Social Media & Business @quaidja - Tumblr Blog

Implementation

Before I started this class, I thought of social media in the business perspective in that all you needed to know how to do is use the technology right. What I found out is that it is way more than just the technology. Using social media, through whatever platform, to promote your brand or business is more than what it seems. Each post must have a purpose, and there’s a lot of analytical things that go on behind the scenes, like finding the right time and day to post.

Client Project Challenges

For the client project I had decided to work with Robaire’s Bakery. Robaire’s Bakery focuses on selling homemade goods, such as donuts and cakes that are just so good! I highly suggest trying it out if you haven’t! Now, the challenges my client may face is keeping up with technology. Robaire’s is run by a sweet old lady who only wants to bring happiness and Robaire’s itself doesn’t have too many employees to keep up with maintaining a social media platform. I would suggest, however, that one employee runs the social media accounts for Robaire’s Bakery, and have them branch out to other platforms as well, such as Twitter, or being more active on Instagram. This will help them attract new customers and new students who may not know about the small local bakery.

What I’ve Learned

This class showed me, and taught me, that social media isn’t just about technology. It is way more than that, whether going through the analytics, finding your target audience, and having a clear, defined purpose in building your brand/business. When done well, you will be able to reach out to a broader audience and attract new ones. Make sure you strive to be apart of your community and communicate with them. Allow your team to be more involved, if they’re not already.

Thank you fellow classmates and thank you Dr. Melton for a fun summer class! And good luck out there y’all! Be safe and Fire Up Chips!

Developing & Sharing Content

One underrated aspect that businesses need to focus on their social platforms is how to develop and share their content. Businesses need to know how their information is reaching their target group, and how they react to it. Furthermore, the development of uniqueness to their content is equally as important.

Developing

When a business creates a post, they have to think who their target audience is and who they want to get that message out to. A great post will have an intriguing caption, relatable visuals, relevant content, and finding that perfect posting time.

A good company that does this is Under Armour. Looking at their Instagram, you can see how they reach out to a specific audience, but also tries to expand that audience that still keeps everything relevant. Under Armour is reaching out to athletes of all sports. Under Armour also uses multiple platforms to express their message, or advertise their product(s). Under Armour is active on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, even TV. Through their variety of sports posts, they’re reaching out to a broader audience, while still remaining on the tracks, or not going off topic.

Sharing

When businesses share their content, they must make that content easily reachable. Also, they have to make the content intriguing enough for an audience member to stop and like or share their content. This is where the intriguing caption comes into place. If a business can grab the reader’s attention in the caption and first few sentences of a post, the reader is more likely to continue to read into the post.

Social Organizations

Becoming a strong social organization will not occur overnight, however, developing and sharing relevant content is essential to this. Keep content and posts engaging, including visuals and intriguing captions. This business should also share their content on multiple social media platforms, however, should change it a little to fit each platform (don’t just copy, paste content over).

Online Community Building

The Social Organization

Social media is a powerful tool, and can help connect you with those around you. Whether you are building a personal platform or business platform, neither are easy, but The Social Organization, written by Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald, there can be easier, quicker ways to build your online community.

Chapter 4 describes collaboration. Collaboration occurs when one or more people come together and combine their talents to create “the big picture”. This can also occur in multiple businesses. If used the right way, collaboration can improve performance.

Chapter 5 describes the No, Go, Grow Approach. This approach is used to link communities. No stands for the collaborator finding out whether or not what they’re doing is worth while. Go means when the collaboration is done, they are ready for it to be put to use, or have completed the assignment and checked it over. Grow means the product they completed is being put to market. Basically checking whether or not it makes the business any profit.

Growing That Online Community

What I have learned about growing an online community is the number of followers doesn’t matter as much as the quality of followers does. For instance, someone, or some business may have a ton of followers, but not a lot of interactions with them. However, when businesses create a target group, they may not get as many followers, but the quality of followers increases, or in other words, more customer interactions. Overall, you want to give your followers that sense of better feeling that they can’t get anywhere else. You do this by being active on social media, posting often and replying to customers/followers questions, concerns and comments.

Furthermore, this applies to my client because they focus on a target group, keeping followers relatively low, however, are active on Facebook and answer customers’ questions. While they could do this more often and especially more actively on Instagram, I feel their followers have a sense that Robaire’s stands for the community.

Being Aware of Big Data

The first question asks us, what should businesses be aware of when using big data? Nowadays, businesses should be aware that customers and individuals are aware that their data is being collected. Businesses should only use big data in order to help the individual or customer, not to be sneaky about it. Businesses should also be aware that this data can be stolen or hacked. For example, Target had 740 million data records exposed in 2013, or when Home Depot had 56 million credit cards hacked in 2015. Businesses should always have two solutions in hand when and if they’re hacked. One, is poor risk assessment, in which they have to ask themselves how is the hack going to happen? What’s it going to cost? How will it hurt the organization? And how less competitive will you be? Secondly, businesses lack of will to prepare. This means businesses must get ahead of the problem, is the company spending money in the right place? And businesses need C-Suite managers to make tough decisions, according to “The Legal Side of Big Data.”

The second question asks us, what should consumers be aware of? Well, consumers should realize that big data has been happening for years now. However, there are some positive sides to it. Big data has enhanced our online shopping experiences, such as suggested items on our Amazon account. Consumers should also know that once they put something online, even after you would delete it, your info or whatever you put out there is going to stay out there. Data just doesn’t go away. As for hacking, such as the recent Twitter hacks that stole personal data, corporations have ways to solve these issues, as there isn’t really any one way to prevent it from happening. However, just like Target and Home Depot, Twitter will come up with a plan to solve the issue and make sure you, the consumer, are taken care of.

Finally, one way to balance out the threats and opportunities presented by big data is to increase big data security and have data scientists analyze big data better. Businesses should also create a plan for when/if they get hacked, they can solve the issue much faster, or even prevent the hacks from happening, some day in the future.

The Reasons Junk News Spreads

Junk news is the prioritization that is brought to a viewer’s attention with content that may be false and not true to the story. According to Philip Howard and Samantha Bradshaw, in the “Three Reasons Junk News Spreads so Quickly Across Social Media”, the three main reasons junk news spreads so easily is due to algorithms, advertising, and exposure.

Algorithms

Algorithms have been coded to sort, filter, and deliver content in a manner that is designed to maximize users’ engagement with the content, as well as time spent on the platform. For example, the information that is delivered through Facebook’s news feed, Twitter’s trending topics, and Google search is already selected and prioritized by complex algorithms.

My own personal experience with algorithms can be caused by Facebook. I wouldn’t say I use Facebook a lot, but I do most often go on it at night before bed to watch whatever videos interest me. Obviously we all know how Facebook works, but when you log in it shows you what your friends have shared, and what companies or ideas you “like” have shared right off the bat. However, there is a little button at the bottom that looks like a video player and is called “watch.” Here I see a lot of videos that could interest me just based off my likes, dislikes, and what I view the most. For example, I like the show Impractical Jokers, the first video that pops up is a clip from their show, however, if I click the video, Facebook will give me other videos of comedians and shows that are similar.

Advertising

Advertising is probably the most common use for junk news out there. This is because it is easy for creators to get views on their content, through the use of clickbait, as an example. Clickbait is designed to attract attention by stimulating outrage or curiosity to click to view their webpage, or junk. Clickbait is really bad on Facebook, where it seems more and more pages are using it to get views. This also happens in videos where creators add intriguing titles like “this really happened” in all caps to get the viewers’ attention, and in the end, never really happens. This is another case of junk news because the “news” never really happens.

Exposure

Finally, the third cause of the spread of junk news is due to exposure. What they mean by exposure is being exposed to the political views of your own party, but without listening or viewing the opposite side’s content. This makes it unlikely to switch parties and/or have your own personal viewpoint. Facebook does this by loading content for you that is likely in your viewpoint or your own parties’ viewpoint. I believe we may feel like this doesn’t happen as often as we think, because we never think of its reality. An example I can think of is like TikTok, or Instagram. These apps can force individuals to act or look a certain way, based off who they follow, or the ideas that are shown to them. For example, they want to act or look like their favorite actress or do what they do. This is exposure.

Being Aware

Individuals and businesses can be aware of these exposures, advertisements, and algorithms by not going on social media as often. They should take caution whether or not the news they are reading into sounds real or not, or whether or not they’re being dramatized. individuals can really open their minds, do some research, besides believing the first thing that they see and read.

Social Media Consultant

The job of a social media consultant is to help companies who do not have a strong social media presence gain one. For instance, a small business owner may realize he/she needs a social media presence of some kind, but does not have the expertise to figure out what is needed, or for the matter, carry that out. A social media consultant would work with that small business owner to figure out who that company is trying to reach out to, and what approaches would be most effective. A social media consultant is there to educate and advise their clients the problems and opportunities they face, and give them the tools needed after the consultant is gone.

Now the most important qualities that a social media consultant should have is the overall knowledge of social media marketing, for instance, what social media platforms to put your company on and how to use those platforms for that specific company. Next, they should show the proven ability to get results. For example, you want a social media consultant that, for one, has more followers than you, but also can prove, from previous clients, that they get results, and more customers and followers from their help. Another important quality, that we most often over look is passion. When someone is passionate about their work, it shows in the results that they strive to achieve. Passion can be the difference between good results and great results. Finally, I believe that social media consultants should have an understanding of every particular industry that he/she may be working with. With social media being so crowded, I believe specialization consultants are needed to work in certain fields of consulting. For instance, consultants that work solely for small businesses vs consultants that work for corporations and sports teams. Consultants should be able to adapt to any obstacles, if any get in the way.

Consulting My Own Social Media

If I were to be my own social media consultant, I would tell myself to be more active. Nowadays, I’m hardly on social media, besides Facebook every now and then. I usually only post what I think is funny, or I post almost anything cool about sports. I do realize I need to grow my social media networks to grow my professional networks and reach out.

Nowadays, I don’t post or share anything that can be taken as negative or bad as I don’t wish to start arguments and continue the spread of negativity. My profiles, I would say, are pretty professional, as it says where I’m from, where I currently work, and where I go to school. As a senior, I know I have to stay focused on keeping a professional look on my profiles as I know future employers will be looking out for that.

Big Data and Companies

BIG DATA

Big data refers to personal information privacy that apps or companies track through your use of your apps personal information. Some companies do this in the name of national security, others do it in the name of commerce. They do this by tracking your location, recent purchases made by credit card, your contacts and friends list’s, likes and dislikes, and other personable information. For example, free apps that are downloaded on our mobile devices sell our personal information to third party websites for profit. Another example is tracking our search history, like shopping, and soon after advertised to us on a separate website.

THE POWER OF BIG DATA

Big data is such a big and powerful tool because it takes the little things we couldn’t have known about and sells our personal information through simple apps, such as one on my mobile device, WGT Golf. Search engines are also very unique tools as they tend to guess our demographics like age, race, and gender, then proceeds to advertise things that could appeal to me. A scary alternative, like Google, or any GPS app can track my home address or place of work and sell that information to third party websites or companies.

LIMITING BIG DATA

I believe, on a personal level, one way to limit the harm done by big data is reading an app’s terms of use and also denying the app’s access to “view my location.” On a societal level, what I believe we can do is inform others that data companies like Acxiom are gaining a hold of and selling our personal information to other companies and websites. These businesses give other businesses money so that the seller of information can target us with personalized ads, without our consent.

Social Media Experiment

First starting this experiment, I truly didn’t know what to expect, cutting out social media entirely. Lately I been looking for an excuse to get off it anyways, so I guess it works out.

I started my experiment today, the 4th of July. I picked today of all days to do it since it’s Independence Day, should be easy. I’m back home in Chicago for the holiday weekend also, so it should make it a little easier.

MORNING

Sleeping in my own bed back home felt so nice because I slept in until 10 am. On a normal day, I would either wake up to an alarm or wake up and immediately check Facebook. Since we weren’t allowed to be on social media at all today, I left my phone in my room when I went downstairs for breakfast and talked with my parents. Today’s plan was that me and my dad would go Fourth of July golfing at Tanna Farms around noon, a new tradition me and him do (referring to golfing on the Fourth). Before we left for golf me and my parents talked about what our plans were for the day.

AFTERNOON

Being off social media while golfing was really easy, I didn’t even take my phone with me, which ended up being a mistake just solely for the fact that our golf cart got a flat tire which I’ve never had happen before! So, we had to finish our last 6 or so holes with a flat tire since we weren’t able to call the pro shop because I didn’t bring my phone. Now, for those of you who don’t golf, or don’t know much about it, it is a very long, tedious, game. Me and my dad finally finished golfing around 4-4:30 pm. Actually ended up golfing pretty well! I shot an 81 on a par 72, for those who care to know my score.

After golf, me and my dad went back home to shower, since it was roughly 90 degrees out today, and we were sweaty. After our showers we went to the grocery store to buy fresh steak and corn for dinner.

NIGHT

After dinner, I decided it was time to do some homework, since me and my family will be at a pool party tomorrow and I won’t be able to get it done. However, for tonight’s plans, we are going to watch the fireworks here in my hometown, and yes, we still have a firework show tonight here in Illinois.

When the temp finally dropped outside, and the shade covered my lawn, I went outside to practice a little more on my golf game, as my pitching game could use some work. As of 7 pm, it has been easy staying off social media as talking with my family, catching up, and golf, has helped me stay busy.

CONCLUSION

Throughout the day, I found out that staying off my social media accounts has been fairly easy. Between breakfast with my family in the morning, to golfing all afternoon, I’ve had a pretty busy day. Having that face-to-face communication was a lot better than just being on my phone all day, since I haven’t seen my family in awhile.

After completing this experiment, I wouldn’t mind unplugging and logging off social media for a week or two. My grandparents don’t get any cell service where they live in Farwell back in Michigan, so I could stay a few days there to make sure I can stay off social media. Being off social media for this period of time actually helped a lot as it is good to escape some of the negativity that exists on it, along with just spending quality time with my family and having fun and relaxing.

Influence of Social Media

After viewing the Max Strossel video and reading the article written by Emma Rathbone, it came to me how different life was before social media. As Rathbone stated, “Because that’s what it was like before the Internet. You made your own fun,” it couldn’t be more true. I probably joined social media my freshman or sophomore year of high school, so maybe 2011. The article made me think back to my middle school days when I was playing for my middle school basketball team, me and my friends/teammates making our own fun at practice, or at the post-game dinner. Max Strossel made me realize how I may be addicted to social media nowadays through his slot machine ideal called variable rewards, and Emma Rathbone made me realize how fun life was before I joined social media, or life before high school. Social media can, however, be a good thing because it lets us catch up with people or things we may not have the time for. For example, when I moved to Central I had no friends at all. So, I would take to social media to keep up with my friends from back home, see what they’re up to, if I didn’t have the time to text them or go back home for that matter. The downside to it, however, is it is a big distraction, and prevents me, at times, from getting tasks done, like homework. Furthermore, I believe that the internet is a big help. For example, using the internet to get homework done, or getting directions to a place I haven’t been before, or don’t know as well. I can recall on a couple of occasions, of not having my cell phone in my possession. For instance, in high school I used to sneak out of the house late at night, or if I were already out, I wouldn’t come home until early in the morning, young stupid love. As a result of my actions I would often be grounded from my phone up to a week at a time, often only one or two days though. However, looking back, I’m glad that it happened because it caught me with reality. During these days without my phone I would spend the whole day outside playing baseball, or going to the park with my best friends/neighbors. Like Rathbone said, we made our own fun before the internet. Finally, some things that I would like to do to be more intentional about my use of technology is to limit my time of use on my phone or social media and the internet. If I can limit my time off social media, I can escape the negativity that often plagues social media nowadays, and also so I can get more work done.

Thank y’all.

Introduction

My name is Quaid Ashman. I am currently a senior at Central Michigan University. I am majoring in business communications. I am originally from Aurora, Illinois, the second largest city in Illinois, but no one still knows it, so I say I’m from Chicago. I used to play baseball for 16 years, but now just play in the intramural leagues here at Central.

My career goal is to be a financial officer at UPS, or the United Parcel Service, not to be confused with USPS. My dad had worked at UPS for over thirty years in the same position, and someday, hopefully, I can do the same since they are a great company to work for. With this blog, I hope to show you everything that I am learning in this course. Hopefully it will teach me a thing or two about technology and social media in the workplace.

A company that I feel does well with their social media is Nike. They make their stances known when disaster hits communities, and they use a lot of different outlets to promote their brand. Their videos and photos make people love their brand and are always engaging. The textbook describes how steps must be taken to reach a mass audience, and I believe Nike does that well. Their twitter account alone has over 8.6 million followers as they showcase everything from every sport, to every activity.

https://twitter.com/Nike/status/1266502116463370241

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