Battle of the Social Networks: What’s in it for you?

Social media is the buzz word today and everyone wants to be a maestro of the #1 activity on the web.  It is also being said that the social media revolution is the biggest shift since the industrial revolution! [1]. certainly, no one wants to be left behind when it comes to becoming a part of the new social energy around us.  According to Jeff Jervis, journalist, professor and author, “Social media is not media, it is speech, Period.”

Agreed!  But the question really is, what is the necessity of constant connection and speech, are we making use of the correct tools as a customer and as a marketer?  There is Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Orkut, Multiply, Livejournal, Netog, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram (phew!) and what not.  There also are apps like Twitterfeeder and Hootsuite that can help you send one post to all your social networks.  But, unfortunately, these shortcuts ignore the strengths and weaknesses of each platform.  Through this blog post, I wish to differentiate and list the strengths of some of these sites which can help you decide what is best for you.

Tools for Cooperation

Leaders can motivate employees to achieve departmental or corporate goals in various ways.  What distinguishes great leaders is the ability to decipher which tools will be the most effective.  Choosing the most effective way to motivate employees involves assessing the organization values and principles.

Big Data and Behavioral Intelligence

By 2018, the United Nations estimates there will be 7.6 billion people living on Earth.  By 2020, an estimated 50 billion devices will be connected to the internet, and web traffic will have more than doubled.  From low-cost, low-power programmable sensors that transmit data to vehicles that stream diagnostics straight to your smartphone, this explosion of connected devices is changing the way we live our lives, creating huge sets of data that will drive efficiencies and productivity for businesses and individuals alike.

(Image by Thierry Gregorius (Cartoon: Big Data) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Your Viral Videos Are Terrible

You spent hours crafting an idea that you are certain will be an internet sensation. You meticulously planed the timing of your ad and the subliminal brand messaging that goes with it. You finalized scripts and shoot the videos certain that success was near. You released your video…and nothing happened. Why?

(The Tango! Desktop Project grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions - by The people from the Tango! project (The Tango! Desktop Project) via Wikimedia Commons.)

First, you will have to simply understand that not every funny video on YouTube goes viral.  100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.  Think about that.  The pool of content is infinitely deep.  You have a better chance of getting hit by a bus driven by Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves than “going viral”.  May the force be with you.  Gaining separation from the pack for your plumping company’s Harlem Shake parody is doomed from the start.  To make matters worse, nobody is impressed with a video that has 11 views.  Internet users know that 7 of the views are from your social media coordinator, the other 4 are from his mother.  A savvy content curator will smell a dud simply from the numbers of views a video has.  8 views?  See you later.

Who’s Really In Control?????

A reputation is all a company has to be successful.  The fact is that people are talking about companies (good or bad) whether they like it or not and it is crucial that attention is given to those conversations.  Building a good reputation is the first step, but the final task is to maintain that reputation.  Consider a good reputation like enrolling in a class.  You start off with an A, but it takes effort to maintain that A.  Companies lost control of their reputation when they are trying to maintain control, if that makes sense.  The focus is not to wipe the conversations away, but too get involved in those conversations and turn the bad into good.  Ted Leberecht, in his lecture, 3 Ways to (usefully) Lose Control of Your Brand, put it perfectly.  Companies need “more control over the loss of control.  Companies must focus on ways to manage the conversation online.  You can’t erase what is already out there, you can’t undo what is already done."

Social Media 101

The world of social media carries with it the hope of great rewards for small businesses in helping to better market the organization and greater connect with your customer base.  There are pitfalls as well, however, and this post will briefly touch on a couple of topics that companies would do well to create policies to address.  I won’t argue for any particular direction – that is something that should be addressed on an organization-to-organization level.

(Image by Mentionablehonor (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.)

Ethical Challenges Facing Organizations Online

As vast number of organizations enter and continue their social media presence and online interactions, ethical issues have become apparent.  These ethical issues range from small occurrences such as an employee rating their company’s product to large scale companies selling private details of their users.  We will then take a look at what are ethical practices online, why ethical behavior is important to an organization, and some examples of unethical actions by organizations.

(Image by Robin8376 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Gift of Life Campus Challenge

Pull out your “Bucket List.”  What’s on it?  Run a marathon?  Travel the world?  Start a successful business?  Become a CEO / CFO? 

Become an Organ Donor Today!

For a passionate group of students, saving a life is not only on the list, but also an item that can be checked off as accomplished.  These students have become organ donors and starting from January 16th  until February 27th will be encouraging other students, family, and friends to do the same.

Highlighting Noteworthy Neighborhoods in Detroit

In my first blog post, I highlighted two city of Detroit historic neighborhoods (North Rosedale Park and East English Village).  These neighborhoods are primarily residential communities consisting of mostly single family homes.  In this second blog post, I would like to draw attention to two additional Detroit historic neighborhoods which are in closer proximity to Wayne State University, Downtown Detroit, and Mid-Town.  They are Palmer Park and Lafayette Park.  These two communities are very different from most other neighborhoods within the city because they primarily contain multi-family dwellings units.  Accordingly, Palmer Park and Lafayette Park are more densely populated neighborhoods with urban living more similar to perhaps Chicago or Washington D.C.  As an added benefit, they are in close proximity to a variety of entertainment and retail districts as well as city parks.  Palmer Park and Lafayette Park are also closer to Downtown and Mid-town than North Rosedale Park and East English Village.  

How to Find Jobs in Inbound Marketing

Consumers In Control

A fear has set in amongst businesses that consumers are now more “In Control” of the marketplace because of their ability to use and access to social media tools.  Plenty of companies and products have received negative feedback on their engagement, relationships, interaction, and their actual products. Many of these reviews are accurate and certainly some of these reviews are less than accurate. Nevertheless, a negative review or critique can still be seen by other consumers and influence the buying decisions of others. How businesses react to this situation is of critical importance to a company’s future success.

(Image by Rat2 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)

The Death of Demographic Marketing and the Future of Social Media

There has been a lot written about how with the advent of social media, the traditional marketing demographic has been shown to be ineffective as a way to target advertising.  Measuring the effectiveness of advertising has traditionally been difficult especially with traditional mediums such as TV, radio, and print.  So, what does this mean for the future of social media and inbound marketing?  

ZAPPOS: Their online presence doesn’t stink and neither should yours!

What do you do when one of the most popular rappers in the world speaks ill of your company?  If you’re online shoe retailer Zappos, you post a picture of a toilet and a plunger priced to sell fictitiously on your website for $100,000.  Yes, when rapper Kanye West made a derogatory statement in an effort to purposefully cause damage to Zappo’s CEO reputation and the company’s brand, the company reacted swiftly to put comical spin on the expletive West used in his remark.  Not only did this gesture make headline news but it also sparked an increase in visits to the site and receipt of 2,730 comments in support of this clever stunt.  The company also received tweets from other retailers praising Zappos for having the courage to protect their brand.  

(Image by Delivering Happiness Book [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) or CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Reddit as a Buzz-Generating Tool?

There is a lot of discussion about utilizing popular social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.  However, one avenue that often gets overlooked as an important source of information is reddit.  For those of you who don’t know, reddit is a social media site where users can submit links and posts, and submit comments.  A voting system allows users to promote posts and comments by giving them “upvotes”, and then marking comments and posts as irrelevant or not following the rules by “downvoting”. 

There are many different subreddits which allows users to pay attention to the types of conversations they wish to see.  There are subreddits for basically every type of interest and hobby, news, politics, etc.  With any social network community, it is best to understand what the community is all about before jumping in to participate.  So, it is a good idea to read the reddit FAQs (http://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq) before doing any sort of activity on reddit as reddit is a community that belongs unto itself.  

Social Media Policy

I recently wrote about Zappos’ successful social media implementation strategy in which the company explicitly encourages employees’ use of social media even at work.  While it is important that companies exercise transparency and engagement with their customer base and yes, social media platforms permit this opportunity, it is also recognizable that not every industry is one which permits candid tweets about employee work.  Often there are concerns for privacy and intellectual property protection, or simply reputation concerns.  One of the biggest benefits of organizational encouraged use of social media is the ability to share a wealth of information with the masses within seconds.  In this regard, one of the biggest risks to organizations is that a wealth of information can be shared with the masses within seconds!  Sensitive information subject to misuse or misinterpretation, information potentially damaging to product and brands, or internal complaints posted by employees to publicly vent frustration, are all things companies must consider when putting together a social media strategy.

(Image by User:Jossifresco (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Inbound Certification

I was very excited to become Inbound Certified through Hubspot’s Inbound Certification Program.  I really wanted to pass the exam the first time I took the exam.  I was pretty stoked that I passed the exam my first time with a 94%!  (The average score is a 72% with a pass rate of 44%. Over 3,100 individuals from 74 different countries have passed the certification exam.) 

It seems that everyone is jumping into the world of social media nowadays, and while there are certainly examples of individuals and corporations doing it right, there are seemingly infinite ways to crash and burn.  While I can’t say that I always manage to adhere to it, I try to remember the quote from Benjamin Franklin: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”  That’s why of the Five Key Principles of Social Interactivity Marketing we learned from the Handbook of Social Media, I think it’s important to stress the second one, that being influencing and mobilizing social media selectively.  (Social Systems image by Alexander van Dijk [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Should Companies Implement a Social Media Policy?

Employees have constantly talked about their companies, peers, and bosses from day one, well before email or social media.  Today, roughly 75% of adults engage in social media, making it impossible to just shun social media all together, but rather addressing it from a standpoint of what is acceptable and tolerable to organizations.  It is known that people tend to feel more comfortable voicing themselves when all they have to do is hide behind their phone or computer, type, and press submit, share, tweet…etc. In fact, IT abuses have increased over the past 5 years among recent college graduates.  This is not a revelation that this type of chatter exists, but what is more apparent is the accessibility to employee’s feelings, thoughts and viewpoints via social media platforms which can at times be beneficial, yet also damaging at the same time.  (Image is a picture of "Harper Hospital" - image in the public domain - via Wikimedia Commons)

Email was a technological innovation of the early 1990’s.  It changed the way the world communicated and the way business was conducted.  Today, the idea of life without email seems downright preposterous.  Every man, woman, and child in the internet society has at least one email address.  But today, this ubiquitous staple of our connected lives has some serious competition.  Today email competes with a barrage of messages from sources like instant messaging, social media, texting, cell phones, and many others.  The once venerable email is losing ground to the explosion of new communication methods entering the market.  This is where you ask, “Why should I care?”

Quality In, Quality Out….Decisions Made the Right Way

Data drives financial decisions and is the cornerstone of building a quality financial model.  Data is either used to make a decision or justify a decision.  Bad data can drive bad decisions while good data can drive good decisions.  Without a doubt, it can work in the opposite fashion, but most would agree with the previous statement.  Without data, decision makers are left to their instinct.  Basing decisions on pure gut instinct can yield positive outcomes, but the opportunity to open the risk window is staggering. 

(Photo by Dr. Avishai Teicher [CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.)

An Interview with Danielle Spradlin, Marketing Director at GetCertified4Less

As business students, we have an affinity for all things business and in most cases for all things entrepreneurial.  As it turns out one of my close friends has successfully transitioned from years of working at a traditional brick and mortar to an online-only business. 

The “Flipped School”: Should We Do It?

What is a "flipped course" or a "flipped school"?  The basic idea of a flipped course is to change the order of instruction.  In a flipped course, the student "views" the lecture at home before the class.  Then, during classtime, the students and instructor complete the homework in class.  To accomplish this requires a dramatic rethinking of the use of technology.  The teacher, the student, and the school must focus on how to integrate technology into the lessons and be open to change. 

New Digital Trends Are Changing The Business World

Recently, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) wrote a publication dedicated to the nine trends rewriting the rules of business in the new digital ecosystem.  The article spoke about how change is happening faster and we as humans that hate change are having an even more difficult time adapting to it.  Basically, change is becoming the status quo.  This article really resonated with me because my iPhone has more updates than I can possibly keep track of.  Technology is always evolving and it definitely has had an effect on the business world. Below are my top three favorite new digital trends.