Blog Post 8

Using Social Media to Meet your Idol

            On Social Media Today, there is an article explaining tips and tricks to meeting your idols through social media. In addition to this article, I know someone who went to my high school who was able to accomplish this last year. She asked Shaun White to prom, and yes he showed up. I would like to go through the steps she took in order to do this.

            First she researched Shaun White, his likes, dislikes, background, and what he did when he was in high school. Then she made a video. This video included all the information she found about him including that he was never able to go to his senior prom. Through facebook, she began trying to connect with him. She posted the video and tagged his facebook page and a hashtag that she used throughout her efforts.

            From facebook, she went on twitter and tweeted at him and his band, constantly with the same hashtag and all of her friends did it too. Then she went on YouTube and Instagram and did the same thing. She tagged him in all the posts with the same hashtag and begging him to answer and go to prom with her.

            The power of social media showed its strength to her May 2014 when she had a surprise guest at prom. Shaun White and his band showed up at our little all girl’s high school’s prom in a little town in Philadelphia. His band played a couple songs and she was able to hang out with her idol, Shaun white for the rest of the night. Not all efforts are this successful but she proved that night that social media is a powerful tool in connecting with the most unlikely people.

And now the video is all over the news. Here is a clip from OneMinuteNews:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wzajq741yE

Blog Post 7

9 Mistakes Businesses make on Social Media

I recently read a post on socialmediatoday about the mistakes businesses make on Social Media. It really interested me and I thought it was extremely important to know what to do and what not to do when we eventually need to promote on different social media platforms so I wanted to reiterate this message and expand on a couple of them.

1.     Focusing on the Quantity of the Followers, not the quality

Sometimes companies dwell just on having a massive amount of followers. While this is good for marketing sometimes, like building a network and making others think you are more credible for being popular, it does not help where it counts. If you have a ton of followers but none of them are very interested in your product or likely to buy your product or service it doesn’t help you at all. So sometimes, although it is good to have large numbers of followers, we should think about the quality of our followers and if they are likely to buy rather than just the numbers in general.

2.     Not posting engaging content regularly

If I am interested in a company I am going to want to see what they are doing and when they are doing it. If I don’t see any posts that interest me in a decent amount of time, I will most likely get bored and move onto another similar company. This is why companies have to have a schedule about what they are posting and when they are posting it.

3.     Not converting followers into paid customers

I feel the same way about what I said for the first one. This is all about the quality of the follower not the quantity.

4.     Focusing on too many social media channels

It is great to have different channels but if you are on too many and do not have enough time or man power to successfully advertise on all of them or engage with your audiences then focus on a smaller group of channels that you can actually manage. More information and content on fewer channels will most likely be more effective than a lot of channels with little information and content

5.     Having no Brand Personality

You have to have a brand personality so that it is easier for people to connect with you. If you are dry and have no personality it is less likely to catch peoples attention and make them want to engage in business with you. If you make it personal by having a personality more people will be able to connect on a deeper level.

6.     Spamming

Just no. I hate Spam

7.     Doing Everything Manually

Takes too long. Will not be effective

8.     Broadcasting the Same Message Across all channels

You are on different channels for a reason. If you use the same message across all channels you are not using your time and channels efficiently. It doesn’t have to be drastic but little changes to adapt to the channels and audiences of each channel could have a great impact.

9.     Not having a strategy at all

If you don’t have a strategy at all it is pretty noticeable. This will cause the content to be messy and the frequency of content to be unpredictable and may cause followers to loose interest. A strategy is the first thing your company should come up with, even before choosing the content or channels.

Blog Post 6- 8 Business Growth Strategies for Instagram

8 Business Growth Strategies for Instagram

I recently read an article on social media today about the different Business Growth Strategies for Instagram. Although I didn’t feel that all of the strategies pertained to our generation right now I did feel that some of them did.  The 8 strategies listed were Profile, Photos, Video, Hashtags, Mentions, Innovate, Manage, and Integrate. While these are all important concepts I wanted to focus on the couple that, to me, seem are harder to conquer. These include Profile, Hashtags, Manage, and Integrate.

Profile- should include your name and important information that might be relevant for a new person looking at your account. A short bio would be nice and a description of you or your business, depending on what you are trying to promote.

Hashtags- these can be very useful for many reasons. They are a good way to link different pictures or videos with a similar concept or idea. They also are a good way to direct traffic to your account, which will then lead people to look at your profile, and hopefully engage with you or your company.

Manage- although people instagram for entertainment and to show people what they have done recently, it is important to manage it well if you are trying to promote a business. This includes liking and commenting on other peoples instagrams from your account and also being very aware of your captions and hashtags. You can look at your competitors instragrams to decide what the most efficient way to manage your account is but you should be aware.

Integrate- You want to make sure you integrate your instagram with your other forms of social media or advertising. This means you want to make a similar or the same user name for each account and make sure to list how to follow or look at each type of social media. This makes it easy for consumers and other people to connect with you easily in as many channels as possible.

Like I said before, all 8 of the strategies listed in the article are very relevant and important but I feel these 4 are the hardest to master.