Social Media Makes the World Smaller

Social media creates the perfect environment for open communication between people and major corporations. Just this past weekend, I tweeted something simple and only a few minutes later, Nationwide Insurance responded to my tweet and started a conversation with me.

I thought about the tweet and how valuable this Twitter campaign is. I looked at Nationwide's Twitter page and found the company was starting similar conversations and offering gift cards to a number of individuals.

 

I enjoy this campaign and the engagement Nationwide is providing to the Twitter world. I didn't follow Nationwide before the company tweeted at me. I'm also not in the market for new insurance, but if I get to the point where I may need to switch car insurance, Nationwide will now be one of the first companies I have in mind. 

Although this doesn't specifically relate to the entertainment industry,  it demonstrates the usefulness of social media as a channel to communicate our messages. It opens the door for people to interact with major corporations and for corporations to appeal to potential customers. It helps consumers view large companies and small, accessible commodities. Because of the power of transitivity, social media makes the world feel smaller as we build more lasting and meaningful relationships. 

Making Social Media Go Viral

Why does media spread? I think that media spreads when it tells a story and is surprising. People like videos they can relate to and they know others will be able to relate to. Susan Boyle was the underdog and she took everyone by surprise. One example of a feel-good video that tells a story and is a little surprising is Kid President's pep talk.

How can media engagement be valuable?
Media engagement allows people to feel like they have a voice when they are communicating with companies. It goes back to that age-old phrase, "the customer is always right." Consumers want to feel like their opinions are being heard and they can do that through social media channels such as Twitter or Facebook. I've found that airlines are generally good about responding to their customers on social media. This is just one example from one of my friends during Thanksgiving and his interaction with Frontier Airlines:

What constitutes meaningful participation?
Meaningful engagement comes when both sides of the communication come away with a new, mutually beneficial relationship. One clever campaign was Chipotle's "Wrap What You Love" contest, where the company encouraged it's customers to wrap what they love in silver or gold foil, like its burritos. The company benefited because it received a lot of positive attention and it received free, comedic content from customers.

The $10,000 award from the contest was given to a father who wrapped his four-day-old baby in gold foil.

What is the most effective way to spread media?
Make powerful statements. When your brand makes a stand for or against something, consumers have something to rally behind. The Millennial generation comprises the largest demographic of social media consumers, and individuals in that demographic are cause oriented. They like to feel like their lives have meaning and they are helping to make social changes. The Dove Real Beauty Sketches video was one of the most effective social media campaigns of 2013. The video invites its viewers to join the conversation with the hashtag #WeAreBeautiful. This campaign took a stand for real beauty and consumers who watched and shared the video felt like they were taking a stand as well.

 

Is humor simply a matter of taste or is it a vehicle?
Humor is necessary when it comes to interacting through social media. Although it may not always be appropriate, it can make a huge difference when used correctly. One example of two companies using humor came when one fan tweeted about her love for both Oreo and Kit-Kat. Kit-Kat responded two days later by challenging Oreo to a game of tic-tac-toe to win the girl's allegiance. The witty exchange between both companies received a lot of positive attention.

Social Media Adaptations

How has social media changed our perception of who is a professional/expert in a given field? ex. photographer?
Social media not only allows us to create a personal brand, but to show people that brand. It allows us to become specialists in any given field and create a following of people who can vouch for us. We can easily follow our favorite marketing experts, comedians or industry thought leaders on Twitter. We can engage with people we perceive as experts because we feel like we are learning more from them through our interaction. 


How has social media changed business management?
Social media is changing the way business is done in a lot of ways. It allows companies to connect executives from around the world with one another. Upper-level executives can communicate with lower down managers to create unity in an organization. They are able to collaborate on a set of skills and ideas. Social media also allows companies to create open lines of communications with their customers. Consumers feel like they have a voice and that it's being heard through social media.


What have we lost because of the freedom social media gives us?
I think we've lost a large portion of personal interactions. People often depend on social media for all of their social experiences. It's necessary to balance our lives with real in-person encounters because we learn more from people by observing them and interacting with them face to face. 


What is your birthday?
November 13. 

Because users can post instantaneously, how has this affected the quality of the content?
Because there is not a strict regulatory process for what can be published on the internet or on social media sites, there is a lot of noise to filter through. People are constantly getting cluttered messages and they are forced to sort through a slew of garbage to find a message that means something to them. With the quantity of content available on social media, I think we have lost a lot of quality. 

Social Media Cooperation

How does the Prisoners' Dilemma apply to the social media world?

When engaging in social media, people often find themselves in an interesting paradox. They are usually willing to interact if they are incentivized, but if there is no reward, it can be harder to start a conversation.

Should a Facebook friend keep providing favors to another friend who never reciprocates?

When consumers engage on social media, there may not be an immediate return on investment for a company. However, social media engagement can help increase a brand's short-term equity, it can bring a brand to the forefront of customer's minds and it can increase a brand's long-term image. 

Why would cooperation between a business and their customers be so important?Cooperation between a business and its customers is important because it allows for open and honest communication. Social media opens the door for two-way communication. It allows consumers to talk to companies and it allows companies to listen. Doing this can help prevent crises around the product or organization.

How can you promote cooperation on social media?I think letting your clients know you are listening to them is the best way to encourage cooperation on social media. Companies should take advantage of the feedback they are getting from their customers. By responding to complaints and allowing positive discussion, companies are showing they are open to cooperating on social media.

When should a person cooperate and when should they be selfish?

Companies should strive for cooperation as often as possible. If companies decide to be "selfish," customers could see this behavior as being closed-off and not open to transparent communication. 

Tweet Long and Prosper

The first thing I noticed when comparing the Westercon 67 Facebook page to the SLC Comic Con Facebook page is color. Westercon's page is black and white. There is no color and it's not captivating. SLC Comic Con's page not only has color in its cover and profile pictures, but the posts on its page include photos and memes that are engaging.

 

Apart from color,  one thing that stood out to me at first glance on SLC Comic Con's page is it tells me eight of my friends "like" the page and two of my friends have been to Comic Con in Salt Lake City before. Although this is a function of Facebook itself, it leverages the ties I have to those eight individuals. It goes back to that all too common thought, "Well if my friends are doing it, maybe I should too."

This element of the page draws upon weak ties to build new ties and strengthen existing relationships. This is something Westercon could improve--connect fans to people they know and help them recognize their common interests.

The next thing I noticed about the Comic Con Facebook page is the amount of images in the posts. Society is becoming increasingly visual, so content on social media needs to grab attention instantly to spark any kind of interaction.

This was one of my favorite images that Comic Con posted. Although it's not an original image that Comic Con's social media guru captured himself, it created a conversation. More than 1,200 people "liked" the image and more than 300 people left comments. Some of those comments included links to other websites or pictures to enhance the conversation.

This is just one example of an image someone posted as a comment. The point is that although the content Comic Con is putting out isn't 100 percent original, it's engaging and creating a conversation. Westercon needs to find a way to get people to talk about the same things. Westercon needs to be the bridge for communication among its fans and attendees.

Something that stood out to me on the Comic Con website is the number of contests it has:

 Comic Con rewards its Facebook fans and its Twitter and Pinterest followers. The convention gives away tickets to upcoming events in exchange for engagement. What a great way to encourage people to talk about you!

Ultimately, Comic Con doesn't do anything too out of the ordinary, but it capitalizes on its fan base and creates a bridge for people to find common interests and interact with one another. It is visually captivating on its Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest pages and asks its fans for interaction. These are all things that would be important to remember when doing Westercon's social media.

Selective Consumption

McLuhan's tetrad gives us a formula to analyze new forms of media. Rosenbaum used this tetrad to look at the ways in which the internet has changed the way we get news.

When I think about how I get my news, it's rarely from a print newspaper (getting the New York Times for free in the Brimhall is the only exception to me actually reading a physical paper). I usually get my news on Twitter.

This is just a screenshot of some of the news on my Twitter feed. I follow the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN and other news sources. But I also follow sites like The Onion and Buzzfeed. With social media, I can pick and choose what kinds of things I want in my feed and whether or not I'm going to stop read them.

One thing Rosenbaum pointed out about blogs is that with blogs everyone has a news outlet. Anyone can start a blog and anyone can subscribe to blogs. With blogs, news is not only at your fingertips, but it is also in your hands and under your control.

Blogs offer a wide variety of topics. You can find extremely niche blogs about anything. I currently do a bit of freelance PR, where I build media lists for clients and find bloggers who might be willing to write about certain products.

I recently built a list for a client who was selling all-natural, Australian beef jerky. I was amazed at how many travel/adventure/camping/hiking blogs I was able to find with bloggers who might be willing to post about the product.

This is just one example of a blog that would be a good fit for the product. The breadth of topics for blogs is limitless, and there seems to be a blog for just about everything.

Visiting the tetrad, the internet gives people news faster, they are proactive about the news they consume and it requires active participation. Going beyond the internet as a source of news, we could look at social media and how it has impacted society.

Enhance: Connectivity, shared opinion, information transaction
Obselete: Physical interaction, formal conversation, accountability
Retrieve: Participation
Reverse: Responsibility, the way we build relationships

Rosenbaum concludes by saying because the internet has changed the way we get our news, marketers need to target their efforts so we will perceive their messages. Although this is the case, I think it applies to more than just marketers.

We all need to be aware of these changes in how we communicate. If we can understand how people are getting their news and how they are communicating with one another, we can start more conversations. We can build more connections and use those connections to improve our interactions and relationships as a whole.

Communities Are Not Dead--Even with Technology

Because of the growing nature of technology, people are more connected now than ever before. People have the ability to interact through social media accounts and online services, like Skype or Google Hangout.

With the increased use of technology as a form of social interaction in the U.S. and around the world, some argue that this dependence on technology actually deteriorates communities.

Jim Hightower said, “While all this razzle-dazzle connects us electronically, it disconnects us from each other, having us 'interfacing' more with computers and TV screens than looking at the face of our fellow human beings.”

In many ways, I see his point. Sometimes I find myself crawling into bed and spending an additional 30 minutes on my phone on social media before actually going to sleep.

Just looking around the room in my last class, I counted seven people within an arms-length away from me perusing Facebook or Pinterest.

Then you can factor in online games or video games that allow you to connect with people from across the country.

It is so easy to waste time on these online communities and justify it because we are connecting with our friends, or making new friends. Although I feel it is easy to waste time on social media, I do not necessarily agree that technology is completely tearing apart a sense of community.

The reading talks about how sociologists have worried about the persistence of community during every big shift in technology throughout history.

I agree that with the changes in technology, should come a new definition of the word "community." As technology helps people stay connected with one another, the word “community” shifts from being just a tightly-knit group of neighbors to a social network of people who may no longer live within close proximity of one another.

 Some may worry that staying connected online means disconnecting from the outside world. I think this is a possibility, but if used properly, social media and technology can help build communities through transitivity.

Social media communities allow us to not just connect with people we know directly, but to meet and interact with people through other people. 

Just over Christmas break, I was able to have an informational interview with a PR agency in New York. I made the connection through someone I met in person and then through social media. This connection was possible because of transitivity and technology. 

Furthermore, social media and technology allows people to meet others with similar interests from around the world. Doing a search in Twitter for "online communities," brings up several examples of groups of people with common interests that would have never been ale to meet without technology.

Here you can find the Twitter search results for an "online community."

Some of the results include: 

1. Gay Online Community

2. National Geographic Photography

3. Blacks in Technology

4. Serious Eats

5. Safety Community

So yes, it can be easy to get sucked into technology and forget to make connections in the real world. But it is also easier today to find people who are interested in the same things you are interested in. 

If you do it right, your social networks can grow through your individual connections and their connections. As your social networks grow, your own personal networks grow.