Final Blog

Finally the last blog of the entire year!!! Yay!!!

When starting this class, I was excited and anxious to learn more about social media usage within businesses and how I could use it to my full advantage one day.  I liked how many different ways we used to analyse all types of social media accounts and the effects that they have on the success of businesses and success.  I did not realize how much effort needed to be put into social media within a company before this class, nor did I realize that there was a very specific and detailed way to do so.  I think that this class overall will come into play in my future by helping me successfully operate a social media account of my own for my future business or one that I choose to work for.

I love working with groups in this class.  Everyone in my group was always on the same page, and each time we did a project or assignment, we were each able to contribute something unique and beneficial to the work.  Not only were we a group during projects, but we also became our own group within the class and were able to help each other on individual assignments whenever one of us was confused.  My group became very close friends, so we even had fun doing our assignments together.  I also liked how the class had a Facebook page where we could all converse with each other when needed.  This helped me by constantly keeping up with the posts and announcements.  I am a Facebook freak, so this was very easy and accessible to me.

The Design Process was a very useful approach for me.  it taught me how to come up with my wildest and most unique ideas.  It made me realize how much creativity I really am capable of.  I kind of forgot how to brainstorm, and practicing the design process really brought that back to life for me.  I think that this process really came into play whenever my group and I were putting together our marketing plan.  To create a successful plan, creativity and accuracy is a must.  I believe this marketing plan was beneficial because I now know what to do in order to conduct successful marketing within my future business.

The only thing that I would consider changing in this class is the whole changing of the group concepts.  I think that this was hard and slightly confusing to the class because we would get used to working with one specific concept, and then have to quickly change to another concept the next week.  I would like to work one certain concept for the entire class if I could do it over again.  Overall, this class has taught me a lot about social media and will come in handy someday.  I have enjoyed learning about it and will definitely have the opportunity to put my knowledge to good use in my future career.

Chapter 10!

This chapter was all about the different types of social media metrics that exist.  It discussed what they were and what role they pay in marketing networks today.  Metrics make us capable of calculating and determining the results of our campaigns and marketing attempts.  I thought one of the biggest strengths in this chapter was how easily explained everything was, and how everything's purpose was emphasized on and thoroughly explained.  The many charts and tables available in the textbook made it that much more easy for me to understand and grasp the concepts and characteristics of the metrics.  One of the weaknesses in this chapter is exactly how much information was actually covered.  Even thought the chapter may be laid our in an organized manner that makes it easy for me to understand concepts, it can be overwhelming when one chapter alone covers tons of concepts.  It was almost impossible to read the chapter and remember everything that I covered. 

Some definitions that I was not familiar with in the chapter were:

Relative Pull: a comparison of how well different creative executions generate a response.
Viewthroughs- The number of people who visit a page, but aren't active on the page. These people come back to visit.
Blog Value Index: a simple equation that enables a company to assess whether the blog adds more value than it costs.
Measurement Map- Displays the types of branded messages produced and distributed and invitations for consumer engagement with the brand as well as the online location for these materials.
Activity Metrics- Measure the actions the organization takes relative to social media.

If I could use my own words to describe the definition of metrics, I would have to say that it means a way to measure the amount of something in particular.  When I hear the word metrics, I always think of all of my math classes that I took throughout high school.

One organization in particular that uses social media is my sorority, Phi Mu.  We post every other day.  We share pictures of the activities that we participate in, and use pictures to relay information also.  When we post things that relay information, we always make sure we do them in time to inform people of the event or action that will take place.  Two metrics that are appropriate for this form of social media usage are activity metrics and interaction metrics.  These are necessary because it is important to see how many people are keeping up with our accounts and responding to the posts.  This will help us determine how successful we are with relaying our information. 

Chapter 9

This weeks blog discussion is on Chapter 9.  The main factors throughout this chapter that seemed most like important strengths to me were the fact that the chapter discussed the benefits of qualitative research through social media analysis and how much the word of mouth about a business can benefit the amount of business that the organization will get.  The main weakness in this chapter is how little it explained the aspect of different teachings.  The book could have explained many matters in a more thorough manner.

Of all of the new vocabulary words used in this chapter, there were several that I was not very familiar with, including;

• text mining- the gathering and and analysis of text data from relevant sources
• Netnography- a rapidly growing research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to study the communities that emerges through computer-mediated communication
• Echo effect (online echo) - refers to the duplication in conversation volume that tends to occur in social media spaces
• Opinion Mining- analyze content to determine the attitude of the writer
• Sentiment dictionary- specifies sentiment indicators and rules to be used in the analysis

The brand that I chose to run an analysis on was Free People.  When I did this, the results stated as follows: 19% strength, 56:1 sentiment, 38% passion, and 22% reach.  I feel that these results are average.  I would have however probably guessed that the reach percentage be a higher number.

The brand that I chose to search on YouTube was Juicy Couture.  The very first video that popped up was a video called "Rude Juicy Couture Associate."  This is very bad advertising for Juicy, and I am sure people who have searched this brand have seen this and taken it into consideration.  The video was basically a customer mocking a sales associate from Juicy that she had an experience with earlier that day.  Other people were commenting the post, agreeing with her that all of their associates are either rude, unfriendly, or racist.  The second video was a haul video.  This video was positive, showing all of the purchases a customer had recently made and explaining why she was pleased with them.  People also commented this post, saying how they had the same bag and loved it.  Others were commenting saying that they were going to go out and buy it.

Chapter 8!

This chapter was a very educational chapter because it taught us a lot about online shopping, which is a large part of society today.  This chapter taught me the proper ways and techniques that I should practice in the future with my business in order to be successful in the online shopping field.  One of the most important points that this chapter focused on was ratings and reviews.  I think that ratings and reviews are very important for the benefits of a business because customers rely mostly on the opinions of former customers.  Personally, I rely on the reviews of customers from stores.  I feel that I would have the same experience as these other customers.  I feel like this chapter mostly focused on the potential downfalls of social commerce.  I think that it could have emphasized more on the benefits of social commerce.

I have definitely shopped through ads before.  I mostly see useful ads on Pinterest.  I don't really pay that much attention to the ads on Facebook.  On Pinterest, it gives you a direct link to the clothing sites that you are interested in.  The second most common social media site that I shop through ads with is Instagram.  Boutiques follow my account often, which leads to me checking out their accounts and sometimes ordering clothes.  Ads can be influential at times.

I think that I would rather shop in person rather than online.  I can try things on in person.  Whenever I order things online, they usually do not fit how I expected them too.  For this reason, I like trying on the clothes in person.

I think that it is very important to rely on reviews.  If customers take the time to type a review, it must mean that the business is either very good or very bad.  If a review is very good, it usually influences me to try the place out and see if it is a good run for its review.  If it is bad, I usually don't have that much of a desire to try the business.

Chapter 6

Hello to all!  It's time for the weekly Saturday blog...
Today we will be talking about social publishing.  The website that I have chosen to discuss today is pinterest!  I picked this site because I feel like it offers several good examples of social publishing and because everyone of course loves pinterest.  The site itself is http://www.pinterest.com/.  Throughout the whole website, there are several characteristics that would apply to the SEO category.  Some posts use hashtags, while others use keys words.  You can search based on the keywords, hashtags, titles, board names, etc.  There are so many different ways to explore this website based on your own desired needs and wants.  An SMO characteristic of this website is the way that the site allows you to "pin" and "like" posts.  You can also share your favorite posts on other social medias to spread the word to your friends and followers.  I do not think that this site needs much improvement as of right now.  They are constantly updating it, so it just keeps getting better and better.
Some good keywords that would accurately describe this site would be: trendy, popular, lifestyle, fashion, home décor, cooking, DIY, inspiration.  These keywords are what the website is most made up of and what it most exemplifies in my eyes.
The keyword that I searched was "DIY."  This is short for "do it yourself."  Whenever I searched this keyword, only one sponsored site came up.  It actually said the word "Ad" underneath it in a tiny yellow square.  Of all of the websites that popped up, none of the DIY sites were pinterest.  Pinterest is supposed to be one of the most popular websites for DIY projects, and I think that they could use more keywords in this category in order to attract people whenever they search these types of projects.

Design Thinking Process

Hello again! This week classes with the design thinking workshops were really fun for me.  I think it was a cool change in the normal class atmosphere and a chance to really show our creative side and practice doing so with a team of my friends.  Not only was this week a fun week, bu tit was also a week that was able to teach me a lot about the importance of design thinking in a business or program and how i can use this type of thinking to best possible benefit.
Through these workshops, I was able to better grasp the actual idea of brainstorming and what it really is.  Before the workshops, I knew that it had to do with coming up with random ideas, I just didn't know that you could be so broad and crazy with the ideas that you came up with.  Doing these brainstorming exercises showed me just how capable I am of coming up with cool and unique ideas and thoughts on my own.  It showed me how easy it is to be creative when thinking about a designated subject.
As you can see, my favorite step of the entire process was the step of brainstorming.  Whenever the teacher gave each group a subject to brainstorm about, it was fun to write down whatever popped into my head.  I never knew that i could possibly come up with that many thoughts about one subject within such a short amount of time.  it really opened my eyes to how many possibilities of creativeness exist within each subject and matter.  Once i started, the ideas just kept flowing.  It was a nonstop process of information for me.
I think that the design thinking process could definitely be used to my advantage in my future career processes.  Without brainstorming, it would be extremely difficult to come up with new ideas.  If i were to open up a store or boutique, like I someday hope to, I would certainly need to have a thorough understanding on the entire brainstorming process.  This process taught me how to look at a subject, completely take it apart and distinguish every part of it, then bring the parts back together to invent a greater solution and approach to the matter.
Overall, I think that this week was both very fun and educating for the whole class.

Chapter 5

This chapter mainly discusses the multiple different types of social communities that exist in our society.  These types of social communities solely exist to create different online relationships.  These types of relationships are very important because different people in different areas are able to converse with one another to build personal and professional relationships.  Through different social media sites, people are able to communicate in many different ways.  These people use these different social media sites for different advantages, and they are very capable of benefiting businesses in multiple ways.  Consumers rely on social media sites to inform them on the updates of their businesses.  Because of this, social media sites are a main factor in today's advertisement techniques.
Throughout this chapter, I think that the only weakness was that the chapter didn't fully describe the dangers that different social media sites have to offer.  Whenever people agree to using social media accounts, I don't think that they realize the long list of risks that apply to the different accounts.  For example, whenever people use these accounts, they are exposing their names, perosnal information, photos, etc.  Not only can random people acquire this information, bu they can also acquire their personal usernames and passwords.
The five terms that stuck out in this chapter to me were: friendvertising, identity cards, social network fatigue, fandom, and gift applications.
These terms mainly stood out to me because I have never heard of them or any term pertaining to them before.  It was interesting to learn about a new phrase.
In terms of a social network owning our social data, I believe that that would be a major invasion of  privacy.  I believe that people have intentions of being mindful and considerate of posting what they do on social media.  With that being said, it is best for social media to not serve a main spot in social data.
I believe that it is okay to friend your professor in some situations.  If you are still in class with that professor and you two do not have a close relationship, I don't think that it is necessary to friend them.  If you personally converse with your professor on a regular basis, I think that it is acceptable to friend them.
Facebook friends do not always consist of people that you personally know in the real world.  Most friends on Facebook are your friend because that like to view your account or because you two are normal acquaintances.
When examining Facebook, I looked at a boutique from my hometown.  Whenever they advertise certain brands, they use poor grammar and are not very passionate about it.  Because of this, I think that the business of the certain brand is lowered because it does not seem like a serious brand in the advertisements.
I feel that the chapter more educated me of what a social community is rather than how a social community would benefit me.