Personal Branding

When we talk about personal branding online, I think some of us have a hard time defining our personal brand. What makes your social media posts different from everyone else? How would someone know that it is you posting if it didn’t have your username? Do your posts on social media consistently reflect your personal brand or does it seem to be all over the place and depend on what platform you are using? I personally didn’t realize I had a personal brand and when asked to write about it, I wasn’t sure what to say or how I would define my brand. Not only does your personal social media determine your personal brand, but also your professional brand. As the reading from Shields mentions, employers can directly source job through social media and do social media background checks, so everything you post has the potential to affect your career opportunities.

The main platform that employers look at is LinkedIn. This is the most professional platform and the best way to network with people who can help you in your career path. Shields mentions a couple pointers that show complete LinkedIn profile and those include: your industry and location, current position, two past positions, education, at least three skills, a profile photo and at least fifty connections. I’m sure we can all think of profiles that are not professional. For example, this profile with the current position as “the coolest guy in Nashville”

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikenacke/

There are endless examples of poor LinkedIn profiles and this hurt employment opportunities greatly. But what about the rest of social media and how we react and interact there.

Shields goes on to talk about the different levels of models of branding. He discusses The Standard Model which includes sharing an participating on platforms, having active engagement. This becomes more interesting because it allows one to create a personal brand rather than a professional brand. While there are guidelines that should be followed and ettiquete rules, this is a much more creative opportunity. Shields focuses on the types of profiles for professional brands, however, how does this translate into a personal brand?

Most of us have personal social media account, but what do we use them for. Do you use Facebook or Twitter to share personal experience?. Are you posting dog pictures or selfies on Instagram? What makes your social media, YOUR social media? We explored an endless number of social media guidelines among various companies and they all have pretty standard rules about what you can and can’t post about the company and what use is appropriate for social media. But what if we forget about the idea that employers look at social media as a way to decide whether to hire you. I like to think of personal branding as a way to stand out from other people and in a business such as music (where I am interested) this is a way to get noticed and gain more traction. Take the band The 1975 for example; they have definitely established a personal brand on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/the1975?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

They post every tweet the same way: beginning and ending with two forward slashes and a space in between every letter. Also, rarely do they tweet without a picture. But you would know who this was even if there was no username. This personal branding is a way for people to remember them. With social media being a huge way that bands are discovered (although they don’t need discovering at this point), this type of branding is important.

This goes for Instagram too. One can personally brand themselves based on what they post or the way they post. Jonny who founded a company called Qriket uses emojis to brand himself on social media.

https://www.instagram.com/jcomparel/?hl=en

He rarely posts without including the blue and yellow heart and the blue and gold “Qriket emoji.” This a way for his Instagram posts to stand out to people. When you continuously see something like this, you start to remember it and it becomes familiar and if it is something you are interested in, you will stop to look closer and potentially interact.

Overall, not only is branding important for professional purposes (although the last two examples could be argued to be professional because they are businesses), but also personally. And it’s not all about following guidelines and rules while creating your personal brand. Sometimes it is important to do something that other people do not in order to make yourself a brand and stand out to people who can help you in your career path. It is once you are there and employed that it becomes more important what you post.

How Do You Want It?

How do you want it? Are you the type who goes for the basic package or the premium? Well, according to Shields, you can apply the same idea to your social media presence. And it makes a ton of sense.

When you start to realize just how much goes into strategizing an effective professional profile, your head starts to spin. You think you have one set of “if, then” rules memorized for posting etiquette, then suddenly you read ahead to the next twelve rules for good social media profile management and you admit that there is a lot more to all of this than you thought. The good news is there is a basic package subscription for people like you.

Or maybe this isn’t you at all. Maybe you long to emulate the great social media celebrities in your field. You spend all your free time analyzing how a top CEO worded their last six months’ worth of posts, and you can be the first to say how and why they strategically present different facets of themselves to different audiences all from the same platform and all for the same ultimate purpose. Well, then, there’s a premium package for you.

And, of course, there’s a standard package that fits right in the middle there somewhere. The way Shields has divided these concepts up makes it much more approachable to starting out on a new professional journey, so let’s take a look.

The Basic Model:

The lowest level of professional social media presence means that you have a presence on multiple social media platforms that is consistent, and its purpose is for branding and connecting. You have a way to connect with colleagues, prospective employees, friends, and anyone else important in your field.

When it comes to Linked-In, which many of us are least proficient in, we should have a complete profile that resembles a complete resume, and have 50 connections to seem professional and trustworthy. The bottom line for this Basic Model is that for whatever platform you choose to be on, do it completely and do it well.

The Standard Model:

The middle level of professional social media presence means that you actively engage with your network, and the primary purpose of your online presence is to share and participate. A standard presence requires you to post a photo from one of your events while also liking/sharing/endorsing content from your network and reaching out by following/friending and commenting to others’ profiles. You can create a level of authenticity this way, by showing that you are a real person with real-life aspects. This can be a powerful strategy when choosing to show your personal side when everyone knows your professional side first.

However, if you are trying to become a leader of thought in your field, then these first two models just won’t cut it.

The Premium Model:

The highest level of professional social media presence means that you actively develop unique, differentiated, and complex thoughts and media, with the primary purpose of connecting and leading. In Shields’ words, “thought leadership usually refers to content that takes a position on current industry trends, news items, and future opportunities” (262). With social media, practically anyone can try to be a thought leader—so what can you do to make yourself truly stand out as a leader? Just like in the non-tech world, you have to think uniquely and creatively. Thousands of people already have a blog discussing what you are passionate about; how can you put a different spin on it to make your message cut through the noise more effectively?

Not only can you differentiate your mission from others in the Premium Model, but you can differentiate yourself as a person by showing your audience your honesty and compassion that sets you apart. This model is the most work, but could reap the most benefit in terms of visibility.

 

And once you decide on your model…you still have to plan out a posting schedule and watch your analytics!

 

 

Works Cited:

Basic Package. Digital image. InstaFace Photo Booth. N.p., n.d. Web.

Premium Package. Digital image. Theme Skills. N.p., n.d. Web.

Shields, Ben. Social media management: persuasion in networked culture. New York: Oxford U Press, 2017. Print.

Standard Package. Digital image. Design Vamp. N.p., n.d. Web.

 

Designing Free People

When reading Ben Shields’ chapter, “Designing Social Content,” I couldn’t help but think of the Free People brand. For those that don’t know, Free People is a clothing brand targeting females in their 20s, with a bohemian feel. As they put it on their website, their audience is, “a 26-year-old girl, smart, creative, confident and comfortable in all aspects of her being, free and adventurous, sweet to tough to tomboy to romantic. A girl who likes to keep busy and push life to its limits, with traveling and hanging out and everything in between. Who loves Donovan as much as she loves The Dears, and can’t resist petting any dog that passes her by on the street.”

A very specific type of person. With this specific type of person Free People wants to reach, they absolutely have to actively keep their social medias on brand. Shields states that the building blocks of social content are message, voice, and share proposition. In describing each of these, I will quote Shields,

“Message—What exactly are you trying to communicate to your audience?

Voice—The expression of your brand’s personality through content. Personality is who you are; voice is what you say.

Share proposition—The reason why your audience should share your content.”

Though these 3 ideas are not immediately relevant with every brand—i.e. they are not saying “this is our message, this is our voice, and this is our share proposition!”—they are ideas that are always taken into account when posting.

Let’s look at their instagram:

Free People’s Instagram bio immediately says who they are and who they are trying to reach. They also advertise their alternate Instagram dedicated to workout wear, their snapchat, and their website for continued interaction. Through these things, as well as an initial look at their feed, Free People stays true to their voice.

As we click into a post, we see that their voice here is also consistent. The photo, though just a picture of a cat, is on brand with the lounging around (beautifully) aspect of their brand, and makes the user click to see what the caption might be. “Our dreams just came true” with a shocked cat emoji and a shooting star is not something you’d see posted on, say, Adidas’ Instagram, but is very appropriate for the voice of Free People. This is also an example of shareable content, as it advertises free shipping. Certainly the 104 comments are full of people tagging their friends to alert them of the free shipping. These posts can also be sent through direct messaging, screenshotted and texted, or simply for providing information to share with friends. There is a call to action within this post, and it definitely qualifies as shareable content.

On Free People’s Twitter:

We have a tweet that shows someone working for their brand, whom represents their brand, and providing a link to an article about her and her style. This is a great example of an articulated message. The caption gives the user a clear idea of what will be in the link and who they are looking at. At this point, they can choose to read more or move on.

As an added portion, I would like to share a piece from their youtube channel:

As if their social medias weren’t enough, Free People has a youtube channel with tons of content furthering their brand. Feel free to check it out if you want to see more. However, the most interesting thing they’ve done, in my opinion, is a series of short films. About 3 years ago, they were consistently putting out short films that essentially embodied the Free People girl. There were about 10 of these at one point, though they deleted most of them (I don’t know why). My friend and I were obsessed with these short films—they were always so beautiful and dreamy, and had no motivation other than that. They always had some little storyline, usually a love story. Of course, this is a crazy tactic. Getting Free People buyers to interact with them EVEN MORE, and showing a life that the buyer, if falling under their audience, would absolutely want. With the main character clothed in Free People.

Wild stuff.

That’s all I have to say about Free People. Thanks for having a read.

Who’s Sponsoring Who?

Sponsored posts often have this way of creeping up on us without warning. Have you ever come across a post on your Instagram feed that you didn’t actually notice was sponsored content until you took a much closer look? I feel like this happens to me a scary amount of the time. And it’s brilliant. Maybe I wasn’t following that brand/retailer, but now I feel like I should be. Or maybe you ask yourself why you weren’t following them. Now with new sneaky algorithms, the Internet knows us all too well. For example, I don’t follow Bloomingdales on Instagram, but this post blends in so well and I do follow the model in this photo, Joan Smalls. I’m sure I also follow a lot of retailers that sell their clothes at Bloomingdales.

In Chapter 6, Shields discusses different types of social media marketing assets. These are organic media, shared media, sponsored media, and influencer media. Within sponsored media we see acquisition advertising, amplification advertising (this is where we’ll see sponsored or “boosted” posts), and native advertising. The most successful advertising techniques that I’ve seen have been either amplification ads or native ads. Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest are cluttered with advertisements disguised as trendy, platform-relevant content. Facebook even provides developer tools for incorporating native ads into brand strategies.

Facebook seems to be especially good at integrating these amplification ads into their landscape. The specific language of “suggested post” makes the audience feel like they aren’t being forced into anything–it’s simply a suggestion. It comes across almost like they want to help you out more than promote a specific brand for their own monetary gain. Here’s a “Suggested Post” that showed up on my News Feed recently from the Gap:

The post looks clean and doesn’t stand out too much from the rest of my feed, has a disclaimer noting sponsored content, but it isn’t super obvious or flashy.

Ads through Facebook are not only amplified through these sponsoring mechanisms, but through certain aspects of social influence as well. In addition to advertisements brought to us as “suggestions”, we also get them because one or more of our friends “Like” the brand or retailer’s pages. This could very easily be considered influencer media (Shields, Chapter 6) because it utilizes our familiarity and trust of our social networks. Because so-and-so like this brand, there’s a small chance that you would like it too! It’s kind of scary how well this strategy ends up working. Facebook is a master manipulator, but a really great resource for brand marketing.

 

Shields, Ben Ryan. Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2016. Print.

 

Social Media Manipulators

In Chapters 4-6 of Ben Shield’s Social Media Management, he discusses effective use of social media through branding, content design, and distribution. As a marketing major, I have begun to pay more attention to the way brands market their messages and am fascinated by the way they can manipulate the mind to think a certain way about their products. Many brands are so sneaky in their social media efforts, that many users may not even realize they were being marketed to. Below are a few instances that made me stop and appreciate how genius some brands can be in designing and distributing their content.

Image Source

 Starbucks: 

We all have those friends who we can count on to share their caramel mocha low-fat latte on Snapchat when their name is spelled wrong (admit it, we’ve all done it too). I used to think that Starbucks was just trying to be funny with their butchering of simple names, but recently read an article explaining their motive behind their misspelling: marketing! Starbucks was smart enough to realize that if they spelled Katie as “Kaytee” or Jessica as “Gessika”, these consumers would snap a picture of their cup and post it for all their friends to see. While these consumers may have thought they were embarrassing Starbucks for the mistake, they were really falling into Starbucks’ intended trap; of course these consumers are going to post a picture of their misspelled names, which in turn publicizes the brand to each consumer’s social networks. We learned in Chapter 6 that this use of other audiences’ networks is considered Shared Media, which Shields considers the most valuable. Starbucks receives free advertising for their products, as Shields states: “…followers are spreading your message to their followers without you having to pay for that exposure” (147). Thanks to Starbucks, now I know I’ve been misspelling Madeline, Phoebe, and Penelope my entire life:

Image Source 

Starbucks also effectively channels their audience with their recent “White Cup Contest”, launched in 2014. This contest was more than just a way for users to submit and showcase their creative artwork- it was another viral marketing strategy! Starbucks was able to gather a ton of designs for their cups, while also receiving publicity as users shared their own work on their social platforms. We read in Chapter 4 that a brand is “a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors” (page 89). Unlike other coffee shops that always use a standard cup, Starbucks used this campaign to define and differentiate their brand as one devoted and interested in customers’ lives.

Coca-Cola: 

A second brand that is quite sneaky in their social media strategy is Coca-Cola with their “Share a Coke” campaign. While I’m sure they expected this to happen, it was still an extremely successful way to encourage consumers to post their Coke products on social platforms. Consumers would find their own name and post a picture in excitement, or tag a friend whose name they found. Before this campaign, it was probably less likely that consumers would post a standard picture of a Coke product on their social accounts. In chapter 4, Shields explains one reason this strategy was so successful in social media:”If an organization has a brand with strong loyalty, when it says something in social media, the message will stand a better chance to break through” (page 90). Because Coca-Cola is such a well-known brand, consumers are more inclined to post about Coke and pay attention to posts containing information about the drink.

 

Image Source

 

Both Starbucks and Coca-Cola exemplify the power of social media strategy, content, and distribution that Ben Shields discusses in this week’s readings. Social media continues to grow as one of the most powerful methods of communication. Consumers are already on social media, so why not meet them where they already are? As we read this week and discussed at our symposium, the type of content is highly dependent on the platform. Companies like Starbucks and Coca-Cola understand their audience and developed campaigns that were very visual-based and likely to be shared on all platforms that incorporate images (almost all of them). It is interesting, after learning about these social media tactics, to recognize the efforts of brands as I browse my own social platforms each day. What other brands have you noticed that sneak powerful messaging into social media?

Sources:

Shields, Ben Ryan. Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2016. Print.

Social Media Branding

In Chapter 4 of Social Media Management, Shields fleshes out the need to develop a social media brand strategy and the different approaches to do so. Developing a social media brand presence is critical to reaching customers and establishing rapport. Shields uses Whole Foods as an example, which has grown to identify with the nickname “Whole Paycheck”.

While Whole Foods emphasizes their focus on only selling organic, locally grown or produced products, the prices associated with the store haven’t gone unnoticed. Customers who shop here are not always necessarily getting the best “bang for their buck”. When Whole Foods received this feedback they re-strategized their marketing techniques and worked on enhancing the “in-store” shopping experience for customers. Free samples, prepared food and talkative staff helped promote the ambiance of the store and increase customer satisfaction. Whole Foods eventually developed a strategy that combined a “global master brand account” and a “local account” to reach out to customers via Facebook and Twitter. I definitely applaud Whole Foods for taking this approach instead of doing one or the other. By having both types of accounts, the brand can have a universal, corporate voice to reach customers but also have smaller, more tailored voices to specific stores and locations. If a customer ever has an issue with a product they purchased at a specific store it would be inefficient to have the corporate account address it. A corporate manager won’t be able to easily personalize a response as Whole Foods likely has hundreds of stores across the country.

I believe that this approach will translate best not only for Whole Foods but for any company or brand. Large corporations with many locations should take advantage of having both a widespread voice that customers can rely on, but also a specific store presence to communicate with customers. I work at Stack’d, which started out as only two restaurants owned by the same person. Now there are multiple locations in Pittsburgh and the company is continuing to expand. I hate the website Yelp, but for this blog post I will mention it here. If someone posts a bad review about our restaurant on Yelp, the website allows managers to respond directly to the review. Since we now have multiple locations reviews are location specific, so the manager of the individual Stack’d can respond. This personalized voice establishes customer rapport and is better than having an overall regional manager respond to a comment, as they might not know the specifics of the issue. Social network branding is a growingly important strategy and business plan to work on. Twenty years ago having a social media presence on Facebook or Twitter was not nearly as important or vital to a company’s outreach success. I wonder what the next twenty years will bring for marking and social branding.

 

Shields, Ben. Social Media Management. Oxford University Press, 2016.

 

Navigating Different Social Media Guidelines

My first memory of “social media guidelines” comes from my years in high school when my use of the internet and social media were restricted. My school monitored student’s usage of their platforms during school hours, from 7:50am – 2:33pm. We were provided a detailed list of the rules regarding the personal use of the Internet that included the penalties for usage in school (nothing worse than a detention). At the time, these rules seemed so constricting and confining to our social lives. As Blanchard phrases, a social media bill of right is, “…to use the social web as a means of personal communications and self-expression outside of work,” (Blanchard 85).

During high school, social media presence was still a new-found thing. My constant up-keep of social media was not so much for my personal use, but for maintaining social interactions. Because of those daily updates, I have many awful cringe-worthy old Facebook posts from my teen years (forgive me for this post). My first Instagram picture was a badly filtered key lime cheesecake with no caption and two “likes”. I clearly did not know how to navigate the nuances and unspoken rules of personal social media.

 

I knew social media rules in school were placed on students because of possible cheating and distractions, but guidelines for students and employees exist for the protection of others, as well as means of regulation and control within internal structures.

When I volunteered at Children’s Hospital, volunteers were forbidden from mentioning patients online or posting photos on our social media. Though this rule appears obvious, sometimes volunteers would share photos online to show support and encouragement for families. Their intent was positive but, as a volunteer, the privacy of patients and the reputation of Children’s Hospital is the primary concern as a representative for the hospital. The right to use social media for communication does not out-weigh the right for digital dignity for all users. Unfortunately, the internet and social media opened a new outlet for bullying.

Young people are exposed to social media at younger and younger ages every year and with less formal and informal guidelines of how to manage their personal social media and expressions. Blanchard remarks that, “…this type of problem [bullying] does not end with high school graduation. It is alive and well in the world of grown-ups as well,” (Blanchard 92). As an adult, I see cyber-bullying exist within political commentary, debates of parenthood and childcare, and weight loss. Social media sites like Instagram and Twitter offer guidelines for dealing with online abuse prohibited wishing their policies. Also, Blanchard suggests that proactively defining cyber-bullying and its consequences is key to reducing the number of victims (93).

While certain rights are afforded to those using social media (expression, privacy, etc.), social media guidelines and rules exist, not only as a form of management, but to ensure a quality of use that benefits and protects all who are affected.

After examining the different rights and consequences of social media usage within different environments, should social media guidelines change (within personal lives, businesses, websites, and schools)?

Sources:

Blanchard, Olivier. Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. Indianapolis, IN: Que, 2011. 83-94. Print.

Images:

hippacartoons.com

Kathleen Mannard’s Facebook

sueschefferblog.com/stop-teen-bullying-in-social-media

 

 

 

Working Together With Social Media Policies

This year I have been working as a brand ambassador for the Amazon Prime Student brand. One of my responsibilities of this job is to manage a Twitter account for Prime Student at Pitt along with my co-brand ambassador (aka Jenna Stearns in this class!). In other words, I need to completely represent the Amazon brand when posting on the Amazon at Pitt account.

I am not someone who keeps quiet, including on social media. I love posting weird, funny, and at times controversial things. If I had to represent my social media presence overall over the years, I would describe it as standing on the line between acceptable and risky but never crossing over it.  (However, to clarify, by unacceptable I do not mean the “combative behavior, harassment, and bullying” that Blanchard mentions to avoid! I just tend to stick to being weird and funny but a little outrageous.)

The relevance of my brand ambassador role in relation to Chapter 7 of Social Media ROI falls under Section 10 “Social Media Guidelines for Agency Partners, Contractors, and External Representatives”, as I am technically a “contractor” for Amazon. Though Amazon’s brand ambassadors are not official employees, we were still required to be briefed on “do’s and don’ts” of social media. We have strict guidelines about the nature of what we can and cannot post on our assigned Amazon Twitter accounts. Though I consider myself to be someone with a good sense of humor, I sometimes struggle to come up with funny tweets for the account because I am so used to my own sense of humor. I like to post things that have relevance to current events whether they be political or pop culture, and during the election, I thought of so many hilarious tweets I could make on the Prime Twitter account. Obviously, I could not post them because I am representing a corporation that may not want to be associated with a political party. Even though a post may seem innocent, the engagement and attention a post may create is not worth the risk of being accused of libel, which Blanchard defines as “a written or pictorial statement that seeks to damage someone’s reputation”.  Aside from my own uneasiness about tweeting anything even remotely politically tied on the Amazon Twitter, the leaders of the program that manages Amazon’s brand ambassadors sent out a message in months ago explicitly asking us to leave any political references out of our social media usage on the Amazon accounts we are in control of. As Blanchard discusses, the program leaders want to ensure that all workers have clarity about what is acceptable and what is not.

Though I know I never would tweet out anything offensive or risky on the Prime Twitter account assigned to me, I sometimes see tweets from company accounts and wonder what guidelines they have about posting. For example, the following is a funny tweet from Taco Bell that jokes about getting their ideas from a drunk person:

Though there is not anything actually wrong with the tweet, it could be viewed as “unprofessional”. I also found some tweets where the Taco Bell account uses strong language, once writing “Doritos Locos Tacos are f***cking good”, including the asterisks to possibly lighten the blow of the strong word. However, Taco Bell must have unique guidelines for the employees in charge of representing the brand on Twitter. Every company has a different voice, and this funny and light voice aligns with Taco Bell’s brand.

For my brand ambassador position, the difficulty of moving past my controversial sense of humor quickly faded, and I now make posts like this one on the account:

This post completely aligns with guidelines, had relevance to the Thanksgiving holiday at the time, and used humor. All I had to do was figure out how to work with policies rather than seeing them as restrictive.

Sources:

Blanchard, Olivier. Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. Indianapolis, IN: Que, 2011. 83-94. Print.

Image 1:

Stopera, Dave. “The Best Of Taco Bell’s Twitter Account.” BuzzFeed. N.p., 12 July 2012. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.

Image 2:

https://twitter.com/AmazonAtPitt/status/799350023251034112

 

 

Guidelines: Why We Need Them

I work for a nonprofit organization. It’s a trendy thing to do nowadays. Odds are, you know someone who works for or volunteers with a nonprofit—there are many organizations around you that you may not even realize are nonprofits. While many people think of little grassroots community groups struggling to raise money while not earning a salary when they hear the term “nonprofit,” our own list of local organizations ranges from that grassroots end of the spectrum all the way up to long-established multi-million dollar household names like Visit Pittsburgh, UPMC, the Caring Place along with the Mario Lemieux Foundation, and the Pittsburgh Zoo.

In other words, with the way our world functions today, it is increasingly important for nonprofit organizations, and we who help run them, to know how to properly market ourselves to the public on social media.

But there is another component to working in the private sector and operating social media: when you work at a nonprofit, YOU are the organization. There aren’t marketable goods like athletic shoes or the latest car design to hide your personal actions behind. The “customers” of your nonprofit are “buying” your beliefs, your behavior, your passions, your efforts. If you slip up on your own personal social media account, even if it is apart from your organization’s page, then you have tarnished the entire public image of your organization, and the public will question the beliefs of the whole system.

This is a good way to think about the content listed by Blanchard in Chapter 7, “Establishing Social Media Guidelines for the Organization,” of Social Media ROI. Organizations are not simply concerned with how their employees use their phones or computers during company time. They are concerned with how employees are conducting themselves online even in the middle of the night, due to the fact that those employees are tied to the organization and may very likely have the organization listed on their profile. If we think about personal use of social media in connection to the professional world (using nonprofit organization employees as a prime example of the close personal-professional overlap), we see how necessary it is to choose our online posting behavior carefully.

Blanchard gives us a detailed list of content to be discussed in an organization’s social media policy to employees. This goes for for-profit businesses as well as nonprofit organizations. Of the ten components, the first point is extremely important: the employee has every right to a personal social media account and has every protection of privacy. The organization cannot spy on you illegally through your personal social media. Of course, the second point allows the organization to set boundaries for use while on the clock during company time.

The guidelines for external use in the policy aim “not to impose an organization’s will on its employee’s personal use of social media. [Its] purpose is first to remind employees that the lines can easily be blurred between their official role for the company and the personal opinions they may express online outside of business hours and, second, to help them best negotiate this sometimes tricky area without getting themselves or their employers in trouble” (Blanchard 123). This is where it is so important to understand that when you are connected to an organization, you represent them 24/7, not just 9-5. In the same vein, if employees are going to discuss their organization online, they must disclose that they work for them. Failure to comply with this guideline can lead into ugly legal battles.

And, speaking of legal battles, employees should know about anti-defamation guidelines to avoid legal battles with offended outside parties. Employees need to be thoroughly educated on the terms “libel,” “slander,” and “defamation” so as not to make false statements about others. At the same time, they cannot share private information relating to the organization over social media.

To avoid conflicts like this altogether, an organization’s policy should include a section where employees simply agree to be kind to one another online and to pledge not to engage in online bullying.

The end of the document should include a list of resources for employees and a note to external partners about agreeing to these policies.

When you think about the numerous ways in which one individual’s behavior can affect the public image of an organization, it becomes that much more important for each of us to display ourselves appropriately on social media, the most public of all platforms

Sources:

Blanchard, Olivier. Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. Indianapolis: Que Pub., 2011. Print.

How Rude. Digital image. HRpockets. N.p., n.d. Web. <https://hrpockets.com/tag/professionalism/&gt;.

I Love My Job. Digital image. We Heart It. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://weheartit.com/entry/56718615&gt;.

The Necessity of Measurement

Social media is fueled by measurement. In chapter 14 Blanchard stresses the importance of successful measurement. Through monitoring, measuring, analyzing, and reporting, a social media campaign will thrive.

Social media professionals must monitor, or listen, to their followers. They are being told how the public responds to the company, and the professional is required to listen to identify what is or is not working for the company. From there, they must make specific measurements that will correlate with the program’s objective. Once the data intake is complete, the professional must analyze it. They need to ask questions about the data to determine what types of changes to make to enhance the company’s relationship with the consumer. The final step is to report the findings. Reporting can keep the program from being cut from the budget. It proves that social media is necessary.

Though measurement seems like an easy task, Blanchard makes a point to explain that things are constantly changing daily. New software might come along, causing you to measure in an entirely different way than you have in the past. You might be able to go into more detail with new software, so as a professional, you must keep up to date on all of the changes.

With the increase of social media usage, professionals are able to engage customers in new ways: through velocity and specificity.

 

Velocity

Before social media, for consumers to voice their opinions and make a change in the product, they had to send in their comments by mail, e-mail, or by calling the company’s customer service. This is what my mom still does. Usually, she only receives a 20% coupon in return. With social media, many people can address a situation, publicly, and successfully change a product. Velocity, in Blanchard’s description, is the speed with which intelligence reaches a decision maker, which will impact the speed at which the decision maker can respond to a marketing opportunity.

When emoji’s first became popular, iPhone users had to download the emoji keyboard from a third party developer in the app store. Once Apple realized how popular the keyboard was, the company decided to include it directly into its software. Now, the emoji keyboard automatically comes with Apple products, making emojis distinctive to Apple. In this situation, Apple’s decision makers quickly noticed the popularity of the emojis, decided to incorporate them in their own software, and utilized it as a marketing opportunity.

Taking it one step further, many celebrities and public personalities are making their own emoji keyboards. People like Kim Kardashian and Demi Lovato have released their own emoji keyboards, or “stickers,” featuring their own cartoon emoticons. These people realized how popluar emojis are and used that as a marketing opportunity.

Specificity

Though they are still used but not as common, Marketers relied on surveys to measure user satisfaction with the company and its products. These surveys often included bias because the marketers were forced to guess the questions to ask, did not allow for specific comments due to a 1-10 satisfaction scale format, and focused on what the company wanted to know rather than what the consumer wanted to talk about. Now, social media allows consumers to engage with the company to provide specific comments about the company and its product. The consumers can voice their concerns directly to the company, rather than waiting for them to figure it out on their own.

Recently, legging retailer Lularoe has been facing some backlash for low quality construction. The brand took off with many people hosting parties to sell leggings to their friends, family members, and even random people that they’re friends with on Facebook. They appealed to many because, apparently, they are the softest leggings anyone could find (I’m going off of what I’ve been told…I don’t own a pair). However, now many are coming forward saying that their leggings rip or fall apart at random after only one or two wears. There is a Facebook group of about 10,000 customers arguing that their leggings are defective, meanwhile, Lularoe claims that only a small amount are actually defective. If the brand were forced to obtain data based on customer satisfaction through surveys, they would not know about the defectiveness because they would not be asking whether or not their products ripped. More likely, they would be asking about the softness and price. This controversy only came to light because consumers are able to take to social media to voice their relevant and specific concerns.

@LuLaRoe I put on my new first pair of your black leggings and have 2 holes! Black is hard to come by! #LuLaRoe pic.twitter.com/Cb1tBHXGyg

— Cori Marino Reali (@corimarino) January 9, 2017

 

Works Cited

“Lularoe Facing Criticism For Flimsy Leggings”. Fox News. N.p., 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

Blanchard, Oliver. Social Media R01: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. Pearson Education. 2011.

Carney, Austin. “The History Of Emoji | Citymac”. Citymac.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.

Sizzle,. Basically Me You. 2016. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.