Memes

In this age and time, most people have seen memes before. Memes have the capability of bringing in intense emotions and dramatic statements. So how exactly do memes become popular and trending? According to Dawkin’s analysis, memes that spread successfully incorporate three properties, which include longevity, fecundity and copy fidelity. All of which are enhanced by the Internet. When memes are posted online people respond in various ways as well. These include through commenting, liking, sharing, or by creating mimicry or remixes. Recreating original documents is viewed as networked individualism.

Shiffman talks about the six P’s that enhance content’s virality. These include positivity, provocation of high-arousal emotions, participation, packaging, prestige, and positioning. According to a key finding, people are more inclined in sharing stories that are positive because what they share is a reflection of themselves. Most people want to be perceived as being upbeat and entertaining. Next, provoking high arousal emotions are important in order to better catch the audience’s attention, whether it be positive or negative. Stories that created a more “wow” response has a lot more influence than other content that may be considered sad. When it comes to packaging information, it is more beneficial to create messages that are clear and simple. This type of information really sticks to people. Content that is shared by famous or influential individuals is seen as being credible and reliable. In addition, they would be able to reach more people because of their status, this is all related to prestige. Positioning is then where they decide to distribute the content. Lastly, participation relates to the engagement from viewers or stakeholders. All of these six components really aid in content gaining visibility.

In addition to just sharing entertaining and comedic memes, a lot of people share memes for political purposes. Memes shared to express political points of views is beneficial to showing personalization. As more people around the globe become Internet users, the user-generated globalization of memes becomes more relevant. Memes are not driven by high-profile commercial agencies, but instead are created by ordinary users, it does not involve commerce, and when memes are translated, sometimes a few extra key words or markers are added making some words or phrases invisible to those who view it. When memes are translated, they often include adaptations, which may alter the meaning. Although memes can mean different things dependant on the translation, the speed at which memes travel on a global scale is very impressive.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Evaluation

The final stage in managing a social media campaign is to evaluate what worked, what didn't, and what needs improvement. When evaluating, there are two main components that need to be differentiated; counting and measurements. Counting means to add up numbers to get a total, whereas collecting measurements mean to take the total and analyze what it means. Why did we get the results we did? What swayed the decision? What impacted people? Etc. After counting and measuring the results, there are three steps in the evaluation phase, which are: preparation, implementation and impact.

In the preparation stage, research, listening and strategic designs are all evaluated. This is used to verify whether or not they received the feedback they had hoped to receive. Implementation is evaluated by looking at whether the information was delivered at the right times and whether it reached their intended audience.  This is also known as message reach and engagement. Impact looks at the specific objectives set at the beginning of the campaign and verifying if they had accomplished them at the end of their campaign.

When evaluating, it is also important to look at how preparation occurred. There are three parts to this: the formative research that was gathered in the listening phase, the program’s strategic design, and the presentation content. Formative research helps identify if the information that was collected was enough to reach the objectives made in the beginning. Next, the strategic design must be evaluated through a top-down approach. Ask questions such as were the goals appropriate for the need and purpose of the campaign? Was each objective of SMART reached? Or, were all the tactics identified correctly? It is also important to evaluate the overall tone and persona of the campaign. Lastly, looking into presentation means looking at the creativity of the content that was produced and to comment on any pieces that worked well with the overall campaign.

Since most companies use Facebook to reach their intended audience, it is important to understand their analytics or so-called, insights. There are seven main areas that are used to gather and analyze data: the overview, likes, reach, visits, posts, video and people. Each and every one has a unique purpose and understanding how they all work is important to achieving success of your campaign. When using insights, remember to set the date-range for all components except for overview to get the analysis you wish to see.

How Companies can Connect with Customers Effectively

Reaching a specific audience via. social media means learning about their social media usage patterns. If you want your posts to be seen, you have to make sure you are posting them at the right time in order to make sure that you receive the feedback you hope for. A few important questions to ask are: when and how often should I post content? When do these users interact with me more often? How interactive are the engagements with each post? The best way to get in touch with your consumers is to act as if you were the consumer yourself. This way, you are able to implement interactive ways to get the customers involved, thus bringing more attention to your social media platform.

Companies who are brand-centric seem to be without character as opposed to companies who put their customers first.  When it comes to getting customers to post on your page, or to like your page, it is important for companies to explain why you should like them as opposed to simply telling them to “like” their pages. Giving them a reason may trigger them into wanting to learn more about the company. What companies can do to attract more customers is by including stories about the company and what the company has done in the past to benef their customers.

As a company you must stay engaged with your customers which means to be genuinely interested in what your customers have to say. Creating and growing customer relationships through engagement, authenticity and loyalty is key to having a successful company. When staying engaged with customers, this includes responding to both positive and negative comments as soon as possible. It must be noted that companies should respond quickly to negative comments. The do-not-delete rule states that unless a comment is obscene, profane, or contains someone’s personal and private information, then it should never be deleted. It is important to respond respectably, then move the conversation to a private space. In addition, do not ignore negative comments. Ignoring customers is a slap in the face to them; it is a completely negative response. Make sure to always keep in mind the mannerism you use to respond to customers.

Another key component about connecting with others is by generating questions. This can help keep customers and prospective customers engaged and wanting to learn more. Asking questions creates active dialogue. As companies respond quickly, people will usually start to have a more positive outlook on the company. In addition to just asking questions, crowdsourcing is also an option.

Strategic Design and Monitoring

In order to create a successful social media campaign, it is important that organizations follow the social principle. The social principle is about identifying topics of mutual interest with a brand’s audience in order to spark conversation that keeps both ends engaged. There are many steps to take when creating a social media campaign. The first thing to do is to create a mission and vision statement. These two will help keep the organization in line with the goals, and what they want to promote through their campaign. When coming up with a mission and vision statement and list of objectives, it is important to follow the “SMART objectives”. The acronym stands for: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. The SMART objectives will aid in keeping the organization on track.

In order to stay organized throughout the campaign, it is also a great idea to have a content calendar. This will include information such as the platforms you will use, the day and times of the posts, keywords or topic of the post, category of the content topic design, the media needed, and the team members responsible for the post. This will help hold the campaign together and execute new parts of the campaign on time. Having the content calendar also helps in making the campaign more detailed because everything that will be posted online is planned ahead of time. After posting content, it is important to look at how the audience responds to the material. Their response will help the organization know whether or not the content they are posting meets or exceeds the audiences standards or if they should make changes.

When developing policies and procedures for social media, organizations should aim to build relationships and trust while inspiring their key publics. Having a two-way mutually beneficial relationship with stakeholders is key to having a successful social media campaign. Organizations should also think about how they can engage their stakeholders with creativity. Organizations should select the proper platform to launch their campaign on while taking into account their target audience. Brands should also maintain their credibility through creating conversation, highlighting the brands personality, and by showcasing shared values. All of these things really contribute to how people perceive your organization. In the end, social media is all about creating relationships. The mannerism the organizations take to respond to their stakeholders is very important in building a sense of trust.

Listening is Key

Listening is key in all situations but especially via. social media because it is so large-scale. Listening is basically doing research which allows you to collect data required to make informed decisions about what to do next, what to improve, and how to best cater to your customers. Knowing what is important to your customers can help you better plan your offers, promotions, and contests to further drive buzz and sales. If you really listen to what your customers want and need, then this may in turn help your organization/company become more profitable. In addition, the customers will be really happy that their voices were being heard which will give the company more credibility. 

Although the thought of needing to keep track of what people are saying about your company may seem difficult and overwhelming, there are a few easy ways to stay on top of it. These sites are known as Google alerts, social mention, twitter search, Facebook search, YouTube search, or tweetbeep. Not only is it important to keep tabs on your own company but also of your competitors. It is always a good idea to stay up-to-date with your competitors and see what your company should do to exceed their progress.

Since buzz travels so quickly via. social media, if your brand or product is being talked about in a negative way it is always important to respond immediately to fix the issues being discussed. It is always a good idea to respond to the individual, then take the conversation to a private area to resolve the issue at stake.

All companies have to create and execute social media campaigns at some point. Whenever creating a social media campaign, listening should still be the number one priority. There are two areas involved in the listening stage.

1) Foundational Background

2) Social Landscape

Having a good foundational background requires having a clear mission statement, organizational structure, communication audit, and policies and procedures.

No matter what the campaign is, the strategy and tactic in social media should relate to the brand’s vision. This will really help the audience understand what their mission is and what they strive to achieve. After gaining some knowledge on the organization’s values it is important to look into the organizational structure of this organization and see what makes them different from other companies. It is very important to keep an eye on the marketing, public relations, communication, and IT department when it comes to social media campaigns because they all play an important role when it comes to the company’s success. Key players to keep in mind are people who will focus on two-way dialogue in real-time communication via social media. In order to pinpoint who you want on your team, you need to identify what skills are necessary for the job. When thinking about the type of people needed for a specific social media campaign it is helpful to identify the key areas such as the program lead, creative lead, copy lead, social lead and analysts. Having an idea of the roles and jobs that need to be completed will make it a lot easier when it comes time to pick and choose the perfect candidates for the campaign. Every social media team needs a leader and it is always best to pick someone who is able to lead, take on many responsibilities, and who has a deep understanding of social media and business management.  Lastly, it is very critical to keep in mind the policies and procedures of an organization before going forth with the social media campaign design just to make sure none of the company rules are violated. It is always a good idea for companies to also have a crisis response plan for their social media campaigns. This is so that if something goes wrong, then the company will be prepared and know how to respond most appropriately.The social landscape refers to what types of conversations are happening via. social media about your brand, your campaign, etc. The social landscape includes five parts: key listening phrases, conversation platforms, brand community dialogue, influencers, and competition.

To better leverage your company or social media campaigns, you can also gear your marketing and advertising efforts toward a specific group of individuals through social media profiles, activities, and networks. You can even go even narrower by targeting people based off age, gender, education, marital status, interests, job title, employer…etc.

Terms and Conditions May Apply

While watching this documentary, I couldn’t help but feel unsafe at the fact that my privacy has been and will continue to be violated. When signing up for new social media sites, or downloading specific apps and profiles there are always terms and conditions that individuals have to either “agree” or “disagree” to. Come to think of it, people really don’t take the time to read what is stated in those terms and conditions. Most people will agree to anything if they want what they are signing up for. In addition, terms and conditions are always very lengthily so people usually don’t spend any extra time reading and going over what one is actually agreeing to. This thought is absolutely frightening. Most of us will “agree” to terms and conditions without any knowledge of what we are agreeing to.

It is scary to think that all the information we provide and put out there is forever noted. For example, Instagram is such a huge platform for people of all ages but especially for millennia’s. On the terms and conditions page for Instagram they state that they may display our photos without any compensation to us because once the photos are posted on Instagram, they technically own them. Crazy, right?

When people signed up for Facebook, they also signed a terms and conditions page. The concept is similar to Facebook. Anything one posts on Facebook will then become their information, they own it. For example, if Rebecca posts something online and five years later decides she wants to delete it, of course she can but there’s a catch. Deleting things online only allows that information to be hidden from yourself, but Facebook and the government can go back and track everything you have ever posted from day one.

The privacy policies that we are so-called “agreeing” to puts things into question. I mean they say they are there to protect our privacy but they store all user information in order to create cookies. Or they would gather tons of information based on the various social media sites that an individual utilizes.

Another thing that I thought was really interesting is that the FBI is able to track down those with suspicious activity based off of their keyword searches. If an individual often searches things in relation to inflicting violence on others, or how to create harmful weapons then this person could be hunted down and investigated.

There are so many things on social media platforms and on the Internet that could reveal so much about an individual. After watching this documentary I realized that I should really start paying attention to more of what I agree to online.

The Magic of Social Media

Social media has quickly become a very important aspect of everyday life whether it is for personal use, classroom use, or for one’s business. It is interesting to take a look into how various companies and businesses utilize social media. There are some companies who implement social strategies throughout their entire organization and companies who only use social media strategies for social media campaigns. The most important approach for companies and brands is to recognize social interaction as a key approach to accomplishing their goals. When social media is treated as top priority, this means that brands are willing to create relationships and connections through two-way communication. Brands who create a relationship with other companies, brands, and consumers are able to build a sense of trust and mutual respect, which helps make that company very credible.

Another thing to keep in mind with social media is that people expect quick responses. With this being said, companies and brands really have to stay on top of their social media sites in order to respond to people in a timely manner. For example, Alaska Airlines is a very credible airline company. If someone were to post a question or complaint on their Facebook page, they respond back very quickly. This shows that Alaska Airlines is credible, reliable, honest, and listens to their consumers.

If a company or brand is looking into creating a successful social media campaign there are four steps to be followed.

1.     Listening

2.     Strategic Design

3.     Implementation and Monitoring

4.     Evaluation

This four-step process is similar to that of RACE. Although all campaigns are creative and different in their own ways, this is a foundation that all professionals should follow in order to be successful in their execution.

How do people obtain their information? This is a great question. In order for someone to influence a big portion of the population that person has to be someone who is well known in politics, business, or even a celebrity.  People who are well known and seen as credible have greater control over the flow of information they choose to share and spread. People who have the ability to control information as it flows in and out of networks are known as a Network gatekeeper.

Network gatekeepers are not the only ones who can make information circulate quickly, social media posts with an emotional pull whether it is happy, sad, or humorous can make the content go viral as well. A lot of people now think that content has to be of the highest quality to be considered worthy or for it to go viral but this is a common mistake. Many videos with poor quality can become viral based off of the content that is being provided and showcased to the public. In addition to views, if people like, comment, share, retweet, or link others then that media has an even better potential of becoming viral. People may also get in the know through word of mouth. For example, “have you heard of the mannequin challenge? Everyone is talking about it, I have to look it up and see what all of this is about!” Things like this will continue to make social media posts go viral.

With social media, it is amazing to really learn about the influence and impact it has on our peers today. Since social media continues to improve and change it is most important to keep up-to-date with all of the changes and new platforms to stay ahead of the game.