Ryan's Blog

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Implementation Challenges

Implementation is one of the final and most important steps in developing a social organization. An important thing to remember in this implementation process, as stated in the video lecture, the size of an organization has nothing to do with how well you preform as a social organization. As Dr. Melton also stated in the video lecture, you do not need to have a large budget to use in developing your social media presence but more on your resourcefulness.

As I have worked hand in hand with MAP (Manitou Adventure Partnership) throughout the last couple months, I have worked diligently in assisting with their social media presence and providing recommendations. However, there will always be challenges that will arise when attempting to improve any aspect of an organization. Just like any other organization, MAP may come across some challenges when implementing recommendations on how to improve their social media presence. One challenge that may arise will be that they may take my recommendations and try to implement them all at once. This will cause challenges as they will try to do a complete 180 with their social media presence and will start to lack in the area that they are already doing well in. Also, another challenge I believe MAP will face when implementing my recommendation will be their time management. I say this because one of the three partners is currently in medical school, one is a recent college graduate working a full time job, and the third partner is approaching his college graduating and preparing to begin his career. 

The partners at MAP are well aware of the recommendations I have provided and are aware of the challenges that they will need to address when implementing them, but they are confident that they will be able to keep striving forward.

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Content Development

Effective content development is essential for any company, organization or person who is trying to maximize their engagement, reach and overall effectiveness on their social media posts. As everyone knows, social media has become a very important tool that companies are starting to utilize to ultimately increase revenue by connecting and engaging with customers. A social media content strategy can be very useful as it will act as a game plan for coordinating, creating, and distributing your organization’s content. Also, content strategies can help organizations develop consistent posting patterns and maintain a balanced tone. 

When creating a social media content strategy there are four main components to be aware of. These are: research and analysis of current content reception and strategy, your target audience identified by platform, a list of content-specific goals and objectives, and plans for the distribution of your content. First, research is the key to understanding what content will resonate with your audience. It is important to treat the audiences on each platform separate as you will find your engagements will differ across platforms and different content will resonate with different kinds of people. Second, analyze what content resonates the best with your audience on each platform. This will allow you to create your game plan with a focus on these types of posts to maximize engagement. Once you have a good idea of the type of content you want to share, who you want to share it with, and what your goals for the content is going to be, you need to determine which types of posts will react with your audience the best. Lastly, I recommend analyzing what days and what times you receive the most engagement so you can distribute your content during peak engagement periods. 

To help understand how these principles can truly be effective for a company, I recommend taking a look at company pages like Pop-Tarts who is constantly engaging with there audience on social media. Their twitter page is a prime example as they not only interact with their followers, they also are in touch with current trends and post good content that is sure to get lots of interactions. The following link will take you to a tweet they recently posted that shows what I'm talking about: https://twitter.com/PopTartsUS/status/1192182812587245569. 

The principles of effective content development and strategy are very important in the aspect of becoming a social organization. These principles will serve as the backbone for any social organization because no matter how active someone is on social media, if there is not an audience then it is just wasted content that is not reaching anyone. Having a target audience that an organization can focus on and tailor their content to will prove to be very beneficial. For any organization to be successful in a social environment it needs to be able to foster an environment that encourages communication and contain content that is found interesting to the audience. I can personally attest to this because I see content online all the time that I will just scroll past and ignore because it does not interest me but there is content that I will interact with on a daily basis because it peaks my curiosity and I enjoy seeing the types of conversations and reactions it receives. 

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Social media and its ethics

Over the last couple years, the ethics of social media has been starting to be questioned and people are starting to take more steps to ensure their privacy. Anyone who has been somewhat active on social media or has paid minimal attention to the news has definitely heard about all the concerns people are starting to have and I believe that they are very legitimate concerns.

First, one issue is that every time you are to go on social media you are very likely to come across “fake news” without even realizing that it is fake news. I believe this is an issue because the opinions that people form from different kinds of information helps shape their personality. If there are not enough fact checking or other ways people can filter out fake news, if they choose to, it can cause them to alter their views based on things that are not true. At a societal and business level, there can be responses/actions taken to help combat against this by content moderators or implementing more filtering options.

From my own personal standpoint, I would like to see companies and others start implementing more ways of being able to filter and restrict different types of information

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Growing an Online Community

Whether or not companies like it, social media use in the professional world is growing and is becoming more widely used for community collaboration. For companies to continue to be ahead of the curve and continue to excel they need to engage in the most effective online community collaboration possible. The book, “The Social Organization” does a good job discussing effective principles for online community building with social media. As stated in the textbook, companies are advised to start with a vision statement when beginning to engage in online community collaboration. According to the textbook, a vision statement serves two main purposes. First being that it articulates the belief of leadership in the importance and value of community-based collaboration. Second being that it concretely identifies significant opportunities for the firm where such collaboration can add value by helping the organization move closer to its goals. Both of these elements are important and the absence of one of these elements will diminish the impact of the other.

When growing online community collaboration there are other factors as well you need to be aware of. This includes understanding when community collaboration is appropriate, knowing where community collaboration is more likely to deliver value, being able to apply an understanding of your organization's goals and culture, and crafting an organizational vision for community collaboration. The book, also does a good job detailing what goes into developing a strategic approach to community collaboration. “A community collaboration strategy explicitly identifies the communities the firm will investigate, sanction and support; when and how it will support them; the desired collaborative behaviors they will exhibit; and the organization benefits expected to flow from them.” (The Social Organization, p.57). 

The Hootsuite training we were assigned for this week also has valuable information for community collaboration. This weeks training touched on the aspects of engaging, growing, and leveraging your social media audience, engaging with influencers and advocates, and best practices for growing community across social media channels. The information from this section will be valuable for me in my client project. These principles will be beneficial because one of the things I am working with MAP (Manitou Adventure Partnership) to improve is building a stronger presence on different social media platforms so they can engage in more community collaboration.

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Junk News

Reading the article “Three reasons junk news speeds so quickly across social media” and getting an understanding on what the three reasons were I realize how much I do see these things. Firstly, algorithms are widely used and can be seen anywhere on social media. I see this the most on Facebook when I start watching Facebook videos and then I start getting more recommended videos that were related to the first one. I think people should be aware that no matter what they end up viewing, following, or liking will end up going into the algorithms that will tailor their social media for them. Next, in terms of advertising, I'm sure everyone has had the experience of how they view something one time and then all the advertisements they see are for that product. Also, there is a huge amount of click-bait things across social media. I think people should be more on the look out for click bait items. Lastly, exposure ties into the other two because what you are being exposed to is exactly what you have been viewing or similar to the kinds of posts you have interacted with.

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Qualities for Social Media Consultants

Social media consultants should have some certain qualities in my opinion. Some of these qualities should be a self-motivator, creative, and being a good communicator. I believe that these qualities are important for a social media consultant to have because you will need to be creative when it comes to how to improve different social media accounts. Also I think being a good communicator would be important because you will need to be able to communicate to the client how to improve their social media presence in a clear and concise way.

If I was a social media consultant for myself, I would definitely tell myself I need to be more active on social media. I tend to just scroll social media and I hardly ever post anything. Also, I would make sure that not only am I posting more that they are good quality posts. For in the future I could start posting more on topics that interest me and make sure they have good content and will be able to attract readers.

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Big Data

Today’s world is always changing and technology is becoming bigger and bigger. This means that we will continue to become more tied into our technological devices and they will contain more and more of our personal information as we rely on them more. Big data is very powerful and with that power, it can be very dangerous. Big data is such a powerful tool because it tracks so much information on everyone. Marketing firms can use this information to tailor advertisements specifically for each person. This can also be harmful because this information can get into the hands of someone that intends to abuse it. Big data can also be harmful because no one really knows exactly what information is being collected on themself and used in different ways. A way that I believe can limit harm from big data would include restrictions on what the data can be used for and who is able to access the data. Also, on a personal level, if people are able to see exactly what information of theirs is being shared and who it is going to.

Internet business models influence surveillance and data gathering on the internet because there are so many advanced ways of getting advertisements to consumers that even if you click onto one ad about an item, you will see ads for that item popping up very frequently. Also, there are apps that you download onto your phone that, without you knowing, will track your location and the places you go so ads can be tailored to you. Today, there is little to no chance that you will come across an ad that does not have surveillance with it.

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My Social Media Free Experiment

Hello all,

For my experiment on going social media free I decided to use three different increments of time, which also happen to be the periods that I use social media and technology the most often. I came to the conclusion that doing three 4 hour increments throughout the day would be the most beneficial for this study. To give some context, I decided this because the 3 times I use my phone the most is when I wake up in the morning, during the middle of the day between classes, and right before I go to bed. Thanks to my current class on social media and emerging technology in business, I am more self conscious about my cell phone/social media use and I realized that these were the three times I use technology/social media the most.

I use my phone with the most purpose right in the morning because I am answering messages I missed while I was sleeping, checking out sports updates, or logging into the games I have on my phone that send me updates. For those reasons, I am always on my phone in the morning the most because I want to catch up on the things I missed but also get ahead so I will not feel that much behind when I do decide to get back on social media later in the day. (Not to mention the fact that I have a bad habit of looking for any excuse to stay in bed longer in the morning because I struggle the most on actually getting myself out of bed). I decided between classes and right before bed are my next two most popular times for social media and technology because I am either trying to pass time or I am just bored and looking for something that will make my next class start sooner or put me to sleep.

To get into my social media free experiment I want to specify how I set up my experiment. As I had stated earlier, I set it up in 3 different increments of time and those were the most popular times I was on my phone. I decided to keep track in my notebook of the amount of times I had checked my phone or used some sort of technology/social media during these 3 different periods of time. In the morning I had used my phone to turn my alarm off and then found myself resisting the urge to scroll any social media. I did catch myself getting ready to log into a game on my phone but I stopped myself and only responded to one text message that required an immediate response and then let them know I will be unable to respond to text messages for the day and that I will explain why when I get the chance. 

Later into the day when I had hit the second period of time where I went technology free, which to give context was from about noon to 4 pm, I was fighting the urge to check my phone because it kept vibrating and I had to take it from my pocket and put it into my backpack as it was starting to distract me from the class lecture I was in. It later turned out to be a group-chat that was about nothing important and it would have just distracted me from class so I am glad that I was able to ignore those vibrations because I feel that I was able to take good quality notes.

Lastly, I had conducted my last period of technology and social media free right before bed time and I found this to be the most challenging for myself. I found this hard for myself because I tend to have issue with taking my mind off things and just letting myself go to sleep. Also, it is easy for me to lay in bed and surf social media or head down a rabbit hole of Facebook videos. I had a couple times where I went to go on my phone but had to force myself to put it down and just focus on clearing my head and going to sleep. 

To conclude my experience with this social media free experience, this was an eye opening experience for me because I was able to become more aware of the amount of times that I go to grab my phone to check my phone for messages, game updates, to see time or to simply go on it to pass the time because I'm bored. I feel that this experiment is a good idea for most people to try but it is also a practice that people can not just pick up and expect to improve their lifestyles. To gain something from this experiment, the individual must be willing to seriously look at the times during the day that they could sacrifice technology and focus on more human interaction and actually be invested in improving these interactions.

I am personally glad that I decided to take this experiment of going technology/social media free because not only was I able to learn how much I used my phone for nonsense like I mentioned, but I actually was able to have a face to face conversation with my roommate that ended up turning into a serious conversation that we did not expect and we were able to bond over a past situation that we had both experienced throughout our childhood. Lastly, to touch on the takeaways I had gotten from this experience was that I learned that I often use social media as a distraction to pass time from being in a situation I am not necessarily fond of being apart of. For example, sitting in the hallway outside my next classroom because I had gotten out of my previous class early and the previous class is not excused yet or using social media to “look natural” as your friend that you are walking with stops to talk to a person that you do not know.

As always, Ryan

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Social Media and Technology’s Influence

For most of us social media has a great significance in the way we interact with others every single day. Also, we have been able to be see the way technology has progressed from when we were first introduced to it and how advanced it is today. I have personally been able to see technology advance through my childhood and into my adulthood thus far, from video games, cell phones and through various types of social media. Through this blog I am going to express my opinions and views on how technology has influenced my life.

Social media is definitely something I use almost everyday whether it is to catch up on news, communicate with friends or to just pass time. However, I would not say I am attached at the hip to social media as I do not spend much time on it, usually just for a couple minutes here and there or to reply to snapchats. Even though I may not use it as much as a lot of people, I do think social media has changed society and developed it into what it is today as most people rely on social media as a way to engage with the world and stay up to date with their friends. This is directly tied into what Sherry Turkle had touched on in her interview with Bill Moyers when she explained how people today have the desire to engage in technology and social media platforms instead of interacting directly with others. She also explained what she calls the “Goldilocks Effect” which she explains it as where people want to be able to control their interactions with others, for example being able to edit and make sure what they say is perfect whereas they can not normally do in a face to face conversation.

I believe that having the internet constantly available affects my life in many ways. I think that it mostly affects my life in a positive way as I always have access to the resources I need to answer a question I may have or to simply get in contact with someone at an instance. However, I think with how much technology is involved in my life, as well as everyone else’s, it has negative affects. Technology can be a constant distraction in everyone’s life. I notice this mostly when I am studying for school, in class, or doing nearly anything else. I find myself checking my phone often or just simply using some form of technology as a way to distract myself or to stimulate myself during what Sherry Turkle describes as the “boring bits” of everyday life and interactions. 

Although I have had the access to technology for the majority of my 22 years of life, I was able to spend 10 days with hardly any technology a couple of summers ago. My immediate family and my extended family had taken a 10 day trip on a house boat on Lake Cumberland in Kentucky where none of us were able to get cell service or wifi since we were only surrounded by water and forest. I never felt as if I needed to use technology or scroll social media because we in the middle of a beautiful lake and I was surrounded by my family having a great time. Even though we were on a boat for 10 days, we did rent a ski boat for the 10 days as well so if we felt we needed to get off the boat for a little to do something we were able to go water skiing, tubing, or wake boarding. Looking back on this trip I am glad that we had no cell service or wifi because we were all forced to enjoy each other’s company and connect with one another without any distractions. For that week, seeing what my friends were posting on social media or what was happening in the news did not matter and showed me that even though it is enticing to stimulate yourself with technology, you do not need technology to stimulate yourself which can be shown in Emma Rathbone’s article that explains how without technology, you stimulate yourself.

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I am currently in my fifth and final year at Central Michigan University pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) degree with a major in Business Administration and a minor in Information Systems. I have a predominately heavy background in the automotive manufacturing industry as I have completed four summer internships in this industry. I am looking forward to being able to use my knowledge of the industry as well as my knowledge I have gained through my time at CMU to propel myself into a successful career within the manufacturing industry. I am hoping to use this blog as my way of conveying information weekly on the specified topics with a professional focus that can enlighten and inspire the readers. Kellogg’s is a great example of a company that uses social media very well. Attached at the bottom of this blog is a link to their facebook page where you can see how active they are and how well they are using Facebook to let the community know what they are up to and their accomplishments. While doing this they are able to get the community to participate in conversations by commenting on posts and interacting with each other. Also, when there are situations where customers have complaints or issues, Kellogg’s is very timely in responding and showing that they care. https://www.facebook.com/Kelloggs/