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Online Community

After completing the reading assignments in chapters four and five, The Social Organization, and completing the “Growing Your Online Community” Hootsuite module, it is very clear that strong communities of engaged customers goes a long way when growing your business, or helping a business grow. It is important to build, and maintain a strong online community with your business, if done so correctly, it will strengthen you business both fiscally and with customer connection and longevity. 

The start the growing of your online community, a professional social media must be created that gives your business, or the business you are representing, an online image. It’s always a great idea to diversify your social media presence, this can be done by using multiple platforms of social media, this will give you the most potential to reach a larger number of potential clients. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are some of the best ways out there to reach and deliver messages to your online community. 

Creating the social media page is just the beginning of this journey, to fully accomplish the establishment of your online community, is by properly using your social media pages to inform, communicate, resolve, inspire, and so much more with your customers. 

Delivering unique, clever, inspiring, never before seen content to your audience is one of the most important factors in growing your community. A lot of companies hire someone specifically for their social media usage, this employee normally obtains the job by inspiring the employer somehow in the interview, whether it’s with a clever post idea you think would be great for their business, or showing them how you effectively manage your social media platforms. The key is to not rinse and repeat the same messages, not to steal ideas, make up something for yourself!

Another great feature of social media is it gives you the opportunity to connect and talk with your online community. For a business, this is great because it builds long term customers, and gives a great way for customer resolution - everyone hates waiting on hold to have their complaint addressed; closely monitoring your social media platforms gives your community this luxury of avoiding these frustrating phone calls. On the other hand, it also gives you an opportunity to showcase happy customer reviews/comments on your pages, this might just change a customers mind to visit your store or not!

Having an online community will separate your business from the competition, establishing and maintaining yours might be a huge feat, but once accomplished use it to your advantage how ever you can!

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Week 5 - Second Blog Post

With the laws of big data still being incredibly unclear on what can and can’t be done, this puts consumers and businesses in a very uncertain and dangerous place. Big data puts both companies and consumers at risk of having crucial and important data leaked or stolen, this includes social security numbers, bank information, credit card information, passwords, business reports, customer information, and much, much more. The few ways to protect yourself from big data (to what little degree we are able to) are maximum virus/firewall protection, and having a prevention plan for yourself and/or your business, such as legal matters, support measures, and contact information of I.T/Police. 

When it comes to us, as the consumer, we need to be very cautious of a multitude of things: Web security, terms and conditions (of any contract), and who we open up a credit card/bank with. To go even further into big data, hackers, businesses and buyers can gain incredibly valuable data of customer information; Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, Target, Meijer, and so many more huge companies have all had hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of customers information leaked or stolen, giving the receivers of this information the ability to use these customers credit cards for whatever they choose. Also, this same situation has happened with several banks, which can give the users of this data access to direct cash from these banks. We being the consumers have to be cautious when it comes to opening accounts with banks and business like these, always do some research! 

Some ways that we can protect ourselves of the only increasing big data development is to always have firewall enabled, set your antivirus software to do auto scans of your computer every night, along with not clicking on anything you don’t recognize or have heard of before. Not giving websites that can keylog, or “rat” your computer your internet traffic should always be the first step in keeping yourself safe. Another important safety precaution is not to put important or personal information of any sort online. A recent, and simple big data technique that was on Facebook was “share your earliest picture of you as a baby, your birth-date and the hospital you were born in” (something along the lines of this), and the crazy thing is people where actually doing this and sharing it; this was giving people important information that gave them an unnecessary chance on accessing your birth certificate/SSN. For businesses, follow all the previous information, and along with hiring the smartest IT crew out there. As crazy as it sounds, the United States Department of Security, (and other security departments of the US) have hired hackers that have found a way to breach their security, in an attempt to stop other hackers from doing the same thing they did. Being up-to-date with all security measures is key to not having your information leaked. 

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GoPro - Social Media Professionals

When it comes to using social media, GoPro has something very unique, special and effective built for them, also, they have it easier than any other company out there. GoPro effectively uses social media, but in a way, it doesn’t use it at all - it has the consumers use it. YouTube is now one of the biggest social media platforms out there, whether its with music, gaming videos, vlogs, sports, or anything else, YouTube has it.

GoPro utilizes a YouTube in a unique way that no other company does. Skydiving videos, sport videos, vlogs, whatever it may be, if people are recording and uploading it to YouTube, GoPro is getting free advertising off of it. GoPro also hand selects its videos that it uses to advertise on the television right from consumer made videos on YouTube or that have been sent with e-mail, this saves thousands on hiring crews to shoot and edit the commercials for the company, along with give GoPro’s consumers exposure to both their YouTube channels & other social media platforms. 

To top it off, GoPro also gains advertising revenue off of YouTube by having their ad’s placed on videos recorded with their product. GoPro also has partnered with Xbox, allowing to easily stream facecam while recording, this is a popular feature for YouTube content revolving around gaming, and in a sense, Xbox can be considered a social media platform by being able to connect with millions of other players, share and record content, messaging and more.

GoPro also effectively utilizes Facebook (10.4M Followers), Twitter (2.3M Followers), Instagram (12.8M Followers), along with their own YouTube channel (4.95M Followers), and with all these platforms they post and share user created videos and pictures captured with their products. GoPro is needless to say, a pro when it comes to social media.

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What Makes A Social Media Consultant Successful?

Necessary qualities to be successful in Social Media Consulting:

1) Highly Knowledgeable With All Social Media Platforms

2) Up-To-Date With All Current Social Media Trends

3) Influential & Creative

4) Strong Grammar Skills

Before venturing into the field of social media consulting, set aside ample amounts of time to become very knowledgeable with all of the in and outs of each social media platform; companies are looking for best fit for this job position, being highly knowledgeable with every social media platform is a necessity to not stand out, but just to fit in. 

Being up-to-date with current, and even previous social media trends will set you aside from the competition. We all know that trends come just as fast as they go, but being able to jump on the band-wagon when it comes to trends will really allow your company to have unique followings of a variety of different people; since there are so many different trends, and not every one likes the same thing, revolving the social media content around trends could bring in new followers from a variety of groups. 

Being influential and creative are a skill set that is very hard to possess or learn, but if you have it, this is truly where you will be separated from the crowd. Many companies lack these skills and will recycle old content over and over again. Everyone wants to see something new, laugh, learn, or be motivate; being able to create new of influential content for your company or clients, in my opinion will bring in the most followers, sales or attention over all other skills.

Having strong grammar skills will also only set you in the right direction in this field. As much as we all hate them, social media is full of “grammar Nazi's”, these are people that look for mistakes, point them out, and sometimes even lose interest or respect for a company or person because of the flaw. Being grammatically strong will steer you clear from these people, also, being grammatically strong is important all throughout our professional careers, and is something I personally am working on to improve. 

Strategies For The Future:

I rarely use social media, when I say rarely, I really mean rarely. I just checked my Facebook, which is the only social media platform I use outside of this class, and I haven’t posted anything on there in over 9 months now. I’ll check Facebook once or twice a day, watch some cute or funny videos of animals, see a funny meme or two, and call it quits. While I think it is good that I don’t spend more than 15 minutes any given day on social media, I do believe I need to start posting a bit more, and only revolving it around professional related posts; and this will definitely come with time. Things I need to work on for my professional social media presence: 1) Actually post content

2) My make social media strictly professional

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Week Three Blog Post

After I completed watching “Data Brokers: Selling Your Personal Information” video, I really wasn’t too surprised by any means. To me at least, this hasn’t been any sort of secret; I have found myself numerous times shopping online, or even just browsing a website of some sort, and the next day I will just so happen to find an ad for that website on my Facebook feed. One that just happened this week actually, was www.geartrade.com, I just bought a new snowboard to get ready for this upcoming winter, and the next day there were two separate ads by geartrade on my news feed. Even with the most up-to-date anti-virus security protection out there, our information is constantly being leaked to the dark web; this is why I personally never save any life threatening information on my computer such as medical information, social security number, bank numbers, credit cards, and so on. 

After I completed the week three reading of “The Internet’s Original Sin” by Ethan Zuckerman, and watching Maciej Ceglowski cover the “Internet With a Human Face”, as scary as it may be, business models that use data gathering and surveillance can save a lot of time, money, and even customers. Social media obviously contains a large amount of personal information; our likes, our dislikes, hobbies, and so on, all of this information can, and is being used by many businesses to increase customer potential, satisfaction, sales, and so much more. Facebook creates a whole different level when it comes to business; if a company or business chooses to conduct these investigations or even using the information from the video in the previous paragraph, it really stacks the deck for them. From my perspective, I really don’t mind these data gathering and surveillance techniques, mainly because there is nothing I can do about it beyond taking simple precautions to not store very personal information; but I view it similar to a grocery store handing out ads with coupons, except these coupons are something we have searched for before or are interested in. 

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Social Media Experiment

Once I heard about the social media experiment, I was very excited to discover how I would handle this situation, what I would learn, and so on. My experiment was conducted over two days, 12 hours each day, on days that I didn’t work so it would make it a bit more challenging. I decided that I would not allow myself to use my cellphone, or any method of social media/time killing websites from 10 A.M. (my normal wake up time) to Noon, and continued for the remaining 10 hours 4 P.M. to 2 A.M. (my normal sleep time). I limited myself beyond just social media because I rarely use it anyway, maybe 10-20 minutes a day at most, not being able to check social media for one day, or even a week would not be a big deal for me at all. I allowed myself the four hours in between to make plans for the day, text my girlfriend, friends and family, however in this time period I was not allowed to check any form of social media or time wasting websites either, only for texting reasons. 

First day of experiment: Tuesday, 27th, I woke up around my normal time, and proceeding my morning without checking my phone or anything. Once noon rolled around, I texted my girlfriend, we made plans to have lunch at 2 P.M. on her lunch break, and then I also made plans with my friends to play soccer for a few hours later that day around 7 P.M. I did an hour or so of homework until I left to have lunch with my girlfriend where I then told her about the experiment. She thought it was really cool, however she was sad that we wouldn’t be able to during the experiment times unless it was face-to-face, which we were unable to make plans because we both had a lot of homework this week. She participated and we both left our phones in the car, and went in to have lunch. As I was expecting and hoping, having lunch with no cell phones was a lot more fun and special, we talked the whole time, no distractions, and just talked and ate; we both normally have our phones out when we are together, not that we are on them the whole time or even most of the time, but we are both guilty of checking it from time to time, etc. After lunch I went home, played with my dogs outside for a bit, finished some homework and then went to play soccer. Soccer with my friends wasn’t different because we never had our phones on us to begin with. I went home, finished the night off with homework, went to the gym and called it a day. I fell asleep a lot easier than normal this night, I have read studies about harmful rays/light from cellphones/computers and how the trigger and mess with your sleeping, so I was very thankful the experience this.

Final Day: Wednesday, 28th. I woke up a at 8:30, which is very unusual for me to be up this early (When I work, my schedule is 2 P.M. to Midnight, sometimes I stay late, and don’t normally fall asleep till 3 or 4 A.M.). I made breakfast, took my dogs for a walk outside. I was feeling the urge to check/be on my phone so I was finding things to distract myself. Noon rolled by, I texted my girlfriend to see if we were able to make plans or anything, she had to work late and then finish one of her classes tonight. I decided to go to my parents and spend time with them, see if they needed help around the house. I ended up doing a few hours of yard/house work, which was fun spending time with them. I went home, played with my dogs and ended the night doing homework and quizzes. 

Summary: This was really fun to conduct this little experiment, I found myself being a lot more productive with studying/homework, and also a lot more engaging in conversations. The really cool thing was being able to sleep better/faster. It was really hard to detach myself from my phone, but I am really glad I got my feet wet, and I think I will try to limit myself a few hours every day to be cellphone/time wasting free from now on!

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Week Two - Response to Louis C.K., and Sherry Tuckle’s

I really enjoyed, in different ways, both Louis C.K.’s, and Sherry Tuckle’s video on how attached and dependent we are on technology, cell phones, social media, etc. Louis’s video, although shadowed by very great humor, did carry a very meaningful and true message to me, both with the fact that cell phones are taking away from important life lessons such as empathy, true sadness and happiness, and also a very real reason on why texting and driving is so prominent. Being able to converse face-to-face is such an important, meaningful, and special skill set to have, and this skill is being eradicated by cell phones, making them less frequent, and less effective. The sad truth behind cellphones is that they are so much more than a piece of technology, they truly are a part of us, especially in our generation; this would be great if they were just used for calling, emergencies, directions, important things that are there for us when we need them, but in this world we live in they are there for so much more, and taking away from so much of our daily lives and life lessons. Louis’s message on why he won’t get his daughter or children cellphones is very important, parents are getting their children cellphones so early on in their lives now, at age 7 or 8, sometimes even younger. The amount of life lessons, communication skills, and so much more, that these children are missing out on just because of cellphones blows my mind. 

I feel that Sherry Tuckle’s video touches and covers a lot of what Louis covered in his short interview, however, Sherry goes much further into depth on the seriousness of harmfulness of cellphones/technology to our generation/younger generations. I agree with everything that Sherry covered, and I was not surprised at all when she discussed how my/younger generations have the lowest self-esteem; I feel that social media is place to search for compliments and comments to give very short and temporary satisfaction on pictures or posts, this is the main reason I rarely use any social media. These negative effects from social media are definitely tied in with the low self esteem and depression that my, and younger generations face, sadly. I always think about what life will be like down the road with these technologies, taking us further and further away from socializing, lowering self esteem, what is next?

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Social Media Log

Social Media Usage: Throughout 6-27-2017, I tracked my social media usage for 24 hours to see how much of the day I spent using some sort of social media throughout the day. As it is summer, I am working as much as I can, throughout this 24 hour span, I was at work for 10 hours, this has been my typical day since the start of summer though. Also, I have never been much of a social media guy, I check Facebook normally early morning to see birthdays, and watch videos that appear on my timeline. Outside of this class, I do not use any other social media website other than Facebook, so, I will include other websites I use practically every day.

Usage:

Facebook: 20 minutes

YouTube:  105 minutes

Netflix: 90 minutes 

Throughout this typical day for me, I tallied myself using a little over three and  a half hours on social media/non school related websites. I am not really surprised with the results, I know I am on my phone a fair amount to begin with so I knew it was going to be a few hours. 

Text Messages:

There are only a handful of people I text on a regular basis, so when this tally came up I knew the number wasn’t going to be outrageous. Each day I text probably 5 different people, if that; mainly my girlfriend, my close friends and family. Throughout the 24 hour span, I tallied up 97 text messages.

Summary:

When it comes to just social media, I am definitely way below average for average usage per day, but, to pick up that slack I watch a lot of videos and movies. I wasn’t surprised with the results at all, this was a really fun and interesting assignment to participate in.

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Week One - BIS315

Hello, my name is Peter McLeod. I am a Senior at CMU, majoring in Applied Business Communications, minoring in Marketing. With these blogs, I hope to create a environment to present a professional portfolio of my work in and outside of college.

A company that I believe is outstanding with their use of social media is Wendy’s. Here is a link to their twitter:

https://twitter.com/wendys

Wendy’s uses their social media in a very clever, smart, and funny way. Always posting their newest deals and items to sell, but they go beyond that by replying to not just a few of their customers, but a much higher percentage than most any other businesses out there. Furthermore, instead of just the automated, blank, empty responses, Wendy’s actually engages in conversations with the comments, especially on their Facebook page. Along with engaging in the normal conversation, Wendy’s social media does something out of the ordinary with their social media, and they “acknowledge the haters”. Wendy’s social media will find out the reason for the unhappy customers, and find a way to make it right; but Wendy’s is also not afraid to give people their opinion if the customers are only trying to be rude by saying another company is better, or something of that sort. I believe Wendy’s does a very good job with their social media, especially with how our generation handles and uses social media.