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Social Media Challenges

My client, a property management company, manages various condominium complexes as well as other properties. After consulting with them these last eight weeks, we are ready to implement a social media strategy.

One challenge my client might face would be connecting with its community. With most of its properties being condominium complexes, a majority of the resident are older in age and may not use social media as often. This might become a challenge in connecting with those residents. Another challenge my client might face is coming up with relevant but engaging content. Being able to switch up the content being posted is going to be an obstacle for my client when trying to improve engagement between them and their users. Finally, I believe my client may face the challenge of falling into the pattern they’ve used in the past. Before I took them on as a client their social media platform was utilized only a few times a year and had little to no engagement. I’m hoping that after these eight weeks my client will continue to utilize social media to its benefit throughout the year and improve the engagement within their community.

Overall, I believe my client is eager and ready to take on a social media strategy. They are focused on their purpose, community, and social media. After these eight weeks of being their social media consultant, I feel that any obstacles or challenges they face, they will be able to find a solution and overcome them.

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Effective Social Media Content

Sharing effective content is an essential key to any social media strategy. In order to have a successful social media strategy, one should create a content strategy that aligns the goals and objectives from their social media strategy. This can help show consistency through social media content, tone, and subject matter.

After completing the Hootsuite/Podium module 5, I learned how effective social media content is developed and shared. After creating a content strategy, a way that effective content is developed is through content curation and creativity. Content curation is information gathered from other sources that are relevant to your business’ industries. This is a great way for companies to represent themselves as a leader of advice in their industry. Created content is content produced within your business. Created content may include infographics, blogs, and visuals produced by your business.

As for sharing effective content, one of the best practices is to have a strong headline or caption. This will grab the reader’s attention and make your post visually interesting. Another practice would be to add visual content. By adding visual content, this is a great way to increase engagement from your audience. A third best practice would be to switch the content up regularly. There are so many ways in sharing content, from blogs to polls and questions. Making sure to switch up the content shared is a great way to keep your audience interested while also allowing yourself to gain user input. Finally, ending a post with a clear call to action is a great practice for sharing effective content. For example, this could be encouraging users to leave a comment or retweet your post.

When becoming a social organization, businesses want to make sure that they successfully executing the principles of effective content development and sharing. Content plays an important factor when it comes to achieving key business and social media objectives. Without successfully executing effective content principles, a business may fail to connect with their audience in a relevant and unique way as well as fail to achieve their goals and objectives.

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Community Collaboration

Recently organizations have begun to utilize social media for community collaboration. After reading The Social Organization, I’ve learned effective principles on building an online community with social media. The first principle is to develop a vision statement and its possible advantages for the organization. This can help the organization provide clarity, direction, and inspire participation. It can also represent valued collaboration in a community. By providing a vision statement, it can cause a large amount of ideas from people throughout the organization for new social media uses.

The next principle would be to develop an organizational strategy for community collaboration. To develop an organizational strategy, the organization must choose multiple community collaboration possibilities to pursue. Then, they must determine when and where to invest or continue to invest in certain collaborative communities. One strategy would be to have a purpose. The book further explains this by stating that, “people need a compelling cause. Their contribution must have a purpose, and that purpose must be meaningful to them, or they won’t participate” (The Social Organization, 2011). A second strategy would be the “No, Go, Grow” Model. This model systematically determines if and how a community collaboration effort should move forward. Below is the image provided in the book that represents this model (The Social Organization, 2011). The No stage shuts down any idea for the community that lacks a purpose and guides it to improve its purpose. The next stage, the Go stage, focuses on the potential collaborative community and how likely it is to succeed on its own. The final stage represents a community purpose that can deliver value to the community and organization but only with more official support.  

After completing the Hootsuite/Podium module 4, I’ve learned about growing an online community. The first principle I’ve learned is to find the right community for your organization. In order to do this, the organization must reach out to their offline connections and ask them to join their brand online. This can grow the social media audience with the right people. Engaging is another very important principle. What I learned from this portion was in order to get engagement between users, the organization must also be willing to engage as well. Finally, leveraging is an important principle to growing an online community. By using polls, surveys, and questionnaires, an organization can positively influence the relationships they have with their users by asking for their feedback. Overall, engaging, growing, and leverage a social media audience can help grow an online community for an organization.

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Big Data

After watching “The Legal Side of Big Data”, I believe businesses should be aware of the risks involved with storing big data. By storing big data, there is a possibility of business being hacked. They need to be aware of how big this possibility is, who it will hurt if they do get hacked, and how much it will cost them. Businesses should also take preventative measures like installing security. Businesses should also be aware of who has access to their data. They need to make sure to have their big data protected from other vendors as well as employees. Businesses can do this through contracts and agreements.

As consumers, we need to be aware of what information about ourselves we are giving to businesses. After watching this lecture, I realized that I willingly give my information to businesses when maybe I need to be more intentional about it. So many companies have a lot of my information and I’m not aware of the privacy policies these businesses have in order to keep my data protected. Furthermore, consumers need to be aware of how their data is being used by businesses. Are they selling your data, what kind of privacy policies do these businesses have, and what happens if these businesses go through a merger or close their doors? These are questions consumers need to ask themselves when giving out their data.

The best way to balance the opportunities and threats presented by big data is to make sure that businesses take responsibility and put privacy protection policies in place. Without this, a lot of information on consumers and businesses are at risk. There are many benefits in collecting and storing big data, but the major focus needs to be on privacy and protecting.

After reading “The Internet’s Original Sin”, I’ve learned that business models influence surveillance and data gathering on the internet. Using an advertising business models, online advertising exists with surveillance. Companies are now able to gather data on who is looking at their ads. Furthermore, they are able to see how long a user spends looking at a certain advertisement. By gathering data on users, companies are able to learn about consumer behaviors and interest in order to target them more accurately.

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Junk News Stinks

Imagine scrolling through social media and you see an article spreading false content. This probably happens to most people more often than not. With social media platforms become more imbedded throughout our daily lives so is the spread of junk news. The three reasons causing this is algorithms, advertising, and exposure.

Algorithms make up our experience on social media. What content will show up when I type something into Google? What are the trending topics on Twitter? These all come from algorithms that determine how content is consumed by users. The downside of these algorithms is that it puts a filter on information that limits it and creates bias. I personally see this with all my social media platforms. Let’s say, for example, I’m on Pinterest and type in “Air Force 1”. Now, every time I’m scrolling through Pinterest, I see topics like “Air Force 1 outfits” or “Air Force 1 aesthetic”. This is from algorithms creating content that they think may be relevant to me.  

The second reason is advertising. Using an advertising model, companies are able to collect user data and sell it to companies. There are two ways that advertising spreads junk news. The first is through clickbait which is content designed to stimulate outrage and/or curiosity in order to grab the user’s attention. The second is by using actors to target potential voters with little transparency or accountability to who or why the advertisement is being sponsored. I’ve seen a lot of clickbait throughout my time on social media but especially Facebook. I’ll see articles that show a picture of a celebrity and a title in all caps eluding to something outrageous they said. But, when I actually click on the link and read the article, it brings me to some shady website that doesn’t say anything about what the title was relating to.

The final reason that junk news is spreading due to social media is through exposure.  As users we can select and filter through information that we want to see or ignore. Most people are likely to share information that already aligns with their beliefs. In a political sense, this means that users are less likely to receive a balanced, non-bias selection of news and information on their social media accounts. This causes voters to less likely change political parties and favor certain candidates because they don’t desire to gain information that challenges their views and preferences. From personal experience, I can tell when someone follows a political party due to the information, they have shared on their Facebook page. For example, one of my friends actively posts information that completely leans to one political party. This makes me assume that a majority of the content he sees favors his views and doesn’t challenge them.

From a professional standpoint, businesses and people need to be aware of false information on social media platforms. Business need to be responsible for publishing accurate information about their products and services on social media to create a trustworthy reputation. Users need to question and research information that is being presented to them as well as obtaining information from differing perspectives.

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Social Media Consultant Qualities

A social media consultant could be a vital part in growing a social media presence. There are many important qualities that a social media consultant needs to have. One being, they need to understand how different social media platforms work and which ones will have the best advantages for certain businesses. To achieve certain results, consultants need to have an overall understanding of new and old platforms. A second quality would be the ability to adapt quickly. Things in the tech world move at a fast pace so a consultant needs to be able to adapt quickly to these changes. Finally, a social media consultant needs to understand the businesses goals and align those through social media. By doing this, a consultant can come up with a strategy that best fits the needs of the business and take advantage of social media that uniquely benefits the business.

If I were to act as a social media consultant to myself, I would advise myself to post content on topics that pique my interest and focus on my skills. For a professional social media presence, its important for employers to see what I can do for their organization. It’s also important to interact and connect with people who are like-minded. By focusing on certain topics that showcase my skills and passions, I’ll be able to grow both personally and in my career through social media. Some more advise I’d give myself would be to consistently post to establish an online presence. So far, I usually post one to two times a week. In order to build more of a presence, I could post almost every day, even if it’s a retweet or a reblog.

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Our Social Dilemma

After watching Netflix’s documentary, The Social Dilemma, I’ve gathered an understanding of what big data is, how it poses as a danger to society, and the solutions to the problems we see throughout social media.

Big data is the storage and analysis of large and/or complex data sets. So, for the first time in history companies are able to store and analyze huge amounts of data about a population of users. In The Social Dilemma, it was discussed that tech companies have three goals. The first is a growth goal which aims to growth its platform of users. The second is an engagement goal which aims to increase activity on its platforms. The third is an advertising goal which aims to sell advertisements successfully to its users. Companies use algorithms to figure out what’s the best information to show users to achieve those three goals. These algorithms are used to almost accurately predict users’ actions and behaviors.

There are many dangers that come from big data and algorithms. With companies being able to gather data on users, they are also able to sell this data in order to make a profit, causing a privacy violation against its users. This data can include information about our health, location, addictions, and finances. So, information that is usually protected in doctors’ offices or banks can be allocated using big data and algorithms from tech companies.

Big data and algorithms also pose a threat to the users��� mental health. There has been a huge increase in self harm and suicide in teenage girls. One factor causing this is social media. Whenever a user gets a like or a heart, this shows a false sense of the user’s value and truth that’s short term and keeps the user coming back for more. From this, social media can control children’s and teens sense of self-worth and identity.

A final danger big data has is that it is causing political polarization. Algorithms take it to the extreme to modify and/or influence the behaviors of users without them even knowing. When we go on social media, we are presented with information that mirrors our interest and beliefs. This instills in us a sense that we are right and that a huge population of people agree with us. At this point, we can be very easily manipulated and are less likely to listen to information that contradicts the world view that we’ve created from the information shown to use through social media platforms.  

I believe there are solutions to these problems. One would be to ask tech companies to have ethical decisions and technology. Fiscally speaking, these companies have no responsibility to change their ways but ethically speaking they have a responsibility to protect its users. I think personally, we need to keep ourselves more accountable. This could mean uninstalling apps that waste huge amounts of the users time, turning off notifications that aren’t important, using a search engine that doesn’t track your search history, or finding contradicting thoughts to our beliefs across social media. We need to be able to limit our screen time and challenge the information being shown to us. Finally, I believe we need rules and regulations from the government to protect the users. It keeps the tech companies accountable on protecting its users and limits the data they can collect from us.

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24-Hour Social Media Hiatus

In my previous post, I talked a little bit about the impacts that social media has on my daily life and how I would like to be more intentional with my social media use. With this post, I’m going to discuss an experiment I conducted where I took a 24-hour hiatus from social media.

The experiment involved removing social media apps like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok from my main menu page on my phone. I also turned off notification for these apps for 24 hours. My experiment started at 5pm. Within the first hour, I had to fight the urge of wanting to check my Snapchat account. Most nights I usually watch a tv show and go on social media apps. I’ve become so used to going on it, that it was very strange for me to just sit and watch a tv without also being on my phone. Around 8pm, I found that I couldn’t sit and fight the urges of social media so, I tried to stay away from my phone by keeping busy. I cleaned my room, my bathroom, did laundry, and baked some cookies. As the night went on, I struggled with wanting to check TikTok. I know it’s a terrible habit, but every night I’ve come accustom to going on TikTok when it’s time for bed. Since I couldn’t do this, I just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. The following day, instead of texting people in snapchat, I had to text them using my Verizon messaging app. The rest of the day, I was extremely busy running around doing errands. I didn’t have to much free time to be thinking about social media or checking my phone.

Overall, it was a struggle. I hate to say it, but I’m definitely addicted to social media. When I had an urge to go on social media, I quickly tried to get my mind off of it by staying busy and staying away from my phone. I found that when I was busy, like running errands or doing chores, I didn’t think about it as much. Without social media, I found I was much more productive, much more focused in the present moment, and was able to get to bed at a reasonable time. The lesson learned from this experiment is that there are more benefits than drawbacks to limiting social media usage.

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Social Media and Me

I think social media, while there are some positives, mostly has a negative impact on my daily life. The major negative would be how time consuming it is. Throughout my day, I could get lost checking Instagram and scrolling through TikTok. I didn’t realize the amount of screen time that took up my day until I logged it. I decided to log my screen time for 24 hours. This included not only from my phone but, screen time from watching TV and time spent on my laptop. I calculated that I spend roughly 9 hours per day looking at screens. About 7 hours of my day is without screens in front of me. Most of my screen time was spent on my phone using social media apps.

Having the internet constantly available effects my live positively and negatively. Growing up, a constant phrase that was used was, “knowledge is power”. The main positive aspect of have the internet constantly available is that we are able to have knowledge at our fingertips at all times. We don’t have to find a book on a topic, research, and find the answer to our questions. Instead, we just type into Google and the answer pops up! Reading the article, Before the Internet by Emma Rathbone, brought up an excellent point on a negative aspect. She states, “Before the Internet, if you were in need of some facts you might actually decide to consult an old person”. This sparked the idea in me that with the internet being such a source of knowledge for us in today’s society, we may overlook other sources of wisdom and knowledge, like our grandparents. I couldn’t even count the times where I decided to look something up on the internet instead of asking my grandparents about a historical topic. This disconnect between young and old, I think, is a negative aspect.

There’s been multiple times when I wasn’t able to have access to the internet. The most recent was on a trip up to the Upper Peninsula. Not only is the service extremely spotting up there, but I also had used up all the data on my phone for the month. Most of the time, it didn’t affect me. We were so busy hiking trails and seeing waterfalls that I really wasn’t on my phone a lot. I was really able to be present and enjoy the moment of being out in nature. The other times when we were driving, sitting down for meals, or had some downtime and everyone was on their phone, I struggled. It was hard to engage with others that weren’t in the same predicament that I was in. I found with downtime or driving, I was extremely bored and would often daydream.

After watching Max Stossels talk, “We’ve been sneaking into your brains”, I really would like to cut down my screen time and be more intentional with it. I’m going to start turning off my phone at 9pm so that I can focus my time on reading and winding down for bed. I’d also like to focus on putting my phone away during school or work so I can solely focus on tasks at hand. If I did this, I feel I would complete my tasks quicker and more efficiently. Finally, I want to be more engaged in conversations, listen and learn more about people. With this, I’m going to actively try not to reach for my phone during social times. I’m going to step out of the comfort zone of reaching for my phone and talk more with people.

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Hello!

I’m Abby Lewis. I’m a senior at Central Michigan University, majoring in General Business Administration with an Applied Communication Concentration, minoring in Business Information Systems and Management. I’m from Rochester Hills, Michigan which is located in Metro Detroit. I’m currently living here and taking online classes. After graduation, I hope to receive a Business Analyst position. I love to problem solve and am passionate about how an organization functions. In the future, I would like to move into a Project Management position and earn my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

With this blog, I hope to exchange knowledge and information on the professional use of social media. Throughout our daily lives, social media is so often used for personal reasons that I’ve ignored the advantage of using it professionally. I hope to expand not only my knowledge of this topic but also my social media presence. With this, I would like to connect with other professionals who have the same interests as me.

There are many great examples of companies who effectively use social media. One that stood out to me was Wendy’s, more specifically, their Twitter platform. Most fast-foot restaurants use their social media platforms for customer service, answering question, and promoting their products. Wendy’s has thought outside the box and has shown a different way in connecting with its community. With snappy comebacks, entertaining bios, and hilarious “Twitter roasts”, Wendy’s has found an authentic and original voice. They’ve surprised and connected with users through their out-of-character tweets and pop-culture reference from Spongebob Squarepants, The Office, and New Girl.

Wendy’s use of its twitter platform has been effective because of its use of mass collaboration which includes community, social media, and a purpose. Wendy’s purpose is, of course, to promote its products and brand awareness. In order to do this through social media, they incorporated humor and entertainment to attract people to communicate within Wendy’s community.  Wendy’s Twitter platform has used social media effectively by enabling mass collaboration defined by six principles: participation, collective, transparency, independence, persistence, and emergence.  When Wendy’s has a snappy comeback to a user or roasts one of its competitors, it brings together a collaborative community that participates around its purpose. Wendy’s twitter platform is a collection of user contributions where anyone, from anywhere, can participate with each other. With posting on their Twitter almost every day, Wendy’s provides persistent contributions to its community. Through Wendy’s thought-provoking tweets and the interactions of Wendy’s community, new behaviors and ideas can emerge.