Facebook Commerce Blog Revision

The idea of Facebook commerce is becoming a new trend. Companies like Wal-Mart are jumping on the bandwagon. It is helping to promote and also allowing large companies to interact with their customers like never before.The number of shoppers from Facebook adding products to a cart is 3X the average.

But information regarding facebook commerce is not always positive. There are very little success stories as of now because of how new the idea really is. Facebook’s storefront also does not allow transactions within Facebook either which also makes things difficult for businesses.

Three examples of businesses that are using Facebook commerce to today are BabyAndMeGifts.com, Livescribe, and Ettitude. Facebook Commerce is more than just another Facebook page, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook Dan Rose says, “We now have a direct link between sharing on Facebook and revenue generation at e-commerce sites.” When thinking of Facebook Commerce like this, it is clear as to why this idea for a popular business might successfully work.

 I came across an article in the Business Insider regarding this topic and it contained tips on "How to Make More E-Commerce Money with Facebook." I am on Facebook and use it all the time so I decided to rate these tips by Cathy Halligan by applying the tips to myself.

1. “Deliver on the fundamentals of commerce.”

             (Common sense) Ettitude did just this and their sales increased dramatically. But by delivering the fundamentals of commerce on Facebook Commerce, Ettitude was able to display inventory on their own personal website and within the world of social media as well.

2. “Facebook ads are not great.”

            I agree 100% percent. When I am on Facebook interacting with my friends and family, I hardly ever notice the ads on the side of my site, and if I do I never click on them because I am not interested in learning about a random product advertisement on MY page. But there are different ways to advertise using Facebook Commerce. Managing Director from Ettitude Phoebe Yu says, “You can update [the storefront] frequently, and if your content is interesting, people will ‘Like’ it or share it… you can’t send out newsletters that frequently — that will annoy people.”

3. “You can do traditional marketing but that’s not enough.”

            I think giving customers early access to new products is a great idea. This gives people a reason to add you to their facebook. It’s exciting rather than just advertising and marketing companies everyday products.

4. “Engage your customers.”

            To me this is the most important tip of them all. Having real conversations on Facebook with your customers is building a relationship. Owner of BabyAndMeGifts, Jacquelyn Myer posts her most popular items on her Facebook page, and even places several deals particular items contain if people buy an item by clicking the link on their Facebook page. This is engaging customers to use her companies Facebook Commerce page to buy merchandise because of the several deals each item contains on Facebook.

5. “Have great content and the best content is user generated”

            Actually listening to you customer’s comments, and keeping track of how many people like certain products is a great idea. This allows companies to really review what are the most popular products are and vice versa. It gives large businesses the inside scoop. Having a Facebook page is a great way to do this, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says, "you have to be where customers want to buy." By creating a Facebook Commerce page, a company is allowing themselves a platform to place the great content they create while Facebook allows their content to be user generated.

6. “Integrate Facebook into your site.”

 Livescribe integrated Facebook into their site by rebranding their Facebook page after releasing their new audio-recording smart pen. By letting your customers interact with a company’s facebook page, they are actually doing the advertising for the company. This is because now everyone they are friends with can see what they commented or liked on the companies page. Livescribe successfully advertised their audio-recording smart pen by simply opening up a Facebook Commerce site. Livescribe’s Senior Marketing Manager Brett Kaufman reaffirms my explanation by explaining, “Allowing fans to ‘Like,’ share or tweet their interest in a certain product has helped us distribute our message to even more consumers. Allowing our fans to interact with our products within Facebook before purchasing has made a big impact.”

7. “Most important experiment”

Another common sense piece of advice and not the most important to me. 

When used correctly, Facebook Commerce is an amazing tool for companies to increase sales. Giantnerd.com doubled in revenue in two weeks after adding the Facebook like button, and American Eagle’s Facebook users spent 57 percent more than average by simply using Facebook Commerce.

When asked about Facebook commerce Myer’s from BabyAndMeGifts says, “It is a great way to stay in front of customers. I believe it has been as effective as e-mail marketing for BabyAndMeGifts.com.”  Facebook Commerce is free for businesses to set up, and only offers benefits from its use.

But others argue and say that Facebook Commerce is pulling traffic away from companies websites by only leading them to their Facebook Commerce page. But I disagree this is a negative outcome, Facebook is just another way to engage customers and advertise a store or business. I don’t believe that people will no longer visit a companies website, especially since Facebook does not offer anywhere for customer’s to purchase merchandise from the site itself.

However online traffic of visitors within a company’s specific webpage should be monitored just in case this is happening. This idea should not be ignored simply because Facebook Commerce does not offer Customers the chance to purchase items. Social Media metrics is always important. CEO from ecommerce also explains, "all companies are working with Facebook to sell more things on Facebook and do customer support." If Facebook does begin to sell merchandise from its site then companies could begin to worry.

What do you think of these tips? Do you agree or disagree with my opinions.

Photo from On Ideas

Engaging One Last Time

It’s about that time again, time to discuss some chapters in the book Engage. This week I will discuss chapters 19-23.

We have now reached the end of the book; even though all the topics are “new” the ideas are essentially the same. Here are some short but sweet points from these chapters.

This time chapter 20 opened by explaining the importance and significance of linking items on a webpage. Brian Solis calls this “the human network.” Solis also says an “inbound network represents the individuals who respond to us publicly and the outbound network is representative of those to whom we reply.”

The most important topic I noted in chapter 21 was that your brand cannot flourish unless you have a “human emotional connection” with others. This makes sense in a lot of ways, it's like trying to get donations, you must pull at peoples heart strings to really get that donation.

Last but not least, in the long run all that matters is what others are saying about your brand not what you say about it! So remember this if your thinking about creating a social media presence for your brand!

photo from Pierce Mattie PR NY

Bebo!

While stumbling this weekend I came across a website I am unfamiliar with. Because I thought it was pretty cool I decided to write this weeks blog post over the specific website. The website is called Bebo and it's a social networking site that allows users to share pretty much anything. It has almost all of the capabilities both Myspace and Facebook provide but with additional features!

Bebo allows users to customize the background of their page, add music and videos the user is interested in, add pictures, and comment on friend’s posts. Bebo users can also blog, play games and share information about themselves! Users can even generate questionnaires, or polls to share with their friends. Like most forms of social media you can choose to make your profile private or public, and can send personal messages to anyone you would like.

Bebo is an acronym meaning blog early, bog often and was launched in 2005.

This website seemed pretty interesting to me and I was surprised that I had never heard of it before. I believe the reason why I have not heard of it before might be because Bebo users are quite young.

I will have to look into this social networking website some more, and maybe one day I will even make myself a Bebo account


Picture from Media Explored

Time For Some More Groundswell

This week's reading was over chapters 12-18 in Engage.

The first topic I found interesting was over real-time Internet searches. Real-time web helps users during searches to find the most recent and relevant information that is currently available. It is helping people save time and captivating their attention one detailed search at a time. 

Brian Solis explains this as "real-time web serves as a telltale source for trends and represents a leading indicator for any topic related to your interests or business." Now that's pretty cool!

Solis also talks about the evolution of media and communication in chapter 15 calling it, "perpetual and timeless." Social media is a very influential tool for business’ it can be a huge help but also show a lot of a company’s flaws because people can make their own decisions on your own page. 

People will make judgments based upon what other people are saying on your own personal page as well. It is important for a company to be monitoring these things. Brian Solis says, "Transformation begins with observation."

Solis even recommends creating a social media handbook for your business with a list of guidelines and rules.  If a company does these things monitoring and being careful about how their social media is being run, then they are successfully using this tool. 

In reality what you say about your own company is not the only thing that matters in the world of social media. What others are saying is just as important, if not more important! People have conversations and listen to word of mouth more than a statement directly from a brand. So it is imperative for companies to be actively listening and observing!

"Active listening resulting information engagement plants seeds that flourish into meaningful conversations and relationships."

Photo from Changes in the Languages of the Web

The Adventures of YouTube

Rebecca Black is so 2 weeks ago! There’s a new YouTube sensation that’s taken over the web, and it features 2 boys who can’t even pronounce a word yet!

Last week a video of twin boys having an adorable conversation together took YouTube by storm. It started off with the boys parents first adding it to YouTube to show their family and then escalated from there!

It’s amazing how fast a video on YouTube can become popular! With 14,138,780 views and counting, these boys have become famous! Late night talk shows have shown clips and people are sharing the video left and right.

Not only is YouTube a great way to become famous over night, but it can also help to spread an important message. It might be useful for the government to look into using YouTube in times of crisis. A video on YouTube might become viral quicker than if the president where to send a message out on TV! That’s crazy to think about.

These twins are famous, and they don’t even know it! Now if only we knew exactly what these two adorable babies were talking about!

See for yourself. 

Communicating With Your Audience

This week our class read chapters 6-12 of Engage by Brian Solis. In these chapters Solis shares new information but by tying it in with information we have learned from previously read chapters.

If a brand creates a social media account for their company it is imperative that the company focuses on gaining an audience in an effective and personal way, and then hold that attention for as long as possible. Without keeping the audience having a social media account for a business is worthless.

Social media allows users to connect with almost everyone, but this is not as easy as it sounds. “Everything requires promoting through consistent and vigorous acts of connecting profiles and pages.” If a business is using social media they need to be constantly involved and updating their site.

Brian Solis says using groups seems to be extremely effective in helping your audience to connect with your product or company. Micronetworks like Twitter is an easy way to do this. Brands can share information with large groups of people quick and efficiently.

Solis also explains how apps can be extremely effective for broadening network communities.  I have never heard of a company using apps but after reading more about this, it seemed like a very compelling idea!

Solis explains again and again how a conversation with your audience is the most important key to having a successful social media presence! However, in order to gain an audience tags and headlines are a great way to make your page and information visible to the huge online presence today.

I was surprised to hear that “less is more” regarding social media. Whether that means a brand creates multiple small accounts or not, this is important. Solis says ask yourself, “who do you want to be as defined by different groups of people with whom you wish to connect over time.”

The Power of Social Media

While checking out websites online, I came across an article by Michael Sebastian titled Mobile Marketing. This article contained several interesting statistics regarding social media and other forms of communication.

I discovered there are 4 billion mobile phones currently used in the World today. More than likely, this number will only continue to grow. Out of these 4 billion cellphones worldwide, 1.08 billion are smartphones, which means the users phone contains Internet.

This number is so significant because it shows how easily getting to different forms of social media is!

Americans spend 2.7 hours a day socializing on their phones. That’s twice the amount of time Americans spend eating!

Over 1/3 of Facebook’s 600 million users use Facebook Mobile, and out of Twitter’s 165 million users, 50% use Twitter mobile. These statistics show PR professionals how important it is to have some form of social media for their business!

This article is proof that today people world wide are constantly using social media to get their news and communicate so get out there and join!

Photo from The Nonprofit Quarterly

Brian Solis Engage Chapters 3-6

In chapters 3-6 of Engage Brian Solis defines social media as a “great equalizer,” in reference to online relationships with customers.

Public relations, marketing, and advertising professionals interact with their clients or potential customers in a different way today than ever before. They have had to transform after what Solis calls our “societal renaissance” occurred.

In chapter 3 Brian Solis explains the importance of interacting with customers. He says it’s “important for every company to proactively and personally recognize other bloggers.” Without doing so, having a social media outlet is pointless for a business.

I see this as a very important piece of information because so many businesses create some form of social media, but have no idea why they are doing so. The reason should be for interacting!

Brian Solis warns to “serve not only our own needs, but others as well.” If you do not do so no one will ever be inclined to check out your social media outlet.

It makes sense to me that for a business, in order to get the reaction they want from their customers online, they must show them the same courtesy by being involved on their social media pages as well! 

Everyone LOVES Their Cellphone

Every time I leave anywhere I always make sure I have my cell phone it's almost like I can’t function without it. I will admit I have a slight addiction to my cell phone it's habit for me to just hold it or look at it. Needless to say it is almost impossible to imagine what life would be like without cell phones.

I happened to read a story by Alan Pearcy in Reagan’s PR Daily news about the evolution of the cell phone. So in appreciation to our beloved cell phones, I thought I would share some of Pearcy’s key points and reminisce on some key stages of the cell phone.

In 1983-84 before I was born, the Motorola DynaTAC was created. To me it looks like a child’s play phone that has been installed into a kids playhouse.

1989 is not only the year I was born, but it is also the year the first flip phone Motorola MicroTAC was born.

Now lets jump to 2000.  With this mysterious year came a mysterious invention the Nokia 3310 that had no antenna!

Oh this phone brings back so many teenage memories. In 2004 the Motorola Razr came out! My hot pink Razr was so important for calling my first boyfriends and getting into trouble. If you didn’t have a Razr in 04 you were not cool!

And now today lives our 2006 Blackberry Pearl, which I own and love, and if your more of a touch screen kind of person a 2007 Apple i Phone.

I wonder what the next newest cell phone inventions will be like!

Images from Reagan's PR Daily 

Engage or Die/Socializing Media by the Number

In chapters one and two of Engage Brian Solis discusses issues relating to how big social media has grown and how much of an influence it has over society today.

"Social media has created and magnified a new layer of influencers across all industries." Not just one but "multiple" influencers are affecting how we gather and process our information.

The most important topic to consider is that social media is powered by conversations, and no conversation can be complete without listening (equally as important). We can change negative and positive situations into what we want to make it because we are the ones talking. 

Solis insures us that social media tools are not the reason for the change we are experiencing, it is actually the people who are making the change happen! Keep in mind there are ALOT of influencers on the web today. For example, social media spending will increase to $3,113 in millions in 2014 from the past $716 in 2009, which is incredible. 

Solis reminds us that these tools are exciting and seductive because it allows us to easily connect with people we choose to connect with daily.

Watch a Movie on Your Facebook

What's one of the first things you do after coming home from a long day at work/school, or the last thing you do before you go to bed? Is it check your Facebook? Well it is for me! 

I often find myself checking my Facebook during these two specific times of the day, and find myself pointlessly "stalking" my friends pages for fun when I am bored, but what if you could check your Facebook AND watch a movie at the same time?

Seems impossible right? Well I have got news for you, its not! AllThingsDigital reported Tuesday that Facebook will be adding a feature to their site that allows users to rent movies from their Facebook. Facebookers can rent movies or shows digitally from their Facebook page by using credits to pay for the transaction. 

The first movie that will be offered is The Dark Night by Warner Bros. It will cost 30 credits or 3 dollars to rent through an application the studio built within the website. 

Thomas Gewecke the president of Warner Bros. says "making our films available through Facebook is a natural extension of our digital distribution efforts. It gives consumers a simple, convenient way to access and enjoy our films through the world's largest social network."

 I think this is a genius idea and I am excited! What do you think? Would you rent movies on your Facebook?

Photo from Bay Area Bites

Engaging and Helping the Groundswell Support Itself

Chapters 7 and 8 in Groundswell had to do with engaging your customers with each other, and your business. “Engaging the groundswell is a powerful way to boost your business.” Engaging customers is letting them influence each other by word of mouth. This is important because it’s “the most honest form of marketing, that builds upon people’s natural desire to share experiences.” You’re basically creating a community to energize customers within your social media.

Josh Bernoff explains starting a community requires a lot of work, because an energized community expects responses. It is important to be interacting with the community you developed in order to keep it energized. When people follow a company’s social media outlet, they are looking for some inside information they would not have known had they not been following the company online.

 Chapter 8 also explains how the groundswell is a support system. Whether it’s people commenting on each other’s social media pages, or starting a Wiki page, they are communicating with one another in a special way. Bernoff explains, support makes people comfortable and people need to feel comfortable to spend money on your product.

Bernoff stresses how important it is to dedicate time to your company’s forum, “company participation is crucial in the beginning.”  Let customers support each other!  Groundswell explains, by owning or participating in a community you are getting a front row seat, because you are collaborating with customers to create better products!

Photo from Unbound Technologies

Who am I?

During PLN presentations in class on Wednesday, I couldn’t help but notice like the rest of the class how many people were doing their project over personal branding.  Ironically this weekend I found an article over this topic. 

So what exactly is personal branding, and is there even such a thing (is it just a reputation). Are you in control of it, or are the people you interact with, can you have two different types of brands, a corporate and a personal one?

In this article Becky Johns explains it all. She says if you want to know what people think of your personal brand have them be the ones who write your social media bios, or have them write a quick sentence about you.

This makes a lot of sense when thinking about it in-depth. You can try to explain what your personal brand is yourself, but the people in your life who know you are the ones who actually define what your personal brand is with out you even realizing it.

 Johns explains everyone you know is going to have a different point of view of what defines your personal brand. It is important to be yourself and stick up for what you believe in.

She says that the key to personal branding is let your passions and interests guide how you interact with others. People will have opinions about you so do something interesting to make that opinion part of your personal brand!

Listen!

While reading Groundswell chapters 4-6 one word was used several times and really got my attention. This word was listening, and it is referring to the fact that companies need to listen to their customers on social networks.

 Blogs, Facebook, Twitter ect. are now being used as a sort of research tool to better understand customers. The interaction between the brand and its customers creates a unique bond because not only do companies have the benefit of listening, they can also talk to spread messages about their company.

Josh Bernoff preaches listening to the groundswell for a good reason. Out of 114 people 106 say that they would recommend the Internet as a source of information. This statistic goes to show how important it is for a brand to use some form of social media.

Having a form of social media also helps during a possible PR crisis. Companies have the opportunity to speak up and to protect their brand by giving their customers a message straight from the brand itself.

 Companies can also generate new product and marketing ideas from information their customers give online by giving customers a say in what they like and get them involved.

People are truly learning from each other so it is important to maintain positive conversations on a company’s social network. Social networks are the best solution for word-of-mouth problems, while blogs help complexity. Listen and respond to feedback from the groundswell is the most important advice I have read so far in this book. 

Photo from The Right Now Customer Experience Blog

The Magic Word

Today products everywhere are going “green” and trying to show their doing their part in helping to save our planet by being eco friendly. The word green is everywhere, from biodegradable chip bags, to reusable and recycled cans, to solar powered cars, going green is the next big thing and everyone’s doing it. Even today in a restroom I noticed a sign above the toilet that read “think before you flush, this bathroom has gone green” and had a green flush that allowed you to choose the amount of water to flush your waste away with.

 Turns out marketing teams everywhere have caught on to this catchy color and in an article titled “a magic word that turns non-stories into news” Kevin Allen explains the word green can turn almost any non-story into legitimate news.

Making a part of your product eco friendly is an instant attention grabber for editors and journalists around the world. This article explains that the H.J Heinz Co. is the most recent product to jump onto the bandwagon and its worked wonders for them. There were 258 news related articles about Heinz going green on a Google search.

Allen explains ever since Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth came out America’s products everywhere have gone green with their products and it’s working like a charm!

Would a “going green” story get your attention?

Photo from Delaware Employment Law Blog

Important Influencers

This week our class focused on identifying influencers on Twitter, and other forms of social media. After reading a publication from the Web Ecology Project, an article by Brain Solis (titled Unveiling the New Influencers), and a blog (titled Social Media Reading-Influencers) I decided to share some important information I learned.

First and foremost we will look at Twitter. On Twitter the number of followers one has will effect how they appear to other Twitter users (they will appear popular). The number of users one has will then attract a number of more followers, because their content seems legitimate. 

So when measuring Twitter one would look at the number of followers the user has, vs. the number of people the user is following. 

The Web Ecology Project explained that most users follow back their followers to maintain a relationship, and possibly start conversations. However a “materialistic” user will collect followers to use as contacts, and then push content towards them.

On Twitter a conversation seems to be the majority of users intended goal of action, and an individual may maintain multiple personas online.

Brain Solis explained, “Social media is changing how we create, decipher, and share information, and reshaping how brands content publishers think about markets and people who define them.

He states Social bookmarks blogs and other forms of social media provide “a looking glass” into interaction between consumers.

 We clearly are in the midst of a SOCIAL REVOLUTION. 

PHOTO FROM: technorati.com

The PAGE RANK RAPPER!

Most of you are aware of the current JC Penny scandal involving Google search results. JC Penny was using a black hat method, or using a search result method Google sees as cheating. JC Penny had someone put links on hundreds of sites to make their page rank be the first on all kinds of searches. So in the midst of all this controversy an SEO rapper made a You Tube video about page ranking, and how links may increase your page rank. Check it out! It’s entertaining AND informative.

Save This Website From Extinction!

I think that sites like Delicious and Stumble Upon are genius! When I first discovered Stumble Upon I was both excited and worried, because I knew I would not be able to stop stumbling! I have never heard of Delicious until reading the article RIP Delicious: You were so Beautiful to Me, and discussing how to use this useful site in class.

I am so happy to hear of another social bookmarking service! Delicious seems even better than Stumble Upon because sharing your bookmarks is a lot easier. Hearing that the website was acquired by Yahoo, and now might be shutting down is a shame because the website is so brilliant.

 I think everyone should be required to take a class like Social Media for PR to learn about all of the amazing and useful tools on the Internet today (like Delicious).

Delicious is an easy key news threshold, and you can keep the bookmarks you create forever. For the majority of Americans leisurely surfing the Internet is impossible because of the short time they have. Being able to save interesting articles or websites, so you can read and enjoy them later is such a clever idea. Because of long stressful workdays, something as simple as a URL can be impossible to remember.

Delicious is also useful (as this article pointed out) in finding things before your competitors do. So all in all I think shutting down Delicious would be a waste and I encourage people to speak up about why its important that we save this website! What do you think?

Facebook=$

The idea of Facebook commerce is becoming a new trend. Companies like Wal-Mart are jumping on the bandwagon. It is helping to promote and also allowing large companies to interact with their customers like never before. I came across an article in the Business Insider regarding this topic and it contained tips on "How to Make More E-Commerce Money with Facebook." I am on Facebook and use it all the time so I decided to rate these tips by Cathy Halligan by applying the tips to myself.

1. “Deliver on the fundamentals of commerce.”

             (Common sense)

2. “Facebook ads are not great.”

            I agree 100% percent. When I am on Facebook interacting with my friends and family, I hardly     ever notice the ads on the side of my site, and if I do I never click on them because I am not interested in learning about a random product advertisement on MY page.

3. “You can do traditional marketing but that’s not enough.”

            I think giving customers early access to new products is a great idea. This gives people a reason to add you to their facebook. It’s exciting rather than just advertising and marketing companies everyday products.

4. “Engage your customers.”

            To me this is the most important tip of them all. Having real conversations on Facebook with your customers is building a relationship.

5. “Have great content and the best content is user generated”

            Actually listening to you customer’s comments, and keeping track of how many people like certain products is a great idea. This allows companies to really review what are the most popular products are and vice versa. It gives large businesses the inside scoop.

6. “Integrate Facebook into your site.”

             By letting your customers interact with a company’s facebook page, they are actually doing the advertising for the company. This is because now everyone they are friends with can see what they commented or liked on the companies page.

7. “Most important experiment”

            Another common sense piece of advice and not the most important to me.

What do you think of these tips? Do you agree or disagree with my opinions.

Picture from facebook.com

Social Media Saves Lives?

Just ate breakfast. I have a headache. I’m hungry… These are the kind of posts that come to mind when I think of what my Twitter page would consist of. I don’t own a Twitter nor do I want to. I can’t seem to understand why people would want to give the world a play by play of everything their doing every day. My life certainly is not very interesting and I’m not witty or clever enough to post silly topics that might make people laugh and actually want to follow me. I understand why celebrities might have a Twitter but why the average Joe like me?

Apparently Twitter is actually beneficial in a lot of ways that I have never thought of, or even heard of. After reading Why The Revolution Will Not be Tweeted by Malcolm Gladwell I couldn’t help but get extremely excited that someone else had the same ideas and the same point of view about social media that I do. However, I can’t deny that I didn’t second guess myself for hating Twitter after reading some of the positive stories about the use of social media during serious situations.

The current protests in Egypt are like the Greensboro protests in that they spread “like fire”. Gladwell's strong point that today people have forgotten what TRUE activism is might be correct to a certain extent; however activism using Twitter and other forms of social media must have had a serious impact on Egypt’s leader for it to be shut down completely.

So does it matter what type of activism we are talking about? Does it matter that today we don’t have to meet at a church at a certain time and day to discuss the ways we can protest and make a change? Or is it actually a blessing that we can now connect with people we don’t know on Twitter, and have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook. Gladwell even says himself that “acquaintances are how you get the greatest source of new ideas and information” but again explains that this is still NOT ACTIVISM.

 In my opinion I fear for the future. If social media continues to grow and new forms of communicating with others are created then Gladwell is right no one will ever be motivated enough to make real life sacrifices.

 Today celebrities are “sacrificing" their digital lives to help the lives affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India. This concept is pathetic to me, because I don’t understand why these celebrities can’t actually make a real sacrifice by leaving their hairstylists and personal shoppers and actually visit these poor countries. Make a change with their actual bodies present at the site of a charity project. Instead they see relaxing by not tweeting or blogging a sacrifice. So I truly support Malcolm Gladwell’s opinion that the things Martin Luther King needed in Birmingham (discipline and strategy) are things that social media can in no way provide. Do you disagree? Tell me your thoughts.

Image from thenextweb.com

A Complicated Situation

An IT analyst firm estimates that about 70% of social media campaigns will fail in 2011.

I don't know about you but this is totally surprising to me! I guess I have never really thought much about how social media even advertises. I have only heard about Facebook, Twitter, ect. from friends.

Companies that have invested in social media marketing are doing so because they feel:

•  It’s a sensible decision

Or

•  They have watched their competitors do so. 

This article explains that these are “wrong reasons” to invest and I did not quite understand why. Three large companies I have interned with had me create Facebook and Twitter accounts for them after they invested in their campaigns. I never asked why, but now I cant help but wonder if it was for one of these “wrong reasons”.

Apparently these reasons are wrong because their are so many mistakes that social media marketing makes in the first place, and I began to understand the concept that social media campaigns are complicated.

 Our culture is constantly changing and trends are continually evolving. Even my personal social networking life has evolved and probably will continue to evolve. First AIM, then MySpace, and last but not least Facebook.
It makes sense that the topic of social media campaigns would be complicated.

To me, being flexible in the ever changing world of social media would be the best technique for companies to use. What do you think?

From article In Social Media, Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail. At BrianSolis.com