Promoting Communication among Interns

Creating social media accounts for a group of people whose primary need is better communication that is more inclusive to the entire group seemed very easy. My choices of creating a Facebook group, Twitter and GroupMe chat options seemed like a reasonable idea. However, I learned so much from coordinating these sites over the past week. After the end of the week, I realized that the social media accounts helped TREMENDOUSLY in increasing communication between the entire, scattered group of interns. The purpose of the accounts was accurate and fulfilled by the end of the week.

First, the Facebook page was one of the most successful accounts of the three options. This allowed for the interns to post pictures, posts, or create calendar events for the group. It was apparent being able to create events that allowed ALL of the interns know through Facebook, versus only the few that used to know due to receiving information via verbal or texting communication. There was a really good response in regards to interactions with the posts and Facebook page as a whole. I myself was very impressed and satisfied that the group has 26 members, which exceeded the 25 member goal I originally had.

I created a Twitter account @DeereInterns to promote events and happenings in the intern group. As a whole, I realized this was probably my weakest social media account. The poll I originally sent out to see which sites people would be most interested in following said that Twitter was the 2^nd highest social media site that people would interact with. However, after a week, I only had 10 followers and very few likes on the tweets, and interaction with the account. One thing I could have done better given more time would have been a “takeover twitter” where an intern would tweet about their day, post pictures of what it is like to be a Deere intern. I could have also interacted with my followers a little more too to promote the twitter page. I may reevaluate the Twitter page if I were to do the account again.

Finally, the most successful social media platform was GroupMe, which allowed for a massive texting conversation amongst the intern group. Members can also “like” another intern’s post on the site. We have people planning events, getting advice from others or telling about funny things that happened throughout the day. I believe this was by far the most inclusive and effective social media site, with Facebook and the calendar invites/events coming in a close second. We had ALL the interns participate in the GroupMe, which was phenomenal and a major reason how I know that the GroupMe was a success. Businesses should implement a GroupMe feature or even a Microsoft Lync or Skype program to encourage fast and easy communication among employees, as this greatly increased communication and inclusion within the group.

                                                             

 

As far as advice I would give to the next class about the social media promotion project is:

·         It is difficult to gain followers. Be creative and know how to entice people to follow your social media account.

·         Social media accounts take a lot of time to be successful and effective if they are used for a business. Make sure you can allocate the necessary time that is required for each unique social media account.

·         Have fun with it. People usually enjoyed when I acted human more on the various sites than just reminding them of events, what the John Deere Company is currently doing, and more.

Overall, a very successful project and EXTREMELY insightful as far as how to increase communication among a group of young professionals. 

Going International

                             

I am very unfamiliar with a lot of social media sites in America, and even more so with social media sites popular in other countries. I chose to learn more about renren.com since it is a primary social networking site used in China. Renren was originally launched in 2005 by college students. Overall, the site looked very similar to Facebook in terms of color scheme, layout and purpose.

                                           

Unfortunately, this post will lack experience with the social media site because when I accessed renren.com, everything was in Chinese and I was unable to find an English button to translate. The majority of this post will unfortunately come from research regarding the social media site.

Apparently Renren is beginning to decline in popularity in China when it was once the most popular social networking site that there was in the country. Facebook was once banned in the country, however, Renren was unable to dominate in the absence of the world’s largest and most dominating social networking site. Renren blames the fierce competition for the lack of performance in climbing the ladder in the social media world back to the top. 

A major issue that Renren has which is a major contributor to its demise as the most powerful social media site in China is due to the lack of ability to capture the mobile audience. Being able to connect with your audience and keep up with the trends of people and the social networking world is crucial to success as a social networking site as a whole. I found an interesting article highlighting why Renren may not be as effective for businesses to use, and also addressing the lack of connection with mobile users at: http://sampi.co/is-chinas-renren-still-relevant-for-marketing/.

Today, businesses that have previously used Renren are still on the social networking site and still advertising. However, very rarely does the site get new businesses coming in to advertise. While opportunities may be slim for businesses on Renren, the site still has 200 million users, but is continuously becoming less popular. 

                                                    

Stumbing Through the Great Big Web

                                         

StumbleUpon was a site that I was not familiar with prior to the social media class I took. I honestly had never heard of the website until I realized I had to create an account. Apparently StumbleUpon is much larger and popular than I ever knew of. The social networking platform has over 25 million registered users of the site and also has over 25 billion stumbles or posts/findings.

Four graduate students named Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance and Eric Boyd founded StumbleUpon in 2002 while in graduate school at the University of Calgary. The basis of StumbleUpon’s platform is to create a place for users to have a discovery engine where you can find and be recommended web content to users. On the social media site, people can “like” your websites and add them to their profile, which is then shared with their friends and using the “stumble” button placed on a user’s profile once they are registered.

When I became a member, I was surprised at how easy the site was to maneuver around. Being a major privacy bug, that was a major concern for me, and was satisfied with the security measures within the social media site. I did notice in order to get the most out of your StumbleUpon experience, you need to be an active user. This is true for businesses as well. After researching some, I learned that in order to make sure sites are credible, StumbleUpn will label a business “spam” and kick off if the business is using StumbleUpon to ONLY market your company’s website, then they will kick you off quickly.

StumbleUpon also has a program for businesses that solely wish to use the site purely for promotional purposes to appeal to those companies who wish to be a part of the site but rather not be actively participating. A business can be a part of the Paid Discovery Program, which is where StumbleUpon will place the company website in front of registered users and whenever a user clicks on the site, the company has to pay a flat fee of $.10 per click. If your site gets clicked several hundred times or even thousands of times, the bill will rack up pretty quick through this program.

Overall, it seems as though to effectively use StumbleUpon as a user and a business, being actively involved in the site seems to be a requirement. If a business can dedicate either the time or the money to be in the Paid Discovery Program, then StumbleUpon is definitely a great marketing tool to use. 

PowerPoint, No More! 

                                            

In the world of Business, people are constantly having to present to update coworkers, propose new ideas to customers or leadership, to conduct meetings, display statistics or results and the endless list continues on. Prezi was first introduced to me in the beginning of my college career when one of my professors demanded Prezi be used over Microsoft PowerPoint. I had to quickly learn how to use Prezi effectively so I could receive a decent grade.

Upon creating a profile and gaining access to the design site, Prezi was very difficult for me to understand at first. I was able to easily pick a template to work with, but editing the features and manipulating the document was challenging. I had to play around a lot with the various templates to learn to create an effective presentation.

                                            

To overcome the challenges associated with creating a Prezi, I researched and found numerous Youtube videos that help users with the challenges of manipulating the templates and also found that Prezi’s “Help” section was very helpful in these situations as well.  When faced with an issue I was able to use the search bar and find exactly what I need very quickly. Overall, the Help section of Prezi along with the outside community willing to help with issues that may arise with Prezi to be one of the best features of the site.

In terms of business, I was curious as to how Prezi related to social media since it isn’t a social networking site. However, what I discovered after researching more how companies implement Prezi in to their marketing strategies, I was quite surprised. At http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2011/03/23/stand-out-from-competitors-with-prezi-presentations/#7658f3f129cc, I was able to learn that the company, Geared for Imagination uses Prezi turned YouTube video with a voice overlay for a commercial. Prezi may not be a social media site itself, but it COMPLIMENTS these social media sites and can create interesting marketing pieces that entice customers.

The best feature in my mind: PREZI IS FREE. With Prezi being a free design based site that allows you to create presentations that look professional as well as advertising pieces for commercials or short videos, the possibilities are endless. Prezi also has a free support community to help through the sometimes challenging points in creating a Prezi. Ultimately, companies are missing out on a great, new and innovative way to capture customers and potential stakeholders’ attention. 

Spreading the Vine to Customers  

Vine seems to be making a comeback: but mainly in the business world. The last time I logged on to Vine was around my freshman year of high school. So accessing my Vine account was not only a way for me to discover how businesses are employing Vine within their marketing strategy, but also a trip down good ole memory lane for me.

Vine is described as being a social media platform similar to Instagram but with ultra short videos that followers can watch over and over again, and push a button to “like” a video, or leave a comment. For me, I find Vine a very easy concept to understand and to maneuver around the site. That idea could very well be because of my long time familiarity of Vine’s platform, but I don’t remember having many difficulties initially with learning the layout of the site.

Because I was previously familiar with Vine, I delved right in to learning how businesses are using Vine to promote their company, products, services or industry. One concept seemed unanimous amongst the majority of the Vines I watched: companies know their customers/audience. This aspect is crucial in all areas of marketing and advertising, as well as all areas of the industry, including production, design and implementation and the company itself. All of the Vines were very modern-based. My favorites were of Nike with sports athletes working hard on the court or area of play. Dick’s Sporting Goods also appealed to their audience by not hounding what they sell, but rather taking their viewers in to the Raven’s Stadium in Baltimore. This is a perfect example of knowing your audience because you realize that current/potential customers do not liked to be hounded with constant brand or product marketing.

Another popular way of gaining more viewers and interactions with customers is to promote a contest on the social media app. This technique is very popular across the social networking world, just as it is on Vine. Viewers will be able to see the Vine with instructions and the “prize” they win if their Vine is picked to be the best. This allows for not only the customers to learn more about the brand and engage with the business and feel important, but it also provides a significant benefit to the business itself. By using contests of Vine making, businesses are able to see EXACTLY how customers view the company and product or service offered, or gain insight to the types of commercials they should be making to entice their audience.

Businesses also have the unique opportunity to make Vines and them distribute the vines out to other affiliated social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This is a very smart way to increase the exposure on a particular Vine that may have been popular on the website itself. Also, including short videos on other social media sites that have stagnant posts will draw viewers in to watch the quick blurb of a video and act as a refresher from reading everything on the newsfeed.

Overall, I find Vine a very useful tool in networking and connecting with customers and viewers across numerous platforms, a way to add variety to your advertisements and marketing strategy and most importantly, Vine allows for businesses to interact with their viewers and audience, which is again a very important aspect that a business should meet if they are employing social media sites in to their marketing strategy.

                                          

Tumbling Through Tumblr

                                         

If you would have asked me what blogging was prior to taking a class on social media and businesses, I would have told you Tumblr is what I think of. I was very unfamiliar with blogging as a whole and only familiar with a few social media sites, and Tumblr definitely was not on the list. I have realized that Tumblr extends beyond the norm and is a “microblog”.

Tumblr prides itself on being able to quickly share anything, whether it be photos, videos, links, music, quotes, or anything you can think of and from your mobile device, laptop, tablet or other forms.  As of today, Tumblr has 108.4 million blogs with 50.9 billion blog posts. After doing more research, I learned that a 26 year old runs the social media site, named David Karp. As a current twenty year old, I cannot even begin to imagine running a highly successful social networking site, so that fun fact blew my mind.

Another fact I came across while researching Tumblr was that the social networking site was actually acquired by Yahoo. There is a lot of negative media around the recent Yahoo acquisition and concern that Yahoo will change the platform of Tumblr and make it “uncool”. Tumblr could also be a saving grace for Yahoo in the sense that the social networking site already attracts millions of viewers and bloggers. This acquisition could very much bring Yahoo back in to the spotlight and give it some positive media attention.

Once logging on to Tumblr, I was amazed at how aesthetically pleasing the site is to the eye. It has a very modern layout and was by far the easiest way to create a profile and maneuver around from the other social media platforms I have come across. The various blogs I visited ranged from well kept, gorgeously laid out and written to literally the sloppiest, ill-kept profiles. I was surprised at how interesting the pages for businesses seemed.

Businesses that I saw actually had profiles with products, gifs, photos, company news, and more. It seemed that businesses had hired professionals because the Tumblr pages looked very professionally kept. I didn’t feel like there was a lot of opportunities to interact with viewers comparatively to other social media sites like Twitter or Facebook, which is something I would consider a flaw in the design of Tumblr in regards to business. 

I Read It on Reddit.com

                                         

I was not one of the 542 million monthly visitors of Reddit.com in 2015. However, after recently exploring and creating an account, I may now be a monthly subscriber/visitor. For those who are similar to me, Reddit is a social media platform that allows for the Reddit community to submit posts, direct links, comments, etc. to a variety of topics. As a whole, Reddit is a form of entertainment, social news, networking site and news website as well.

After doing some research, I was surprised to hear that the social media site was created by two college students at the University of Virginia: Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. After a funding round to get the site and company going, Reddit raised $50 million, the investment seeing the company value at $500 million after generous donators such as Ron Conway, Snoop Dogg, and Marc Andreessen contributed to the promotional/funding round.

Once I created a profile, I had access to numerous amounts of topics and gained the ability to post, view and comment. I found interest in a variety of subreddits, or categories of topics that help organize fellow reddits comments and posts. A few of the pages I found to be most interesting were ExplainLikeImFive, LifeProTips and PersonalFinance all caught my eye. I was also able to subscribe to numerous subreddits to keep up on new posts or comments on my posts that I made. One unique aspect of Reddit is that users have the ability to “up-vote” or “down-vote” other members’ comments or posts to the social media site, which helps give credibility to a particular post writer. I also found that the app version of the social media site was very helpful and easy to maneuver, just like the actual website.

In terms of business, according to Wikipedia, Reddit experienced an “infiltration” of mass corporations posing as Reddit users to advertise and market their brand. Since Reddit is based on viewers’ responses to certain pages, or subreddits, a business’ reputation can be damaged severely. However, typically a business’ subreddit is not bombed with an overload of negative comments, since the pages usually reflect customer service type pages, so I’ve noticed. For a product, people will post their issues or post their triumphs in fixing a particular issue in their product. I noticed this trend in the Xbox subreddit.

Another way businesses can use Reddit for advertising and promotional services is to customize the sidebar on the business’ particular subreddit. The most common ways I have noticed on Reddit to customize the sidebar is to include a calendar of events, company news or a company goal with a percentage. Overall, I find Reddit to be a decent way to advertise a business. The whole social media platform seems more like a credible Wikipedia and where customer interaction is at a minimum in the site.