Next Wave Of Technology

As always with different social media successes, effective content is developed and shared on different platforms, and each platform has different ways to be shared to ensure that content will be successful. When it comes to sharing content on different social platforms, you have to keep in mind what platform it will be shared on, and determine how you are developing and sharing it based on which platform it will be located on. As with every platform, frequency of how often you post should be determined by feedback and insights coming from your audience. I’ll be discussing individual platforms below;

Facebook is a platform for sharing content. For Facebook specifically, I have learned in module 3 of the Hootsuite information that organic, non-paid post reach is on the decline due to how busy Facebook has become. This means that each post you make will only reach a certain percentage of your fans/friends. To ensure that your posts reach your fans/friends, you must focus on sharing content to increase engagement, such as well researched articles that include a lot of valuable information. I have also learned that shorter posts get more engagement, and Hootsuite suggests to keep the length of posts to a maximum of 120 characters. I have attached a link to a good example of a Facebook post. This link is to a post made by the Detroit Lions, and has a video of the game-winning touchdown. https://fb.watch/9K5_u5J-ws/ This post has gotten 4.5k likes, 264 comments, and 655 shares in the past 20 hours (when it was posted).

Like Facebook, Twitter is a platform that calls for shorter posts of 120 characters. Twitter purposely has a character limit per tweet, which is part of their fast-paced environment provided on their platform. Due to their platform being so fast-paced, this means that more frequent postings are okay. The posting volume is much larger on Twitter than on Facebook, which means you can re-promote the same content. Hashtags are also a very good way to maximize engagement on Twitter. Hootsuite also suggests to keep your volume of retweets under 20% and focus on selecting and amplifying high-quality content that would be valuable to your audience. I have attached a link to a good Tweet posted by Wendy’s. Wendy’s is always replying to customers, and other companies. In this example, Wendy’s is collaborating with T-Mobile with #TMobileTuesdays. Wendy’s replies to many comments written by customers to increase engagement. https://twitter.com/Wendys/status/1467922487514173440?s=20

Lastly, I will discuss Instagram, which Hootsuite notes is the leading social media platform for discovering new brands, experiences and trends. Due to their algorithm, the posts a user sees on their timeline depend on how much a user interacts with similar content, and that more recent posts are prioritized over older content. With this being said, it is important to post engaging content regularly on Instagram. Hootsuite comments that experts advise only 20% of your content should be promotional; and the rest should tell your brand’s story. Instagram also offers a carousel feature, which combines photos and videos into one post, and should be utilized by users. Instagram also lets you use hashtags, which helps make your content more discoverable. Due to the most recent posts being prioritized on a timeline, times you post your content are important as well. You need to keep track of when your followers are active, which you can do with a business profile in the insights section. An example of a company with a good instagram strategy is Tiffany & Co. They post at the correct times to increase engagement, have short but meaningful captions, and use branded hashtags to make their content more discoverable. https://www.instagram.com/tiffanyandco/

I thought you did a fantastic job on your blog post this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. I totally agree that certain social media channels have specific and unique ways for their users to engage with their community. My biggest takeaway from both modules was that it’s crucial to create content that speaks to your audience in a certain manner. I really enjoyed how you discussed different platforms and included different statistics to back up different pieces of information. I was able to apply what I learned in the modules to my client which is Central Marketing Society. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

After completing modules 3 and 4 of Hootsuite, I learned how effective content can be developed and shared. Module 3 stressed the importance of aligning your social media strategy with your organizational goals. This is how organizations make sure that their social media content is effective. For example, the company I am working on is an accounting firm. Their organizational goals revolve around gaining more clients. In order for their social media content to be effective, they must attempt to accomplish this goal through their social media posts.

Along with aligning overall strategies, content strategies are also important. Following a content strategy helps the organization keep a cohesive story behind their brand. With every post following the same strategy, consumers won’t get mixed ideas about your brand. This also helps the company focus on their specific target market and understand what is performing well.

Content calendars are another tool for developing and sharing effective content. These calendars make sure that your company is consistent with their posting schedule on different platforms. It also makes sure that your posts are well thought out and intentional. A helpful aspect of a content calendar is that you can keep track of which posts performed well and which didn’t. This helps your company tailor their content to be more engaging with their followers. 

I thought you did a fantastic job on your blog post this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. My biggest takeaway from both modules was that it’s crucial to have clear and concise content strategies. Content strategies have a significant impact on businesses and the amount of traffic their able to have to their channels. Businesses should use the same strategy so their consumers and target market will have the right image of what your brand is. I was able to apply what I learned in the modules to my client which is Central Marketing Society. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

After reading chapters four and five in “The Social Organization”,  we read about effective principles with using social media to grow on online community. As chapter five goes through a couple strategic options, I wanted to go back to discuss chapter four and how the other parts behind the scenes of the strategies are also important. First, chapter four talks about when community collaboration is appropriate. This seems to be a big concept that needs to be comprehended as well. In my opinion, knowing when the best time is to look for community collaboration and engagement is crucial. I also think it needs to be seldom. Why? Because if you’re posting on your social media accounts 8-10 times a week looking for community involvement and interaction, you audience tends to lose interest. For example, there is a young entrepreneur that I follow on social media, and she is constantly posting things, always looking for interaction and it becomes too much. I actually had to put her profile on “do not disturb” so all of her posts would stop taking over my feed. There needs to be a happy medium. When looking to build a community with your social media, you don’t want to overwhelm your target audience and the people you have watching your posts. Community collaboration is great if you set goals and try to do it weekly, or maybe two times a week instead. You want it to be effective, just like the book said. You want the end result to deliver a value and actually gain feedback from your community. You do this by subtly making posts, but not shoving things down their throat also. This is why I think managing a community collaboration portfolio could be beneficial too. The objective for keeping a portfolio is to determine the optimal set, mix, and sequencing of community collaboration efforts. It helps to square things away and keep things in line.  

Clearly, growing an online community takes work. You need to understand who your audience is, why they are there, and what they plan to do. For our client project, I am working with a small non-profit organization, that is a little shop downtown that allows young girls to go in and pick out/try on dresses that they can borrow for important dances such as homecoming and prom. I live in small town up north, where the average combined household is less than $30,000 a year. Therefore, parents don’t have a lot of extra cash laying around to go buy a new dress for their daughter to wear. So, Chelsea’s Closet was opened to give young girls a chance to feel special and find a dress that they love for free. Chelsea’s Closet is owned and operated by a woman named Jeanette, where she takes on all financial responsibility and does all of the social media work herself. She only utilizes Facebook and Instagram (Facebook being her primary focus) where she has gained a huge community of people from our small town and surrounding ones as well. So far, she has done a good job on her own. My suggestions for her include doing interactive live sessions on Facebook that will help with brand awareness while also creating that personal connection with her community/audience. I also think doing interactive polls every now and then about adding different features to the shop or expanding it will help gather actually information straight from her target market. They can show her things they would like to see happen with Chelsea’s Closet so hopefully she can get more girls in the shop. Hootsuite has made me realize all of the different features that come along with social media platforms that can be taken advantage of and used when it comes to the business side of things and growing your platforms. All of my accounts are used for personal pleasure, so I never got the chance to realize how helpful these tools can be for businesses. 

Thank you,

I thought you did a fantastic job on your blog post this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. I totally agree that knowing the best time is to look for community collaboration and engagement is crucial. It’s crucial that you also engage and interact with your community in a unique and effective way. The Hootsuite modules this week had tons of valuable and relevant information I was able to apply to my client. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

Chapters 4 and 5 of the Social Organization are titled, “Forming a Vision for Community Collaboration” and “Developing a Strategic Approach to Community Collaboration.”

Chapter 4 discusses how social media can have a positive impact on pursuing mission and vision statements of a company. However, one big point Chapter 4 highlights is the understanding of when community collaboration is appropriate. “Community collaboration is more appropriate when large groups of people act independently to contribute and share open and complementary information that aggregates well into a bigger picture and results in actions that lead to heightened performance.” (Bradley, 2011, p. 42). “Community collaboration is less suitable for challenges that require deep analysis, where information is best provided by intermediaries who are often recognized experts and who influence one another. Also, if information is sensitive and requires significant safeguards in its use, then sharing it with the masses is less appropriate.” (Bradley, 2011, p. 43). Another huge takeaway from Chapter 4 that I recognized is the “Six F” Model of Attitudes Towards Social Media; folly, fearful, flippant, formulating, forging and fusing. Each of these characteristics determine an audience’s view on social media, and having a clear understanding of which attitude your audience has towards social media can be extremely beneficial when deciding whether or not community collaboration will help your company increase value.

Chapter 5 discusses the importance of purpose within a community collaboration strategy. When inviting your audience to participate in your community collaboration, the invitation is important. Having bland and boring invitations will not increase any engagement. When discussing the purpose of your community collaboration strategy, you must answer four questions: “Who are the target participants? What is the nature or focus of their collaboration? What’s in it for participants? What value will the organization realize?” (Bradley, 2011, p. 59). One of the biggest takeaways for me through Chapter 5 is “determining the power and potential value of a purpose by assessing it against the following characteristics: magnetic, business-aligned, low community risk, measurable, facilitates evolution.” (Bradley, 2011, p. 60-61). I think that this is an extremely important point because it gives you a guideline to determine if your company will increase value within community collaboration. A high-quality purpose for collaboration will have each of those characteristics. If it doesn’t, the collaboration probably won’t have that much value, and therefore may be a waste of time, or ineffective.

From the Hootsuite modules this week, I was able to establish the importance of targeting differently depending on the social platform you are using. Each social media platform has a different audience that needs to be stimulated in a different way to target engagement. The hootsuite modules this week give you “best practices” per each social platform, which I found to be extremely beneficial. The client I am working with for my project is my sorority, Sigma Sigma Sigma. I think that these modules this week helped me have a better understanding of the main platforms used by my chapter, consisting of Instagram and Facebook. The modules gave me different suggestions to engage within each of these platforms, especially Instagram, by discussing many of the various features it has to offer, such as Instagram TV, Instagram Insights, Instagram Ads etc. These modules gave me a better understanding of all of the features Instagram has to offer, and how I can better engage my audience with these features.

When reading chapter five, I overlooked the part about inviting people outside the organization and how it should be creative and stimulating. Most of that stimulation comes from the organization knowing their purpose and end goal as well as what the want to target using social media. Just like you mentioned in your post, once that’ is satisfied, it gives other people more of a sense of what to contribute without forcing them to have a narrow mindset.

I thought you did a fantastic job on your blog post this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. My biggest takeaway from Chapter Four was also the ‘Six F’ Model of Attitudes Toward Social Media. All six of these attitudes has unique characteristics play a huge part in organizations building and interacting with their community. I totally agree that the best practices Hootsuite provided is for different social media channels were extremely helpful and beneficial to my learning. I was able to apply what I learned in the modules to my client which is Central Marketing Society. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

I thought you did a fantastic job on your blog post this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. Our social media accounts that we have hold so much personal information about us rather than be our age, hometown, college, favorite food, etc. We are at risk of having our personal information hacked just by entering it on these social media platforms which is scary. Companies should defiantly be shifting their interest towards respecting the customers behind the screen. It’s almost as these companies only care about generating profit, not customers safety which is sickening and cruel. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

After watching “The Legal Side of Big Data,” many concerns have been brought to mind that more people should be aware of involving the exploitation of big data and how businesses need to be more aware. And if they already are aware should make it a goal to limit the risk factors involving this issue. Big companies and well-known businesses like Target and Home Depot have become the targets for big data compromise. We have been witness to many big data compromises that affect everyday users such as what happened with Facebook but it is rare for it to make the news like this incident. There are many big data breaches that go under the radar due to poor management from companies that do not accurately assess and think about the effects it may have on their consumers because it necessarily does not stop their profits but directly affects their consumers. Consumers are not aware of the dangers of big data and how it closely affects them until they are the victim of a cyber-attack caused by a corporation having their personal information online and available. In the case of the internet and its usefulness, t’s a dammed if you do, dammed if you do not type of situation 

This graph displays information regarding cyber security breaches and theft reports over the past five years and the trend is linear for the most part

What i’m taking away from Reading “The internet’s Original Sin” and watching Maciej Ceglowski’s talk, has  reinforced the notion that the internet was created for pure intentions but has progressed to be used for mass surveillance. The intention was not to be constantly watched with the internet but greed from companies to do things such as gather big data to optimize their profits led to the internet being the sinful as mentioned by Zuckerman.

LaLone, Doug. “The Legal Side of Big Data.” Panopto, 16 July 2015, https://chipcast.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=4fe95594-73e5-4b1a-8a3c-83896b88b6d9. Lecture recording.

Zuckerman, Ethan. “The Internet’s Original Sin.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 14 Aug. 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/.

I thought you did a fantastic job on your blog post this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. I totally agree that there are tons of data breaches that are occurring around us due to poor management from companies. Certain companies aren’t handling the breaches correctly which is leading to consumers personal information being at risk. Companies need to find different solutions to make their servers more secure so that individuals don’t have to worry about these threats. Lastly, you did a fantastic job including graphics throughout your post, it made it easier for me to follow along with your post. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

In the article, “Three Reasons Junk News Spreads So Quickly Across Social Media”, they discuss how algorithms, advertising, and exposure are to blame for fake news about politics on social media. 

Algorithms prioritize content to each specific user based on their interests and behaviors. This leads to filtering of information that limits diverse information and ultimately leads to bias. These algorithms push out content based on the popularity and whether it goes viral or not. Most times, when things go viral, they either provoke the user or confirm their current beliefs. For this reason, news that isn’t true can be spread very quickly through these algorithms. An example of algorithms promoting fake news to me wasn’t necessarily political, but still has the same outcome. On TikTok recently, there was a huge focus on Brian Laundry who is believed to have killed his girlfriend. During this time, the videos that would blow up and go viral were usually false information about “discoveries” that users made on their own.

Advertising rewards this kind of viral content which has created the use of “clickbait”. Once again, advertisements that we see are intended to play towards our existing biases or create a sense of outrage. These two strategies provoke the most engagement and popularity. In political advertisements, they are allowed to buy user’s personal information and target potential voters with little transparency of the sponsor of the ad. They use manipulative messages to encourage voters to vote a certain way. 

Exposure to diverse content is very limited nowadays on social media. It is common for our friend networks to have similar opinions which filters the contact that we have interaction with. On social media, we tend to only share content that agrees with our preexisting beliefs. It is also common for people to only pay attention to content that they already agree with. So even if there is content from the opposing view, it is unlikely that that user will even take the time to read it. This causes voters to not ever change their political parties because we never seek out news of the other party. An example of this that I have experienced is during the last election, my whole Twitter was catered toward my personal political party because most of the people that I follow have the same beliefs. However, when something would pop up from the other political party, I wouldn’t even attempt to look into it or read it. 

In order to avoid the junk news that we see everyday, it is important to start with ourselves and never share any information without knowing that the source is credible. Fact checking is very important. Another solution is to be cautious about articles with titles that are intended to evoke emotion. These articles are generally written by one political party to evoke anger. Lastly, look up news organizations to see if they side with a certain political party or who sponsors their organization. They can often be biased.

Sources:

https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/three-reasons-junk-news-spreads-so-quickly-across-social-media/

It’s very nice to meet you! I thought you did a fantastic job on your discussion board this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational readings this week. I was able to relate to a lot of the different ways these reasons play a huge part in our social media platforms. Social media companies are filtering certain content that will interest the users which makes them biased about certain things in life. If individuals aren’t interested in the content, they see on social media then they will ignore or scroll past it. I totally agree that we as individuals need to be careful and never share any information without knowing that the source is credible. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

According to the article "Three Reasons Junk News Spreads so Quickly Across Social Media", the main reasons that social media has contributed to the spread of fake news are: algorithms, advertising, and exposure. Although algorithms can be very useful, they pose certain consequences for social media users because they project information in a way that doesn't promote healthy, conscious, human decision-making. Algorithms filter information that comes across newsfeeds by selecting information that will increase user engagement. This means that algorithms provide information that is already popular; they provide information that people have already clicked on or responded to a bunch of times. This is a negative consequence because these algorithms are not providing any new, informative information; in other words, algorithms supply information and links to things we might already support or be interested in. There is no new content that contain different viewpoints, which makes it harder for people find new information or develop different perspectives. I've noticed around election time that I always see links and sources from a Democratic viewpoint because these algorithms know my political viewpoints from things I've already looked at. While I'm aware that the algorithms are manipulative, a lot of people may not realize this, therefore resulting in a lack of research containing any relevant contradicting information.

Advertising contributes to the spread of fake news due to clickbait and manipulation. Clickbait spreads fake news by attracting attention from users through stimulating emotion, whether it be negative or positive emotion. Clickbait often plays into peoples' viewpoints and biases by integrating past behavior and opinions into the advertisements it portrays. For example, I remember seeing a lot of clickbait advertisements about Donald Trump during the 2016 election. Whether the advertisements were for or against Trump, the clickbait would use catchy headlines in order to get people to click on the advertisement. These Trump headlines provide good examples of clickbait and manipulation in the way that they target voters with manipulative messages and fake news.

It’s very nice to meet you! I thought you did a fantastic job on your discussion board this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational readings this week. I thought you portrayed great examples of how algorithms, advertising, and exposure affect you in your life. I was able to relate to a lot of the different ways these reasons play a huge part in our social media platforms. Social media companies are filtering certain content that will interest the users which makes them biased about certain things in life. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

Big data is such a powerful tool because everything you do online is monitored. What images you look at, for how long you’re engaged with an image, your current moods, your browsing history, your personality traits, gps coordinates, etc. There is an immense amount of information that can be tracked and recorded by the internet. Using this big data, social media platforms are able to predict what you will be doing therefore, they can personalize links and “recommended for you” links to see what will keep you hooked on social media. Something really weird about that has actually happened to me is when I plug my phone in to carplay, it immediately maps me to some place I was previously talking about. It’s scary to think that even though these social media platforms are free to sign up for, you are the product. Your attention is being sold to different advertisers who are competing for your time. We are all lab rats being used in experiment after experiment to try and determine what will be the most optimal for overall engagement. Social media experts purposely try to manipulate your psychological behavior as fast as possible by implementing different experiments to see which method of advertisement or which types of posts/videos will generate the most engagement on their specific platform.

There are three technology goals according to The Social Dilemma. The first goal is engagement, which hopes to drive up usage. The second goal is growth, which will keep you coming back, inviting your friends and getting friends to engage with the platform. Lastly, is the advertising goal, which essentially is the goal of generating as much profit as possible. Each of these goals are powered by different algorithms, whose jobs are to figure out what to show you on each platform to ensure you will remain on the app for as long as possible, and to keep you coming back for more. This is extremely important to the social media world because algorithms are driven by big data. The data that is collected by “monitoring” your social media usage is exported into a computer that can create an algorithm based on what was humanly written.

The danger of the use/abuse of big data, algorithms and social media can vary on multiple different aspects. It scared me a little when I was made aware of how technologists can be compared to magicians, who were among the first to understand a different aspect of people’s minds. The documentary mentioned that magic illusions work because magicians are able to tap into a part of an individual’s mind that they don’t know exists. Having this perspective described to me really showed me how dangerous social media really is.  Technology has to deal with a larger aspect of psychology than I can even comprehend. They also compared phones to slot machines in Vegas because whenever you have your phone laying on your desk or your bed, you just check it to see if there is a notification there. This unconscious behavior is a design technique, just like it is with the slot machines in Vegas to see what you’ll get if you pull the lever one more time.

The discussion about photo tagging was extremely intriguing to me also, and can also be a danger/abuse of algorithms. Social media platforms purposely notify you when you have been tagged in a photo, but don’t include the photo in the notification. Having the photo on the notification pop-up would make it much easier and faster to quickly see what photo it is, however, they purposely don’t include it to make you go on the app to see what photo you were tagged in. This will increase their engagement goal, especially when it is a photo of yourself. This also has to do with the growth goal because tagging in photos allows friends of tagged people to see the post, and engage with it using the comments and/or likes feature. This is known as growth hacking.  

Another danger that really hooked me was the discussion about tools-based technology. The example provided was bicycles are a tool, just sitting there waiting until you need it. Social media on the other hand, is not a tool. It’s demanding things from you and is manipulating you. We’ve moved away from having a tools-based technology to an addictive and manipulative technology because of social media’s idea of using your psychology against you to generate engagement and growth.

Additionally, another danger has to deal with self-worth and identity. It matters to everyone what people in our “tribe” think of us. But we were not supposed to be built to experience what thousands of people think of us. This “fake popularity” on social media with like counts and comment counts forces individuals to think of what is next so they can gain that sense of popularity and that spike in dopamine again. This has increased depression and anxiety amongst teenagers. There was a conducted study of U.S. Hospital admissions for non-fatal self harm per 100,000 girls which concluded to have increased 62% since 2009 in girls ages 15-19, and increased 189% since 2009 in girls ages 10-14. This can be blamed on social media algorithms keeping them addicted to their phones and social media platforms.

I think that the biggest danger also correlates with why algorithms are so important. It is the fact that not very many people working at these social media companies even understand them. Algorithms are opinions written in code written with the goal of their definition of success, which at most times, is profit. Everyday, these computers installed with the written algorithms are getting better and better at picking the next post, or the next video, or the next tweet to keep you on the platform for longer. The scary part about this is that the machine is doing all the work, which means the algorithm is controlling us more than we are controlling it. This can be proven because multiple of the interviewees who have previously worked for a social media platform can also say that even though they see and understand the behind the scenes work of addiction, they too, are addicted to their phones.

I thought you did a fantastic job on your discussion board this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. I totally agree that big data is such a powerful tool in social media because everything we do is being monitored and analyzed heavily. I think big data can be a helpful thing because it can prevent a lot of bad things happening in life. On the other hand, I almost feel like I’m being taken advantage of with having my every move tracked. The different algorithms and big data that play a huge part into our social media platforms are quite accurate and relatable to your life which is scary. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,

It’s very nice to meet you! I thought you did a fantastic job on your discussion board this week and made sure you answered all of the following questions to your full extent. While reading your post, I was able to tell that you have a clear understanding of the content that was covered in the educational videos & readings this week. I totally agree that after watching this documentary I view social media completely different. I was not aware of what is happening behind the scenes with these social media companies and how they are tracking our every move. The different algorithms and big data that play a huge part into our social media platforms are quite accurate and relatable to your life which is scary. Moving forward in my life I am going to try and limit my social media usage, so I don’t have to worry as much about these things. It was great being able to take a deeper dive into your discussion board, it had a lot of valuable information within it!

Great Job,