Week 13 Reaction and Final Post!

Well everyone, this will be my last post…its been fun. And for my final hoorah I am going to react to the reading for this week on research and ROI (exciting stuff!) The reading How to Measure Social Media Relations: The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same was a paper about how to measure social media.

Now I don’t know if this is just me, but research although it is so so critical, maybe even THE most critical aspect of a social media campaign or initiative, it just seems so boring and tedious. There are so many different ways to conduct research and then once that research is conducted there is always more research to negate the past ones. However, now with dwindling company budgets, the executives want to see that everyone one of their dollars is making an impact for their company, and therefore research and the proof of social media is so important.

My favorite part about the paper is when the author writes “The most important analysis is to look at trends over time….Do not go into crisis mode the first time you get a negative comment from the blogosphere.” I thought this key point is extremely important and hard to do. In Public Relations it is all about pleasing people and listening to complaints, that it can be extremely hard to read a negative comment and accept it and not feel hurt. However, this is something that has to happen. First, PR practitioners do not have the time or energy to spend responding to every single negative comment on the web. Second, the web is a place where people post the most ridiculous things because they feel like it isn’t really tied to them.

Teen Commits Suicide After Twitter Rant

This is a devastating story and brings up a lot of issues as well. An eighteen year old girl, named Ashley, committed suicide after a string of tweets relating to how she has been abused and tortured throughout her life.

Ashley posted 144 tweets within six hours, and then killed herself after. The tweets were an obvious cry for help as many of the tweets talked about how she wouldn’t around anymore to hear the reasons as to why one of her sexual abusers wouldn’t be prosecuted and that she couldn’t handle life anymore. Apparently, Ashley claims she was abused and tortured throughout her life, and she took to Twitter to let people know her thoughts in her final hours.

This tragic event brings up a lot of questions. My main question is, should people have called the police after reading these rants to hopefully stop Ashley from committing suicide and get her help? However, if every time the police got a call from someone posting something slightly depressing or suicidal through social media, the phones would never stop ringing. Unfortunately, no one was able to reach out to Ashley in time to help save her life.

I think that parents should “monitor” or review their kids social media if they can because with such an obvious cry for help, maybe they could have prevented this. Devastating.

Week 12 Reaction

After reading through chapter 10 in the Twitter Revolution, I was pretty much shocked. The chapter basically just lists about 60 different applications all solely based around Twitter! I could not believe how many apps are out there for Twitter and I can safely say that I maybe only knew about two of them.

Does anyone use any of these apps and thinks that they are helpful or worthwhile getting to know and use? It got me thinking because a lot of companies today are hiring younger people for social media positions. This seems kind of easy for anyone born in the 80’s and 90’s because we use social media everyday. However, after reading that chapter I feel that I would not be at all qualified for a social media position at a company. I had no clue that apps like that existed out there, and those are only for Twitter. I would not know how to leverage them or use them for my job.

I guess people who want social media jobs for their future just need to download every app possible and practice what their features are. This article definitely made me feel that social media jobs are not just about updating Facebook statuses, but that there is a lot that goes into the social media position.

Hajj On YouTube?

The biggest gathering of Muslims, and one of the biggest gatherings of people in the entire world, is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia called the Hajj. All Muslims that are fit and able are suppose to make the pilgrimage once in their lifetime to the place where Mohammed was born. However, like everything else in the world today, the Hajj is going social….social media.

YouTube paired up with the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information to broadcast the Hajj live on YouTube. People could tune in on Saturday Nov. 5 to  http://www.youtube.com/hajjlive and watch the beautiful sight of the pilgrimage taking place.

However, these brings up a lot of debate. The Hajj is one of the oldest, holy events in the history of our world. Also, Muslims tend to be a very conservative culture. There was a big debate on whether or not broadcasting this extremely holy event on YouTube would take away from the purity of the event, and “corrupt” it with the ways of the world today.

This is defintely a debate that I can see both sides of. Everything always has to adapt to the changing circumstances and the Hajj is no different. Also, people who would never be able to actually make it to Mecca can feel more involved and connected to their faith, which is amazing. However, broadcasting something so sacred on social media kind of takes away from the event, and worries me that it is going to be one big commercial. Thoughts?

 

Football Coach Blaming Social Media for Fight

School officials and coaches are blaming social media sites, mainly Facebook, for inciting a brawl between two rival high school football teams in Georgia that left one coach with a shattered eye socket and multiple players with other injuries.

Two rival high school football teams in Georgia broke out into a brutal fight after their game on Friday, and police had to use pepper spray to end it. Many are blaming social media sites for inciting the fight. They are stating that a week before the game the trash talking started on Facebook and became more and more heated and voilent leading up to the game. One of the administrators stated that this is a huge problem because then when you meet that person face to face you have already had a long conversation and already have strong emotions of hatred.

However, to me it seems like Facebook is just a means of people who are already voilent and feel the need to express this view to get it out there. I don’t know if I quite agree with the idea that Facebook and social media sites are to blame. There were fights before social media sites and computers ever were even invented….so what do you blame those on? I think it is more about the characters of the individuals, and we need to step up and take responsibility for that and not look for a scapegoat in the socal media site of Facebook.

Week 11 Reaction

After reading assigned chapters (17-20) there were a few things that stood out to me in the readings.

First off, I really like when the author writes that “Contests are the new advertising” and gives the example of Zappos holding a contest for whoever can tweet back their favorite shoe gets a free pair. I think the idea of holding contests is brilliant. By using contests it engages your fans and followers and has them actually interacting with the company. And, if people think that they can win free merchandise, then others might start following you for the sole purpose of participating in the contests. Even if they don’t care what you have to say, they will still see it and helps raise brand awareness.

Another part of the article that I liked was that the author said that you should tweet about 5 topics. I actually really like this idea because it helps your twitter stay focused without becoming monotones. We all follow specific twitters because we like the “topics” that people tweet about, therefore I think personal users should too. It doesn’t just have to be one topic, but sticking to about four or five really narrows your scope and will most likely generate followers.

Finally, I like how the author said that people should use twitter however THEY want to. There are so many rules and guidelines out there for how to use Twitter, but when it comes down to it, people should use it how they like to and how they enjoy it. That’s the beauty of Twitter.

Week 10 Reaction-My Social Media Event that I attended

For the social media event, speaker, tweet up etc. that we have to attend for CPR 590 I went to listen to Stephanie Camargo talk about how she uses social media to create grassroots campaigns.

Stephanie Camargo works for GM as part of their public relations team for the Southeast region. Her and her team where given the assignment to help rebrand Chevy’s image and have it be better positioned in consumers minds. After the bailout that GM received, they were not so well like by anyone, and this perception needed to be changed.

Stephanie Camargo and her team decided that the best way for consumers to change their image of outdated, gas guzzling grandma cars to the new innovative line of cars was to get actual drivers behind the wheels of the new 2010 line of Chevy vehicles. To do this Stephanie Camargo turned to social media to start a grassroots campaign.

Using popular food bloggers (started off with a pizza blogger) and people who followed that blogger who had a Twitter with a significant following, the created the Chevy Pizza Crawl. Basically what the Chevy Pizza Crawl entailed was choosing 20 pizza blog followers with Twitter accounts, and have them drive to five designated pizza places (in the new Chevys of course) around town and pick the best pizza. Chevy just asked them to tweet using the hashtag #ChevyPizzaCrawl.

This ended up being a huge success and the hashtag was the number two trending tag in Miami. Through Tweets, retweets, and blog posts more than 1.5 million impressions were created and Stephanie Camargo won the 2011 Most creative social media campaign for under $100,000.

I think this case study is a really good way to show how getting creative with social media can bring about a lot of awareness for your company or client on a little budget. Using the innovation and interactivity of twitter and blogs, people felt engaged with the campaign and wanted to talk about. It was a really great talk!

Twitter War With The Taliban

During wars, both sides try to get out as much positive information from their side as possible, this has always been the case. This is no different in the Iraq war between the Taliban and the United States. However, what is different is how the two sides are putting out information to the publics. The US is taking to Twitter to post tweets to combat the Taliban’s “false information and propoganda.”

The US noticed that the Taliban was putting out information that was unbelievably false, saying that they kill approximately 30 US soldiers a day and blow up two tanks a day. So the United States started to fight back using Twitter. A group of communication officers in the military read what the Taliban is putting out and then collaborate on what to respond using Twitter.

I think this way to reach out to citizens in Irag has its positives and negatives. First off it is extremely cheap and easy to use. Not to mention, it is quick. When the US hears about something they can instantly respond which is crucial in these tough times. Also, we have to stay in contact with the younger generation of Iraqis becaus they are the future, and using Twitter is a good way to reach them. However, my question is how many people over in the Middle East have access to internet and twitter? And are they really following what the US is saying?

Should be interesting to see how it works. However, I always think it is good to attack it in every way possible…including Twitter.

Libyan War Ends On Facebook

With the death of Muammar Gaddafi this past week, the war and battles that were raging in Libya are coming to an end…and NATO is announcing it through Facebook. In an article titled NATO Commander Announces End to Libyan War- On Facebook, the war was announced over in a Facebook status update. Quote below.

“An extraordinary 24 hours in Libya. As SACEUR, I will be recommending conclusion of this mission to the North Atlantic Council of NATO in a few hours. A good day for NATO. A great day for the people of Libya.”

The ending of the war on social media is somewhat fitting considering that social media help start the uprising and also helped people during the battles communicate.

However, to me this seems a little insensitive. Thousands of people lost their lives during this civil war and people were brutally tortured and murdered. To announce the end of it on Facebook just seems slightly unofficial and fleeting for something that affected so many peoples lives.

Week 9 Reaction

The reading this week was a case study on social media and how it is used in crisis communication.

In crisis communication, information often times has to be disseminated in an instant in order for it to be effective to warn parties about the crisis that is occurring or is about to occur. Traditional news can take hours or even days to get information out, and this is not quick enough. That is why crisis communicators like FEMA and the Red Cross are taking to social media to prepare target audiences for crises and also using social media during them.

One comment I found really interesting that I did not think about before this case study, is that these emergency organizations have to think of what to do when the power goes out or there is no way to access phone lines or the internet. I never thought about this, but it makes sense that in a severe crisis people aren’t going to be able to jump on their computers and look up what to do all the time. My question, then, because they didn’t go into too much detail, is how do you reach people who don’t have cell phones, computers, television in a crisis?

Another statistic in the article that I found extremely interesting are the numbers on people with mobile phone devices. Almost the entire younger age group has a cell phone, I think they said 89%, but not many of them have a landline phone. Also, it was interesting when the article talked about how in less developed countries, much more people still have a mobile phone than internet or television access. This too me means that mobile phones should be the first way for crisis communicators to get information to their target audiences. Billions of people have mobile phones and the people who don’t will probably be near someone who does!

Interesting case study, and actually really important for everyday life, because even though we never think it is going to happen to us…it might!