Social Media Marketing

I found quite a few articles on the Business Source Premier on social media marketing.

The article I am looking at in this post is:

• Dollars, Sense and Social Media Marketing by John Patrick Pullen

In Dollars, Sense and Social Media Marketing, Alex Garcia and Matt Buchan to guys with no training in hair styling have turned a salon into a wildly successful business – mostly through social media marketing. Garcia says that “social media has allowed us to really reach into our local community, build relationships and drive traffic into the salon.”

How is Garcia able to track the effectiveness of social media? – One of the biggest factors is his ability to measure his ROI, every tweet and post counts. In order to measure ROI you need to know where you are at before launching a social media campaign. Revenue should be the number one measure. Others factors are average dollar sale, foot traffic and conversion, new and returning customers and website traffic.

How do you calculate your ROI? First track how much you are spending on a social media presence from the amount of revenue brought in by your social media marketing divided by the initial investment.  The good and the bad with social media marketing is that a lot of your efforts cannot be measured in dollars but rather in time spent on working on your Facebook page or sending out tweets. For example I have no idea how many hours I spent on trying to get Facebook and Twitter to sync up! So you need to decided how much your time is worth? Unfortunately or fortunately my time isn’t worth much…

Social media is the growing presence. A survey done by Borrell Associates revealed that of 2,872 businesses surveyed 70% of them spent part of their advertising budget on social media marketing.

Purpose is key! My main purpose for my social media project was to develop a blog that highlighted what the store offered to potential customers and to provide a more effective sales campaign to existing customers.

Consistency should help any social media campaign so that customers can expect a sales update on Tuesdays or a coupon offering on Thursdays etc.

Tools the article mentions for accurate measurement are: Facebook Insights, Hootsuite, NutshellMail, Social Mention, & TweetDeck.

 

What is going on with my social media project?

So my good intentions have rotted and I have made little progress. Maybe I took on too much for too short a time. But I have not accomplished much on my project for Weblogs and Wikis. I am sure my ideas were too lofty BUT I am being way too pessimistic because I have made a few steps forward in what may turn out to be a lifetime project.

Twitter account was created and there are a few followers. – None of which are my classmates might I add.

Blog was started and put to the side as I tried to figure out how to sync up Facebook and Twitter and here is where I hit a roadblock that I am still stuck with. There is a damn glitch in the system that Twitter is painfully aware of but has not been able to fix and I think Facebook doesn’t seem to care. Anyways I only see the troubleshoot help coming from the Twitter end.

 What is the issue? Well, I every time I try to sync the @rosemarysfloral twitter account to the facebook page an error message pops up. I seems that Twitter is unable to connect to a specific page. Here is the message I receive EVERY time

Facebook.com seems to be having trouble at the moment.

Please try again later. If the problem persists, please see our help article for troubleshooting tips.

Facebook is having problems? hmm. Pretty sure I am the one with the problem.

I have deleted Twitter from the Facebook account and the readded the Twitter App, changed the browser settings and turned the pop-up blocker off and still am unable to successfully connect Twitter and Facebook. (These steps are all suggested as possible fixes)

What is the problem? I know the social media project is supposed to be on Twitter but the floral shop already had a following on Faceboo that I wanted to tap into and I am the only person on Twitter for the business so far. Mostly the employees have been disinterested in what I have been trying to start up. They have yet to see the possible monetary gain that I believe is achievable.

Also the employees have started to post more frequently to Facebook (which I think was my doing). They have been posting pictures of arrangements and new product but it doesn’t transfer over to Twitter. So essentially my project should have a couple dozen more Tweets than what it shows.

Also there was a little problem at the store. There was no wireless internet access. I have used my own funds and purchased a decent dual-band wireless router and now I have wireless internet there.

I also designed and purchased a banner for the outside of the store with the blog address and twitter name on the poster.

I have not seen a return on my investment yet but I am doing this project for more than just a grade or credit.

The business is my mother’s and it’s struggling in such a rural location. The location though will be the last thing to change so I thought this assignment would be a good opportunity for me to start a process that is necessary for the survival of the business.

So what can I say. I have possibly failed but I am not done trying yet. I have purposefully not taken any summer classes and intend to focus on the development of the blog and building a following on social media in order to turn the business around. I believe it can be done. I have found some good articles in the BSU library article database that I plan on posting about next.

But connecting Facebook and Twitter is essential for me. As well as getting easy access to the account for all employees. There is an outdated computer in the flower shop that still does not have internet access (even though the wireless router is 6 inches from it!). The owner, my mother, says a new computer is next on the list and hopefully that will happen shortly.

Once they have internet access in the flower shop then posting updates should be easier. BUT still I need Facebook and Twitter to connect. The flowershop already had a facebook account, so that is where the following is at. In order to maximize the effectiveness of marketing on social media the two need to connect, end of story.

Also I need to note that I am attempting a rather radical idea with the employees of the store and flowershop. I am attempting to combine two businesses and give them one umbrella name when they have always had two seperate names. I know it doesn’t make sense but originally the two businesses were in two separate locations. I am by no means technologically savvy and I am trying to bring technology to a business and people who don’t even use Facebook for personal reasons. (well most of them)

NEXT STEPS:

Get New Computer

Cry over the Facebook/Twitter fiasco

Store Meeting: Sales and Promotions need to be more methodical and appropriately promoted. Currently there can be no rhyme or reason as to why things get marked down or when a sales starts or ends. If my project is successful I need to be able to get the entire team on board.

Focus on the blog instead of Facebook and Twitter for a few weeks while I try to get the entire team planning out sales and promotions a month at time.

School is almost done for the semester and I plan to spend quite a bit of time working at the location, this will be the best way to get everyone on the same page.

 

Blogs as Narratives

Convergent Journey

I have read through the past three months of Convergent Journey. I found the blog on wordpress it was one of the freshly pressed blogs. The inspiration/title for the blog comes from this quote

• It is our inward journey that leads us through time—forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge.

Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

The blogger is a grad student from NYC. She is female but doesn’t give up her name or a clear picture of her. After I became interested in her as much as her travels did I read the about page. She sums up herself vey well..

• A NYC transplant in London, loving every minute. On a scavenger hunt to suss out the ever so slight cultural and linguistic differences between the two, but mostly feeling right at home here. Master’s student, self-professed nerd, social justice oriented. In my slim student wallet, nonetheless keeping a generous travel budget (priorities! my boots may have sprung a leak, but they can still trod the European pavement). A walker more than a traveler; a nester more than a nomad. Interested more in the people who make a place what it is, than in the place itself.
• I do sightseeing by osmosis. Before going anywhere, I read the guidebook cover-to-cover; once I’m there, I set out in whichever direction and see where I end up. I try to take it all in and do what I always forgot to do in NYC: look up. History adorns these streets!

London, Life and Travel are the three main categories that her posts fall into.

The Tagline is weekending my way through Europe. Basically that is what the blog is about, random weekend trips with a focus on the food and culture and the price. Her posts are focused on her photos as well. Photos mattered more to me than the text, when the page was heavy on text I scrolled though looking for the next photo.

Type of Narrative

Each post is a seperate episode that can be read on its own. This blog fits in with Rettberg’s fragmented naratives but it could also act as a goal oriented narrative because the reader will keep reading wanting to find out where the blogger goes next. The clear project in mind is the intention of traveling to someplace in Europe for the weekend, possibly/hopefully every weekend. The three categories work well at this point. The blog was started Sep 8 2011.

Ongoing Narration

There is going to be an end to the blog because the travel will end in five months. The story still unfolding.

“Blogs often avoid writing directly about their emotional and personal affairs.” Convergent Journey seems to follow this rule closely. She travels a lot with other friends and they are only mentioned by letter, I often cannot tell whether the companion is male or female.

When her blog is light on the text and heavy on the photos I can skim though it. This it seems is a plus on the internet. Though the photo phenomenon seems to be important when reading the travel posts when the rare post of emotional insight is given the photos didn’t weigh in so heavy.

Blog as Self-Exploration

I am not sure how much of this blog is self-exploration. There are posts or call-outs mentioned in posts that are personal, though they are definitely no the focus of the blog. I think this adds to the narrative of the blog. Once you start reading months of posts the reader can begin to develop this history and understanding of the blogger, a Korean American.

This blog is a pseudonymous blog at times, these posts are organized into the Life category. These posts aren’t filled pictures like the Travel and London posts but they are still just as interesting. Because the blogger is letting me in? I am not sure why but my attention lasted thoughout the post.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed this blog. When it comes to reading a blog or finding one that I would want to read I am still trying to work out. To go back and read the blog from a specific point and go forward was awkward and also a lot of extra clicks- time. So I tried reading March a different way. I starting with the latest post in March and read backwards to the beginnning of March. Some posts the order of which I read them made no difference but others such as the trip to Madrid and Segovia should be read starting with Day 1. I was a little suprised about how strongly the photos affected my attention to the post. I am sure the fact that this is a travel blog plays into it but photos really matter to my attention span.

The categories work well because if I just wanted to read about travel/experience in London I can go there, or if I’m into the weekend trips in Europe there is the Travel category and I like that she has seperated out the self-exploration aspect by giving it its own Life category.

I wish she would refer directly to the reader but her writing is decent and smooth.

I think that this blog does serve as a narrative. I think the Eudora Welty quote sums up well the idea of the narrative in a blog though, not often in a staightline but a spiral.

Wikis and Wikipedia

Why wiki it? I have been pondering this question for the last week. 

In my previous college life I obtained degrees in business management and business administration. Every class there was at least one major group presentation. They were horrible! There was always the member who never was in class or attended the group meetings… they was the silent person who never added a damn thing… there was me the annoying bossy girl stressing out because no one was doing anything. We never used a wiki but now I think about the possibilities that the wiki could have provided to us and well to me the anal overachiever.

• Don’t need to meet face to face.
• Can easily see a member’s contribution (if they contribute!)
• The professor/boss can see who is and isn’t participating. Don’t you hate the awkward questions about participation? No one likes a tattle tale!
• We could have used threadmode to jot down ideas we had and bam the rest of us could easily add to that idea.
• We could have edited other’s work and asked questions and furthered the development process by lightyears.

But of course there would have been trouble as well.

• For sure some idiot would mess up my brilliant ideas. But we would have figured it out and thank goodness I could go back to an earlier version .
• At times it could be unclear who contributed what exactly. So someone may not get the credit they so desire. Okay fine it would be me…
• Someone could delete the Wiki.

Well luckily for me I now go to school for creative and professional writing and rarely have to do group work. Seriously these kids have no idea how good they have it. Suck it business students. (my grammer is inappropritate and since this is my blog I can act this way but wouldn’t on a wiki, I swear.)

Each wiki is different and since they have to do with topics they are stuck being topic driven. But since each wiki is different each one can have their own set of norms and should therefore have a style guide.

Levinson on Wikipedia

Seriously when I was going to school as mentioned above Wikipedia was like the plague when it came to works cited. Fast forward only a few years (I’m not that old!) and Wikipedia is the shit. 10 sources? No problem 10 seperate wikipedia pages, check.

I had a thought today and maybe it isn’t worth sharing but, especially with this chapter I thought “Levinson writes this book like he is proposing a thesis for a graduate or doctoral dissertation.” Any thoughts anyone?

Pickles and Pericles

This is why my professor’s said that Wikipedia wasn’t a reliable source in 2006.

Inclusionist and Exclusionists

Its interesting and not surprising but its such a grey area to me.  I mean it is supposed to be an encyclopedia so the knowlede should have staying power but who is really to say whether or not something does. Look at all the amazing artists who were shunned during their lifetimes.

Neutrality of Editors

Neutrality. Does it truy exist anywhere?

Identity Problems

This is simply a problem with new new media

All Wikipedians are Equal, But Some are More Equal than Others

Conflict of interest is a problem in many jobs maybe the supreme court needs to decide.

Transparency

I like this part of Wikipedia and wikis in general, I think it makes people think twice before posting something. Oversharing is a problem with new new media.

Wikipedia vs. Britannica   

This girl’s opinion is to use both.

Old vs. New New Media in Reporting the Death of Tim Russert.

Really this is the fucking example you use? I don’t know just seems tacky. But I shouldn’t be surprised, I don’t Levinson has much shame.

Wikipedia Wrongly Reports the Deaths…

Who turns to Wikipedia for news? And how can you tell the difference between wrongly reporting and intentionally lying?

Encyclopedia or Newspaper?

Both.

Does Wikipedia make Libraries Unnecessary?

What a horrible question. And scary in my opinion.

The UK vs. Wikipedia

Its that coutry’s choice.

 

 

 

Levinson, Chapter 8

On to Twitter

If privacy is a large concern of yours, join under a pseudonym or assumed identity. While I am sure that taking on an assumed identity has been happening since religion was formed, I don’t undertand why Levinson suggests doing it.

Twitter = microblogging

Epitome of Immediacy

Twitter is “the most immediate written medium in history, but it’s also the most integrated combination of interpersonal and mass communication in history.”

Ok, no comment. Next section.

Interpersonal + Mass Communication = Twitter

Twitter is compared to teaching in a classroom and the ability of the professor to teach the class and then responding to a particular student’s question. I get it but I think the comparison is a stretch.

• First there is the 140 character limit of Twitter.  That would be a short class!
• Twitter does not bring that group of students together at the same time the way a classroom does.
• The “other” students in the classroom would probably miss the question by the student for the “interpersonal” part of the interaction.
• Also the effectiveness to communicating on Twitter cannot be compared to a classroom. You can’t hear tone, see hand and facial expressions on Twitter.

Twitter as Smart T-Shirt or Jewelry

I found this section interesting because I had never heard of Gary Gumpert and “the rise of mini-comm”

But I have never been one to understand people’s want to display for the world one’s emotional disposition. I shudder when someone posts how sad or upset they are. I roll my eyes when someone proclaims their happiness or undying love.

Comparing the emotional display on Twitter with messages n T-shirts interesting but that’s it.

Pownce and other Twitter-Likes

Never heard of it.   

Twitter Dangers: The Congressman Who Tweeted Too Much

This is where emotional displays should be located.

Levinson would have some kick-ass info for this section today!

Twitter vs. the Mullahs in Iran

Interesting and obvious that Twitter makes free speech more accessible.

McLuhan as Microblooger

Levinson has a whole book on this.

He mentions it.

McLuhan wrote “The Gutenberg Galaxy” in 1962.

Levinson probably wrote the wikipedia page for it but here is the link.

Levinson, Chapter 7

Facebook

MySpace vs. Facebook

Subjective Differences

Levinson on Facebook actually started out as a MySpace vs. Facebook debate which seemed pointless to me. Maybe three years ago when this book was written this question was useful.

How many of you have ever had a MySpace account? I have not. One possibility for my disinterest in MySpace is Levinson’s idea “that what people most prefer is what they first encountered and loved.” Seems like a biased unuseful idea. Why does it seem like Levinson is bragging about being one of the first people on Facebook because of his .edu email address?

Levinson  says ” whatever their objective differences and advantages, their ultimate value is he good they do for each indivisual user’s needs.” Check. Why does it seem like Levinson is trying to justify MySpace in this section. Because this is how he describes his experience on MySpace, “I feel as if we are part of a community — one that comments on political issues, on television shows and movies we have seen — a community even though, with just a handful of exceptions, we have never met.” I think his experience is irregular.

 Objective Differences

“Facebook has a much higher ratio of real-life friends than does MySpace.”

Levinson has 2,000 friends on Facebook and has real life relationships with 500 of them.

Levinson has 6,000 friends on MySpace and knows 100 of them.

Facebook Friends as a Knowledge-Base Resource

Levinson points out that both MySpace and Facebook have “status bars” and that Facebook is great for finding answers to questions that you couldn’t find on the web. I rarely ask a question on Facebook but this is what Levinson has experienced.

Facebook Friends as Real-Time Knowledge Resources

Levinson could just say in one sentence that because of new new media you can receive your knowledge in real-time and that this information should be checked and corrected if need be. But then we wouldn’t be able to get another personal story.

Facebook Groups as Social and Political Forces

Guess what? “MySpace and Facebook both have “groups.”

The Facebook Group for Barack Obama, “One Million Strong” was a political forced

Levinson also created a Facebook Group.

Facebook as Myriad Local Political Pubs

You can have political discussions on Facebook that don’t have to end when you leave the pub.

Meeting Online Friends in the Real World

Meet them in a safe and public place. Levinson was found that they are often just like their online personalities, hoow great.  

Connecting with Old Friends Online

Isn’t great that random people from your past can track you down?

Protection for the “Hidden Dimension”: Cleaning Up Your Online Pages

Basically if its not something you want your Grandma or potential employer to see don’t put it on there to begin with.

Photos for Breastfeeding Banned on Facebook

This happened when Facebook was trying to ensure that there was no pornographic photos on its site. People were upset but only the breastfeeding photos that showed the areola were banned.

Final Thoughts:

This chapter was about Facebook and Paul Levinson and how Paul uses Facebook and MySpace differently.  

 

 

Goodsearch

Hey Guys I use GoodSearch for Fosston Early Childhood Education, my son is in the school-readiness program and the program had to cut approximately 20 days from the calendar this year.

One way I am working with the program director to gain funds for the charity is GoodSearch. Please check it out. There are so many good nonprofit organizations to support.

Here’s an easy way to raise money for your favorite cause. Just start using Yahoo! powered GoodSearch.com as your search engine and they’ll donate about a penny to your favorite cause every time you do a search!

In addition, do all of your shopping through their online shopping mall, GoodShop.com, where you can shop at more than 2,400 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to the charity or school of your choice. You pay the same price as you normally would, but a donation goes to your cause!

You can also enroll in the GoodDining program. Eat at over 10,000 participating restaurants nationwide and you can earn up to 6% of every dollar spent on the meal as a donation for your charity or school.

Here’s the web site — http://www.goodsearch.com. You can also read about GoodSearch in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine, CNN, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Well, I don’t know about you but my brain is thinking BLOG! What can I BLOG about? Well I can certainly blog about Rettberg and Levinson. I know. I’m getting to it…eventually.

What I am surprised to learn though is how often throughout the day a small occurance will happen and a light bulb goes off and I immediately start forming out the idea for a blog post. For instance, I want to do a post on Box Tops for Education and the companies participating in it and the EVIL companies who aren’t involved. If you guessed that I thought of this as I snipped out a few Box Tops for Education you would be right!

Having a conversation with someone at work tonight about living in the country and how I must be crazy because I miss St Paul I see the blossom of a post about moving back up north.

The other thing that I am learning is how quick I am to PUBLISH my post without rereading or editing or quite frankly working my thoughts out clearly.

I am also amazed by how much time I have spent on my blog, picking out the Theme, writing a little bit about myself, setting up that damn blogroll, attempting to understand the tools and settings. Yep, I have spent a lot of time on this thing and you probably can’t tell. BUT I am sure many of you are feeling this way as well.

To those of you who have taken the time to comment on one of my pathetic posts THANK YOU. I become downright giddy when I see a comment and once I figure out how to turn of moderate your comment shall hit my blog immediately. Why am I turning off “moderate?” Because Levinson told me to. LOL. Just kidding but he does talk about moderation and you should already know that so I won’t reiterate his points. I simple think it’s more work to moderate and I have PLENTY of work already.

“New New” Media? I seem to only have more questions.

Okay I understand the premise behind calling it “new new” media but it seems a little short-sighted because will “new new” media ever become ”new” media ever become “old” media? In fifty years the term “new new” media will have little relevancy when you look at what the definition of new is. 

Levinson’s backing for the existence of “new new” is Time magazines use of it as well and then he has to put in parentheses that he was already almost done with his book. Huh? Doesn’t that make his point pointless and his aside rather childish?

Levinson claims that “new new media are always free to the consumer.” I cannot agree with this argument when he claims that you have to pay for items on Amazon and iTunes therefore they are not “new new” media because there are select downloads that are free. Levinson then claims that Youtube is “new new” media because everything is free when there are select downloads that you have to pay for.

I don’t have the “right” answer but I think that it is close to impossible to draw a line in the sand the way Levinson does on what constitutes “new” media and “new new” media and that one is free while the other isn’t.

Just because we can now produce and consume content from hundreds of millions of people to me doesn’t automatically make “new new” media a positive thing. Which is probably why I have been an the delayed side with interacting on Twitter or starting my own blog.

• There is a lot of disinformation out there and how are to know what is accurate?
• How much time will we waste in the future wading through the plethora of consumer produced content?
• And will this drive up the price of the quality produced content? That must be why our text cost $70 right?  

Ultimately this chapter stirs up more questions in me than it gives answers. Only time will tell right? Well hmm. Probably not because then we will be on to “new new new” media and we will be learning about how archaic Twitter is.

Facebook v. Twitter

So what is really the big difference between the two? As someone who has been on FB for a few years and have now recently signed up for Twitter my obvious answer is I can go crazy on Twitter. I could potentially have a nasty alter ego who says everything I really want to say. I rarely post to Facebook because too many people can read what I have to say. The life and times of Beth in 2011/2012 aren’t that rosey. You too? Bummer. But I suppose the difference between the two is more complicated than that.

Did you know there is suposed to be a difference to social media and social network other than the spelling? Me neither. But now we do. Supposedly FB is social media while the folks at Twitter say they are a social network. Check out this post by Ben Parr who clearly knows more on the issue than I do.

One aspect that I personally find interesting is how businesses big and small are using FB and Twitter to reach their customers. Kristin Page thinks that most businesses should be using both check out her post for the 5 reasons why.

Sure Parr and Page talk about interesting stuff BUT lets all use Twitter to talk smack before everyone else joins.