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