective and eye catching or even finding a way to add value to your customers. A company can be effective by first coming up with a content strategy in order to comply with company goals and objectives.

Once this strategy is in place, a company should base their posts on the company goals and objectives. This strategy will help show customers that the company relies on their goals and objectives in order to successfully run their business. Also, the content in the posts should go along with the vision and interest of the audience.

Another way to become an effective content developing and sharing organization is now worrying about how many followers you have, but having followers that share the same interests. These followers should be interested in what your company is producing or the service they are providing. This will also allow for customers to come together and talk about your products or services together, since everyone will share the same interests.

Following these steps will help any company become successful. This will allow for followers to become more interested in the company by the posts they share. If a company does not follow these steps, they are less likely to become successful, have effective content in their posts, and would not have as well of interested customers.

[bradl1ct-blog]

Companies really need to be willing to listen to their customers. Overall, their goal is to attract more customers based off of what they post on their social media. Therefore, if their current followers like what they are posting, they will be more likely to share it with their followers, giving the company the opportunity to grow. Ensuring that the post a company makes contain the objectives and goals of the organization is also critically important. You want all of the posts to align the the beliefs of the organization so that you can out all your efforts and feelings into each post.

[haleygincott]

Principles of effective content development and sharing

To be successful in developing and sharing content, it is important to create a content strategy for your social media. You want to look at your target audience, what their interests are, and what kind of content they find valuable. You want to see what information resonates with your customers the best by looking at the things you have already shared. If you find what has the most traffic on your website, it will be easier to see what kinds of posts to make and how often to post. 

This will also see what kind of posts gave the most interactions on social media. You want to connect with your customers as best as you can. You will be able to do this better once you make more social media accounts. The more social media accounts you have, then the more customers you can connect with. You can use tools such as google analytics to be able to measure how often people are looking for your company. This is extremely important so you are aware of how much traffic you are gaining. 

After putting together a content strategy, it is crucial to put together a content calendar. This is important to do because you can keep track of which social media accounts you are going to post to and how often you are going to post. Also by doing this, you can make it organized for your employees to be able to know what to post and when. 

[bradl1ct-blog]

Connecting with your customers is a huge aspect of continuing to grow as an organization. The more social media platforms that an organization has, the more followers they will have the opportunity to reach. The content calendar is also a very important tool that organizations can utilize. Being able to keep track of what is being posted, where it is being posted and when it is posted can help keep an organizations posts high quality and of effective quantity. 

[bradl1ct-blog]

Social Organizations and the Principles of Effective Content

In order for an organization to become a social organization, they must understand and implement the principles of effective content development and sharing. For an organization to become social, they must be able to properly manage and utilize social media and similar platforms. A social organization relies heavily on their followers to support and continually advertise their brand. Also, the content that organizations develop is extremely important to the success of these social organizations. By creating effective posts for varying social media pages, people are more likely to like and share what is going on with the organization. The more that the organization reaches out to their followers, the larger a company’s online organization can grow.

Due to the number of youth around the world, the social world is an extremely important area in inhabit for organizations. With majority of children and adults taking part in social media in some fashion, this is organizations best way to get in contact with their following. As the youth continue to age, their accounts will more than likely stay with them as well. Companies need to understand who their following is and how to appeal to them the best they can. By continuously adjusting and monitoring the progress of the organization through their social media usage, the company can make changes to best align with the wants of their followers.

The world of social media is a high-tempo and always changing environment. In a world that can change in the blink of an eye, companies need to be able to adapt and create new content that continually engages their audience. In today’s world, content either reaches the audience that it was intended to and has much success, or it falls flat and very few people get the opportunity to view it. Companies need to be able to judge their own outputs before they are released to their followers. The content must be able to capture the attention of the followers and promote action to the brand.

By companies properly engaging in social media usage, they can build the foundation of being known as a social organization. This takes much time and effort on the part of the organization, but in the long run, the rewards can be great. By listening to their customers and followers, organizations are able to create the best strategy to give themselves success in the future.

[bradl1ct-blog]

Developing and Sharing Effective Content

In order for effected content to be developed and shared, there are a variety of things that must occur. Starting with the development of effective content and then moving into the sharing aspect of content, companies must understand how to do this in the most successful way possible. First off, an organization must understand the importance and value of their content strategy. The content strategy is how the organization is going to encompass the brands objectives into each of their posts. Along with the content strategy, companies may want to consider utilizing a content calendar to ensure the optimal quantity and quality of posts that are made each day by the organization.

When it comes to creating content, companies must utilize a balance of curated and created content. Curated content is utilizing what is already available to the industry. It may be facts or other information about the industry the organization is in order to help bring credibility to the organization. As for the creative part, this is where organizations can implement their own objectives and put their own style on each post. By using both curated content and created content, this can help to ensure an organization that their posts will be quality and beneficial to the organization.

When it comes to sharing, there are a number of different ways. Each social media platform has a different way that content can be shared but some of these networks are best utilized together. For example, when creating a Facebook post, the organization may also want to consider posting the same thing on their Instagram page. On these platforms, images are plentiful and you can attach larger text amounts. As for twitter, this has a much smaller available space and makes it better for short posts or updates. Each social media platform does a good job in different ways when it comes to sharing content, and organizations just need to understand when the best time to use each method is.

One of the final ways of sharing is through advertisements. Companies will pay to have their brands be sponsored content on given pages. Being an ad, these will show up on people’s feeds and timelines whether they follow the company or not. Ads can be very useful, but at the same time, they can be annoying to the view and may be ignored. Overall, developing and sharing content is the basis of building a organizations online foundation. By developing strong content and sharing it in different ways, organizations can do their best to grow as organizations.

[adamaldredblogs-blog]

Online Community Building

     Community collaboration is a huge importance when it comes to having a successful social media presence. Finding customers and followers that can truly be connected and helpful to your brand, and amongst themselves, is what a strong community is all about. While it is a never-ending process, the connections made with your followers can prove to be beneficial to everyone involved.

     Making sure that your company has a clearly stated vision statement not only creates a concrete brand image, it also allows for followers to find commonality with your company, which can lead to a collaborative community atmosphere. Understanding the road map for your social media accounts works hand-in-hand with that clear vision statement.

     One company that has clearly done a great job when it comes to creating a great community atmosphere is PlayStation. They have a unique way of connecting PlayStation users to one another, maybe more than connecting the users to the actual company. Nonetheless, the community atmosphere is clearly apparent.  The PlayStation Community has done an exceptional job at providing an online space for gamers to connect. Users are able to zone in on their specific interests, whether it be by game, interests, or the type of support they need, and it’s clear to see how the network caters for the pillars of feedback, advocacy, and support.

[bradl1ct-blog]

I agree it is a never-ending process of making connections and continually building a following. Each person who joins the brand is another addition to the online community. The creation of the vision statement is essential to building a concrete brand image as well. This allows customers to understand the goals of the organization and can more easily connect with the company. Your example of PlayStation is a fantastic example. I never thought about it, but game system networks are a prime example of online communities. Every new player continues to grow the community. 

[zacharyhaywardcmu-blog]

Effective principles for online community building

    Through the reading, one thing I learned is that it is just as important to maintain relationships with customers as it is to make new ones. Doing this will increase the amount of community driven content that is created. One company that does a great job of this is GoPro. Most if not all of their content is user generated. Users will send in photos they take themselves and GoPro will pick their favorite one to post. Examples of this can be seen here.

https://www.instagram.com/gopro/

   This is extremely smart on GoPro’s part as it is free advertising. Their customers are effectively showing what a GoPro camera can do.

  While interacting with customers is important, having a company vision is a necessity for successful social media. One company that has a successful vision is Dove. Dove is trying to use their social media to spread positive messages that can range from body positivity to accepting compliments. Examples of this can be seen here.

https://twitter.com/Dove

   By being so positive it increases the chances that a customer will interact with their social media page.

[bradl1ct-blog]

Customer relationships are the foundation of creating a strong online community. When an organization does a good job of interacting with their customers, whether it be answering questions, responding to comments, or doing contests, they all do a good job of increasing the size of the online community. I really like your example of GoPro. GoPro is one of the best companies that I have ever seen when it comes to engaging with their customers. They continually encourage their customers to post photos and videos that they create on their social media. Not only does this continually grow the online community, it also acts as advertising for the company of GoPro. 

[bradl1ct-blog]

Growing the Online Community - Hootsuite

This week’s module of Hootsuite helps to understand the difference between the social media presence that we have been covering previously and the idea of the online community. The key difference comes with the group that is being utilized. For social media presence, this is all about the organization making their name known in the market through the utilization of social media platforms. Ensuring a strong social media presence is how organizations can do their best to maximize their impact upon growing their business. The online community is where organizations will utilize their followers and customers to further promote their company. The greater the engagement of customers and followers, the larger the online community will grow to be. By creating relationships with followers, it creates an online community where everyone can interact with one another.

Companies can grow their online communities most efficiently by engaging their customers. This can be done many ways but the most common is answering questions, sharing peoples content and continually posting and interacting with followers through posts. Any way that an organization can connect with their followers is an opportunity to continually grow their brand. Companies need to utilize all of their social media platforms to maximize the impact on their online community. So for organizations that utilize many forms of social media, they need to be checked, updated, and posts made regularly to promote more communication with the community that they are building.

These principles can be applied to the client of the client project because the goal of the project is to understand how our client currently fits into the social media landscape and what their community is like. For my project, the company I am researching currently does not take part in any form of social media. This means that not only are their social media presence not existent, but they also do not have the opportunity to build an online community. Throughout the project, I am strongly pushing them to engage in the social media landscape. Once they have created a social media presence for themselves, their online community will begin to grow. The online community falls under the earned part of social media presence. This is where people talk about and advertise for your company just due to the fact that they connect with them.

[bradl1ct-blog]

Effective Principles of Online Community Building

Over the course of chapters 4 and 5, the biggest take away is the importance of community collaboration. In order for an organization to have a successful social media presence, they must be willing to collaborate and work with their customers and followers to promote their brand to the fullest potential. The basis of a strong community comes from interactions between one another where customers and followers promote and build your brand between each other. The more interactions that occur with customers and followers, the larger the online community will become. These company’s online communities can never become too large. The more a company grows, the more beneficial this is for not only the company, but also for the followers and customers.

Part of creating community collaboration begins with the vision statement of the company. The vision statement of the company should display the organizations beliefs as well as the organizations intentions moving forward. Part of the vision statement needs to encompass goals and culture that your organization strives to achieve. This allows the followers to know who you are and what your intentions are. By the organizations vision statement encompassing these things, this is how they will attract more followers into the community. When the organization stands for certain principles, people who have the same feelings will be more likely to join in the community.

One of the largest and best followings that I can think of is GoPro. The community that GoPro has created is astounding. They routinely encourage their customers and followers to post their videos online and share with their friends and family. I am personally big fan of GoPro and have been for long time. I find the videos shot by members of the community to extremely entertaining and also a great way to see all of the different uses for the GoPro products. Customers and followers of GoPro continually do promoting for them, making the amount of promotion that GoPro actually does much lower. They heavily utilize their community to continue to make their brand bigger and better.

[angellwinnega-blog]

Big Data

Business should always be aware of the information they are taking from their customers.  They need to make sure there systems are secure so others trust them with their private information.  They should always be aware of hackers and keep up to date with all types of security. If something does happen they need to have a way to fix the problem and inform their customers that it will never happen again.

Consumers should be aware of how easily and fast their data can get out into the world.  They should always be careful what kinds of information they are using when opening a credit card or applying for jobs.  They need to make sure that their information is being stored correctly and it is in safe hands.  Also you should always stay up to date with the activities on your credit cards so if something does happen you can cancel it right away.

Some of the best ways to balance the opportunities and threats for big data is to be careful and aware of the information you are giving out to companies.  Big data can be useful in many situations for different company’s but these companies need to make sure they have a secure network and are only asking for information that is useful to them.

[bradl1ct-blog]

The idea of big data has really grown over the past years. Businesses and Consumers both need to be aware of what types of information are being stored online. Businesses must ensure their security is top of the line to ensure protection of their customers, and the customer needs to understand what information these companies need. I agree that customers need to stay up to date with the activities that occur on our credit and debit cards. This is one way that we are able to monitor some of our personal information that may be online. Hackers are a serious problem in the world that we live in. Both businesses and consumers need to do their part in order to monitor our personal information and stay safe.

[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.

[bradl1ct-blog]

I agree that McDonald’s does a very good job with their social media strategy. I seem to see advertisements from them on all platforms.  Their commercials routinely appear on TV, as well as pop up on my timelines on Twitter and Instagram. McDonald’s does a very solid job of also utilizing widely recognized activities to their advantage. During many large sporting events you will find commercials or posts on their social media. I also agree with what you said about how they respond to their customers. McDonald’s has always done a good job about responding to their customers and doing what they can to accommodate customer requests, such as All-Day breakfast. 

[bradl1ct-blog]

The Legal Side of Big Data

When it comes to Big Data, it is very important that both businesses and consumers understand how easily and quickly data can be transferred. In the world we live in, people are able and willing to give out more personal information than ever, but this is not a good thing for businesses or consumers. Both businesses and consumers need to be aware of the potential dangers that are involved with big data.

First off, businesses need to ensure that the data they receive from customers is safe and secure at all times. These businesses hold more personal information about us than we could even imagine. Whenever we purchase something from a company online, all of the personal information is saved. They have your address, your credit card information, name, and email. This is all information that you are trusting to the company so that you can obtain a product from them. It’s the company’s job to keep this data safe. This is why these companies need to have up to date and top of the line security systems that protect our information. Hackers are always lurking, trying to take advantage of any pieces of data that they can get their hands on. These hackers are utilizing all the tools that they can in order to obtain our personal information. The more personal information that they gain access to, the more people they can harm with the information. This is why businesses need to maintain secure systems. We are entrusting them with our personal information, it is their job to keep it safe. If something were to occur, they would also need a method of connecting with the customers to inform them of what had occurred and what they were doing to fix the problem.

From the consumer side, the consumer needs to be aware of what they are placing online. Hackers will take all the personal information that they can get and either utilize it against us, or sell it to other companies in order to make a profit. Consumers just need to be aware of what information is safe to give to what organizations. If there are question marks surrounding a site, it may not be smart to trust it with personal information. Consumers need to be careful of what information is being posted online. By only placing the information that is absolutely needed, instead of every piece that is asked for, this will help to ensure some sort of safety. By consumers minimizing the personal information that is posted to a business, they lessen the risk that they may be in if the organization were to get hacked.

Big data is a part of our daily lives and will be for the foreseeable future. Both the companies and the consumers can do their part in preserving big data. Organization needs to understand what kinds of information are absolutely necessary in order to minimize the risk from the consumer. Companies need to realize that hackers are continually trying to gain access to personal information and will not give up easily. By utilizing proper and up-to-date security, they can do everything in their power to minimize the risk of hackers. As for consumers, we need to be cautious of what information we readily give out online. All the information that we give out online is stored in databases and if someone is able to gain access to these databases, we could all become casualties to the hacking. By understanding what is necessary information, consumers will be able guard against hackers as well. Big data can be harmful as well as helpful. With the help of companies understanding the data they need, this will help to restrict the amount of valuable personal information that a consumer will put online.

[bradl1ct-blog]

Successful Social Media Strategy

hen it comes to successful social media strategies, one company really came to mind. The company that immediately came to mind was Nike. Nike has impeccable social media strategies that it has utilized over the years. Nike has used different methods of advertising their brand over the years but one thing that is certain is that each method they have utilized has been successful.

Nike relies heavily on celebrity endorsements. Nike has a tendency to be one of the top utilized brands by today’s top athletes. Athletes such as LeBron James (basketball), Allyson Felix (track & field), Roger Federer (tennis), Neymar Jr (soccer), and Rory McIlroy (golf) are some of their top named athletes, and as you can see, they do not specialize in just one sport. They are represented widely across a large number of sports by many of the greatest athletes within the sport. These athletes not only wear Nike apparel at almost all times, but also do their share in advertising for the company. On the company twitter and Instagram, there are many video and images that are posted regularly about the company and their athletes. Below are just a few examples of advertisements that some of these athletes did for Nike.

Another aspect that makes Nike’s social media practices so strong is how frequently they respond to posts about their brand. Nike seems to do a very good job about responding to posts about their product. Whether the posts be good or bad, Nike seems to do their part in reaching out to the individuals and communicating. This is very cool to see especially from such a massively recognized brand. They do not respond to all posts about their product due to the number of posts about Nike each day being more than would be possible to respond to, but they do push their brand as much as they can. Below is an example that occurred on February 11th.

A customer purchased a new pair of shoes and tagged Nike in their tweet and Nike responded shortly after the initial tweet. This shows a very strong social media presence from Nike, and also shows that they are pushing for us to get out and show off their brand.

Overall, I feel that Nike exhibits a very strong social media presence. Thanks in part to the athletes, the amount of influence they have on social media marketing is huge. Athletes are able to rep the company and talk about what new is to come from Nike, as well as the company does a good job of staying in contact with their customers through social media.

[haleygincott]

Social Media Presence

Taking this class is giving me an advantage to increase my professional social media presence. Right now, the social media I use on a regular basis is not that bad for a college student, but I would like to make it better. This class will definitely give me the advantage to do just that. I do hope to keep up with this Tumblr and the Twitter after this class is over with so I can continue my professional social media presence. 

The only strong social media presence I have at the moment is definitely my LinkedIn account. Although, I don’t have as many connections as others do in this class, I find that it is much more professional than my other social media accounts. But I must say that after I became friends with a lot of family members on Facebook. I do not share or post anything that could be frowned upon. I believe having a strong social media presence is important and I am glad that this class will help me be more professional on social media.

[bradl1ct-blog]

I agree with the fact that this class is giving us a tremendous opportunity to increase our professional social media presence. I have never had much of a social media presence, but after the first couple weeks of this class, I have realized how important it can be. I have had a LinkedIn account for nearly a year now but have not been very active until recently. I was told from when I first began social media to watch what I post because everyone can see it. Which has led to me being very cautious to everything I post. 

[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. 

[bradl1ct-blog]

I completely agree with the fact that a social media consultant needs to be flexible. These consultants not only need to be able adjust to their plan to the changing audience, but also to the requests of the client. If the client wants something specific in their social media plan, the consultant needs to be able to be flexible to implement everything that the client needs. As for charisma, I really like this choice of word. This word does a good job of encompassing a few of the most important qualities of a social media consultant from the aspect of friendly, happy, and devoted to others.

[bradl1ct-blog]

Social Media Presence

Until this class, I have never thought about utilizing social media at a professional level. I knew and understood that companies utilize social media as a way to advertise their brand, but I never thought of it as a way to advertise myself. I have always used my social media more for the aspect of entertainment and staying in touch with friends. I do follow a lot of my favorite brands but until this class, I never really realized you could use personal social media as a professional presence. I typically spend a decent amount of time on my social media, but rarely ever post anything. In fact, I believe my last post on any form of social media was over a month ago. I have always been very careful with what I post on my social media pages. I was told when I first created them to be careful what I post because everybody can see it.

In order to improve my professional social media presence, I feel that it will be important to continue to be cautions with what I post on my social media, as well as be more active on some sites such as LinkedIn. For example, I have a LinkedIn account, but do not utilize it almost at all. I understand that this is a great way to get in touch with people you know as well as people you may not know. This can be utilized to make connections that can take you farther into the business world. The way I see it, the more people you know, the more opportunities you can get.

Moving forward I definitely feel that it will be important for me to further utilize my LinkedIn as well as some of my other various forms of social media. While continuing to monitor what I post, I feel that it may be beneficial to continually interact on all my accounts so they do not seem stagnant. Also continuing moving forward, I hope to maintain the twitter account we created for this class as well as periodically check the blog. Not sure what I will utilize it for moving forward but I feel it could be a good tool to stay connect important news and a good way to get different peoples perspectives on rising issues. Social Media has been a relatively large part of my life over the past 4 years, but I feel I can definitely do more to enhance my professional social media presence moving forward.

[bradl1ct-blog]

Social Media Consultant

Until covering the material for class this week, I had learned very little about social media consultants. I have heard of them also referred to as agencies from a previous marketing class. When selecting a social media consultant, one must take into account many different things. First off, when choosing the social media consultant, make sure the size of the consultant fits the size of your business. If you are a small or relatively new business, it would not be wise to select a consultant that is used to dealing on a worldwide scale. As for important qualities that the social media consultant should have, it is important they are passionate about their work, know the business they are representing and the competition that they are up against, be able to utilize all forms of social media the company wishes to use, and be adaptable to requests from the client.

What I feel may be the most important quality for a social media consultant is for them to be passionate about the work that they do. When a person or organization is passionate about what they do, they are more willing to dedicate time and effort into these projects. I understand that these consultants take on hundreds of clients, but when they are able to put passion into the work they are producing, it is more likely to show greater results.

Another quality that I feel is extremely important is that the consultant understands who they are representing. By understanding what the company strives to do, they are more easily able to develop a social media plan that will most benefit the organization. It will also help to know about the companies closest competitors. This can help the consultant to decide what amenities the firm they are representing offers that their competitors may not. When the consultant understands the company and their goals, they are more likely to be able to create passionate work that benefits the organization.

One of the obvious qualities that you look for in a social media consultant is their ability to utilize all social media platforms. Ensuring that the consultant is competent in us of all social media allows the company to ensure they will receive quality product, no matter what platform it gets posted on. Consultants need to stay up-to-date on all the changes that are implemented by each social media platform.

One of the final qualities that I feel is important encompasses a lot of more minor points. Social media consultants need to be able to adapt to the requests of their clients. This means that the company needs to be able to listen and understand what the client really wants. By listening, providing feedback, and maintaining a good attitude with the client, a social media consultant would have the best luck in creating the most accurate product for the client.