#immcentennial

The beginning of 1990’s saw the start in quick changing technologies. When I was a kid I saw the change in hardline phones to codeless mobile phone which are bigger and heavy than what we see now. Today in this age of advancing technologies we can connect to people in different corners of the world with just a tap on the screen. Technology is literally on your fingertips. Internet is one of the biggest example of a fast paced evolution of technology which has played an important role in this turnabout. Fax to emails, written letters to text messaging and  land lines to free internet calls everything changed so fast setting a never ending trend to the evolution of technology.

 When we look at text messaging alone it have seen a new light since the introduction of smartphones. Where in the olden days we were restricted to certain characters per text message but now we can write an entire plot of a movie in a single text message. Introduction of internet based messaging apps in smartphones have led to a new era in messaging. Apps like ‘whatsapp’ where we can send text, images, videos, contact information and location have enabled people to have more freedom over internet. There are other apps over different OS such BBM (Black Berry Messenger) in Black Berry and iMessage in iPhone. But whatsapp which was originally made for android and is one of its first messaging app to have gained so much popularity. This app has become a trendsetter which later got introduced to all mobile platforms such as iOS, windows, Symbian and even java based phones. Even though there are so many other apps; whatsapp has survived all that challenges and still continuing its service remaining as one of the major messaging app which has been used worldwide. It has become part of the day to day life for many. Families who live away from each other form groups to talk to one another. I have been on various whatsapp groups which makes it easier to stay in touch with a wide number of people in one place. Recently I saw a laptop service center personnel use whatsapp to send pictures of a damaged part to his colleague to check if the part was available rather than carrying my the laptop all the way to service center and checking for it. This saves me a lot of time and money. We could also send recorded videos to each other using whatsapp. It also has a feature where you can record you audio and send it over. Whatsapp has set a trend among the young and old in the last two to three years.  

Social media has become an integral part of modern society. It is one of the most excellent and cost effective way to attract positive attention to your company or product. Social media is also an excellent medium to get creative with your business strategy. Many businesses have incorporated social media to reach out to their customers and have received amazing results and feedback.  

Over the past few years, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube etc., have become increasingly powerful communication and marketing tools. In the year 2013 digital marketers of several brands have created  innovative social media campaigns across multiple platforms to promote their brand. Let's take a look at a few of them.

Oreo – Superbowl ‘Blackout’ Tweet

During the Superbowl when there was a power outage at the Super-dome for 34 minutes, oreo's social media team jumped on the cultural moment, tweeting an ad that read “Power Out? No problem” with a starkly-lit image of a single Oreo and the caption, “You can still dunk in the dark.” The message caught on almost immediately. They got around 15,000 retweets and more than 20,000 likes on Facebook within a short span of time. It is hailed as “the best ad of the game” and “the most powerful bit of marketing during the advertising industry’s most expensive day”. Oreo’s real-time social media marketing stunt won a prestigious Clio award and had lasting effects around the advertising industry.

Lay's - Do us a flavor

Lay’s created its first social media campaign in its 75-year history. This campaign let fans create a new flavor of chip for Lay's. This was a great marketing campaign because the contest made it interactive on the social media platform. Lay's went all out in attracting their fans to participate in the contest. They had 3.8 million submission between July 20 and October 6 in the year 2012. They finally tested and narrowed it down to three flavors  which the fans were able to purchase in 2013 and then vote on Facebook or Twitter  for their favorite flavor and decide the million dollar winner. They had a 12% increase in their sales soon after the campaign.

Dove- Real beauty sketches

Dove created one of the most talked about social media experiments of the year 2013. Dove created a video of a professional forensic artist draw women’s’ faces as they described themselves without him being able to see them, and then compared that photo to one of a stranger describing the same woman. This video became an immediate sensation . It had over 114 million views, it was the third most shared ad of all time and there were about 1800 blog posts written about this campaign.

Interactive media is the integration of digital media like graphics, animated images, electronic text and sound into a structured digital environment that allows people to interact with the data for appropriate purpose. In this ever changing world, the trends in interactive media keeps improvising as per the needs of technology. People all over the globe now has access to the internet which makes it challenging and also gives opportunities to create an exciting array of content for consumers. Having a very clear understanding of the upcoming trends and defining the content goals within an organisation is very important.

One of the major trend in content strategy is the competition to gain consumers attention. Each day there are around 92,000 new articles posted on the internet. It's not just from publishers; Word Press users produce about 35.8 million new posts each month. While developing content strategy it is important to realize the type of business it is created for and the target audience of that particular business. It is also important to understand what kind of product a business sells and the marketability of the product. For instance, is the product a think product or a feel product. Think products is where the consumer takes a personal effort to think or consider before buying the product whereas a feel product is where the customer takes an impulsive decision because of what they feel at the moment.

The rapid growth of digital innovation and the various platforms to work with makes it even more exciting and challenging. As the mediums to work on increases companies experiment with content in each of these mediums to reach their target audience. For instance PopTopia is a mobile game which has a mobile attachment called Pop Dangle which emits the smell of popcorn as u play, Sephora's mobile app has content that speaks to their core customer base and is in line with their other online and social media content.

There are several content marketing tactics that are used nowadays. It is said that 92% of business marketers use social media as one of their largest means of content strategy. Below is a graph of 13 content marketing tactics that a B2B marketer use :

 Going by the saying "Fishing where the fish are", business marketers target their existing and potential users on social media. A survey in the last year shows that LinkedIn is the top rated social media site that business organizations use.

Social media makes it easier to push content and access it faster than ever. Social media allows you to leverage existing networks to increase the reach of your content and it provides a testing ground for broad marketing campaigns. Social media platforms also allows you to share the content at optimal times, test and see what resonates your audience, gather insights from your audience. However creating and maintaining the quality of content becomes critical. As content marketing through social media platform increases the media buyers will have to allocate more funds towards content promotion. Companies have also come up with in-house social media experts who are entrusted to advise on the social media planning and execution. Image based content is believed to have a higher engagement on social media. On Facebook images receive 50% more interaction than text based posts. With technological developments, cheaper solutions and the increasing popularity of mobile and other wireless connections, social media is on the finger tips of every single person. This makes it a quicker and easier way to use social media as one of the major content strategy to market their brands.

As an Interactive Media Management Professional you have infinite resources at your fingertips to brand yourself. You cannot afford to not do this.  The key in what platforms you choose to adapt to showcase your talents and build your network. Social Media has quickly become an essential tool for individuals or businesses to promote and connect among the masses

Albert Costill in the website search engine journal gives us a  statistics about the presence of social media in our daily lives. He says that:

8 out of 10 users are reached by social media sites and blogs.  

After devoting 6 hours per week in social media , marketers saw an increase of 74% in their website traffic.

Social Media has helped 87% of small businesses.

85% of business-decision makers believe that at least having one social media channel is very important for technology purchase decisions.

Though social media has become the key source of showcasing brands and branding yourself in this fast paced world, a professional should always find the pros and cons of using each platform and choose wisely on what fits best. As an interactive media management professional I would choose Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter as platforms to brand myself. Let's take a look at each of them individually and find out how it helps building a network and showcasing your talent in the social media.

As a person who loves photography, I would love to use Instagram as a platform for creating a photography portfolio. Anthony Carranza, Digital Journalist & Contributor examiner, in an article for the social media today says that telling your own story is definitely start and being original too helps you in making your task easier to get followers. While using Instagram the main tips to remember are :

Understanding your brand's audience

Create and follow a theme for your content and be consistent

Give your followers a reason to want to follow you or your brand in Instagram

Tell an interesting brand story through images and captions. And also engage with your followers by commenting, liking their posts and following them back.

Instagram has also started a new feature of embedding Instagram videos into your blog or website. This also helps in extending and reaching out to a wider audience. Using hash tags has also become a huge criteria for a good organic exposure.

LinkedIn is one of the leading business-focused social media networking site with more than 238 million users. LinkedIn is a social media platform to describe who you are and what makes you unique. The beginners guide to social media  says that LinkedIn is a fantastic platform for generating B2B leads, with nearly three times the conversion rate of Facebook or Twitter. Few best practices to follow on LinkedIn are

Make sure you update your profile and include details that will make a prospective client want to work with you.

Connect with all your contacts. The more contacts you have, the more secondary connections you will make, which allows you to expand your network.

Don't just connect with individuals on your list, follow company pages of businesses you want to build a relationship with.

Use LinkedIn as a search engine. Search for companies you are interested in, and then find out who the key personnel are. Once you find the right person, send them an email via LinkedIn. Often a message via LinkedIn comes off as warmer than a regular email. 

Targeting capabilities on LinkedIn ensures that your content reaches the right audience in an organic way through LinkedIn members’ feeds. Once you identify the best strategies to reach your audience with content, you can grow your professional network and attract more customers.

I think the catch phrase of twitter should be 'First impression counts'. The most important thing about Twitter is to create a Twitter  profile that attracts more followers and gives people a compelling reason to follow your business. In a nutshell, your Twitter profile should bring your business to life. According to the best business practices given in the twitter website, here is a rundown on how to make the best out of Twitter.

Create tweets that resonates. Combing useful and exciting content with an engaging tone to emotionally connect with your audience is the most important part on tweeting.

Keeping tweets short and sweet so they can be consumed easily anywhere. A recent report by buddy media reveals that tweets shorter than 100 characters get a 17% higher engagement rate.

Tweeting often is also a successful business attribute. A good rule is to have three to five tweets a day.

Following your interest is a great way to discover compelling content and inspiring ideas for your own tweets.

To sum it all up, Time is of essence. Social media platforms are the easiest way to ask your audience for something specific and track their responses first hand. Whether you’ve been in the field for a while and are gaining ground or building your social media presence from the ground up, tapping into the current social media trends and following their best business practices will help strengthen your online presence.

Below are a few reference links that helped me understand the best business practices of social media websites and how it helps in branding myself. 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/18-social-media-marketing-tips/

http://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-best-practices-brands/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/important-instagram-insights-and-best-practices-success

http://www.zaginteractive.com/about/blog/blog-post/the-z-drive/2014/01/15/14-social-media-marketing-trends-for-2014

http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media/linkedin

http://www.dcmarketingpro.com/blog/bid/336377/10-LinkedIn-Best-Practices#

https://biz.twitter.com/en-gb/best-practices

  Social Media Platforms ­were initially used for public profiles, sharing activities, backgrounds & common interests. Slowly these platforms evolved into the best sources for advertising brands and businesses. By 2011, Social media were accessible from virtually anywhere and had become an integral part of our daily lives with more than 550 million people on Facebook, 65 million tweets were sent through Twitter each day and 2 billion video views every day on YouTube. LinkedIn had 90 million professional users. Companies started building their brands through social media networks, by posting product pictures, constant tweeting, blogging and event promotions. Thus social media platforms are now a key source for brand building for small businesses as well as media professionals. An Interactive Media management professional could capitalize on the pros of platforms like LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, Quora and Instagram for their personal brand promotion. 

            In my opinion, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram would be three appropriate platforms to build a personal brand for an interactive media management professional. Each of these have their own set of advantages. If we take Google+ into consideration, it has several reasons to be considered as a brand-building platform. Having a page or profile on Google+ can increase your brand’s search engine ranking, helps to increase collaboration through videoconferencing and easy sharing of documents images etc. Google+ hangouts is also a handy collaboration feature that allows up to 10 people to video chat or ‘hangout’ together.

It is a source of free focus groups, as there are discussion circles pertaining to various topics covering many sectors. Moreover, users can share content in their own different circles. Circles can be created for different set of contacts like friends, family and professional circles, thus making it easy to share content amongst specific groups. Thus, for an interactive Media management professional it is a vast source for brand building as one can share information and promote their own brand by posting frequently, participating in industry related discussion circles and collaborating with clients through these circles.

LinkedIn is another powerful platform to boost one’s business or professional profile. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking service. As of 2013, LinkedIn has more than 300 million members in over 200 countries and territories. It is significantly ahead of its competitors Viadeo (50 million) and XING (10 million). The membership grows by approximately two new members every second. LinkedIn is very useful to build one’s professional network as it enables an individual to connect with professionals in his/her sector. It helps to display a professional profile to a large number of potential employers and clients. Thus, LinkedIn can be used for various purposes like finding business partners, clients and service providers, recruitment, access expert advice, blog promotion tool, providing recommendations, enhance SEO, starting groups and advertising.

It is possible to tailor advertising by job title and function, industry and company size, seniority, age, gender or particular linked in groups.

Instagram for business is yet another potential platform that can promote and help build an interactive media professional’s brand. A professional can create a brand page and promote the brand by posting pictures from their personal portfolio or pictures from the workplace. It is also possible to post videos up to 15 seconds in length. With the use of relevant and popular hash tags brand promotion becomes easy. Instagram videos can also be embedded in personal blogs. Following people and clients back and posting with trending hash tags is another way of expanding one’s network and promoting the brand page.

It is possible to link and share content across platforms like Twitter and Facebook through Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn. This makes it easy to promote all the brand pages and their activities by tweeting and sharing through Twitter and Facebook respectively. Hence, one can be posting news about their brand pages through their personal profiles and link the news to their pages created on Google+, Instagram and LinkedIn. Videos from Instagram can also be embedded in Twitter and Facebook feeds. 

The following links provide reasons for selecting Google+,Instagram and LinkedIn as most relevant for my personal brand as an Interactive Media Management Professional. The reason for choosing these platforms was mainly their brand building features, popularity and cross platform linking capabilities.

References

http://blog.indiesilver.com/2013/05/a-guide-to-launching-promotions-for.html

Google+

http://www.computerworlduk.com/how-to/it-business/3339417/9-ways-google-plus-can-help-your-business/

 http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2014/07/30/google-plus-pros-can-optimize-google-business-success/

 http://socialtimes.com/best-practices-using-g-business-infographic_b146435

 https://plus.google.com/+GoogleBusiness/posts

 Instagram

 http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/instagram-for-business-tips/

 http://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-best-practices-brands/

 http://maximizesocialbusiness.com/instagram-best-practices-10548/

 Linkedin

 http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/improve-linkedin-profile/

 http://www.linkedstrategies.com/11-reasons-you-should-use-linkedin-for-your-busines/

In our everyday lives, we witness work roles and certain responsibilities, which are always performed by a particular gender. We have always seen certain roles and responsibilities being carried out by one particular gender either male or female. My opinion is that this situation has also arisen because of the cultural difference around the globe. For instance, In India it is very rare to see a woman operating a public transit vehicle. Seeing a woman driving a bus would be a shocking moment for the passengers and is a rare incident back home. However, In Canada, women have taken up several roles at workplaces and it is not shocking for people to see a woman undertaking male oriented job positions.

Today, women are taking up almost all roles at a workplace although there remain a few areas where only men are visualized appropriate for the job. The same goes for female dominated areas. During the IMMT718 session on equality in the workplace, we went through a few statistics, one of them revealed that a recent study identified that women represent only five percent of workers in programming roles and ten percent of workers in audio and design roles. Whereas, women represent 47% of workers in operations, IT and human resources occupations. I feel that this barrier has been created over the years and it is all about changing the mentality and the pattern that we are following. In the media sector, the ratio of male to female is getting balanced but at a very slow pace. When it comes to human resources and public relations, the amount of women in this area would be substantially higher but men have secured the high salary spots. In technical fields, men have a higher count than women and the ratio has been developed over the years as only men were visualized in technical roles. There are women who have set examples for others to climb up the ladder and secure male dominated positions. For example, Margaret Whitman, President, CEO, eBay and President, CEO, Hewlett-Packard. She has been the CEO of eBay for ten years and is the CEO of HP for over three years now.

Even when an individual is on a job search, there are instances where the job posting clearly states whether they want males or females for the position. This denies the opportunity to initiate change in the system. There is no equal opportunity to prove oneself at the job and demonstrate their skills.

Developing and creating media for a diverse audience can also be a challenging task. In the advertising world, in case of television commercials, products are advertised through males, females or people of particular ethnicity or culture. This is done to relate to specific audiences. This is the platform that is setting up the mentalities in people’s minds. Advertisers always portray things in such a way that relates to the audience. People fear change. Creating media content for a diverse audience in terms of religion can also be very challenging. An incident took place in India, where a renowned clothing brand advertised their new clothing line all over the country. Their banners, posters, television commercials all depicted a man having the upper body of a Hindu god who was wearing their new products. This way of displaying the products was ok to a few people but caused an outrage amongst the Hindu community, which led to protests and vandalism.

There are always two options when an individual steps into an industry. Either enters the industry by getting employed by an established firm or being a business owner/freelancer. At the second session of IMMT718, we explored these two options and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the same. The session also threw light on the difference of being a business owner or a freelancer.

There were various pros and cons in either path one chooses. This discussion provided an in depth idea of the different criteria one has to consider before looking forward to take their path.

Firstly, an employee is usually bound by a contract or has to follow the company rules adhering to content privacy. I learnt that many of the firms make employees sign NDA's to prevent them from talking about trade secrets. However in terms of coverage, the employees are covered under Employment Standards Act and federally under General Labour Code. These are definitely some factors to consider while choosing a career path. On the other hand, an employer has the burden of deducting taxes while paying the employees. An employer is responsible for deducting Canada pension plan contributions, EL premiums, income tax and other taxes. An employee is free from the overheads.

Another important highlight of the session was the difference between being a freelancer and a business owner. A number of insights were shared and the professor shared information with regards to the registration and taxes that each role has to deal with. A freelancer does not have to register the company as it is under his/her legal name whereas a business owner has to be registered with Service Ontario. A freelancer does not need to collect or pay HST if he/she makes less than 30,000 annually whereas a business owner should register for HST. 

We also learnt the different factors to consider while determining the employment status. There are instances when people are confused about what role they are playing towards and organization and also individually in their freelance work. People get overloaded with work or sometimes the employer is taking advantage by introducing more work at different stages of the project. Employment status is determined when we evaluate a few facts like level of control payer has over worker’s activities, whether worker provides the tools and equipment, whether worker can subcontract the work or hire assistants, degree of financial risk the worker takes, degree of responsibility for investment and management the worker holds and the worker’s opportunity for profit. It also highly depends on contracts because the employer can sometimes take advantage if they are not bound by the contract and visa-versa. It is always better to have clauses in a written format for referring to in case of confusions or controversies.

Overall, personally being a fresh entrant to the media world I would chose to be employed. Initially I could learn about the structure and working of a media firm and gain some useful insights about successfully running a media firm. Also I do not need to worry about the overheads and a vacation will be a real vacation for me unlike the business owners or freelancers who need to keep a track of what is going on with their projects.

Internships was another topic discussed and I feel its best way of gaining hands on experience in the industry but again one has to be aware about the intern rights and avoid being exploited at the workplace. We also discussed dressing styles for the interactive media industry. As Professor Sofia said that one cannot be dressed as if he/she works at a bank. We have to blend in the 'funk' factor with the professional look, being careful of not going overboard with the funky aspect.

The first content planning (IMMT712) session was an in depth introduction to the concept of content and its role in the interactive media world. During this session we were asked what content meant to each of us. Each person in the room had a similar opinion towards the concept of content. We all felt that content is the basis for a good customer experience and at that moment a thought that came to my mind was, "Content is the soul of communication".

Content has different purposes to it. Content can describe concepts and ideas, can serve as reference material, can explain the step by step procedure to do something, persuade customers/users to do something, can compare different products. Content that has no purpose is considered useless. Another important factor in terms of content is the difference between its readability and its usability. Content could be perfectly readable but it should provide the user with desired results in their particular task which makes it usable.

Usable content is one which is relevant, clear, visually appealing, clear after one reading, concise, efficient, memorable, engaging, relevant, appropriate, enough, consistent, obvious, structured and organized. The customer or user experiences the best usability when the content guides the user smoothly through the website to successfully execute the task. For example, on an online shopping website a user is trying to buy a t-shirt. The content on the page that enables him to successfully buy the appropriate t-shirt in terms of size, colour, design and price is the content that fulfills all usability criteria. 

TTC's content describing the new streetcars is relevant, structured and organized. However the information could not be considered clear in a few areas. If we take for example the cash fares for the new streetcars. It is not clear whether there is any price change in the fares due to the new streetcars. There is all the information about passes and tokens but not any mention about fare rates. Another example could be regarding carrying cycles in the new streetcars. Information regarding how to enter with a cycle is provided but information about other options to carry the bike on the streetcar is not provided. Also if the user has any queries after reading the content provided to describe the new streetcars, there is only an option to communicate through email clear out matters. There is no FAQ page. Having an FAQ page can easily solve issues or queries that a user could have with the information.

Usability criteria for me is that the content should be visually appealing, should be easily accessible, should be relevant to my task and should provide all the information needed after one reading without having to refer to the content several times. In this case, TTC's content on the new streetcars is visually appealing and relevant. However the streetcar could have its own separate mini webpage with a gallery of pictures expressing its new design and features easily. Also it lacked explaining in detail about the rules related to the streetcars, the routes on which the new streetcar would be operating, whether the old streetcar would be discontinued and also information about release dates on various routes was not provided.