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Implementation Challenges

The client that I chose to implement my social media strategy to is The Riverwood Resort, they are a family owned and ran business in the Mount Pleasant area that offers golf, bowling, dining, and lodging services. With that being said, the management team will face some issues when trying to implement some aspects of my social media strategy, these include: having trouble creating engaging content at first because the introduction of a content calendar is a new practice for their business.

The second issue they will encounter is finding a current employee that has the time and expertise to take on these additional tasks of creating content, posting, and engaging followers in the comment section, while looking to hire a full-time social media manager. Although, they will struggle with these recommendations early on in the process, they will be able to produce more effective content once they are able to get on a steady routine using a content calendar and hiring a manager. 

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Developing Effective Content

Many businesses use social media and technology as an asset to give them a competitive edge, by using it as a communication channel or platform to reach out and engage with their followers and target market. With that being said, not all businesses are good at creating effective and engaging content for their consumers; when businesses fail at producing this effective content, they will lose their followers interest.

According to the Hootsuite modules, effective content needs to be aligned with the social media strategy that company is implementing and the overall objective of this content is to help complete the organizational goals of the company. One of the most important aspects to understand when creating effective content is to know the target market on each platform that the content is being distributed, this can help a company design the ads to reach the most amount of people and produce the highest percentage of engagement possible for each social media platform.

My client, The Riverwood Resort, does a good job producing effective content by implementing a content calendar that helps them outline exactly what the content of the post is and what platform the post would work the best on considering the audience. When implementing a content calendar, it is important to analyze what content does the best on each platform so the company can tweak their content to ensure the best engagement and effective content results.

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The Ethics Behind Social Media

With the use of social media and technology skyrocketing over the last 10 years it has allowed for the rapid spread of information and an unending platform that allows anyone to share their ideas or viewpoints. With that being said, it is very difficult to determine what is factual and what is made up on all social media platforms, the availability for everyone to post content causes many ethical issues within the world of social media. For example, one of the largest social media companies, Facebook, collects our personal data without consent and they have the ability to use the data as they please; whether they decide to use it for customized ads towards us or decide to sell it to another company. 

However, the ethical issues of social media don’t end here, another huge issue is the posting of nonfactual posts and ads that look as if they are legitimate. In my opinion Facebook as a company should be held accountable to make sure policies are in place to ensure that important posts such as political campaigns and ads are in fact legitimate information before allowing the user to post them to their site and influence their followers by using false information. When Facebook allows the politicians to run these ads and give them a verified check mark, it gives the users the impression that Facebook supports these people which makes me believe that they are posting legitimate information, which is proven to be completely false. 

As a user of social media, it is my recommendation that other users are very skeptical of the information that is presented to them and they should do some research of their own because there is no way to actually verify this information if the social media companies are not holding themselves accountable for their content.

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Effective Ways to Build an Online Community

The vast majority of businesses use social media in order to engage and influence their customer target market in a variety of ways. Just as businesses need to update their processes to make them more effective and efficient, they need to take the same approach when trying to develop an online community. After reading the textbook, “The Social Organization”, I learned that one of the major concepts in developing an online community is that firms need to know when community collaboration is needed and appropriate. The goal of collaboration is to gather large amounts of different information from qualified and affected people, which would likely cause a broader understanding and different viewpoints among the discussion.

Another aspect of forming an effective online community is purpose. In order to develop a community, there needs to be a clear and concise purpose in place that recognizes a problem and motivates the target market to participate. A good purpose should include these four points:

·       Know who the participants are

·       The purpose for their collaboration

·       The benefit for the participants

·       The value to the organization

An example of a good purpose statement from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is as follows: “We are committed to working locally to improve the social, economical and environmental wellbeing of our community; our goal is to foster partnerships that will enhance our local economy using environmental improvements that create cleaner safer neighborhoods”.

The Hootsuite Module was very beneficial regarding my client and their own online community. I was very interested to learn that once an online community is formed, it is important to stay engaged and keep communicating the overall purpose to the community and followers. It is also important to make sure the community continues to see the value of the postings because if not they will disengage in the community. I believe my client, the Riverwood Resort, could apply some of these techniques to improve their online community because they do not engage with their community enough through their social media platforms.

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The Legal Side of Big Data

Businesses and Big Data

The involvement of technology in a businesses everyday operations is increasing every single year. This trend has led these companies to be responsible for the safe keeping of not only their own data, but all of the data they have collected and the data the customer has provided themselves. When businesses use and collect big data, they need to be aware that the data they are collecting can be private information, they also need to consider the fact that the customer has given their info thinking that the would put forth their best effort to keep the data secure. After watching the Legal Side of Big Data lecture, it shows that large companies are at stake of being hacked and having all of their data being compromised, this is a huge issue today because depending on the services the company provides, the variety of data that can be hacked is scary to think about.

Consumers and Big Data

As a consumer, the term big data has been used regarding the collection of large amounts of personal information without the consumers consent including: customer preferences, patterns, and trends while using technology. While there are a lot of positives that accompany big data, there are many negatives that a consumer must consider while providing their personal information on social media sites and the internet in general. One of the best ways to balance the opportunities and threats posed by big data is to have the consumer be aware of the links they are clicking on, and be very selective when releasing their personal data via the internet because you can never be sure as to who will have access to it.

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Algorithms, Advertising, and Exposure.

As people and businesses continue to use social media and technology every day, the growing number of fake news articles or junk news reports will continue to grow proportionally. It is becoming increasingly hard to determine if an article or news event is in fact true or false, whether the article is fact or not, it can still be spread across social media platforms very quickly by algorithms, advertising, and exposure.

Algorithms:

Social media platforms implement algorithms on their websites in order to present the user with information that they think will best suit the user and maximize the user engagement on their platform. The use of algorithms to filter data on people’s profiles has had some very negative side effects, these include: further creating bias by only presenting filtered data that is attractive to the user and promoting or helping a news event go viral regardless if it is true or not.

Advertising:

The advertising strategy for social media is to gather all of your personal information and preferences and create advertisements that are specifically targeted towards the user. Another potential downfall of advertising is Click bait, this is content that is supposed to create a reaction out of the user, whether is it anger or interest, in order to get the user to engage on the content.

I have had a personal experience with a click bait article in the past; the article was based on one of my favorite sports teams and had a very questionable title. After reading the article, the title had almost little to no relevance to the content reported in the article and I concluded the article was fake and they added a catchy title to draw my attention to it.  

Exposure:

Many people on social media platforms use them in order to receive information and be exposed to breaking news and events. Using a social media app that allows friends and followers, reduces the variety an exposure to different events and sources because most of the info shown is what your friends and followers post on their timelines.

Overall, people need to be aware when using social media because the information being presented to you might not be true. After reading the article, I am going to be more cautious and do more research on topics before I form my own opinion.

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Social Media Consulting

The personal use of social media as entertainment has become a normal part of everyday life for the majority of people who use technology, but in another aspect social media has become a huge asset when used in the business world. Many companies rely on social media consultants to help facilitate the usage of their accounts and develop a social media strategy in order to continue to grow across various platforms. Some of the most important qualities of a social media consultant include: understanding the scope of the project at hand, understanding the organizational goals of the firm, and being creative in the ever-changing world of social media and technology.

Organizational Goals:

It is important for the consultant to understand the organizational goals for the company, because their solution and final output of the project needs to tie into the overall goal and benefit the company overall.

Project Scope:

It is a key aspect that the consultant fully understands the scope of the project at hand, so they aren’t doing too much or trying to change too much at one time ultimately causing additional issues.

Creativity:

A social media consultant needs to be creative because one client will not always be the same as the other. With that being said, they will need to find ways to help many different clients with many different social media presences become successful using many different methods because the clients can vary greatly among one another.

Lastly, If I were a social media consultant, helping myself as a client, I would recommend that I post more frequently and become more creative on my Linked In and Handshake accounts. I update my information regularly, but besides updating my information I don’t have much of a creativity factor on my account that many employers would like to see.

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Big Data and Big Issues

In today's society, the use of social media and technology has become such a common trend in our everyday lives. In the 60 minutes segment, “The Data Brokers”, it brought up the term big data and showed how many companies use this information to achieve more effective advertising towards their customers and target market.

Big data is defined as large sets of data that are used to reveal patterns and trends relating to human behavior and activity; this data is collected from user while they are using technology whether they are consenting to it or not. The collection of big data shows how there is no user privacy when using technology or the internet. Collecting large sets of data can be very useful and beneficial in some aspects, but it can also have a very bad effect on the technological user because their personal information, in which they believe to be private, is being collected and sold to companies to be used for better advertising. Big data is such a powerful tool in this aspect because it allows companies to collect personal information from you without even knowing it, use the data collected to create advertisements that are specifically marketed towards the user without any repercussions to the firms.

After reading the article titled, “The Internet’s Original Sin”, written by Ethan Zuckerman, it showed me how advertising was one of the main aspects in a business model. This has been one of the main influencing factors that is leading online surveillance and data gathering for many companies.

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Social Media Experiment

I decided that my experiment of giving up social media would yield the best results if I conducted the experiment for a full and continuous 24 hours. I started the experiment on Friday, September 20th, at 12:00PM and I concluded it on Saturday, September 21st, at 12:00PM. 

I thought that giving up social media for 24 hours would be an easy task, but I was surprised at how I struggled during the duration of the experiment. With that being said, the first couple of hours without social media was a breeze because I had decided to get some homework done, go to the gym, and then catch up on some errands that I needed to get done. In this time I found myself almost free from any distractions and extremely productive. Once I finished all of my tasks for the day I found myself to be very bored at times and almost habitually reaching for my phone and social media apps. In order to occupy myself I decided to read ahead for some of my other classes and felt accomplished once I got a good head start on the upcoming chapters for my Accounting classes. 

Overall, I realized that I can be easily distracted by social media and it can cause me to be less productive and even procrastinate tasks that I need to get done. As a result of this experiment, I have decided to come up with a schedule that limits my time using social media and technology in general, I believe this will help me become more productive and less connected with my phone and social media all the time. 

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Social Media’s Influence

Social media has a large impact in my daily life, it always seems to be the first thing I look at when I wake up and the last thing I look at before I go to bed. In my experience social media is a great way to keep up with everything that is happening in the world around us today, connect with friends, and it is even great for entertainment. 

Having all of this information at our fingertips is a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. For example, having access to the internet constantly is great, because it provides me the opportunity to connect with many people and retrieve any information I may need at the click of a button. Although, I believe that it is also a bad thing because when it is always available it can make people neglect thinking for themselves and cause them to not create their own opinions or viewpoints on any topic. 

There aren’t many times in my life that I can think of where I wasn’t constantly surrounded by social media in some way, but one of the times I can remember is when I went on a family trip up north to our cabin in Claire, Michigan. As you would expect there was no WIFI or internet access so I had to stay busy and entertain myself in other ways. I did this by swimming in the lake and exploring the acres of forest in the backyard. After reading the article written by, Emma Rathbone, titled, “Before the Internet”, it had reminded me of the cabin trip I took with my parents because just like in her article, I had to entertain myself and explore new opportunities and adventures that I wouldn’t have done if I had access to social media at the time. 

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About Me

Hello, my name is Jacob Boerner. I am a senior at Central Michigan University with a Major in Accounting and a minor in Information Systems. I plan to graduate in May and sit for the CPA exam in the spring, my short term career goals include landing a Tax position for one of the big four accounting firms once I graduate. My long term career goals include becoming a controller after I have public accounting experience and even opening up my own accounting firm. 

I have never used Tumblr before so I am excited for the opportunity to use it and gain experience on the platform so that I can take it and use it in my career in the future. I plan to use my blog as a platform and a way for people to share ideas and different viewpoints on topics. 

One company that I believe has a great social media presence is the National Football League. They are constantly posting updates of game highlights, players, and events outside the NFL on all of their social media platforms. An example of this is their NFL Play 60 initiative to help kids get together with the favorite players and promote a healthy and active lifestyle. They also post about many of the charitable events that are hosting along with ways that fans can help with their cause. I believe that they have a strong social media presence because they take pride in their brand and choose to use their following and voice for good by helping the community in any way they can.