Rico Abro

Student. Business Owner. Music Producer. Manager.

[ricoabro-blog]

Course Reflection

Before taking this course, I considered social media to be a fun way to connect and stay social online. The only real benefit in terms of social media that I was aware of was the ability to grow a personal or business network and the ability to relay information to large audiences. This class has changed my perception of social media altogether.

I now know that social media is so much more than what it appears to be on the surface. By reading about how to effectively turn social media into a business tool in The Social Organization, I learned that businesses using social media should strive to build a community, centered around a purpose with the end goal being mass collaboration. By doing so, they are working toward becoming a social organization. I learned how to manage social media through Hootsuite and industry best practices on a variety of topics through blogs, online videos, and ideas from my classmates. Even though social media is sure to change drastically as time goes on, I can now focus on making improvements for myself and my business to keep up with this trending marketing channel.

[alexbondy-blog]

Effective Content - Development and Sharing

Some people may think making a social media account for a company would be easy and simple, but through the Hootsuite Training Modules I have learned that so much more goes into it.  

The Hootsuite Training describes the purpose of developing a content strategy is “to ensure your company has set clear goals, know your target market, have identified the best channels to distribute and share your content, have established a set of topics that will interest your audience, and have set a strategic publishing schedule in place.”  

To make the most out of a company’s social media account, they should want their posts to be as effective as they can be.  One way to do this is to establish a plan.  They should create a strategy on what they want to post and what they want their posts to embody.  Having a plan will lead them to complete their business objectives more effectively.  

In order to know what you want to post, you should decide who your target market is and cater your style of posting towards them.  Whether it be through comedic, informational, or empathetic posts, it doesn’t matter as long as it works for your audience.  Along with this, you need to determine which channels you can best reach your target market through.  Different markets use different social media sites and it is important to realize that and decide which of them you should use for your company.

Another part of making a strategy is creating a schedule.  How you format this schedule depends on what works best for your company.  Whether it be a formal online document, or post it notes on the wall.  It just would be beneficial to have something to visually show your specific posting plan for your company.  

Again, so much more goes into this process than some may think and I am glad that these Hootsuite Trainings are teaching us the strategies to use to make the most out of social media.

[ricoabro-blog]

 Before watching the Hootsuite videos this week, I didn’t give much thought to creating a specific content strategy. After I learned how important content strategy is to developing effective content, I think that this is one of the most important principles in a social media plan. I hope to use this concept in my final client project.

[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.

[ricoabro-blog]

I agree with following the “Rule of Thirds.” A lot of the popular social media accounts you see today only include content that can only be described as self-promotion. If a company really wants to work toward becoming a social organization, they need to encourage interaction by giving their audience a variety of topics to collaborate on.

[ricoabro-blog]

Becoming a Social Organization

“An organization becomes a social organization when it discovers the power of mass collaboration and develops the necessary corporate skills to address challenges by readily and repeatedly creating collaborative communities.” – The Social Organization

As you can see from the excerpt above, taken from The Social Organization, an organization is well on its path to becoming a social organization when it first realizes the importance of mass collaboration and then takes steps toward achieving mass collaboration. A few series of steps an organization on this path must take deals with effectively developing and sharing content. Some of these principles include things like using visuals, keeping followers engaged, varying content on different platforms, and countless others. This is how these two ideas go hand in hand; before becoming a social organization, any business must take a series of steps, including establishing and adopting principles for developing and sharing content on social media.

[ricoabro-blog]

How Effective Content is Developed and Shared

While learning about how effective content is developed and shared this week in Hootsuite, two ideas that I found most interesting and relevant to the client project dealt with auto-scheduling posts and posting content within each social media platform’s optimal time.

Auto-scheduling posts in advance helps social media managers/administrators to stay organized. Using tools, like Hootsuite, is helpful to see a visual layout or plan for how frequently content is being shared and how it is delivered. It also saves time, automating the content upload. This is one suggestion I had for my client.

I also learned that each social media platform has differing optimal times to post content. What one platform considers “peak hours” may be opposite for another platform. I noted this in my client project as well, to provide my client with insight to effectively share their own content.

[ardentambition-blog1]

Building a Community

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

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

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

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

1. Give it some time.

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

2. Don’t be afraid to invite.

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

3. Decide and Commit.

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

[ricoabro-blog]

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

[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.

[ricoabro-blog]

I would have to agree that PlayStation has done a great job of growing their online community. By connecting their users, they are creating a community of people with same interests. They can then create a purpose for this community to encourage collaboration among users. Playstation is a great example of a company that has used their online community to its full potential.

[ricoabro-blog]

Effective Principles on Online Community Building

In “The Social Organization: How to Use Social Media to Tap the Collective Genius of Your Customers,” the author gives insight as to how to effectively build an online community in social media.

The idea that I found most interesting, from chapters four and five, was the author’s explanation of the “Six F” Models of Attitudes Toward Social Media. This model highlights six basic organizational attitudes about social media: folly, fearful, flippant, formulating, forging and fusing. When walking through the model, the author compares a humanistic attitude to each step of the model. Beginning with folly, an organization that views social media as entertainment only, we move through each successive step until the final attitude, where an organization embodies a social organization.

 1. Folly – This attitude centers around an organization that view social media as a platform solely for entertainment purposes. Even though social media is used for this purpose, it can also add great value to an organization or business, and should reflect its added value in the vision.

2. Fearful – Organizations who fear that social media is risky and may cause problems for the business take this attitude. To combat this, the organization should focus on collaboration activities that do not have a high risk of negative implications.

3. Flippant -  Unfortunately, organizations that have this attitude do not view social media as a serious business tool, but a popular trend that they must “hop on the bandwagon.” Though they generally have a social media presence, the organization is less likely to use social media to its full potential as a collaborative tool. Organizations with a flippant attitude should recognize this and change their direction on social media.

4. Formulating – In this attitude, we see a higher success in social media. Organizations are employing strategic practices because they understand how social media can be used to engage customers and interact with their audience through collaborating.

5. Forging – Forging involves individuals implementing daily collaboration efforts. This attitude is one more step toward becoming a social organization, which the organization should highlight to encourage success.

6. Fusing – Fusing embodies a social organization. Though not common, this attitude reflects organizations who have made collaboration efforts a part of their business model. They strive for collaboration in everything that they do and communities are a key component to their success.

[ricoabro-blog]

Growing an online community for my client.

In Hootsuite this week, I learned ways to add to an online community of members. This will become helpful not only in my career, but in the current client project for BIS 315.

The key message that I took away from this week’s training was it is important to build relationships through social media, through conversation, to help grow an online community.

I think that Hootsuite was spot on with this suggestion. By starting conversations, organizations can build their network of followers on social media. These followers may engage with the organization through conversation. This interaction begins a relationship between the organization and the audience, and when relationships have strong ties they are likely to grow and expand.

I can use this idea in the client project to help my client grow their online community. First, I can suggest ideas for content that will allow for conversation between the client and individuals on social media. By helping schedule frequency of content, I am assisting in growing the network. Finally, by providing the client with direction on best practices for interacting with their audience I am helping to strengthen relationship ties, making their online community likely to grow.

[zacharyhaywardcmu-blog]

The legal side of big data

    Big data is getting bigger in the business world and that means the risks are growing with it as well. One thing businesses should be aware of when dealing with big data is there is always the possibility of it getting compromised. In targets case, 740 million data records were stolen. Anyone with a target card was in jeopardy of having their information used in nefarious activities. Furthermore, this has caused target 252 million dollars with the total still growing.

     On the other side of the coin, consumers should be aware that there is no guarantee that the government or a corporation can keep their data safe. This is even true for the health provider you go to. One must be aware that if anyone entity is storing your information there is the possibility it gets stolen. Yahoo had 500 million accounts stolen, one of the biggest in history. This information could be used for a variety of harmful things.

    There are a few things that can be done to balance this out. Consumers need to be aware that there is a possibility their data gets hacked and therefore should be more wary of giving it out. On the other side, the people holding the information should invest more into keeping it safe. While this would incur a higher expense it would save them from the cost of getting hacked.

[ricoabro-blog]

I like how you mentioned that keeping consumer data safe can never be a guarantee. Often times, consumers have the mindset that if their data is in the hands of the government or a reputable business, that it will be safe from any harm. As we can see from the lecture video, that is not the case. We need to make consumers aware that threats of hackers leaking big data is a reality, no matter who is safeguarding their data.

[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.

[ricoabro-blog]

I liked how you talked about Nike’s celebrity endorsements. Their Jordan line would not have been possible without Nike’s endorsement deals. It also impacts how they tie that in with their social media strategy. Endorsements are effective when used correctly and that is something that I did not think about when writing about a company’s social media success.

[ricoabro-blog]

Successful Social Media Strategy

Social media is used in many different ways. To consumers, it is a way to connect and engage with their social network, but many businesses are hopping on-board the social media trend to market to and engage the consumer. The businesses most successful in social media, though different in their approach, generally have similarities in their execution strategies. To help identify these industry best practices, I will highlight one social media success story and discuss how the company creating the social media plan achieved their success.

The company that I chose to highlight is Dominos. Many consumers know Dominos for their pizza, but do they know that this company also has a winning social media strategy?

Dominos uses its social platforms as a way to engage with their customers. They don’t just broadcast specials or post pictures of their products, but instead they also provide several ways for their customers to take part. One way they recently did this was by allowing their customers to place orders through Twitter and Facebook.

Another great social media strategy implemented by Dominos occurred a couple of years ago. Dominos encouraged their customers to upload pictures of the pizza they purchased from Dominos. They did this to show that pizzas made in store can look just as good as the pizzas that are shown in Dominos advertisements.

These are two examples of how Dominos used social media to engage with its customers. By using tactics like these, businesses allow customers to contribute and have a higher chance of being successful in social media.

[ricoabro-blog]

Big Data: Opportunities and Threats

The implications of big data became very apparent to me while watching Doug Lalone present his lecture on The Legal Side of Big Data. In this video, he discussed three main points: the government and big data, technology and big data, and a legal study on big data. Throughout these three points, Doug repeatedly gave examples of how big data is affecting the world today.

One area that big data impacts is business. Through many examples, I learned that businesses are vulnerable to hackers who want to gain valuable big data information for personal use or to sell. Businesses must first be aware that this is taking place to take action against it. Businesses should make sure that the area where their data is kept is secure and must only allow certain individuals to access this data. Doug states that businesses should take every possible measure to protect their big data

Big data also impacts consumers in the marketplace. It is amazing to me that companies are able to store personal consumer information in big data. Even the government stores personal information. If consumers’ information is hacked into, they could face a number of problems. Consumers must be aware of what information they are knowingly giving away and they must know who they are giving it to.

To balance the threats of big data with the opportunities that it also brings, we need to stay informed of what is happening with big data, take necessary steps to protect big data, and take proactive measures against hacking.

[adamaldredblogs-blog]

Consulting’s Crucial Qualities

      Consulting in its purest form means to help. Consulting is the creative application of knowledge to a specific problem or opportunity. For most people seeking a consultant they understand that a problem does exist, but they are unaware of how to truly solve this problem. That is where the consultant comes into play. There are some qualities that I believe to be of the upmost importance when it comes to being a social media consultant, and/or hiring a social media consultant.

     The first quality would be overall knowledge and experience. Knowledge can fall into a couple of different categories. One of those categories would be the understanding of the industry that the consultant is being hired into. The consultant must understand how the industry works, and know how to adapt the company’s marketing strategy to the networks where the audience is most active.  

     Another category of knowledge is a willingness to learn new things. Social media is an ever-changing field, with new networks and apps being created almost every day. A social media consultant must have a desire to learn about the newest networks. Having a social media consultant that can prove to be an early adopter of new things in social media can give your company a giant advantage.

     Along with these aspects of knowledge, I believe it is crucial for a consultant to have the ability to align with the company’s business goals. While it is important to get more followers and post different content in the realm of social media marketing, that is not the only thing that a company should seek in a social media consultant. Social media consultants must also be able to tie into a company’s business goals and objectives.

     A social media consultant must also be very passionate for their work. That passion will most definitely show through when it comes time to examine the results of their work. Passion can allow the consultant to stick with it and fix the problem that you, yourself, could not fix before hiring them.

     A willingness to adapt quickly in this day and age is another necessity for social media consulting. With the Internet changing seemingly every day there are countless updates, changes, and new features on social media channels for a social media consultant to be aware of.

     Lastly, and probably most obvious of all the qualities, is a proven ability to get results. A good social media consultant should be easily researched and learned about with a quick Google search. Their online presence should speak for itself, and make you trust in their ability. While this is the last quality that I listed, this is definitely the first thing that you should research before deciding on hiring a particular social media consultant.

[ricoabro-blog]

I agree that social media consultants must be passionate about their work. Consulting is not just a job where people can punch the clock, they have to be engaged with their clients and passionate about the work that they are doing. This is not to say that consultants who aren’t as passionate cannot be successful, but I believe that someone who is passionate about their work will invest more time on a project and put more effort into making it the best that it can be.

-Rico

[brockdemo-blog]

My Social Media Presence

My social media presence isn’t that strong so there are definitely things that I could improve on. The social media that I do have isn’t necessarily professional either. So I plan on using the accounts that I have created for this class as a professional social media accounts. I will use things that I have learned and will learn to make the accounts as professional as I can. I will use them to promote myself to companies, so they want to take interest in me.

I have already created the accounts for this class so that’s the first thing that I’ve done. I have also done research about how to make the accounts more professional and appealing to those that I want to appeal to. I follow more professional accounts like news so I am informed on current events that are happening the world.

First off, I plan to make more posts. I make post approximately once or twice a month. A more professional account would keep followers more up-to-date on things that are going on. The next thing that I plan on doing to improve my professional social media presence is to make quality posts. Making more frequent posts is great, but if they are high quality posts then they serve no purpose. I also plan on keeping the profile pictures current and what I would want potential employers to see. I will also do more research in what employers are looking for in accounts, so that I can adapt my account to be visually stimulating to them.

[ricoabro-blog]

My professional presence is not that strong either, as of right now. I also want to create more accounts for my professional life and post more content so that I can improve upon this. One thing that I plan to do once these accounts are set up and I have content published to them is start following business owners similar to myself and other similar industry professionals. This will help grow my network and bring followers from other industry related accounts.

-Rico

[ricoabro-blog]

Professional Social Media Presence

When thinking about my own professional social media presence I can identify two separate entities: my professional presence as a business owner and my presence as a musical artist. Since I am a new business owner, I have done little on social media and do not yet have an active professional account on Linked-In or Facebook. I am currently working on creating my own logo and developing my brand before I begin to publish this content on social media.

One area that I do have an existing professional social media presence is through my music. I produce EDM music and have an established Sound Cloud, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account. I have been recognized by some of the top-performing Djs and producers, but it took me a long time to get to where I am today.

When I first started my artist accounts I had little content to add and a small amount of followers. As my partner and I began to produce more music and play at more shows/festivals, our followers grew. We knew we needed to improve our social media presence if we wanted to become successful. This is when I decided to hire a graphic designer. In order to make my presence unique, I wanted to create visuals that no one else would have and tie them in with the music my partner and I create. Once we were happy with our content, I next moved on to improving the number of followers. We now have content that I am happy with and the number of followers is continuing to grow, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

In the future I plan to create my own website where I will link in all of the social media accounts. I want to create more music to add to our content, but most importantly I want to develop a strong enough presence to get the attention of more top artists and the labels that sign them. I hope to use ideas and techniques from this class to improve my social media presence as both an artist and a business owner.

[ricoabro-blog]

Important Qualities to have as a Social Media Consultant

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

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

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

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

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