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As time goes on, customer engagement is becoming an even more important part of social media sites. I found an article that talks about five ways that brands and companies can engage users on social media. One of the ways is to ask people a question or something about themselves (ex. their interests). This get users involved and engaged in a conversation with another user, brand, or company. But like my previous blog post on the potential harm of personality quizzes, users have to be careful on what type of information they are sharing online even if its on something as simple as a personality quiz. A second way to engage users on social media is to express how they feel about different topics, brands, or products. Users can do this in a number of ways on social media such as using emojis. Another way that users on social media can express themselves is by sharing photos and videos, which can be used as a way of self-expression. This is a way of self-expression because users are sharing items that they enjoy or have a passion for. Another way to show expression is for users to leave reviews on products on the company’s social media page. This not only lets the company know what you think about their product but this also allows other consumers to see what you think about a particular product as well, especially if another consumer is thinking about buying that product themselve. One last way to use expression on social media is to repost or share pictures of your customers using or wearing your products. This heightens the voice of your brand or products because it shows how much customers love and use your products. The next social media engagement strategy is incentive. You want to be able to get consumers involved on social media. One way you can do this is have contests or games between customers. One type of possible game that we talked about in class was the social game. The social game is a multiplayer, competitive, goal oriented activity, with defined rules of engagement with an online community. In this case, consumers on social media would compete against other followers of that particular brand/product, and play to win. Possible elements within the social game include friend lists that you can chat with (they are like your contacts, with whom you play and communicate with). Then if this a longer term social game there can be achievement badges that can be earned. Achievement badges are symbols awarded to show game levels and something you can share to the community. Also, leaderboards are to show which competitors within the community are winning the game or are rated the highest. An incentive that brands/companies can entice the consumers with for winning contests or games could include free products or coupons for their products. Not only will this get consumers talking about their products, but it is also likely that their sales will increase. The next engagement strategy is to offer consumers coupons, memberships, discount, or free shipping. This is a good way to engage customers because you are offering specific deals that they can score by buying their companies products. The last customer engagement strategy for social media is utility. Using engagement with consumers on social media is important as well as educating the community about their brand/product. Some utility items that companies can use on social media is seminars, blog posts, videos, infographic, etc. The infographic in particular is a cool way to get information across to consumers. We had to create one in class. An infographic is a poster like product where information is displayed in a condensed and creative way. This often involves using colors and pictures. It is a fun and creative way to get the point across about a certain topic, brand, company, product, etc. Overall the article talked about the best strategies for engaging customers on social media which included to ask questions, invoke expression, provide incentives, make offers, and deliver utility to consumers.  

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Facebook has recently made a decision to crack down on the personality quizzes that reveal too much information. Personality quizzes have been around for a long time on Facebook being posted to the news feed, then consumers would take the quizzes and share their results. An example of some of the personality quizzes that I have seen in the past are which celebrity you most look like, the animal that best fits your personality, etc. These personality quizzes may seem harmless but company’s use these quizzes to market their products to specific people and to get more information about consumers. The older generations that use social media were more apt not to take these quizzes due to not wanting to give out additional unnecessary information online. That being said, these personality quizzes were targeting more the younger users of social media such as the 15-34 year olds. Not only does the information you provide on these personality quizzes benefit the brand/company that created this to find out more information about potential consumers/customers, but they can also get information that you use as valuable information such as passwords and security questions. Information is obtained in a way from these personality tests where users don’t even know the harm they may be doing to themselves by answering a few simple questions online for their enjoyment. The personality tests that are posted to Facebook are part of the social publishing zone for user generated content. The content that third parties that obtaining from the information given out on personality quizzes are completely user generated. These social media users are using their own personal information to answer questions on these quizzes. The article talks about how new platform policies are going into place to crack down on the personality quizzes that are being posted to Facebook that uses user information without their knowing permission. Facebook has over two billion users on the social media platform, which creates a large consumer base with a variety of different consumers (different demographics, gender, ages, interests, etc). The amount of users that are actively on Facebook makes third party app developers very interested in creating ways to appeal to consumers to get them to participate in quizzes and games to get a variety of information from users. The article also talks about an app created by a third party called “thisisyourdigitallife”. Through this app, consumers would take personality quizzes then offer to share their friends information as well. This gives the creators of this app even more valuable data. Not everything you do or see on social media is always good and safe. The social media world comes with a lot of dangers, especially now a days with the changing technology and more tricky people knowing ways to use social media to deceive people. Everyone has to be careful on what they do, or what they put on social media. Something as innocent sounding as personality quizzes can actually do a lot of harm.

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I found an article posted to Twitter about a girl that had an allergic reaction to a specific toothpaste and died. The story went viral all over social media due to the content of the article. A quick summary of the article is a young girl had a severe allergy to milk. She was prescribed a specific type of toothpaste that was said that it didn’t contain any milk products. The toothpaste ended up having some type of milk ingredient in it that wasn’t listed and she had a severe allergic reaction and ended up dying before they could save her. The title and content of this article gained a lot of social media attention and people were freaking out. In the article it was saying that people shouldn’t be overly worried because an allergic reaction this severe to a toothpaste is extremely rare. The content of this article was posted on WFSB channel 3 news and then this article got shared on many other social networking sites. The publishing content of this article falls under the social community of the social publishing zone because the purpose for the information in the article is meant to be shared between people and to get people talking about the potential dangers with others. When the content of this article was put together it used authentic content. This information is authentic because this is a true story that was on the news that happened recently. Another reason how the information in this article relates to class is because a “go fund me” page was set up for the little girls funeral costs. In the article it talked about the “go fund me” goal was $10,000 and the amounts that were donated by individuals well passed that amount already. This was able to be accomplished due to all the sharing on social media sites and capturing the hearts of the community. A “go fund me” page is an example of crowd sourcing, which means to get peoples input on the topic based on all the people on the internet. People were responding to what had happened on social media, as well as donated money to help out the young girls family with associated costs. This was possible because of user participation on social media sites. This article is also like a public service announcement warning the community about the rare but potential risks that can happen that you might not even think of.

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A brewery in Norfolk, Virginia announced a lucky charms inspired beer called Saturday Mornings IPA, which is an IPA brewed with marshmallows. On the release date there were long lines and it sold out fast. People on Instagram said if you were not in line by 10am they didn't get any beer which was released at noon. People were coming from all over the country to stand in line for a chance to get this limited edition beer that sold out within an hour and a half. This beer created national buzz with coverage in magazines such as USA Today and People magazine. The Brewery stated that if they knew this beer would go viral they would have made more. This frenzy for people getting their hands on this IPA led to people reselling the cans online for a lot of money. The beer had shown up on secondary markets such as eBay where they could buy from people other than the company reselling the Saturday morning IPA. The impact that this limited release IPA had was overwhelming social media attention that drove the prices up online on retail sites such as eBay. People are selling full cans, empty cans, and even just the label. This impact shows the power that social media can have on anything and everything. Some implications that social media had on this release was some people just want to “score” the beer because of the hype on social media rather then get the beer to try the new flavor. The beer fad will eventually move on and people will go back to drinking the non-unicorn beers. The effect that this product had on the consumers were heightened by the use of social media. This article relates to class in a number of ways. This is a good example of how the marketing on social media of this limited time product gained so much national attention in such a short amount of time. Social media only works because of the people and how they use media as a form of communication. Consumers talking with each other on social media and in person is a way of word of mouth marketing. This article would be an example of mass media because social media is a form of communication and in this particular example the information about the new IPA was able to reach a large number of individuals through social media in a short amount of time. Social media has the ability for products to gain a lot of attention and go viral which is caused by consumers participating in social media and getting people excited about this new product which is called participation, the 5th “P” of marketing. My position on this topic is with the age of social media and the crazy products they are coming out with, the market is to be expected. People are able to sell these items on a secondary market such as eBay and charge whatever they want for it because people are willing to pay and the demand for the products are high.

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April 1st was a rough day for users of social media. April 1st is April fool’s day where with the increase of technology and social media in the recent years allows companies to have some fun with users and create April fools day pranks on them. Attached to this post I shared three of my favorite/funniest ones I saw throughout social media that day. The tough part for users of social media when they see companies posting these new products, some of which seem like a very good idea is that it is all one big joke. For me personally I believed the Fitbit one and the Starbucks one until I saw it was a joke at the end. These April fools posts on social media creates a lot of word of mouth marketing and gets consumers talking about company's products, even the fake ones. It also gets social media users thinking about the company and then wanting their products. An example of this is the McDonald's burger one, that post is fake because that many pickles on a burger is crazy and I don’t think would appeal to many, but now that your thinking about McDonald's hamburgers you might go out an buy a regular hamburger. The content of these social media posts emanate customers. This type of occasion, being April fool’s day allows companies to post conversational posts (the new products/services which are a joke) to get consumers talking with each other in person or through social media. This also relates back to one of the main reasons why people go on social media, and that is for information and entertainment. On April 1st social media is pretty much only for consumer entertainment with all the funny fake products that companies are making up. Since people is the only way social media can work, companies know they have a high consumer following online and that’s why their joke products are a big hit with the population every year. My first example that is posted above was posted on Instagram stories, Fitbit was talking about a new feature that they were adding to the app similar to Uber. It talked about how you can see people that are in the area that are walking/running in the same area so you can join them on their journey. I’m not really sure why I believed this one at first, but it is a joke. The second example that I included above was a short video post on Instagram made by the company that they were creating pupbucks, a type of Starbucks store that is centered around dogs. I think the reason why I believed this post at first was because everyone loves dogs, and having some separate locations where you can bring your dog in certain areas I think people would love, but again, this post is a joke. The last attached post I saw as a news article post on Twitter. This was a burger that McDonald’s created with multiple layers of pickles. I saw this one at night after I already been tricked many times so I didn't believe this post. Some of the comments on this post were from people saying how good this looks or how gross this looked. It probably depends on the consumers love for pickles, but again this is a joke.   

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This is a very good example of the Oreo company using social media to market their products. This particular example is on the Facebook social media site but a post like this can be posted and shared anywhere. The reason I think the example of this social media post is exceptionally good is because even though Oreo is already a very popular and well defined company that most people love, they still focus on and use social media to market their products and get an even bigger customer base. This post is creative and is funny so it attracts people to click or look at what the post says. Then it may get them thinking about Oreo's then wanting Oreo's, leading them to go out and buy the product. This also leads to a lot of comments and discussion in the comment section which can lead to word of mouth marketing which we talked about in class. Worth of mouth marketing is having people that see your post or product on places like social media and be so impressed or like it so much that they tell what they saw to other people. Word of mouth is a great way to create customer loyalty for a brand. Social media is starting to take over the world and if company’s don’t jump on the bandwagon they may end up losing sales or may stop bringing in new customers. Oreo is a company that started many years ago but they have adopted to social media and that is a reason why their company and customer following continues to boom. An important factor of social media success in marketing is to keep your consumers engaged. This post uses a comical component with a missing Oreo and asking the consumer to contact if found. This is a great example of a post that people see and will be excited to see the next post that is made by this company. The Oreo company can also appeal to all the different countries that they have products in. Their efforts reach far more than just the United States. The second example is a Facebook marketing post for the India population. The picture is mini Oreo's in a container that looks like you would pop medicine or gum out of. This post also uses a lot of creativity to capture an audience and get consumers talking about their company and products. 

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This article talks about five social media marketing trends that are gaining popularity in 2019. As years go on the age of technology and using social media to market a business are getting more popular. This article talks about how companies have to keep up to date with the changing technology to keep their customers engaged with their brand/company. The first trend is the rise of user generated content. This talks about the buying process and says that it isn't as easy for consumers as it use to be when buying a product or item. Today there is a lot more research that goes into deciding which products to buy, for example looking at all the competition, comparing prices, any deals, and other information. Word of mouth marketing and the story behind how the product came to be are now playing a bigger role in why someone chooses to buy that specific product. An example of this is a consumer is more likely to buy a products that their friend shares or “likes” on social media. The second trend of 2019 is live videos gaining popularity. Live videos are getting more popular on social media as a way to market their company or business because videos have a live affect that words cannot get across to the consumer. They better engage the consumers with the company and get them to interact more, leading to a higher chance to that person buying their products. The third trend that this article talks about is messaging apps and chat bots. This ways provide multiple ways for consumers to reach  out to the company with any comments/questions/concerns that they have about buying their product. This allows them to chat one on one with a member of the company to get whatever they need answered. Chat bots are especially good because the person on the other end of the line are actively on and engaged so you get a response pretty immediately. Sometimes with messaging apps you may have to wait a while for the company to actually get you a response. But chat bots and messaging apps an updated and more convenient way to reach out to the company rather than calling and possibly waiting on hold forever. This also creates more personalized interactions between the customer and the company. The fourth trend is the up-rise of augmented reality. This is a new thing starting to hit social media platforms with features such as facial features. This is a more engaging and interactive way to reach potential consumers of the company. The last emerging trend of social media marketing in 2019 is the importance of trust and transparency of a company for social data is increasing. Building trust between consumers and companies are vital in this age. Social media marketers are starting to look for ways to personalize an experience on social media but at the same time keeping the experience private to create customer loyalty. This also gives them more control over their shopping experience. This allows information to be upfront between consumers and the companies and to strengthen the overall buying relationship. These trends on social media focus on improving the overall customer experience. They focus on engaging the consumers, create loyalty, and work with them so that they get the best customer experience and create a higher chance that they buy from that company again. Other than the whole article talking about social media marketing trends which the whole class is centered around, this article also relates to class because social media works because of the users that participate on these platforms. In this case companies engage the users on social media which promote the company’s products and get the word out about their company. Social media is a strong tool, which if used correctly can have a very positive impact on companies marketing techniques, and if trust between consumers is built, it can ultimately build a greater customer loyalty and consumer base.                             

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A few days ago Facebook and Instagram had a huge outage effecting a large number of the users in the United States for part of the day. When this happened a lot of users were very upset about this outage. For me personally I didn't even know there was an outage until I saw an article and checked for myself. For me only Instagram wasn't working for a few hours but I didn't care because I just didn't check it for those few hours that the outage lasted. For some people though, these social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook are everything. Some don’t know what to do without the popular social media sites. But a lot more than just users were affected by this nation wide outage. Facebook in particular has such a huge impact on everyone and everything that when it goes down it seems like the economy goes down as well, especially with the smaller businesses and advertisers. This outage costed advertisers a lot of money. Advertising space on Facebook that they paid potentially a lot of money for in advance, and then when their ad were suppose to run, and did, but not a lot of people were able to see it due to the large number of outages. One small company that the article talked about in the beginning in particular said they estimated to have lost about $10,000 from this Facebook outage. “When it goes down, they lose valuable communication lines to the public”. This outage effected the three “C’s” of social media marketing for some business. The outage effected the number of customers that saw these ads when they were run on Facebook that day, the content of the ads was not seen by nearly as many people as intended, and for the context of the ads especially the ones with the goal of increasing the amount of sales didn't happen because the potential consumer base was limited for the time being. When social media sites go down the means of communication go down with it. Facebook doesn't charge the company for the ads when something like this happens if the company doesn't meet their intended result due to the outage in this case. But even if the company don’t get charged for the ad they are potentially still losing money due to the lack of sales that would have been higher that day if more people saw the advertisements.    

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One of the students “what’s new” presentations talked about a new thing on the Pinterest social media platform that allows you to see the price of items in that particular picture if you like them. This reminded me of something I have seen on the Instagram social media platform. The clothing retailor American Eagle who keeps up-to-date on the social media platform now gives their posts more abilities to the potential customer on social media. When you see a post that American Eagle makes there is a black bubble at the bottom of the post that says “tap to view products”. When you tap the picture once, some text bubbles for the products come up in the picture next to the item telling you the exact name of the product and the price of the product. If you click on one of the items it brings you to a separate page where you see another picture of the item and you have the chance to hit the button that says “view on website”. This then will bring you to American Eagles website with the item up so you can select various colors or sizes. This is a very convenient way and makes it easier for the shopper (customer) to find what they are looking at and to get new outfit ideas that they might find in the social media posts. If the customer happens to find an outfit they really love they have the ability to go to the website and buy it right then and there stemming off from the social media site. This type of advertisement follows under the mass media type because everyone who follows the American Eagle clothing company online are able to see their posts with this new interactive option, but it also can fall under personal media in a way because if a customer is interested in buying their products it is a two way communication between the company and the customer online during the actual purchase transaction. This type of post on Instagram also fits within the three “C’s” of social media. They have their customers which are all of American Eagles followers on the social media site. American Eagle can reach these customers with the content but creating posts every week to show products or outfit ideas, and the goal of these social media posts (context) is to get more customers to buy from their company and to increase sales.

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In the most recently class we talked about how the web is the social media platform. Social media is fully reliant on user participation or it wouldn’t exist to the extent that it exists today. I have attached a link to a page that was created around the time of the government shut down to help President Trump get the money needed to build the wall. I think this is such a crazy thing, but anyone can create a go fund me page for any reason, the question is if people will actually donate money for that particular cause or reason. When I accessed this page I saw that 353,219 people donated money within a two month time period to help raise money to build the wall. There is almost $21 million raised, but it is far from their 1 billion dollar goal. As I was reading through and looking at the go fund me page I saw a quote that might get more people to donate money for the wall. It said, “$80 from every Trump voter will fund the entire Southern boarder wall”. I think if people read this it might create a higher user participation on the site. This also connects to what we talked about in the last class because a go fund me page is an example of crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing is to get input for a task or project involving a large number of people using the internet. The amount of people who have donated to this page SO FAR in the last two months is a very high number. This shows a lot of people are coming together online to help Trump and the government obtain enough funds in an attempt to build the wall. This is also considered to be mass media, which means a form of communication that can reach a large number of individuals like done on this go fund me page.

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This short video clip is on YouTube. It is about a woman that was struggling to find her career path. She started her own business with just $100. In the video it talks about how she took some of that money, went to yard sales and would refurbish items and make it her own. After she did that she would post them to Facebook and her friends would buy her items on there. Her small business started gaining popularity and now it’s a whole store. This video is important because first it shows that anyone can become a business owner and shows you that you don’t need much to start, and make your dream come true. I picked this video because it shows the true importance of marketing and social media especially in small businesses. At one point she says “we wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for social media”. This connects to class because it focuses on social media and how it played the sole role in getting her business started, and getting people to see her products. In the beginning and even more so after her small business was established people play a huge role. In class we talked about how the people are the ones interacting online and it being the only way social media can work. People made her business idea possible through the power of social media. This also relates to the fifth “P” of marketing which is participation because posting her new ideas and products to social media made this all happen for her. Also, one of the four “C’s” of social media, which is communication relates to this video because it was the communication between people and friends through social media that got the word out about her products, that then got more people interested and created a customer base.

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When I was scrolling through Instagram one afternoon I came across an advisement that said "bacon over everything". It immediately drew my attention to see what it was about since who doesn't like bacon. Under the post it was talking about a promotion that McDonald's was doing on January 29th but for only ONE hour that afternoon. The promotion was from 4pm to 5pm, and during that day and that time people could add bacon to any order from McDonalds for NO additional cost. I think this post used social media in a very effective way because the "bacon over everything" catch phrase really draws people in to further investigate what is going on. This was also a good use of promotion on social media because now it gets people thinking about and wanting bacon, and now since they want it they are given the opportunity to take advantage of McDonalds promotion and head to the nearest McDonalds and get their FREE side of bacon with any purchase.

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Practice Post for MKT 350 Class