Digital Marketing & More

[duncanmckee-blog]

Look at me

Often times, social media is used to connect with friends and family. It is an innocent conduit for communication amongst people who live far away from each other. Often times it is also used as a platform for people to brag about. Whether it be your lifestyle, what you are eating, where you are going, or anything else that is remotely interesting about your life. It makes for an inflated sense of what you actually do on a day to day basis. This can lead to a facade of a lifestyle that you feel pressure to keep up.

Social media causes people to beg for attention. This can be from the old classmates, co-workers, family, really anyone who may want to see what you are up to. If you post interesting things about yourself, maybe that will make you seem like a more interesting person as a whole. Keeping it up though can be stressful and shallow. It will start to take away from what your friends are actually doing because you feel the need to document and brag about it online. This is an unhealthy cyclical behavior that have led many to self-proclaimed social media addictions.

Not only that, but it leads many toward depression. Your life suddenly seems less exciting because of how cool and amazing your friend’s lives seem. They have cool stuff or go cool places and you are not able to do that. What people often forget, however, is that social media only posts the highlights. There are plenty of times in that person's life that are boring and normal, much like your life. That’s ok though.

Life is not just about the highlights or the lowlights, it’s about living. Sometimes we just need to take the ride and see where it takes us. Do not let your friends or family’s interesting social media lives bring your down. They have to get up in the morning and put their pants on just like you. Put down the social media and get out and live. It is more important than posting that selfie online.

[duncanmckee-blog]

You Don’t Care About Privacy

When people talk about internet privacy, they sure have a lot to say. These big internet companies mine a lot of our data from where we go on the internet, to our interests, even going so far as to guessing our sexual orientation and more. There is a lot wrong with what Google, Apple, and Facebook do. Often though, people do not talk about the blissful ignorance of those who willingly put their info online.

How did Facebook get your data? Yes, they now do a lot of extra mining without your knowledge (maybe even listening through your microphone!), but how did they get started. People willfully gave up their pictures, interests, birthdays, relationships, everything that makes you, you. They did not pry it out of your cold dead hands, as you fought for your security. You handed it to them. You gave them everything without so much as a please. Once they found out what they could make from your data, that is when they got greedy.

This was barely a slippery slope. Rule number 1 they told us in school was to not talk to strangers online because you never know who is on the other end. If it is a company though go for it! It does not make sense when you see it written down, but it is the trap so many people fall into.

You care about security? Stop posting your information online. It is the wild west out here. There are so few laws restricting what people can do with your data. You cannot complain so loud about it when you are posting pictures from your summer vacation on the same site you are condemning.

I am just as guilty as the next person. However, if you truly care about your data and what companies are potentially doing with it, it is time to stop offering it willingly. Things can get a whole lot worse before they will get better. Be a part of the change you want to see. Unless you don’t care, then pose for that next selfie.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Lead a Horse to Water...

You can lead a horse to water but cannot force it to drink. It is important that as social media consultants, we are able to fully advise our clients on what they need to make happen. We typically will know more than them about social media strategy and how it should be executed. This does not mean, however, all people will take our advice.

It is always fascinating to me when people ask for advice, and then fail to take it. If you were going to go your own path anyway, why did you even ask? Perhaps it is to get a second opinion and then still believing in your own. Whatever the case, people are free and can make their own decisions. When someone who is an expert in the field is telling you to do something, their words should carry more weight than that of your neighbors.

Some people will not implement your ideas at all and it will feel as though you have wasted your time. Some people will fully implement your ideas and see great results (or not). Some people may include a hybrid of what you think and what they think. The important thing is to not get hung up on who thought of what. The important thing is as long as the client leaves happy, then your job is done. Consider it good experience if nothing else.

I am grateful for this class and all of the interesting things I have learned from it. I have always known that social media could be a great tool for business, but actually understanding the nuts and bolts of the strategy is exciting. I definitely want to implement these things I have learned in my future career and utilize social media strategy. Social media may change, but the strategy will remain largely the same. Making sure the customer feels connected to the brand in a way they cannot get offline. If you can connect with them, you can build community and turn your brand into a lifestyle.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Social Media and Politics

Social media is a place for people to connect with friends, family, and loved ones. It is great to figure out what is going on in their lives, any big events, and knowing how their day-to-day is. Social media is even a great way for customers to connect to brands they love. They can figure out new products, events, or see what others do with their products from the company.

Social media excels at many things, but is it a place for politics? On the one hand, social media is a great way for people to be informed and stay connected to things they care about. On the other, the very real-life implications of politics almost make social media too informal of a platform. Decisions that politicians make affect the people that voted them into office. It seems that tweets and facebook posts would be an improper way to convey their platform.

Whether we like it or not, politicians are on social media and going nowhere fast. The thing that matters most is making it as formal as possible. People tend to treat social media as their own personal rant place or to tell people about every second of their day. That is fine if you are the 16 year old drop out flipping burgers at McDonalds. No one really cares what your views are and even if you believe that toothpaste is a corporate conspiracy to enslave the masses, it doesn’t affect me. However, if you are the leader of a town, state, or country, a level of professionalism is expected. You can no longer treat your twitter as a garbage dump for your thoughts. You are no longer representing just yourself, but the people as well. When you tweet how fat or ugly a customer is as a McDonald’s worker, no one may even notice. When you tweet how fat or ugly a well-known actress is as a President, people will think less of you, your country, and the people who voted you into office. It is embarrassing and childish.

My parents have always taught me to respect the people in power even if you do not respect their views. I stand by that to this day and respect those that have been voted into office. That does not exclude me however from the embarrassment expressed by a large majority of the population now. It is horrifying, shocking, and downright weird. 

Mr. President, please take the office seriously. Treat your power and sway with the reverence it deserves. This is not a business or a tv show, it is a country of over 300 million people. Act like a man deserving of the desk you sit behind. Act like a president. Please do not tweet your stream of consciousness, use a filter of best judgment to decide what goes online. This doesn’t even have anything to do with your policy! Just the way you handle your online presence.

[duncanmckee-blog]

The Power of a Social Organization

Becoming a social organization is not something that can happen overnight. It takes hard work and dedication to your company to be able to create a thriving community. Some companies will launch social media campaigns, see decent results, then drop everything and expect the conversation to keep on going. The company needs to not only create and facilitate the community, but they also need to be an active member of the community. They need to be adding their expertise, thoughts, and knowledge to help build up that base of people who will love and cherish your brand and eventually become brand advocates.

A social organization takes social media seriously. They are not afraid of it, take it for granted, or misunderstand its value. The only way a company can succeed is if they see social media for what it is: an additional branch of the marketing department, adding real value by building customer loyalty and community around the brand.

This requires deep investigation of relevant communities, brands, and influencers that are already actively engaged online. Once one becomes acclimated they can start conversations around the brand and bring value to the community. This can take time, but it will be worth the wait. The collaboration of your community is as important as the collaboration of your organization. People need something to be compelled by. The social media manager needs to find that compelling thing to get them involved and take their social platforms to the next level.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Community Building

Building a community is very important for every business and company to utilize for their followers to feel connected to the brand. This HootSuite module covered this thoroughly, describing how to utilize each platform to the max. 

Community building is especially important for my client because it is an RSO on campus. People need to feel connected to their club if they are going to be more likely to come out to events and regular meetings.

This will be especially important for their facebook and twitter platforms. While it will also be important over Instagram, because of the nature of the club, coming up with relevant and engaging pictures would be challenging. For twitter though, they need to post more regularly and post things that their following can derive value from. This means articles, quotes, tidbits of knowledge, anything that they believe their followers would enjoy. This may also mean asking questions or using polls to start a conversation, then actively engaging in that conversation themselves.

There is already somewhat of a community over facebook because they so heavily utilize the group function of that platform. However, it would still be advisable to, instead of just using that as an informational tool, to use this to provoke conversation. Encourage people to post questions or articles themselves. That would allow them to feel more connected and engaged. 

Clubs are a very rare time in college that people can build great friendships. It would be amazing if this RSO was able to not only build friendships offline but enhance those ones online. It would give people something to talk about, and keep them connected throughout the week.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Social Media Analysis

My organization has a lot of room to grow. They critically lack in consistency and effectiveness of building a community around the brand.

Consistency is critically important for social media posts. This helps followers feel connected to the brand and keeps them updated on the goings-on of the organization. Because my client is an RSO on campus, this is highlighted even more because followers need to be able to know when events are coming up. When there are tweets or other posts about upcoming events, these can also be retweeted, further extending the reach of these posts.

They also lack in creating a community around the brand. This is super important as well. RSOs need to make sure that their members feel connected to their cause at all times. When they attend events and meetings, but also when they are online. Because my client is a Christian organization on campus, this again, makes it even more important. There a level of slight hostility towards religion on college campuses and also on the internet. Building a community through social media can make members feel comfortable and safe online as well as help build real-life friendships away from the screen.

In terms of organic vs paid growth, I suggest my client maintains their organic growth plan. Because of limited budget and goals of the organization, paid promotion would be inappropriate for them. The best way for them to gain traction will be to get their current followers to retweet their tweets and amplify all posts in this way.

I have had a great time working with them and I look forward to continuing my consulting.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Big Data Might Lead To Big Breaches

Big data is something everyone is talking about these days. Big Data analytics is commonly listed among the most valuable traits someone can have in the workforce. 

Companies, especially tech companies, are collecting massive amounts of data on us. Sometimes seemingly useless data at that. It can be a little scary when you hear the amount of data and the type of data they collect during your regular day-to-day activities. The biggest question that comes to mind is who owns the data? 

Do you? It is after all data you generate, data about you and your preferences. Data that defines you as a person, that people can use to target ads specifically towards you. Does the company offering the service? It is their platform, their company, and their service they are offering you. Typically these come free of charge (Google, Facebook, etc.) and they need some way to make money.

This ends out being a rather blurry line. No one is one hundred percent sure who owns the data. I do believe that companies need to make themselves perfectly transparent about what types of data that they collect so that people can decide whether or not they want to use the service based on the data they will generate by using the site. Another and perhaps more terrifying question, however, is once the data is taken, what steps are being taken to keep that data safe? Companies need to ensure that your data is safe no matter who technically owns it. With great power comes great responsibility, and if they have the power to collect the data, they need to make sure that their power to protect it is equally as great. It can be appalling the lack of care companies put into protecting our data. There needs to be some level of legal recourse for these companies, locking down data for us. Without it, companies can do whatever they please. The internet is still a relatively new place and we need to start drawing lines in the sand.

[duncanmckee-blog]

No Such Thing as Free

There is no such thing as free. It is not within the nature of humanity. If something is given to you for “free” there will be something expected of you in return. It could be your time, money, creativity, or even your information. A very popular quote about this is:

“If you are not paying for the product, you are the product” - John Lanchester

This means all of your social media profiles or google searches or really anything else online. Society has an expectation that things will be free online. That is ok, there are plenty of great products that are free for the users to use. The problem comes when those sites need to monetize. They have a massive amount of user information that the users have willingly given up. This is best exemplified through facebook. People have given up their names, pictures, likes and dislikes, what tv shows they watch, and so much more. The culture of fully documenting your life has made it so much easier for companies to target you with ads. To some this is fine. I mean what is the worst that could happen with your info? You trust facebook and google. They seem to be stand up companies.

The problem isn’t necessarily with those companies knowing your info. The biggest problem arises when other people have access to your information too. Info is not always as secure as we think it is. The recent Equifax hack proves that. Millions of people’s data is now floating around online, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Where is the line? How much can companies know about you before it becomes illegal? No one knows for sure. The internet is like the wild west. It is still pretty new and people aren’t sure how to deal with it. One thing is certain though. We need stricter rules dictating information privacy. We may even need a well equipped, well-paid law enforcement on the internet - ensuring the safety for all. I am not sure what the answer is, but I know we haven’t found it yet and we need one soon.

[mcder1mn-deactivated20171218]

Filter Here, Filter There

Completing the Hootsuite Optimization module has been the most interesting one yet in terms of learning new things. Think about the word “filter”. It is pretty common to hear as you watch two teenage girls look at a photo of themselves  while swiping back and forth on a device. The first platform that comes to my mind, like many others, when I hear the word “filter” is Instagram. Here, filter relates to photo effects.

Many social platforms have their own versions of “filters”. Admins of Facebook pages have the ability to block certain words and profanity from appearing on their page. Essentially, they are filtering out negativity that otherwise may be displayed to the public. Facebook, similar to Instagram, has the capacity to refine their image (whether that be an actual image or a brand).

While I completely understand the functionality of the filter feature for words, I also am brought to a conflict regarding an organization’s transparency. Say a visitor posts about their experience with Company X. Company X may have blocked any negative words (ex. “poor” as in “poor service”, or “dirty”.) At what point are reviews, comments and overall engagement useful if not truthful?

[duncanmckee-blog]

I agree with this completely. I do not think any organization should filter comments about their company unless it is a threat. It is important for the people to have a voice no matter how much you do not like it. It is about free speech, even at the price of having some negative comments about your company. The best thing you can do is take them as constructive criticism and reply to each comment directly, hopefully “turning that frown upside down.”

[duncanmckee-blog]

Continuity and Consistency

For any organization, it is essential to have continuity and consistency across all social media accounts. If there is conflict among them, it can create confusion and misdirection among the various followers. Sometimes people will only follow your twitter account and not your Instagram account. If these two accounts are giving different information or different amounts of information, it can leave people who would normally be excited, frustrated.

With that, it is so important to keep your followers updated on what is going on within. A big advantage social media has over traditional forms of communication is it can give followers a sneak peak at what is coming next. A little backdoor view from what they see from articles or television, making the followers feel more connected to the brand.

This is the problem my current client is having. Posting continuity about event time, locations, and who will be speaking is a key thing missing across their platforms. Also, not posting throughout the whole week. Typically, they just post on the days there are key events to remind people of what is happening that day. This excludes those who were not at the last event, because the information will be so new to them and that makes planning very challenging. To remedy this, it can be as easy as scheduling posts at the beginning of each week to ensure that all of the followers are up to date on all happenings throughout the organization.

Aside from that, it is important to have a presence across all social media platforms. This means having linkedin as well. Linked in could be especially useful because there are so many people that volunteer for this organization. If they had a linkedin profile, it could legitimize those claims of volunteer time for people. It could also help them get in connection with more career driven people who may not be very active on other forms of social media.

Anyway you cut it, social media is an important tool that every company, organization, and group needs to utilize effectively if they want to reach the widest audience.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Taking My Own Advice

There are many things I plan on doing with social media that I have not already implemented in my daily routines.First off is to share more content related to the profession and businesses I am interested in. This will project what cares about me in a very tactful and explicit manner. Avoiding more of the typical college shenanigans that go on social media typically. It is key for my future employers to see more of a professional person and less of a wild college student. I also want to post more regularly so that people can count on me as a solid source of information in business, ideally pertaining to marketing.

I have not necessarily implemented any new strategies yet since I am not on social media that often. I would, however, like to begin having a more prevalent presence so that the right persona can be projected.

It is important for every business person to take social media seriously because it is such a big piece of business today that is so often neglected. It is important not only to work on your company's brand but also your personal brand as an individual. You are your own person and having a personal brand will help people recognize you and make you more credible. I look forward to using what I learned in class to amplify my presence.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Help Businesses Help Themselves

Social Media consulting is becoming a more and more relevant occupation as people continue to get their information, news, and entertainment from social media platforms. It is critical for every business, large or small, to have a presence on social media. It is an easy, effective way for them to connect with their customers. 

How does a consultant consult? What makes a person a good consultant. I see myself going into consulting, especially in the digital space, in the very near future, so these are questions I need to consider.

A consultant is someone who is knowledgeable about the subject. In this case, social media. They have enough experience to be able to bring the companies to the next level. They have to be understanding and helpful. They also need to be able to convey their ideas in words and phrases that the consultee will understand.

Assuming the client is satisfied with the suggestions there are two courses of action for the consultant: Create a plan of execution for them or offer to execute the solution for them. Creating a well thought out, step by step plan for the client may be all it takes. They can take what they have learned from the consultant and apply it, increasing their social media proficiency. Executing the solution for them heads into a separate type of business: Social Media management. This can be a good revenue stream for the consultant and can ensure the client gets the best results from their social media campaigns.

Anyway, you cut it, social media is an aspect of business that cannot be ignored. As young people grow older, they will rely more and more heavily on digital streams of information and companies have to be there ready to meet them.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Business Trends Towards Snooping

In response to “The Internet’s Original Sin” and  Maciej Ceglowski ‘s Ted Talk on Internet Privacy (or Lack Thereof)

Businesses like to know what you are doing. Ceglowski’s talk explains how really public your actions are while online. They like to know where you are at, what you do, what you are interested in, and what you will buy. This is super easy to do on the internet. You can be tracked and followed without even knowing you are being stalked. It can even be very intrusive with pop up ads and those loud videos that automatically play.

 Businesses like to have the biggest bang for their buck, and want to ensure they have a high ROI. Knowing your every move helps them with that. This can be pretty creepy, but understandable if you think about it from the perspective of the business. Sending your ads to people who don’t care about your product could be a huge waste of money! However, there are some clear lines crossed when you take a closer look.

Many times, information is taken without your consent. Everyone has a right to their own identity and information and they should be allowed to control who gets to know what about them. The idea that there are huge databases of my information out there is scary.

I understand why businesses want to look at my history and information, but they need to respect boundaries of their potential customers and make sure to get consent. Just like anyone else.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Privacy Is A Thing Of The Past

In response to lecture and “Data Brokers” 60 minutes.

Big data is something we hear about a lot, but not something everyone knows a lot about. It is well explained in these two pieces that Big Data is a massive amount of data kept on every single person. From that, many things can be deduced about a person, from age to sexual orientation. That data can be utilized to send specific advertisements to you that will align with your lifestyle.

This is a great thing for advertisers and a scary thing for consumers. Advertisers have everything they need to ensure that they can hit their very specific segment. For consumers though, it can be terrifying because it is exemplifying how little control you have over your own information. 

I think that it is far too late to try and limit any damage or repercussions resulting from big data. There are far too many sources with far too much information about you. It would be simply absurd to ask for yourself to be deleted from all of the databases of the world. Something however that could remedy some of the wrong done, would be to enforce a service where consumers can ask companies all of the data they have on file for them. This means that if I were to ask Google what they had, they would have to release all of that information to me. It is all data about me anyway, so why should  I not have access to it. This way, there are far fewer surprises and much more transparency about what companies are collecting.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Social Media Habits

Over the last 48 Hours, I have been monitoring and adjusting my social media and screen time. Unsurprisingly, I spent the most time on Reddit, my preferred platform. I spent over 4.5 hours on that site alone. I did not post a whole lot but made 8 comments on different threads. I have noticed this before, but I am not much of a posting person. I do what they call “lurk” in that I  mostly just see what other people have posted and post very little myself. It is not that I dislike social media or anything, just that I am very busy and do not have the time to devote to social media that many people do. I typically only post when I do something especially cool (or maybe have a very funny joke that twitter needs to hear). 

My two most used social medias (and the main ones I used during the 48 hour period) are Reddit and Instagram. These are the two that I feel are least prone to getting clogged up with very political posts from people who know very little about politics. That is the main reason for my switch.

To change my media consuming habits for the following 24 hours was take out all social media until noon to 5. I typically check it when I go to bed and wake up, so blocking myself out from those key times I thought would be the most drastic change. I felt extremely disconnected from the world. I felt out of touch with news, from my friends, and the world. It was fascinating how quickly it wore off though. I was happy just being in the moment for a little while. It calmed me down and released a little stress. I think I may actually implement a less extreme version of this in my daily life. This is not to contradict my last post, I still strongly believe staying connected is important in today’s world. However, getting ready for the day in the morning, and for bed at night, may be times that would be good to just be in the moment and relax a little. Good for mental health and for getting the day to a good start/end.

[duncanmckee-blog]

Adapt or Die

In response to Louis C.K. and Sherry Turkle’s thoughts on mobility in the world

I would like to start off by saying how funny it is we take people in their 50s advice on the ideas of how social media and mobile devices matter. These are people who not only traditionally do not have a full understanding of what these types of things offer and the capabilities of what such tools can unleash.

I agree with Louis C.K. in that people should take breaks and not always fill the void with texting or social media. It is good to just feel sad for a while. That may not be nice, but to constantly fill our lives with endless streams of what our friends are doing is not good psychologically or emotionally.

Sherry Turkle, on the other hand, is clearly a fair bit older than Louis. She has a much more scientific approach to mobile devices and social media. This one was honestly hard for me to watch because it fell into the category I hate. The “millennials are bad and everything they do is wrong” category. I am so sick of this. What a boring and overused approach to come at a topic regarding technology. I disagreed with almost all of her leaps of assumption she made. How people need to share things to feel like they happened at all, how I can not be engaged in a conversation while occasionally checking my phone. What many people over the age of 50 seem to fail to realize is the speed of the world. I not only check my phone because I want to, but because I need to. I trade stocks, monitor several AdWords accounts, and run 2 clubs all through my phone. In any one day, I will have over 10 people contact me with decisions that need to be made by me and I am just in college. With the advent of constant connection, people need an immediate response to just about every question. If you are not on top of it, your competitors will be, and I refuse to be left in the dust.

I do agree with her in the fact that some times need to be made sacred during the day like family dinner. However I believe these times are not as often as she paints them to be. The laid back lifestyle of just “leaving work at work” may have been possible then, but now, it is not. You have to adapt or die out there, and I am not dying today.