The Social Media Revolution

Hello everyone!

For this week's post, I decided to find something other than an article to share with you.  I found this really great YouTube video called "The Social Media Revolution 2015".  This video shows you just how popular and constantly growing social media is all over the world, and how it's changing the way we live our lives.

This video not only answers their own question that social media is not a fad, but rather one of the most dramatic shifts since the Industrial Revolution.  It also asks the new and more important question: "We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it."

This is something that is important for everyone when using social media, whether for personal reasons, business reasons, or any other reasons they may have.  Social media and the internet are here to stay, as well as everything you post on social media.  Once you send something there's no getting it back, because who knows where it could have gotten out to and who has already seen/saved it by the time you want to delete it.

Companies who rely heavily on social media for marketing purposes and have a lot of followers need to be especially aware of this. Just one wrong word, sentence, or even interpretation of what you say on social media can spread rapidly and have a very negative effect on your brand and your image.  Once the wrong idea is put out there and spreads to millions of people in seconds.  Then, building your image back up to where it was takes a lot more than it did to shoot it down so quickly.  Social Media marketers need to always keep this in mind, no matter what company they are working for!

Here's the link to the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eUeL3n7fDs

-Kathleen

Facebook knows about your love life...

Hi everyone!

So, over the Valentine's Day weekend, Professor Chiang posted about an article on Twitter that talks about different studies conducted by Facebook about people's love lives.  These studies are based on the relationship statuses of Facebook users all over the country.

Facebook was able to tell us things like which city has the most couples, the most single people, where single women most outweigh single men, and where single men most outweigh single women. These studies were also able to tell us things like "about half of all Facebook relationships that have survived three months are likely to survive to four years or longer."  They also tell us that the times of the year that see the most breakups are between May and July, as well as in February (due to Valentine's Day??)

These are some crazy facts when you really think about it.. that Facebook can really know what's going on in people's love lives!  Although everyone who puts the information out there is aware that they are putting it out on the internet, I'm sure it doesn't cross people's minds to think that something as simple as changing their relationship status back to "single" or "in a relationship" will be used as data in such studies.

I know for myself this is something pretty strange to wrap my head around knowing that I, myself am labeled as being in a relationship on Facebook.  It really makes me wonder how much of my activity has played a part in these types of studies.

For more information on these studies, take a look at the full article:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/13/5408968/facebook-relationships-singles-data

-Kathleen

The Laws of Social Media Marketing.

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my MKT 350 blog about social media marketing!

For my first post, I found a great article from Entrepreneur magazine for those dealing with social media marketing for the first time.  It breaks down social media marketing into ten different laws for social media novices and veterans alike to always keep in mind and follow.  These ten laws are:

1. The Law of Listening
2. The Law of Focus
3. The Law of Quality
4. The Law of Patience
5. The Law of Compounding
6. The Law of Influence
7. The Law of Value
8. The Law of Acknowledgement
9. The Law of Accessibility
10. The Law of Reciprocity

These are great laws to follow because social media is so different from all other types of marketing platforms, and that is something that is always important to keep in mind.  It helps you to get your company and brand out to many people instantaneously.  While this is clearly a huge benefit over other types of marketing, with this possibility of a great reward, also comes the possibility of a great risk.  If you say the wrong thing, or react the wrong way, or not at the right time to a social media post, that also spreads quickly which can give many people a negative view of you and your company.

However, these 10 laws are designed to help prevent that as long as you are always following them, no matter how seasoned you become at marketing through social media.

To read about these in detail, see the original article:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218160

-Kathleen