Chelsea Salbert

Marketing & Communications Student

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

BIS 315 - Final Reflection

As a marketing major, social media is something that has always been of interest to me. We are lucky enough to live in a time period where we were able to witness the evolution of social media from its initial beginnings. What started out as an online social environment has turned into a marketing and business tool used by almost every large organization today. However, before completing this course, I was unaware of how to capitalize on this tool and use it to its full potential.

Throughout the 8-week course, I studied social media from a variety of angles using different resources. By participating in an online blog, I was able to use social media to interact with my classmates and collaborate on a variety of writing prompts. Lecture videos and articles supplemented ideas that were discussed on the blog and were centered around emerging topics dealing with social media. Through Hootsuite, an online tool that is used by many organizations to administer their content, I watched a series of videos that explained principles for using social media effectively. In addition, through reading The Social Organization, I gained valuable knowledge on how some of the most successful companies today are using social media.

My key takeaway from this course is this: social media is one example of how the business industry is constantly changing. We take new technologies meant for one thing and watch them evolve into something completely different that can be used to our advantage. Social media is the perfect example of this; something as simple as online chat rooms turned into social environments, which changed even further into platforms of mass communication and collaboration. In order to maintain an edge in today’s competitive marketplace, we must also change and adapt our ways of thinking and keep up with evolving technologies like social media.

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Social Organization and Content Development

The principles of developing effective content has a lot to do with catering to your target market and making your posts as effective for your audience.  This directly relates to becoming a Social Organization.  A Social Organization is all about becoming a community.  To be a community, you want your social media page to be a gathering of people with similar interests and you want your posts to be valued by them.  In order to create value for your specific customers, you would take note of who your customers are and post according to what they like.  You won’t create a community of people around your company if you aren’t communicating to your customers in a way that will be easily received.  

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

I like how you restated the importance of communities within social media. Without the community factor, mass collaboration cannot exist on social media. I think it’s also important to note another key factor, purpose. Developing a purpose is imperative to tie community members together to achieve mass collaboration. When developing content to share, purpose should always be top of mind.

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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.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

I agree that content calendars are important tools to use when developing and sharing content. Content calendars are visual road maps that depict content strategy and help to plan frequency of posts. Without tools such as these, frequency of posts may become inconsistent and content may become more repetitive. I would recommend this tool to any social media administrator.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Relating Social Organizations to Principles for Developing and Sharing Content

Social organizations are defined by communities of individuals, participating in mass collaboration to achieve a common goal or purpose. Unless these characteristics are present, an organization cannot achieve social status.

When thinking about the principles of effectively sharing and developing content, an organization must be sure to integrate these principles with the characteristics of a social organization. This means that not only should their content be engaging, posted on a frequent basis, include a call to action, and all of the other principles associated with creating and sharing content, but their content must also reflect a purpose within a community and encourage interaction among individuals within that community. Although they may seem different on the surface, becoming a social organization and creating and sharing effective content are two concepts that are vital to social media success.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Developing & Sharing Effective Content on Social Media

In order to develop and share content that is effective on social media platforms, many factors must be taken into consideration. Hootsuite Academy defines many of these principles in their Social Media Training modules. While completing modules five and six, I noted aprinciples for developing and sharing content on social media, below are three that I chose to include in my client project.

Hook Your Audience With a Strong Headline

Hootsuite explains the importance of developing an enticing headline to “hook” your audience on social media. A headline that is interesting will engage the reader and make them want to continue reading and interacting with the content.

Incorporate Visuals When Possible

Visuals add depth and increase audience engagement. Hootsuite states that content including visuals generally performs higher than content that lacks imagery.

Follow the Rule of Thirds

This principle is the one that I found to be surprising, but I also recognized the value and importance of including this as a suggestion to my client. This idea states that less than 30% (or about 1/3) of content shared on social media should be “self-promotion.” This rule is often broken by many large-scale organizations on social media today. Hootsuite reiterates that social media should not be a place to simply broadcast content, but instead to engage and interact with your audience. An audience is less likely to engage with an organization that solely uses their social media channels to promote their organization.

All of the principles explained in Hootsuite are great rules to follow, however I found these three to be particularly important to the context of my client.

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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.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

One way that you might help to grow your client's online community is by following and engaging with organizations of similar nature or industry influencers. This allows their followers to see your interaction and may influence their decision to follow your client's social media account. This is one of the suggestions from Hootsuite that I hope to implement for my own client.

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Applying Strategies

Through the Hootsuite module 4 training, I found that it is integral to get the LinkedIn and Instagram moving for my client, Wesley Methodist Church. Hootsuite suggests using push notifications for different social media networks to keep track of posts that relate to Wesley. Wesley struggles to retain members, so engaging with them on social media could be a great way to keep people coming back for services and events. I would argue that Wesley already has Brand Advocates in place, which would be the student staff. We all make an effort to spread the word about Wesley, whether that be through social media or word of mouth. Each of us tries to retweet and share Facebook posts as much as we can, without overwhelming our friend bases. 

Being that I run the Wesley Twitter page, I use Hootsuite to keep it active and engaging. This is something I have committed to in order to reach Wesley’s audience effectively. I have found that this strategy has helped Wesley reach different parts of campus and new students students. I focus on specific content that encourages students to come and see what Wesley is all about, such as the church’s inclusive nature, and large focus on service.

Overall, the Hootsuite methods have already begun to inspire and guide me as I rework Wesley’s social media brand and create more awareness for this awesome place. I will continue to implement Hootsuite’s community-building strategies as I move forward with Wesley’s social media accounts.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

One resource that you might find helpful when managing social media for your client is a content calendar. Content calendars are used to visually map out frequency of posts and their content. This allows all social media administrators to see exactly what is being posted and when it is scheduled to post. Using a content calendar helps to make sure frequency is consistent and delivery is unique. It helps avoid repetition and keep everyone who is involved with managing social media on the same page.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Applying Hootsuite Concepts to Client Work

“At the core of community is the principle of reciprocity - the more value you provide to your audience, the more likely they are to contribute meaningfully to the community as well.”

This quote, taken from Hoodsuite Academy, is just one example of characteristics of growing a successful online community. Throughout module four of Hootsuite’s Social Media Training community building fundamentals are explained as well as industry best practices for growing an online community.

When applied to the client project, these fundamentals can be extremely beneficial if used in the correct way. One thing that I learned from this module was the importance of providing value to an online community in order to also derive value from it. An audience that feels like they are participating in an activity that is beneficial to themselves will be more likely to collaborate with other community members.

When working with my client throughout the rest of the client project, I hope to apply this idea in order to provide the client with the best possible chance of deriving value from her own online community of followers. By applying this concept, I hope to help encourage collaboration among audience members by providing my client with a strategy that adds value and enrichment to their online social media activity.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Building an Online Community

Before any organization can partake in collaborating with its customers via social media, they must first establish a presence on social media and build an online community of followers. Building an online community from scratch is no easy task, however The Social Organization provides instructions and a basic framework of principles that can be applied to this idea.

First, the text suggests creating a vision statement to show the importance of leadership in collaboration and to illustrate opportunities that may be achieved through online collaboration.

Next, the author moves on to explain that the collaboration is not always the best tactic for certain communities. Here he explains the significance of choosing a situation where collaboration is appropriate for the respective audience. In the figure below, we can see examples of situations where collaboration may be more suitable than others.

The next area that the author defines as imperative to building an online community is creating a strategy. This involves understanding the objectives to align it with a purpose and applying various methodologies to reach the end goal. These are the beginning stages to building an online community with social media.

[alexbondy-blog]

Nike’s Social Media Strategy

When trying to think of companies that have established a successful social media strategy, Nike came to mind.  I think Nike is unique from other companies.  Think back to any commercial, Instagram post, twitter post, etc. that simply advertises one of their products.  It’s hard to think of, right?  That’s because they rarely put too much focus on the products.  They focus on this “world” of Nike.  All their Instagram videos and commercials highlight the athletes, the atmosphere, and this feeling of being in the Nike community.  It is something that has remained a constant throughout their campaign.  Their videos are intense with incredible graphics, and what is most memorable is this feeling they leave you with…not the product they were showing.  In this video - https://www.instagram.com/p/BNhbkXnFlJ_/?taken-by=nike - the first time I watched it, I just thought it was a really cool video and I honestly didn’t even know what the ad was for until I watched it again and paid more attention to it. 

A lot of their videos don’t even highlight specific products at all, but just the heart of their motto and campaigns instead. You can see this through these videos:  https://www.instagram.com/p/BIwM3jxDYjY/?taken-by=nike , https://www.instagram.com/p/BISbWlhjRpj/?taken-by=nike , https://www.instagram.com/p/BI-dFvGDeBA/?taken-by=nike , https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ0N2C3DRRk/?taken-by=nike

I think their strategy is extremely effective.  They have such a strong following, because they highlight the feeling that Nike represents.  Nike would be a totally different company if their marketing strategy was just to show off their merchandise.  They succeed by selling their company, not just their products. 

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

I think that this example was a great way to show how a company markets their brand versus their merchandise. I agree, Nike excels at creating brand loyal consumers by using this tactic. Another company that has similar techniques is Harley Davidson. Instead of just focusing on selling and marketing their motorcycles, they strive to market the Harley Davidson lifestyle. This is a unique method used by a handful of companies, and in both Nike and Harley Davidson’s case, it has worked in their favor.

-Chelsea

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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

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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.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

The Legal Side of Big Data

In his lecture titled “The Legal Side of Big Data,” Doug LaLone, patent attorney, explains the implications that may arise from big data for both consumers and businesses. He first defines big data as volumes of collected data that is analyzed by computerized methods to generate predictive modeling. From here, he goes on to explain how big data often contains sensitive information, such as personal consumer information or trade secrets of businesses and why hackers are interested in obtaining it.

Because the marketplace is so competitive, businesses are constantly trying to find new ways to outperform their competition. One way a business might gain a competitive advantage, is by obtaining confidential information about their competitors. While this practice is not considered ethical, it is still present in society today. LaLone gives many examples of businesses, organizations, and even the U.S. government falling victim to hackers who are uncovering both consumer and business data.

To combat this, businesses must first be aware of the issue at hand. Next, they must take a proactive, rather than a reactive approach. LaLone repeatedly states the importance of staying ahead of the hackers to prevent the exploitation of confidential data, rather than focusing on how to react once this data has been breached. To do so, he suggests limiting accessibility of confidential data to only those who need to view it and doing so on a limited number of platforms that are secure. Next, he suggests keeping a record of anyone who has access to or has viewed this material. It’s important that businesses make their C-level managers, and really of their employees, aware of the implications of big data and make sure they are properly trained to handle the information. Businesses must begin to get ahead of the hackers and conduct risk assessments to reduce their chance of being taken advantage of by hackers.

Businesses are not the only ones affected by big data breaches, consumers are also affected by this issue. Often, consumer information is obtained by businesses and organizations that serve them. In addition, personal consumer information is kept on file by the government. Consumers must be aware that their personal information is documented and should limit the amount of personal information they disclose to only the necessary parties to reduce the chance of their data being hacked.

Big data offers many new opportunities to businesses and consumers alike, but with this comes potential threats of data being hacked. To balance the opportunities and threats, consumers and businesses must take steps to ensure that they are protecting this information. They should limit who has access to sensitive documents, limit the number of platforms used to host the data, keep records of anyone who has access, clarify who has ownership to data, establish privacy policies between vendors, and take a proactive approach to stay ahead of data hackers.

[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. 

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Zach,

I agree that flexibility is an important quality for social media consultants to possess. A client’s current social media plan may need to be updated or changed as their audience changes the tone of conversation. It is impossible to control the content in which the client’s audience is publishing, so consultants must be able to adapt quickly to ensure that the brand they are representing is responding to the audience in a way that will improve or maintain their reputation.

-Chelsea

[alexbondy-blog]

Qualities of a Social Media Consultant

The most important qualities I think a Social Media Consultant should have are as follows:

-Wanting to continually learn. – A Social Media Consultant needs to stay up to date on the latest social media trends/sites to stay qualified for the position.  If they aren’t aware of new sites that could be used, a company could be missing out on another potential way to reach their customers.  Not being educated would be doing the company a disservice.

-Patient – A Social Media Consultant needs to understand that not everything they do will have immediate effects.  It will take some time to see the results in their work.  Not everyone can be patient enough to wait for their changes to play out either in a good way or a bad way, but you need to be patient in knowing things won’t happen right away.

-Analytical – A Consultant’s job will consist of constantly analyzing what is and what isn’t getting the company closer to their goals.  They should be a person who can read between the lines of data.  They should be able to or be able to learn how to analyze the data they collect, and then act upon that information. 

-Adaptability – Something I think is vitally important is the ability to adapt to each individual company’s specific needs.  A consultant needs to understand that not each company you consult for will have the same goals.  They need to know how to create different, unique plans for each company.

-Realistic – These consultant’s also need to be humble in understanding the fact that Social Media isn’t the answer to everything – but just an element in a company’s overall marketing plan.  

-Communication skills – Social Media Consultant’s will work withall different types of people, at many different kinds of companies, targeting a variety of customers.  They should have the ability to communicate with all sorts of demographics. 

-Experience in digital communications – Some people think you can hire any millennial these days to be a Social Media Consultant because everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other account pages set up for themselves.  What people should realize is that consulting for a company is a lot different. It involves a whole other side of social media that the typically user isn’t familiar with.  

These are a few qualities I believe Social Media Consultants should have.  There are so many more that could apply to this job as well, but these are the most relevant attributes that I could come up with.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Alex,

Communications skills are something that I also believe social media consultants must possess. Not only is it important that they be able to effectively communicate with their client, but it is imperative that they understand how to communicate with their client’s consumers. In order to design a successful social media plan, a social media consultant must first understand how to effectively engage in conversation with their target audience.

-Chelsea

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

My Professional Social Media Presence

Since its introduction to society just a short time ago, social media has evolved into a tool that many professionals use in the business world today. I currently am present across a variety of social media platforms, however the one that I use the most in a professional setting is Linked-In. I have found, since creating my Linked-In account, that social media can be extremely helpful in searching for jobs, expanding personal networks, learning information about a certain company, landing a job interview, and much more. Because social media is such a valuable tool, I am always looking for ways to improve my professional social media presence.

The strategy that I have in place to continuously improve my professional social media presence consists of four key components: 1) Maintaining an active profile, 2) Updating my profile as changes in my professional life occur, 3) Continue to expand my network, and 4) Limit published content to appropriate material. This strategic plan has helped ensure that, when visiting my profile, professionals in the business field will see that I am active and engage in conversation, have experience in the marketing industry and keep my experiences up-to-date, have a growing network, and present myself in a positive manner by only publishing professional content

When scaling down and looking at tactical practices, both past and present, I found that I often update my resume and Linked-In simultaneously to ensure that both are up-to-date. In the past, I have added information to my profile to stand out, such as certifications, awards, extra-curricular activities, and scholarly achievements. Currently, I monitor my notifications and messages on Linked-In to ensure that I respond to those within my network in a timely manner.

Although I already have an established professional social media presence through Linked-In, I know that I have room for improvement. In the future, I plan to use social media to showcase different components of my work. I hope to expand across platforms to develop a portfolio and possibly even a blog. I hope to continue to expand my network and gain endorsements from past and present colleagues. And in the very near future, I would like to update my Linked-In picture to a more professional image.

Social media has evolved into a tool that can help professionals in the business world today. I plan to continue to improve my professional social media presence and use this tool to gain new opportunities, meet other professionals in my industry, stay informed of industry related news, and reflect a positive portrayal of my professional life.

[cmsalbertcmu-blog]

Important Qualities to Have as a Social Media Consultant

Consulting, or “helping,” as described in the lecture video relies on the creative application of knowledge to a specific problem or opportunity. After learning about what consulting is and the nature of the work, I have developed a list of what I believe to be some of the most important qualities for a social media consultant to have.

1.     Problem Solving Skills

When working with a client, it is often the case that the problem at hand is not clearly defined. In fact, it may not be defined at all. As students, we are trained to find the answer to a presented problem. However, consultants must possess unique problem solving skills to first identify the problem and then create a plan of action to provide a solution to their client. 

2.     Creativity

As mentioned in the lecture video, the problems clients are faced with do not have “one size fits all” solutions. Consultants must learn to think outside of the box and be innovative in crafting solutions. This is especially important for social media consultants. Because today’s consumers are bombarded with advertisements, social media consultants must find a way to stand out from the rest in order to be noticed by consumers.

3.     Communication Skills

I believe that this is the most important quality for a social media consultant to possess. First and foremost, consultants must effectively communicate with their clients in order to avoid misunderstandings or unmet expectations. The scope of the work should be clearly defined by the client in order to produce the expected results. Next, it is important to communicate any problems faced, changes made, or anything that may impact the end deliverable to the client throughout the consulting process. If a consultant waits to relay information to a client, it could change the entire dynamic of the current project or plan. Lastly, it is imperative for social media consultants to have great communication skills, so that they can help their client communicate with their social media audience. In the end, if a social media consultant does not understand how to communicate with their audience, they cannot effectively create a social media plan to teach their client how to do so.