Untitled

[zwolters]

Week 8 - Implementation

Throughout the BIS 315 course and working with my organization, I have learned many concepts that I will implement into my professional career. Although, there will be challenges along the way to make the current and future organizations a social organization.

  From the video, there are many initiatives that fail because of the focus on technology within over achieving a purpose through the overall behaviors that this technology makes possible. This will be one of the biggest threats to the organization I was working with. I believe worrying too much about the technologic aspects that are included with social media sites clouds the true image and vision of the organization. If Beta Theta Pi would focus more on what attracts potential new members and not the most recent trend, they would be better off. 

 Another reason they could fail is due to lacking the knowledge of fundamental principles of mass collaboration. By only thinking of our organization and not the various others, we fail to understand the grand scheme of fraternities. They cannot single out themselves in an effort to achieve overall greatness. Rather, they should work with other organizations and the community to increase overall recruitment. If our Executive board fails to have the confidence to work with others and go outside the box, then the organization will lack the key principle to mass collaboration. 

On another note, they need leaders that are competent and able to understand their community. This way they are able to serve them the content needed for their vision. Lastly, I believe that Beta Theta Pi will need to adapt to the current environment. That is not what is trending or cool but what is fundamentally sound to recruitment and attracting new members. Technology and the social atmosphere will indefinitely change. This means they will also need to adapt to this changing environment and build off what they have learned in the past. Although some groups may be unwilling to adapt, it will be about to what extent and where they adapt. As there are many varying views of social content out there, they will need to be cautious of the correct platforms and channels of content distribution.

[zwolters]

Week 7 - Blog Post

When it comes to content creation, it's all about bringing value to your audience. Whatever your branded content might be, it needs to be oriented towards showing your audience the value you can bring to them. This requires evaluating all resources your brand has and determining what is worth sharing. Also, this depends on what criteria your organization uses to evaluate whether the content will bring value to your audience. If there is a piece of content that will really resonate within your audience or community, then find different ways and platforms to portray that message to gain more mileage. This could be posting to several different platforms so that everyone will see the message you're seeking to elaborate on.

As you continue to gain momentum and have valuable posts, you need to keep track of what is working and gather a log of these messages. This will be a re-occurring theme within your content as it has worked before. Just be careful to not overkill the message or else the entire theme will be gone within the minds of your audience. Becoming a Social Organization, means that your audience is growing exponentially. Your posts are becoming something of value and viewers look forward to seeing what you have to say. Your audience will become more engaged; thus, your content will have to evolve. If your content is not being used properly, the brand won't be shown in the light that you seek. This lack of understanding within developing, creating, and sharing content could hinder your business in a world filled with technology. All in all, you need to realize what posts help your organization, and what content is pointless. By executing these effective ways of content development and sharing, your organization will continue to thrive.

[zwolters]

Week 6 Blog Post

Chapter 4 talks about forming a Vision for Community Collaboration. Within this chapter, it speaks of NASA in the process of dealing with community collaboration to get certain missions done efficiently and showing the world the value NASA can bring. Some principles in creating an effective vision statement include: 

Understanding when community collaborations are appropriate.

Knowing where community collaboration is more likely to deliver value.

Applying an understanding of your organization’s goals and culture. 

Crafting and distributing an organizational vision for community collaboration. 

These different attributes are very important when looking into applying a community collaboration. Sometimes this isn’t even needed because there are groups within a company that are responsible for attacking issues. When you combine multiple sectors of your company for one goal, there will be various opinions and perspectives. This creates an elaborate culture within the group which could in turn output a better result. 

Nasa speaks in one of their articles about using these methods to further implement their vison statement and get missions done quicker. This project involves students working on a project for NASA. They state, “To see students of different ethnicities and religions work together on a project that seemed so much bigger than them was a beautiful thing. Instead of focusing on differences, they united to work toward a common goal.”. 

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/ssep-lake-county.html

After completing Module 4, I learned a lot about how an online community is centered around a few goals. If you can collectively work towards one mission, this will form an efficient community where members can speak their opinions. Also, having a welcoming approach to the community gives members the opportunity to not be shy but rather extroverted towards speaking up more. 

This directly works with my client, Beta Theta Pi, where we want our audience to participate in our interactive segments whether that be in-person or virtually. By getting our potential new members to be a part of several activities going on within our organization, they feel more inclined to join. Collaboration with other organizations also is great for our success. When we join forces with another fraternity or sorority, we get our mission done quicker. An example is coming in the next week as we are pairing with other organizations in a fundraiser event. All of us will be competing in a hockey tournament to raise money for the humane society.  This is a great example of collaborating within the community to achieve a goal of raising money. By getting each organization on board, this will bring our greek community closer than we were before. Also, our fundraiser will be a great start for many more collaborations to come in the future. 

[zwolters]

Week #5 Blog Post 1

The article talks about the greatest mistake of advertising, “the pop-up ad”. This has become a massive tool within many sites as they catch your attention indirectly. Many business models are formed to grab the data of its customers and then regurgitate it back into their feed. As this provides for continuous visits to your site or platform, it brings about malpractice of collecting this data. The websites survey what you’re doing within the site and how long you spend on certain pages. Then, they will use this information to feed this back to you. The article also talks about investor storytime. Investor storytime is when someone pays you to tell them how rich they’ll get when you finally put ads on your site. Sites like Pinterest and others use this business model which in turn just feeds back into that surveillance. When companies say they will provide data deeper than Facebook does, this means they will just conduct deeper data extraction from its users. This problem will continue to exist as long as businesses keep pushing their model towards this sort of surveillance. The article states, “...believe that advertising is the original sin of the web. The fallen state of our Internet is a direct, if unintentional, consequence of choosing advertising as the default model to support online content and services.” This quote means a lot to me as this has continued to become a problem for every internet user. The autonomy of user preference has become tailored for more sales and increased use. 

[zwolters]

Week 4 Blog Post #2

Reason #1: Algorithms

I think these are a great part of the internet. By having an algorithm implemented in any social media, there is no need to sort through data manually. Although, there is another half to the equation that takes away from the natual aspect within social media. All posts are tailored to your liking by how you have scrolled or liked in the past. The article talks about the personalization of content that has created filter bubbles that limit information flows and perpetuate bias. The filtering of information is not by humans either. These are robot programs that run through the data and serve it to the customers. Reason #2: Advertising When something is free, you are the product. This is a quote that has stuck with me for some time as I learn more about the techniques within social media. The advertising model contributes to the spread of junk news in two important ways. Clickbait has become something of value, where videos are only viral due to cover pictures. The second, is social media's data-based advertising model contributes to the spread of junk news by empowering various actors to micro-target potential voters, with very little transparency or accountability around who sponsored the event or why. This is aside from actual messages for people to go somewhere but rather to vote for a certain candidate. Reason #3: Exposure

Online networks often perform a social filtering of content, which diminished the diversity of information that users are exposed to. This takes away from the natual ability of users to get information from any source because they are fed the hot topics. When someone already has a preference towards a topic, they will continue to be shown that topic to further polarize them towards that way of thinking. There is no exposure to the other side because then it would take them away from the application they are using. We don't want to face the cognitive dissonance of exposure to radically new and challenging information.

[zwolters]

Week 4 Blog Post #1

In order to have a successful and efficient social media consultant, I believe there needs to be 6 different aspects. First, they need to have an overall knowledge of social media marketing. This includes the different networks and how they work. Next, they need to have the ability to align their style with your business goals. Social Media is a lot about how you portray your company/organization and how this ties into your business goals and objectives. Third, they will need a background that shows they have an ability to get results. This means proof of recent ventures where they created value or results in a positive aspect. A lot of people say they are social media "experts" but really don't know the complete market. I think another attribute would be the ability to learn new things and adapt to the environment. Social media is changing constantly and having the ability to change your style or approach is essential. Lastly, I think they need a passion and good understanding for the industry your business is in. Whether that be active or creative, this person needs to know how the culture is run and what aspects will work productively on social media. If I was a social media consultant, I would instantly look into the market and demographics of our audience. This would stage my approach towards improving social media presence. By looking into the market, you will be able to shift your style of posts or images to increase awareness of the brand. In the future, I would set goals for how many followers we need to gain in a certain period of time. I would gather a plan of how we would go about that and the things we needed to do in order to accomplish that goal.

[zwolters]

The Social Dilemma

Wow. That movie was very eye opening. After seeing it for the second time, I noticed a few things that I hadn’t before. Overall, great movie for anyone our age to research and analyze.  To begin, I believe big data and algorithms are so powerful because of their ability to track massive amounts of information and come to one conclusion. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are known for their wide use globally. By having the tools to gather data without a user’s knowledge, you open a whole can of worms that changes the face of advertising. Companies like this now know what works and what doesn’t. They can tailor their advertisements to our demographic and basically feed us on a silver platter what we want to see. This is great for the company as they can make tons of profit off selling data and feeding advertisements to you that will end up in a purchase. Although, this comes with many dangers for companies that take control of our thinking process and challenge brands that don’t have the resources available. By listening to your conversations and picking apart what you like and dislike, they aren’t letting us choose what we see. I’ve spoken with many friends and family about this issue, and they are on the same page, this isn’t good.  When thinking about how these issues can be dealt with, first you need to start with yourself. On your computer, place a blocker in front of the camera so any unwanted surveillance won’t be seen through. Also, there is no stopping your phone from picking up noises or watching where you scroll, so my advice would be to stop using it in general. If you know that Instagram or Facebook is tracking your digital movements, then just stop using the platform. This will help you mentally as you don’t need to worry about unwanted tracking. On a professional and societal standpoint, I believe these companies have the obligation to listen to their customer base. Apple, Google, Facebook all need to see the damage this is doing to the younger and older demographic. People aren’t behaving how they used to and the social interactions will never be the same as if there weren’t any internet. 

[zwolters]

24 hours w/o social media

So, for my experiment, I decided to go cold turkey on social media for a solid 24-hour period. This was something I have never done before, nor have I talked to anyone that has. Right there shows the dependence we have on our devices and within the internet. But I gave it a shot to see where it took me and how I would react.  In the morning, I woke up and my phone was off from the night before. I didnt have my alarm there ready to go so I did wake up a little confused. This was because it was 10:00 am. Anyways, in the morning I love to go on social media just to see what’s going on in the world and any news stories that could pique my interest. Not today though, I had to put my phone away and go about my morning routine without any screens in sight. I actually enjoyed yesterday morning because I was in-tune with my environment and talking to all my roommates with full attention. Also, I didn’t have that constant reminder to check my emails or texts. Once lunch came around, it was time to hit the gym and see what that was like. I couldn’t go through my workouts without music, so I had to borrow a friend’s phone to take to the gym. This was interesting but worked fine. After the gym, I drove home and go started on another meal for the day. During that, I was thinking the whole time about if my parents had called me or my girlfriend wanted something. I had told her what I was doing so I figured she would come over and talk if she needed to ask me something. As the day went on, all of my friends were using their devices and it almost seemed they were glued to it. When your also part of the social media world, you don’t notice some things around you that are happening. This was really weird to me as I had no clue what to do with myself but maybe read a book or go for a walk.  Once the day was through, I was about to go to bed. Usually, I will watch a movie or scroll Instagram before I pass out, but this wasn’t an option. So, I read a book and eventually got too tired to flip the page and ended up sleeping. The thing that was weird was I fell asleep so quick. Typically, it will take me around 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, but last night it was almost instant.  When I woke up the next morning, I turned on my phone and was very eager to get back into touch with some people I hadn’t in 24 hours. When I turned my phone on, I had received hundreds of messages and notifications from friends and family wondering if something had happened to me. This was amazing and eye-opening to see the impact one single day of no-communication had done to the people that were trying to contact me. It took me awhile to go through all the emails and texts I had missed, but it was worth it. In the end, I realized how dependent we are on these devices and how different going one day without a phone or TV really is. 

[zwolters]

Social Media Influence

I believe that social media has a bigger impact on my life than I could have imagined. Especially with all this new technology coming out these days, its hard to stay connected with people without using a screen of some sort. Overall, I think that social media has a negative impact on peoples lives. Yes, of course it helps friends and family stay connected over long distances, but this doesnt help the younger demographic. These young kids are going onto their devices almost 24/7 and seeing what other people are doing. After reading the article from Emma Rathbone, it opened my eyes into how things were before the internet came about. People wrote letters and called each other through their home phones. Not everyone had a personal device they could take pictures and look at what celebrities were up to.  Constantly, having the internet to our disposal is both good and bad for the brain and body. People are able to see tips and tricks for different issues that they could have never gotten access to before. This is huge for people trying to learn. But also, it takes up too much time once you end up getting sucked into all the features it brings.  There have been trips that I go on where I cannot use my phone or internet. As a result, I am content with the situation I was in and didnt need to go on it. This isnt the same for a lot of people my age, as they need the satisfaction of looking at a device. 

[zwolters]

Introduction & Red Bull

Hello! My name is Zach Wolters. Currently, I am a senior here at Central Michigan University. Post-graduation I would love to work as a sales representative for a successful company in the MidWest. This is what I am strived for throughout my time here at CMU. Building my skills and meeting new people that I will work with throughout my life. This blog is a chance for me to let you know how certain things are going within my career path and how I achieved them. Also, I will explain different obstacles I encountered and how I persevered through them.  Red Bull is the company I would like to explain today. Through their various advertising and marketing efforts, they have captured the eyes and ears of almost everyone on the television. Red Bull participates in extreme sports and also different commercials that increase recognition of the brand. I believe, after reading the book, that they show the unique ways to incorporate online platforms and in-person. By sponsoring X-games and other unique events, they can expand their likeliness from potential consumers. This is something the excel at and have been for years.