Principle: Content

Content is the most important part of the social media message. It is the heart, and if there is no heart then it comes off as a blank empty shell and no one would want to pay attention to it. With content the messages you are trying to deploy need to be able to hit points with the people you want to see them. If the content is not full of quality then the audience won’t want to look at your information. But if there is content that sets the ground for a relationship of interaction. The brand can send the messages they want, and the public and get information about things they are interested in. It is a simple concept but it is also one that is very important it should not be over looked.

In this New York Times article it talks about how a message that is interesting is anything of value. And that is along the road of what content is. If it brings value to the people it is directed to, then it is doing its job. But we also learned that the audience defines what is valuable to them. So that is another area that has to be looked at. In today’s work people are so busy and have so many options for anything, they want to get the best value out of everything. And that can be related to content in social media. Audiences want a good value from social media or else it is just a waste of their time and they can go somewhere else to get the information they want.

Principle: Objectives

In class we learned about how objectives are put into work in the social media world. For personal use of social media I would say I have objectives for the social media I use, and I can see how those objectives also can be related to them in a company since. There is a lot in common in objectives in both ways. A strong point I thought was very important from class was that for a brands social media they should have a reason to be there. I think in today’s work people have so many choices, so if they see something that is being fake or not useful, they will go ahead and move on and not give it a second thought. So if you have a reason behind your objectives as a brand, I would think people would be much more likely to want to listen to the things you had to say, and also give their feedback to those subjects.

In this article from Social Media Today, they say that with not having any goals, it is impossible to measure what you are trying to find. But they also say the goals you set should be ones the help the brand out in the best way possible and be able to learn from those goals that are set. To sum this blog up I think my main point I am trying to make about objectives for brands is that they are there for both sides. For the brand side it is so they can measure goals they set for themselves. And for the consumers’ side it is to see the brand is authentic and cares about the messages they put out there.

Social Media Basics

I remember when I first started using Facebook it was right after high school. I signed up so I could keep in touch with friends that I wouldn’t see every day anymore. That was in 2007. Since then the reasons I use Facebook and other social media platforms has grown very much. I started off just using it to talk to friends, but soon after I learned I can get information about items I buy, changes in those products and if there is discounts. I could also give feedback in a lot easier way and in a way that would be seen by the company and others.

This article I found about Super Bowl ads shows how social media has changed and how it is very important for companies to be able to use it and to get the feedback from their customers. There is an example of how in last year’s Super Bowl during the black out, Nabisco tweeted about Oreos. It said “ power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark”. This tweet was liked and shared with in the first hour. And after that it was shared even more. This is an example of how social media can be used for much more than just me trying to talk to one of my friends. It is the newest and fastest way to give information and to receive feedback on that information. There is so much more you can use social media for today than 5 years ago.

Principle : Listening

In class we learned about social media listening and how it is relevant to public relations. At first when I just heard the definition of listening I thought it wouldn’t be much into it. It would just be very easy for companies to listen to what was going on and make changes when necessary. But of course after the class lecture I was wrong and listening was much more detailed then I first assumed. In class we learned that because of listening a company could hurt their reputation, miss out on an opportunity or have an opportunity and lose out on it. We went over example of class of companies that missed out on something, messed up, or learned of a problem and really took advantage of the situation.

In this article I found it covers a very basic but important part about listening. The author was at a conference about social media and one of the topics was how to get companies to introduce themselves into social media market. He said the first but very important step was to listen to what platform that your audience is using to talk about your company or product. If they are on Facebook then be on Facebook. But if they are more on YouTube or twitter you would want that to be your primary social media. I know this sounds very simple but if that first step is over looked then it could cause many problems like the types of different things we talked about in class.