We were part of the group that monitored the Twitter feed the last day of class. The discussion involved discussion of the SXSW event in Houston as Kelli attended part of the event. As it was the last day there was not much discussion happening on the Twitter feed with a total of about ten people chatting on Twitter and three of those were discussion leaders….annnnd class was 30 minutes long. We discussed some the new ideas in marketing like walking Wi-Fi homeless to problems of privacy with future social media products. At one point @AshleyAronson says “How far is too far for location updated on social media? Creepy or cool?” It will be interesting to see how far companies will take it. The rest of the Twitter feed mainly consisted of links to things mentioned and farewells to J412 and Kelli. Only one more term to go!

It was an interesting day to lead the twitter conversation, mostly because it was the last day of class but also because the topic it revolved around. A lot of the twitter feedback was about the discussion around the hotspots for the homeless, which led to some interesting points of view. A lot of the class felt as though it would be detrimental to society because we are aiding in the development of homeless people not making more of an effort to find employment, they saw it as dehumanizing as many put it. The discussion mostly revolved around this and what the class thought. It was very informational and informal because of the excitement around the last day of class and how short the class was.

@katypflaum

The time has arrived again when the term has come to an end. Student’s minds are now preoccupied with their spring break plans of jetting off to Vegas or downtime at home. Regardless of each of our plans we are all fumbling and struggling towards the finish line with nowhere near the drive we once held this term. Us college students cannot wait, whether intentionally or not, to easily forget in one week what we have learned in the entirety of winter term. Which leads to one reason why I appreciated and enjoyed J412. It is because I used resources and learned information that I will actually use outside of the classroom.

Twitter is one example of a resource used in class. Regardless of our understanding of Twitter before, there is always something more to learn. I thought my Twitter game was solid before the class because I had one; I tweeted a couple times a day and followed some professionals.

We learned in lecture that the importance of being online is not just to promote yourself but to have communication, to be engaging with those you are connected with and create conversation. An example of a Twitter campaign that took engagement and social responsibility to the next level was Ben and Jerry’s “Fair Tweets” campaign. It helped promote World Fair Trade Day, which provides farmers in developing countries build sustainable businesses that positively influence their communities. Ben and Jerry’s used Twitter as a way to engage its followers as well as promote its fair trade ingredients. There is so much to utilize and I think Ali Manzano from the Oregonian said it well that just because you’ve been talking online for twenty years does not mean you have a voice. It is something we need to work on over time and nurture.

One thing we can all agree on is that social media is always changing. To do well in the social media field we need to be willing to change and immerse ourselves in each new social media of the moment. There is way more information to dig into than what we see on the surface and our work is never done. In all we do we need to stay true to the most important aspect of engagement, being authentic.

@ericshan31

First off, I would like to start out by saying how fast this term went. It still feels like it has been a few weeks since taking this class, but now, we’re just one week away from finals. But anyways, everything about this class was obviously geared toward around social media and how it impacts us, our society, and businesses in both a positive and negative way. And, we also learned that social media platforms are not limited to just Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and other platforms that we, as Americans, use every day. That being said, there are two takeaways from this course that I will cherish when I graduate in June. One, different cultures have their own preference of what social media platform they want to use and not just Facebook or Twitter, and two, risks outweigh the benefits in social media use.

First Takeaway: Social media is different among cultures

We didn’t really cover this a lot in class, but I learned this through one of our guest speakers, Anna Klueyva. While she talked about how corruption is existent in the Russian government through what people post on the internet, she also mentioned how the people in Russia do not limit themselves to just Twitter and Facebook. In fact, the most popular social media sites in Russia are LiveJournal, a blogging website(also has a YouTube page), and VKontakte (VK), a site identical to Facebook. I’m not saying that no one uses Facebook or Twitter, but it really amazes me that different cultures have their own preference when it comes to social media. And as a person who wants to be in marketing or corporate sales, learning these preferences and figuring out how to reach different audiences via social media is something I need to understand if I want different audiences to be engaged.

Second Takeaway: Risks>Benefits

This is speaking in terms of job risks, not in terms of ethical dilemmas. Other than reading articles on how people got fired over their status updates, In almost every class I have taken this past year, all my professors would tell me to watch what I post on Facebook or any other social media site that I use. While we all have heard this numerous times, I really wonder how many of us have actually monitored what pictures we posted on our Facebook album or what we wrote on our status updates this past few weeks. While we have learned about how companies are establishing social media policies for their employees, I am learning that there are serious consequences in what I post online. I don’t know about you, but if I want to work for a company that has my ideal work environment and for a specific department, I would definitely keep my social media site PG.

@E_Flaherty25

In three short months I will be leaving the University of Oregon with my degree in journalism. As we all know the state of the economy and the state of journalism is not ideal for my entrance into the job market. As I contemplate what career path I want to take in the ever-changing journalism world I know that Ali Manzano’s, a guest speaker in Strategic Social Media, words of wisdom will stick with me. Ali urged us to ditch the idea of thinking of journalists as in the newspaper business and instead have the mindset that we are in the business of information.

Embracing the change of the industry can be frustrating, infuriating and inspiring. What is certain is that information will always be a desired commodity and technology is changing how we access that information and utilize it in our daily lives. When you are a social media manager, such as the position Ali holds for The Oregonian, it is your job to understand all the available social media platforms and use them effectively for your brand. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to have to master and manage yet another new platform, if you want your brand to thrive and stay relevant it is essential to provide information in any manner that you can.

Ali offered the advice to be willing to abandon your social media strategy when it is time for a change no matter how in love you are with it and how hard you worked on it. Every month a new social media platform emerges as the next big thing and some take off while some begin to fade as quick as they appeared.

All the feelings of uncertainty I have about graduating are equally met with the comfort that as a new journalist I am on a equal playing field with the old pros when it comes to the introduction of new social media channels. There is opportunity for everyone to figure out the best ways to use these channels. The information is out there and ready to be shared. People have increasing access to information and it is up to journalists to accept innovation as part of the job and be energized about all the potential that exists in the industry.

After finishing up planning and measurement on Monday, today in class we discussed the final project and had time to meet with our groups to discuss strategy.

For Part One of the Final Project: Social Media Audit

For this section, we are to figure out what the organization is saying about itself.  What type of content is it putting out and what type of “personality” does the organization display.  Check the organization’s bio and see if it matches with the content that they post. For the first section, we are to turn in both the social media chart with the one to two page report. Be sure to use quotes and content to back up your assertions.

Second half of Part One:Listening/Monitoring Research and Report

For this section make sure that you are looking at all three levels (remember the baby wipes illustration) and look for your organization’s name, look for trends and influencers, and look at the larger market space. Be sure to either make your NetVibes dashboard public or take a screenshot.  No one in the class opted for using Yahoo Pipes. The NetVibes dashboard should include more than just the basic sections and should be specific to your organization.

Section Two:   Social Media Strategy

We then met in our groups to discuss four things:

• What is one key thing about your organization from the social media audit?
• Who is your audience?
• What is your strategy? What is your general direction?
• What are your tactics?

After we met in groups, several groups shared strategies and tactics and questions about how to align the two. The class spoke about how many organizations are automatically cross promoting information that doesn’t play as well in each social media channel.  Organizations need to remember that the audiences are different for each channel. Kelli encouraged us to be creative with our strategies and don’t limit ourselves to the big three. She also wants each team member to provide sample content (i.e. a blog post if you are recommending a blog) in the appendix.

And as a reminder, we do not have class on Monday.

Below are some sample tweets from class today:

#J412ssm Try to think outside the box for strategy with your company, the Big Three are a great place to start, but try to diversify!

#J412ssm For part one of the Final Project, make sure to turn in both the chart you create and the report with the required information

#J412ssm Make sure to go into detail with your strategy for your companies

Here is the link to our conversation:
bit.ly/AsDfls

I’ll be the first to admit I may be the biggest social media noob. Before this class forced me to do Twitter Management, I had a total of four tweets, all of which I had only retweeted. I did not post on Facebook or keep a weekly blog. I am the definition of a spectator. With that being said, this class scared me-the thought of having to live tweet in class for a day and write a blog was overwhelming, and nerve-wracking. However, in the past nine weeks I have learned the value, power and potential social media has to influence not only society on a global level, but also on a corporate level.

Two key aspects to effective social media use have stuck with me throughout the entire term, aspects I continue to notice in mundane social media use as well as larger campaigns.

One of those elements is the importance of understanding your audience: what they do and don’t like, what they talk about, where they talk about it and how they are talking about it. On a business level, companies need to recognize who they are targeting and exactly how to target them most effectively. A good example comes from Gap, a company that understands its target market is a money-conscious individual who strives for tasteful, classy clothing at a cheaper price. With that in mind, the company sees many of its customers subscribing to Groupon as a way to save money. Therefore, Gap produced a Groupon that over 400,000 consumers purchased, bringing in over $11 billion. Gap’s Senior Director of Media said, “We’re really trying to reach new customers… To reach them in ways that are part of their everyday so that it becomes like a conversation.” This demonstrates an excellent example of understanding the consumers and going beyond level 1 to reach them. Gap targeted the consumer’s lifestyle to promote the brand.

In addition to understanding the audience, I’ve also learned the importance of bringing value to content. Anyone can tweet about the everything bagel he/she had for breakfast, or blog about what it’s like walking to class every day in the rain. Although maybe important to some, this type of content provides no value to those reading it because it does not spark a conversation or encourage a response. Companies using social media must provide value to their content to engage their audience. If the content posted cannot be responded to, argued or agreed with it is difficult to encourage participation from the audience.

One example of this is Toyota’s social media campaign attempt during the 2012 Superbowl. Before the commercial promoting the newest Camry, Toyota set up nine separate Twitter accounts, @camryeffect1 to @camryeffect9. Twitter validated all nine accounts with a blue check. The commercial encouraged users to tweet using the hashtag #camryeffect, and they would automatically receive a robotic response, which was labeled spam, asking users to sign up to win a free camry. What Toyota failed to understand that automating a spam response carries very little value because it only frustrates the consumer. This campaign turned ugly fast after many users were extremely upset by receiving the spam tweet. Of course, they tweeted about it, putting Toyota on social media blast.

And how exactly did Toyota’s campaign go viral? A social media software company, Salesforce, produced a short video comparing how the flu spreads to how content spreads on the Internet.

Both Gap and Toyota demonstrate two of the most valuable lessons I learned this term: the importance of understanding (and engaging) with your audience and bringing value to the content to create conversation. Social media is no longer a daunting task in my life, but something I have come to greatly appreciate and recognize how crucial it is to learn to use it effectively.

Donald Trump.  Lady Gaga.  Barack Obama.  If there is one quality they all share, it’s that they serve as telling examples of how to create a powerful personal brand to put forth to the world.  As social media grows at an ever-increasing rate, the ability to create and manage your own personal brand has become a necessary skill.  Whatever avenues you explore through social media, it’s vital to be on top of your personal brand to ensure your positive visibility in the online world.

Managing and developing a personal brand is a challenge in innovation and setting yourself apart from the rat race that social media inspires.  Just like corporate brands, personal brands can take years to build up into something positive, only to come crashing down in seconds with the wrong Tweet.  Dan Schawbel from Techipedia.com has a list of tips for brand building, and despite the differences in building a personal brand vs. a larger scale brand, many of the principles will sound familiar.  Through blogs, the new Facebook timeline feature, the always relevant Twitter world, and other social media advances, building a personal brand is less daunting and more essential than ever before.

While many of the strategies for building brands have been discussed at length in this class, the question remains of how to best manage the dissemination of a brand.  A new site, BrandYourself.com was launched recently with the intention of helping users build and maintain their brands, specifically by controlling how the brand is perceived through Google searches.  Co-Founder Pete Kistler came up with the idea when his college internship applications were mistaken for another Pete Kistler, a drug dealer.   BrandYourself aims to control this by helping users navigate the challenging world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  The website takes you through your first page of Google results, allowing users to mark each link as “positive,” “negative,” or “not me.” Based upon your ratings, the site makes suggestions for how to boost the exposure of the links you want to emphasize. While it cannot guarantee that it will increase your exposure or help build your brand, it is a great advantage to have when dealing with the complexities of SEO.  The jury remains out on BrandYourself at this early stage, but it may be a worthwhile pursuit for those looking to maximize the effects of successful brand building.

I imagine a time in the future when a superior asks, “So what is the point of all this tweetering and poking on the Facebook that you guys do over here?”

First: refrain from correcting the language of your superior and from informing them that they should really not be poking people on Facebook; it’s just kind of…weird.

Second: provide numbers or graphs (people love graphs) about the interests, attitudes and actions of our customers: information that would have been unattainable without the use of social media and measuring tools like Technorati, Google Analytics, Yahoo Pipes etc.

Here is a rudimentary list of things that should be paid attention to while measuring interest, attitudes and actions from Kami Watson Huyse

Interest

-Web traffic

-Page views

-Blog and other mentions

-Downloads

Attitudes

-Tonality of comments and posts

-Net Promoter Score (NPS)

-Optimum Content Score (OCS)

Actions

-Cost comparisons

-Revenue raised

-Subscribers

-Funds raised

-Items sold

-Purchase intent

Measurement is an essential element in implementing any social media strategy (duh). That being said, measurement without goals or a strategy to attain those goals is useless. Measurement should be the hand that guides our strategy and adjusts our techniques to get us closer to those goals. Measurement is one aspect in a larger system, providing information we need to adjust our strategies and techniques.

According to Chris Brogan, president of Human Business Works, in a blog post titled Social Media Strategy – Aligning Goals and Measurements, “Measuring the effectiveness of your efforts is vital to knowing you’re making progress. Remember that diets (strategies) often need adjusting along the way. It’s measurements that tell us this.”

It’s like this: without clear and attainable goals for the organization and a strategy that will get the organization closer to those goals, there is no point in measuring. Brogan continues, “Strategy is essentially the diet, but the goal might be weight loss, muscle growth, cholesterol reduction, allergy aversion. See how it’s not one-size-fits all? Before you know which diet to start, you need to know the goal.” Strategy without measurement is as useless as measurement without strategy.

Measurement is an essential yet complimentary aspect of figuring out the answer to the question: “Is what we are doing working?”

On Monday, March 5^th we were fortunate to have Ali Manzano (@AliManzano), coordinator of social media for The Oregonian, speak with our Strategic Social Media class.  Topics that Ali covered ranged from social media strategy and brand building to the social media responsibilities and challenges for news organizations.  Her insightful commentary kept the class engaged and even prompted this complimentary tweet from Carson York: “#j412ssm have listened to dozens of master phd students argue bout professional media and social media. @AliManzano best answer I have heard”.  Here is an abridged transcript of the hashtag #j412ssm during Ali’s lecture.

@CarsonYork: #j412ssm what are some difference between a social media manager for a news outlet and social media manager for brand?

@jeoldach:  social media strategy, like many new technology developments, is mainly trial and error #j412ssm

@plandsem: “An ineffective social strategy is like talking to yourself. You have to earn your audience.” -@AliManzano #J412ssm
@CarsonYork: #j412ssm the question is not what content is good now, but what content is sustainable #noonehitwonders

@plandsem: Have to understand the value of different media: How will you position a photo differently on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc? #J412ssm

@NBeschle: @CarsonYork #j412ssm People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan. When I think of strategy, I think of people having a plan before they act

@kmatthews:  We’re not in the “newspaper” biz, we’re in the “information” biz. We’re doing the same thing we’ve always done. @AliManzano #J412ssm

@rachelmstarr: “don’t fall in love with your [social media] strategy” – @AliManzano speaking about strategic social media #j412ssm

@jeoldach: @AliManzano #j412ssm no such thing as eternity in social media. trends and changes happen too rapidly

@AshleyAronson: Keep updated with social media platform changes. Knowing how to use these changes will put you ahead of the game. #J412ssm

@kmatthews: Exhausted by the idea of one. more. platform. to. figure. out.? Tooooo bad. Get over it. It’s the SM manager’s job. #J412ssm

@MitchEarnshaw: “If you’re not failing, you’re not on the threshold of trying enough stuff.” @AliManzano #j412ssm

@CarsonYork: #j412ssm now, determine your personal social media strategy to build your brand, build it now!!!

@kmatthews: Developing your voice takes a lot of time. Just because you’ve been talking for 20-odd years, doesn’t mean you have a “voice.” #J412ssm

@jeoldach: news members cannot express opinions that make people doubt objectivity. example from occupy wall street: http://t.co/IkjhMiSC #j412ssm

@amandaohaver: #j412ssm is blowing up my twitter feed right now! Lots of interesting things being posted

@MayaLazaro: Even though I’m a) an ad major, and b) not in that class, I really wish I could tweet for #J412ssm. Great stuff! Check out the hashtag.

Ali provided the class with the valuable knowledge she has learned about being a social media manager/planner/engagement coordinator, as she has become the Oregonian’s chief of social media. She has seen it all. She wasn’t hired to do this. She earned the right to manage the Oregonian’s social media. She shared information ranging from what it is like to earn the trust of coworkers to the value of different content.

She stressed that content cannot be seen just as content. Within a newspaper especially there is a desire to put it all out there, but social media is not an information dump. Just as an editor will ask why are we sending this to press? She must ask why are we putting this out via twitter/facebook etc.? Why is this the platform for this content? She stressed that the content needs to be sustainable. If it has no life past this one piece than it is not usually useful. Ali is talking about the strategic thinking behind content management for a newspaper, but her message, that we should always be able to strategically justify any content, bridges all industries.

Ali shared her experience not only with managing platforms and content, but the importance of communicating to people within her organization. We can do all the other things that Ali told us to do, build our social media voice, explore every platform, know them and love them, find the threshold of failure, be reflexive, and always know our strategy, but if we cant convince anyone of what we know it is useless. No one anywhere is going to put blind faith in us, so we need to put the faith in him or her. We do this by knowing how to communicate what we are doing or can do for each individual.

The last point Ali made that needs to repeated it knowing what industry you work in. Don’t get stuck on a single idea. Be able to see the bigger picture. You may be working your butt off on one thing and then boom, that isn’t the right thing anymore. Be able to recognize this and adjust. For example she is in the business of information not newspapers. She may create and has, something that is awesome but she is constantly prepared to scrap it if things change. Both PR and Advertising, industries with clients, need to embrace this advice.

Thank you Ali, for you advice and words of wisdom. Undoubtedly it was one of the most valuable days this term.

Social media is increasing in popularity and therefore businesses are starting to implement social media into their business strategy. The company your working for creates a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Great, but now what? The Facebook page is starting to get ‘likes’ and the Twitter account is accumulating followers, but how do you measure the success of these social media accounts?

The traditional business model would calculate if investing in social media is beneficial by calculating the return on investment (ROI). However, social media is a new thing and therefore the business model needs to be tweaked. Scott Wheeler a senior director of marketing science at digital marketing agency Critcal Mass says, “Too many businesses have approached social ROI backwards. Instead of doing the calculations before taking action, many businesses spend time or money to get Facebook or Twitter presence and then look at metrics after the fact.” To avoid unsuccessful social media, the company should begin by establishing a social media plan that states the objectives of their social media sites. Understanding that social media is simply a vehicle to help increase brand awareness and interaction with customers can aid in reaching new company objectives. This fresh perspective should change the thought process of employees from “We need a Facebook page” to “We need to learn more about our customers through our Facebook page.”

Observing and listening to your audience is the key to measuring your company’s social media success. The best part about social media is that it is interactive and allows the company to interact and get to know customers at a personal level. Frank Falcone co-founder and executive program director of the Centre for CRM Excellence at the University of Toronto, states 5 criteria to measure a company’s social media reach.

1. Volume: Number of people talking about your company or topic
2. Tone: Negative, positive or neutral conversations
3. Coverage: Number of sources generating the conversation
4. Influence level of source: Level of authority of the people talking about you
5. Share of conversation: Within industry, how much of the conversation is about you

These guidelines are more helpful than measurement sites such as Klout, PostRank, PeerIndex etc, because there are many qualitative factors that go into social media sites that analytics and statistics can’t illustrate.

Understanding how the customer can benefit from engaging with a company’s social media sites will increase a company’s success.