New Technology

            When I consider future technology my mind usually goes to the crazy technology that is almost mind boggling, contacts that update you on everything around you via the internet, self-driving cars, cell phones chips inserted into our skin. Everything I saw growing up on sci-fi shows is coming to fruition. But the technology that I always find interesting is the seemingly simple things that you think have reached their peak and then they find a way to improve them.  One of the things that runs all of the above mentioned technologies but hasn’t really seen much technological advances are batteries. Obviously batteries have gotten smaller and a little more efficient but a charge on my cell phone battery still only last 14 hours. Apparently researchers across the country have had the same question that I have about why batteries aren’t improving when they are what is running all this new exciting technology, because batteries are being researched and improved in a lot of interesting ways.

              According to Pocket Lint “Big technology companies, and now car companies that are making electric vehicles, are all too aware of the limitations of lithium-ion batteries.” They state that these companies are pouring a lot of money into research in improving the batteries for their technology. They had a list of some futuristic sounding batteries that they claim aren’t that far from becoming mainstream.

              They spotlight a lithium-air battery that “uses oxygen as the oxidizer, rather than a material. The result is batteries that can be a fifth of the price and a fifth as light as lithium-ion, plus they could make phones and cars last five times longer.”

              Another the Alfa battery can last up to 14 days and recharges with water. “This battery will be able to recharge by simply being topped up with water, be it salty or normal. It should last a hefty 14 days, according to its creators Fuji Pigment and will be out later this year.”

Other interesting advancements include skin-powered batteries, ultrasound-powered over the air charging, sound powered and even urine powered. This technology might not seem as exciting as other future technology but the truth is that that future technology is pretty worthless without advancements in batteries. When considering how this will effect social media it will allow people to use social media without having to plug in their phone. Think of the times that you are at the very end of your phones battery life so you don’t take a picture to post to Instagram you don’t do a snap or even get on Facebook because you have to get home to a charger. These batteries will eliminate that “battery-saving” habit that we have found ourselves using. Many of the power sources are still being researched but a few of them were rumored to being close to production. I can’t wait until I can charge my phone by dipping it in water. 

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602245/why-we-still-dont-have-better-batteries/

Apps and Mobile Websites

            Apps. I am sure everyone has heard the phrase “There’s an app for that,” but did you know that Apple trademarked the phrase back in 2010. Why? Because it is true and they wanted the rights to its use. When looking up the phrase it also pulled up an app that people share funny phrases or memes about the phrase “There’s an App for that.” Seems a little ridiculous that we need an app that imitates popping bubble wrap or gives us a list of excuses to give to get out of a phone call (those are real apps, people) but our phones have essentially replaced our watches, calendars, calculators, address books, dictionary, pens, remote controls, voice recorders and Walkman or Discman depending on your generation. With the addition of Mobile apps that list could be made infinitely longer. But how important is it for a business to have a stand-alone mobile app vs. a mobile website?

              According to adweek.com “Standalone apps, with their single-minded purity, have the viral edge over apps trying to do too much.” Gone are the days of the days of telling your friend to check out a cool new website, nowadays it is all about the app. People will talk about and encourage one another to download an awesome new app but as the article points out even apps that try to do too much aren’t very successful. It sites apps that have something that makes them totally unique in the market as the apps that really take off. Snapchat for example is not usable on a web browser only in a downloaded app and its unique hook is the photo “self-destruction.”

              Now stand alone apps are obviously not conducive to every business, it is hard to make an app if you are a say a small beekeeping business. But making a mobile friendly website can be equally as important. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website in your mobile device to find that it doesn’t work with mobile devices. Practicalecommerce.com says  “Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t just good practice — it’s a prerequisite. For the first time in history, mobile has exceeded desktop Internet usage.” They have a few easy ways to convert your already existing website into a mobile-friendly website. 1. Use a company to convert to your website for you. 2. Many hosting sites have easy to add plugins to make a mobile friendly site. 3. Design your site with a mobile-first approach.  Just by making some small changes you can make your website mobile friendly and hopefully increase your visits. 

Viral Videos

             Viral videos are an interesting topic, just like everything else that has to do with technology and particularly social media they have evolved so much from their beginnings. I am old enough to remember videos that went “viral” before platforms like Facebook or YouTube were mainstream. Videos that had hundreds of thousands of views on humor websites and being passed around via email. The amazing thing about these videos is that they are still widely known today even though they didn’t begin on YouTube. Videos like The Numa Numa Guy and Star Wars Kid were both before Youtube was even created. These videos were organically grown and passed along mostly for their humor content. They were funny home videos that were shared with friends and family and grew from there. There was never a thought when they were filming these videos that they might be viewed worldwide or that the stars would become internationally recognizable. The world of viral videos today is much different.

              Today viral videos are the goal. They are the goal of social media stars, like Youtubers and bloggers, and they are the goal of almost every company that makes video content for their social media platforms. You still get authentic, organic viral videos that get the “star’ their fifteen minutes of fame but so many of the viral videos we see today shared on social media today are planned directed and financed with the sole goal of becoming viral. Because more viral equals more exposure equals more money. This has become such a commonplace business practice that researchers have done studies trying to determine the formula for a viral video. One researcher Dr. Brent Coker has spent a lot of time researching a recipe for viral videos and he came up with four simple ingredients to the recipe.

1.       “Sharability”

2.       Connection – via music or nostalgia

3.       Large emotional range – going from feeling happy to sad to ecstatic

4.       Frission – a thrill or physical response like getting goosdebumps.

              There is even research done on the exact amount of time a video should last for maximum exposure and shares. I know personally that if I open up a video on Youtube and I see that it is longer than 5 minutes (excluding car repair videos) I don’t even waste my time watching it. A great example of a company using viral videos and basically nailing it every time is Buzzfeed with their Tasty videos. They found that food 40 seconds was the sweet spot for more shares and views of their videos. In February of 2017 Tasty videos garnered a total of 1.2 billion views on Facebook alone. Interestingly their videos don’t follow the above “recipe” for viral videos but they do contain actual food which seems to be a huge hit in the video world. They have turned these videos into an entire division of their company complete with cookbook and channels that cover many different cultures. Obviously they have the recipe down (forgive the pun) for viral food videos and it is making them a lot of money.

              Whether it is food or guys crying about Britney Spears viral videos aren’t going to go anywhere, more likely they will turn into their own field of job opportunities. Entire firms exists to make viral videos and that will only continue to grow as long as social media is still widely used. 

Search Engine Optimization

               I use google every day, multiple times a day. Lately I have been working on my car a lot so a lot of my searches have been geared towards car parts and repairs. Have you ever stopped to wonder why when you search say, car parts Auto Zone is higher up on the page then NAPA? Well it is not because AutoZone comes first alphabetically it is because AutoZone is doing a better job with their SEO. Search engine optimization is not a new thing. In an article written in 2010 for Business Insider they break SEO down to its most basic definition, getting more traffic to your webpage thru a search engine. Doesn’t seem very complicated when it is broken down like that and is it really that important?

              According to Business Insider every business that has a website should have SEO as a part of their growth strategy and now in 2017 I think this advice given 7 years ago is probably even more relevant. It is not a coincidence that AutoZone, O’Reily and NAPA are the top three results when I search car parts and it is also not a coincidence that by page three of my google search it is listing companies I have never heard of. There is a very real possibility that these lesser known companies could become more successful if they were higher up in rank in a search engine. For me personally, I open the first couple compare parts and prices and buy from whomever gives me the best quality of the best deal and if that is some no name parts company then the only reason they would get my business is by being higher in my google search.

              SEO can get pretty complicated and there are many business that have a position dedicated completely to it. A person or a whole team of people whose main goal is get their website the number one spot on a search engine in a number of different searches. You can even hire a firm to come in and improve the SEO of your company. For small business it is hard to get into that top spot for generalized searches like “car parts” but a small business can work on targeting a spot for a search for “car parts, logan ut.” Forbes  published a great article on SEO for small local businesses and they make starting the process seem less intimidating. They suggest making accurate places pages on all the major search engines. They also suggest uploading lots of quality content to your webpage as well as simply making sure you have accurate addresses, hours of operation and other information on your page and on searches. One that I found interesting is the suggestion to get good google reviews to bump up your SEO.

              While SEO can seem really complicating it is nice to know that there are little things that you can do as a small business to raise your rank a little.

Social Media Management Tools

            Last week I talked about the advantages and disadvantages of using social media in marketing for small business. After much research I found that social media is a great component to a diversified marketing plan but should not be a small business’ main source for advertising as it can get very expensive. One of the articles I researched last week referenced not only financial expense but the drain on time for a small business owner in having to create content, respond to messages and comments, and maintain consistency across several platforms. Time is a great resource when you are trying to run your own business and having to spend copious amounts of it managing social media is just not a good option.

              So what is a business owner to do? Not surprising there is an app for that, or software in some cases. I was unaware of the tools available for social media management out there. They range from hiring a private firm and paying sizable fees to free apps that do little but can be a good starting point. I chose to dig a little deeper into the management tool called Hootsuite. I would never have a need for this kind of tool for personal platforms but I do run a small business that I can see would benefit from this tool. One of the reasons my partner and I have been so hesitant to start multiple social media pages for our business is because neither of us has the time to dedicate to be consistent so instead we have a rarely updated Facebook page. If we were to purchase a paid business plan on  Hootsuite we could open a business page on Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, Linked In, or any other social platforms up to 50 that we could manage with Hootsuite. I don’t even know if I could name 50 social platforms so it is impressive that they have built an infrastructure that allows business’ to manage all their social media from one place.

              I think the best thing about social media management is that it gives time back to those that are running small businesses, which can be a huge thing. In my case where I also work a full-time job it has just never been a priority to utilize social media but with a social media management tool I can see how it would be not only easier but could really help the business. 

Organizational Uses of Social Media

            When reading up on the idea of social media uses for organizations I recalled a seminar I attended where I asked the speaker, a small business owner, if social media helped him grow his business. To paraphrase, he essentially said that social media is such a buzz word right now in marketing but to use it for organic reach is really difficult because social media platforms are charging for a lot of things that they didn’t use to. He pointed out that many of them are now publicly traded so they are trying to drive up their revenue and one way to do that is to charge for business reach and for many truly small business it is just too much money for not enough results. I found his opinion to be very insightful since I had mainly heard the opposite, that social media was a great way to market a small business and that it gave you visibility that is hard to reach otherwise. In doing a little research I discovered that both sentiments are true.

              The owner of lullubee.com, a website that sells craft making kits wrote a series of articles for Forbes about being a start-up company and the mistakes they made involving social media. He says that his biggest mistake with Facebook was not realizing that what they posted wasn’t even being seen by those how had liked their page. They worked hard to build a Facebook Business page then they noticed that only a small percentage of their followers were seeing their content. They found that you have to pay to reach your own followers, which essentially takes away any organic reach you might have had. They said that they started by paying because they figured that they were working to get leads for their website and my favorite quote “The irony of spending money to promote our Facebook page instead of our site was not lost on us.” Eventually they learned that the traffic they were getting to their website from Facebook meant they were paying anywhere from $6-12 per click which isn’t viable for a small business start-up. So they found that for them having a Facebook page was only as good as having a social media presence but was not a place to spend their advertising money.

              On the flip side there are small businesses that have found great success with social media marketing. According to Susan Friesen, a founder of a digital marketing firm there are benefits to social media marketing that don’t necessarily require you to pay for marketing. She provides some ideas of things that social media can do for a small business that you can’t do anywhere else really. You can build relationships with people in your industry, out of your industry, customers, and potential customers all around the world all for free. You don’t have to pay to interact with prospects and social media provides a great base for that. You can also show your customer service acumen through social media platforms. Quick responses, helpful comments and consistency can all show potential customers your worth. Friesen points out that there is still a cost to this type of exposure through social media, it requires time and a lot of it.

              What I took away from my research into this topic is that having social media platforms as a small business isn’t a bad idea, in fact it can be very helpful, but a small business should not use it as their main source of advertising. A diversified marketing plan is always a better answer and using social media as a part of that plan can reap great benefits. 

Social Media Case Reflection 2

           Viral videos, we can all name a few, or even better reenact some of the most viewed videos of our time. In the beginnings of YouTube and social media the formula for viral videos was elusive, they ranged from a panda sneezing to news interviews gone hilariously wrong. Now we see companies who entire basis is creating viral content and they have a “formula” for what a video should have to make it viral and business can be built in one day with a viral video. One of the first groups to tap into the idea of consistent viral videos was the band OK Go which found YouTube stardom with their first music video, then their second, and then their third. They seemed to tap into the formula that was needed to make a video go viral and they were doing well. They went from a garage band to a household name within a matter of days thanks to YouTube. So when they released a new video in November of 2016 but chose to release it somewhere that was not YouTube, people were confused even a little miffed.

              As a nod to their beginnings shouldn’t OK Go stuck with the platform that started it all for them? The answer is a resounding no. Anyone with any business and marketing acumen can tell you that what worked for you once isn’t going to be the answer forever and the companies that have lasted the test of time have done so because they have been able to adapt to changing technology and marketing strategies. Do you think that Macy’s Department store, founded in 1830, would still be around if they were using the same marketing strategies that worked in 1830 now? A couple well-placed billboards, printed posters in restaurant. Every business has to evolve with technology if they want to survive and in 2017 that means using social media in your marketing and advertising.

              So back to OK Go’s decision to release on Facebook instead of YouTube. Both are influential social media platforms, both have huge following and potential viewership in the millions, so why was Facebook the smart move. According to http://www.epica-awards.com/news/723 Dmitry Tutkov, owner of the Russian Agency who produced the video,

              “Logically we should have released it on YouTube, because that’s what everyone does, but we needed to make it viral. The solution was Facebook, because on YouTube you can’t share very easily – you have to copy a link. On Facebook, you just click ‘share’. So the Facebook model is ideal for viral videos. From this experience we realized that videos get traction much more quickly on social media than on a video hosting website.”

The idea that a video can be shared so easily on Facebook was a huge draw for OK Go and Tutkov’s agency. Tutkov was approached by the Russian Airline S7 to produce a marketing video for them and he presented the idea of doing a music video in one of their planes. They contacted OK Go and the rest you can say is history. S7 Airlines supplied the crew and the airplane for the shoot as well as financial backing for the video in hopes that they would see an increase in sales from the video. Here is where things get a little messy. OK Go made their plans to debut exclusively on Facebook for a 48 hour period and S7 released a copy of the video on their YouTube page before the Facebook debut, quickly the video was removed and viewers were greeted with a copyright message. The video was then released exclusively to Facebook and eventually added to both OK Go’s and S7’s YouTube pages.

              The question remains was S7 outside of their legal and ethical limits posting the video to their YouTube channel. Without knowing what sort of contract was involved I can’t say for sure but according to the US Constitution Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 if OK Go was hired to be in the video for advertising purposes S& Airlines would own the copyright to the video. I am going to assume that this is not the case and that this was merely a sponsorship, not a work for hire. If this is the case according to that same clause in the Constitution OK Go and S7 Airlines produced a joint wok and S7 Airlines would then be “co-owners of a single copyright in the work,” giving them every right to post the video on their own YouTube channel.

              Obviously there is too much information that I couldn’t find to really make an accurate determination. There is a possibility that there was a contract in place giving OK Go sole ownership of the video, or placing sharing restriction on S7 Airlines but if there wasn’t then S7 airlines didn’t do anything wrong legally speaking.

http://www.ibtimes.com/heres-why-ok-go-just-broke-youtube-2305476

http://www.theroguemag.com/features/ok-go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Authorship.2C_Ownership.2C_and_Work_for_Hire

Class Cloud Experience

              Last class we had an experiment where we invited people to join our class through an online conversation using twitter. Since I am so new to the social media world, I had a hard time following along with how fast paced the conversation was.  It seemed we were constantly moving onto to new topics before we ever really got started on the previous one. When it first started somebody asked a question from there it exploded into multiple conversations going in all directions.

              I’m not sure if this type of large-group conversation works on Twitter. As I previously mentioned I don’t have a lot of experience with Twitter but I have found it to be more of a post and give a response type socializing as opposed to continued conversation. My thinking though could be largely affected by my experience with Twitter being limited to Jimmy Fallon’s funny #hashtag skits. There have also been times where my brother who follows the UDOT Twitter feed will call or text me to tell me that the canyon is closed, this seems like a practical use of Twitter. From what I gathered nobody outside of the class participated and if they did I didn’t catch it.

              During the class we invited Katy Perry to join the conversation by asking her how does social media affect change? Luring her with popular hashtags #changeforwomen #endwomenssufferage #notmypresident. Not surprisingly she didn’t join the conversation, of course she only had 15 minutes of time to respond before the class ended. Even if she had read it I’m sure she would have been confused as to how the hashtags matched the question since they did not at all. They were used as a way of making the Twitter post more popular and easily searchable. That is one thing that I learned thru this experience, ways of making your posts more widely seen. At one point I made a post about a drink at the fast food establishment Wendy’s but instead of tagging them with the @ symbol I just used a hashtag. I was corrected by my professor and it helped me to see the difference between the two and why someone would use one in certain situations to evoke a response.

              I ultimately I wish we would have followed some type of agenda or plan that would have been more organized to get a better understanding of how twitter can be used in a productive way. I can’t make suggestions for how that would have been accomplished and I am not even sure that it could be accomplished on a platform like Twitter. Based on this experience I will not be using this platform after this class concludes for large scaled conversation like this but I do plan on using my account in the future. I found this experience to be very entertaining, I learned something things about optimizing a posts and ultimately I had fun. I am however very disappointed that Chuck Norris didn’t respond to my invitation.

https://twitter.com/mattweed11/status/837118652679770112

https://twitter.com/mattweed11/status/836860560650166274

https://twitter.com/mattweed11/status/837024816427323393

Online Reputation

          This week I had the opportunity to search for a person across all internet platforms to see what kind of online reputation they have. The first thing I did was a basic google search of her name, Emily Briones and instantly found information about her. It took me to the USU Athletics webpage where I learned that Emily is a gymnast for Utah State. 

This page also provided a short bio for Emily which told me that she is from San Antonio, Texas her parents are Robert and Caroline Briones and that she has one brother and one sister. From this page alone I can assume that Emily is an excellent gymnast to be competing at the collegiate level and that she is a hard-worker. In the same vein I was able to find several newspaper articles that spoke of Emily’s gymnastic performances throughout her career. As well as a YouTube channel with videos of gymnastics she did in high school. It does appear that the channel hasn’t been active for 3 years but it was still easy found.

              From a quick search on twitter, I found that Emily’s birthday is on September 12, surprisingly this was not information posted by Emily herself but by the USU Gymnastics twitter account. 

The tweet also contained an image of Emily. I wasn’t able to find a personal twitter account for Emily and found it interesting that even without her own account she still had a presences on Twitter. I wasn’t able to find a LinkedIn account for Emily either.

              Emily does have an active and accessible Facebook page where she posst pictures with her friends and family.

I learned that Emily is very close with her family and loves her hometown of San Antonio from links to articles she posted and pictures she shared. I was able to see that Emily has an Instagram account but it is private. I wasn’t able to find Emily on Pinterest.

              Emily’s online reputation is definitely positive. I didn’t find anything negative while I was searching. Some trends that I recognized throughout all of Emily’s social media platforms was a love and passion for gymnastics, a sense of adventure, and a strong bond with family and friends. One thing that I would suggest to Emily if she were trying to build up her online strength for future employers would be to get a LinkedIn account where she can list past work experiences and qualities that employers are looking for. Right now most all of the information I could find on her had to do with gymnastics, which is great but I think that future employers will be looking for a more well-rounded online presence. I did see that many of her pictures and videos were for the purpose of college recruiting and it looks like that worked out well for her, so I see no reason why social media couldn’t aid in furthering her gymnastics career after college or in getting a job she wanted. 

Laws, Policies, and Ethics

           When researching the ethics and social media I was expecting to find information on what you should or shouldn’t post on social media and while those articles are plentiful the ones I found the most interesting centered on the ethics of using social media for journalism. I am not a journalist but I found that the information about this topic in an ethics handbook posted by NPR.org to be good guidelines when using social media for information whether you are doing it for journalistic purposes or not.

              We have discussed fake new before and since most reputable news sources attempt to put out real, fact-checked news they have had to form guidelines on how to avoid publishing fake news as it is unethical. They ask their reporters to ‘be careful, be skeptical,” when passing along information. They require transparency from their journalist, requiring them to let viewers know if information from social media has been confirmed. They suggest following up with leads and sources offline when possible. It is easy to make fake social media profiles, and they say that it isn’t always easy to understand a person’s tone over online communication.

              I think that every single one of those ethic guidelines for journalist could just as easily be applied to me as a social media user. Is it important and ethical for me to be careful and skeptical when I am on social media? Absolutely. If I am passing on information I find it is be of extreme import that the information has been confirmed and is from a reputable source. If not for ethics sake but for the sake of my own reputation. I feel like the guideline of following up offline is an important one for the everyday social-media user. How often have you had an online conversation with someone and come away thinking that they were upset with you to only find out later that there were no hard feelings? It can be so difficult to convey emotion and tone through online mediums that actual in-person conversation are a perfect way to avoid that pitfall.

              The last point in big bold type that NPR makes is HONESTY. If you aren’t telling the truth or are in anyway avoiding the truth you should not post it. Evaluate what you are about to put online whether it be on Facebook, on a blog post, or in a tweet and ask yourself 1. Am I being honest and transparent and 2. Am I okay with what I am about to post being public property?  Because once it goes onto any of those three mentioned platforms and many more it becomes publicly available. Even conversations that were meant to be just for family and friends can be circulated widely beyond personal circles. I think NPR sums it up best when they tell their reporters, “In other words, don’t behave any differently online than you would in any other public setting.”

Collaborative and Interactive Social Media Platforms

            Social Media is a great resource for businesses, from small home-based businesses top huge corporations. Social media platforms are a tool that when utilized correctly can take a business to the next level by giving them a new and important way to connect with potential customers. In fact social media has become so important for businesses that a whole new career has been born, Social Media Specialist is not a job title at most large companies.  According to Brian Hughes, CEO of Integrity Marketing and consulting, “Great social content shapes how prospective customers perceive your business’s brand and starts building loyalty long before these folks ever make a purchase.” The newest tools available on social media are interactive tools such as, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and Periscope. Though these are fun and exciting for personal use they are incredibly useful from a business perspective.

            A point by postplanner.com, “Live streaming is all about connecting and interacting with your audience in real time. It breaks down barriers and creates a connection that transcends traditional marketing limitations.” They go on to say ask the question to consumers about what we remember more, reading an interesting article or a video where you have the chance to contribute to the conversation, they say that research says the video wins every time.

            As a small business co-founder this makes me consider ways that our business could use live-streaming to connect with our audience. Not only is it helpful to do live-stream videos but content is also important. The content needs to be interesting, informative and something that will keep your audience involved. In thinking about use for it within my business I thought how it might be interesting to live-stream some of our production process. I run a small bee-keeping and honey business with a partner and people are always fascinated with the process but never get to see it up close and personal. I think it would be a great way for our company to stay interesting by utilizing live-streaming to teach about bees and the honey extracting process. I feel like this would not only be interesting for our followers but I think it would also provide a space where potential customers would come for information about our product.

            Like was pointed out earlier interactive social media platforms are allowing businesses the opportunity to create brand-loyalty long before a purchase is ever made. I like to think that if we did some of these videos and people watched them the next time they needed honey they would remember our live-streams and look to us for their purchase. There is the chance that they wouldn’t, that they only watched for the entertainment value but the great thing about social media is that we can market our product on a very low budget and live-streaming is just one more tool we can use to our advantage.

Location-Based Social Media

              I am an anomaly in my generation. Until a few weeks ago I had no major social media accounts. No Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc and one of main reason why is because of location-based data.  My wife has social media platforms and a while ago I started to notice that on Instagram posts it would say locations, as well as on Facebook posts. Not only that, we once went into a restaurant and it asked her if she wanted to check-in on Facebook and share her location. Sure check in and let the world know 1. Where we are and 2. That no one is at our home.

              The Government Accountability Office employs watchdogs who spend their days checking up on these social networks and whether they are doing enough to protect their users. When location-sharing became the new great addition to these apps the GOA had their hands full. They said “We have concerns that location data can be used to track where consumers are, which can in turn be used to steal their identity, stalk them, or monitor them without their knowledge. In addition, location data can be used to infer other sensitive information about individuals such as their religious affiliation or political activities.”  They have a list of the primary threats to consumers from location-based data which includes disclosure, tracking behavior, identity theft, personal security, and surveillance.

              One of those factors alone is scary but take all of them and why would anyone want to use location based social media. Most of the positives to the use of location-data apps is for businesses, it makes it easier for them to target their optimal customer. But if you are looking for positives to using these for the consumer, there are few and I am not sure the pro are worth the cons. One positive is they can be fun. There are many gaming apps like Pokémon Go, which use GPS location to make the game interactive and exciting. There are also GPS based apps like Family Locator that can be used to find family members, which is useful. Lastly they can be helpful in finding places to eat or visit when you visit an unfamiliar place.

              I have concluded that you can be smart about location-based apps and make them useful to yourself. If you have strict privacy settings on your social media profiles and only allow those you feel comfortable with to be your friends then you shouldn’t have to worry too much about them knowing you are away from home. You are running a risk when you have no privacy settings and any one has access to your location at any time. As with any social media the responsibility rests on the users to use a little common sense and be smart. 

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-location-aware-apps,review-2405.html

Most Used Social Media Platforms

            Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat are all major social media platforms that many people use on a daily basis. So what sets these social media giants apart from others? Why are these platforms the ones we hear the most about and the ones that we use the most?

              Let’s start with Facebook. Facebook has 1.79 billion users that is approximately 440 million more people then populate the world’s most populated country of China. It is the King of all social media platforms by a long shot with the app WhatsApp being the next closest platform coming in at a measly 1 billion monthly users, a slight 800 million user short monthly.  The question has been asked time and time again “Is Facebook too big to fail?” There are arguments on both sides and many articles point out the demise of social media pioneer MySpace and its demise, but Facebook and most other large platforms are doing things differently.

              Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter all made at least 2 major acquisitions in the year 2016. Breathing new ideas and content into their platforms, according to Bufferapp.com, Facebook acquired MSQRD, a facial recognition filter app, in an attempt to compete with Snapchat for the younger demographic. Another thing these platforms are doing is launching new experiences on their sites/apps to keep users engages. In 2016 Facebook launched, Marketplace, Facebook Live, Reactions, and Instant Articles. Snapchat launched Memories and even a physical product in Snapchat Spectacles.

              Along with acquisitions and launches these platforms are relying on the need people have to connect a need that is not going to go away. They are creating spaces for people to connect and share via virtual communities so all they need to worry about is whether people will start wanting that connection somewhere other than computer-mediated technology. Will they? Only time will tell.

             

              

Topic: Blogging

            Blogging is a fairly recent phenomenon, only becoming mainstream in the last 25 years or so, though I believe the theory behind blogging has always been a popular one. There is a draw that we have as humans to look into other people’s lives and essentially see how our lives stack up. In the early 1910's it was termed “Keeping up with the Joneses” and I am sure we could find cave drawings from The Stone Age where Mr. Caveman drew his biggest and best hunting trophy to show to all his neighbors. The drive to care about where we fall is the reason tabloid magazines sell and it is the reason blogs are so popular.

              Everyone likes to put their best foot forward and blogging and other social media platforms have taken that idea to a whole new level. People have the ability to sit behind their computer screen and write about things that may or may not be true. I am betting you can find a “food blogger” out that that in reality hates cooking but takes great pictures and writes great intros to his/her recipes and is making lots of money so they keep creating content. I am guessing you can find a “mommy blogger” who has amazing pictures of her kids dressed perfectly, and a ridiculously clean house in the background who doesn’t tell you that she has a live-in nanny, housekeeper, and chef. But I don’t think we can really blame the bloggers, but rather the world that social media has created where those types of situations are accepted and expected but also revered.

              Phil La Duke an author by trade blogs about safety and published an article with  Entrepreneur.com titled “I Used Social Media and Blogging to Become Famous for Nothing.” He tells of being assigned by his company to start a blog and how he utilized not just blogging but Twitter and Facebook to get readers to his blog and to get other websites to pick up his content. He used keywords and data to make sure he was hitting the right demographic to grow his readership. Eventually he was asked to speak at events about Safety and was touted as one of the experts in his field just thru his blog. He was even invited to speak at a mining safety conference in Peru when he says “This despite my only knowledge of mining safety at the time was to stay the hell out of one.”

              What an interesting time we live in that someone can become an expert in their field even to the extent of being invited to speak on the topic when their only claim to the topic is the exposure that their own blog brought them. I said in my previous post that I don’t think social media is inherently bad or good and I feel the same way about blogging. There is a lot of good in it and I think when we look past social and lifestyle blogging we can see the benefits more clearly. Blogs are especially useful for businesses as marketing tools. Hubspot.com  provides a whole list of benefits of blogging for business and marketing. It can help drive traffic to your retail site, it can grow your business and ultimately make you money.

            When it comes down to it, I think it is important that we be transparent and upfront when we are the one doing the writing and when we are the one doing the reading we need to know that sometimes what we are reading isn’t always reality.

Social Media Change

           When the question is posed, how has social media changed communication? I think a broad answer could be given: completely. Communications since the introduction of social media has changed to a point where it is almost unrecognizable as communication to older generations. I can think of several conversation with grandparents where I will mention a life event in another grandchild’s life and they will ask where I heard it from. Usually from some social media site and they are blown away every single time. That I have seen pictures of a new baby minutes after they are born or that I saw a live stream of a nephew playing football while I was 100 miles away. They can’t even fathom it.

              As a society we went from reading our news in the same newspaper every day, to having access too and being constantly bombarded by real and fake news on our devices practically all day long. We went from getting letters from a relative who lived far away every couple weeks to seeing events in their lives take place in real time. Social media allows our communication to reach the masses in real time, so the events I am witnessing in my relatives lives are also being seen by potentially hundreds of others at the same time. This has been a help and a hindrance, we are fed so much information we have to process so much that I think a lot of times we become numb to things that would have otherwise

              We went from thinking poorly of a person or situation and maybe talking about it to a spouse or close friend to hiding behind our computers and saying whatever we wanted no matter how hurtful or damaging. I feel that social media has created a new version of bullying where people can cause harm to others simply because they are bored or because other people are doing it. This aspect of social media has not only given a voice for bad but it has given a voice to many people who would otherwise keep their opinions to themselves. I know a lot of people who are shy and very reserved who wouldn’t say much in opposition to another person to their face but when social media is involved it can bring out a new person who is opinionated and confident in what they are trying to relate to or express.

              We went from watching home videos once a year at the family reunion to having a picture, audio and video experience where friends or the world can access our latest trips or the funny things our kids did or said. In this same vein we are seeing only the best from so many people’s social media accounts. We are seeing perfect houses, amazing jobs, big bonus checks, perfectly behaved children and we compare our worst to their best. Social media has created an almost toxic environment for some people who spend their time comparing their lives with others and I feel that this is probably a leading cause for such a rise in depression in our culture today.

              We went from meeting with old friends and having loads to talk about to getting together and already knowing everything about each other’s lives and sitting in awkward silence.

              We went from only having the information that our newspapers and news stations gave us about political situations to having a database of information at our fingertips about situations, people. To having hundreds of opinions run past our eyes daily and having to decipher what is true and what matters to us individually.

              We went from writing term papers using the card catalog at the library or if we were lucky a set of encyclopedias at home to being able to access unlimited sources for educational purposes. Social media has allowed us to put our questions out to friends, to get responses that will be helpful in our education.

             Social media is not inherently good or bad and one could argue it either way, but no one can argue that it has changed the way we communicate in almost every way since it became mainstream. 

Social Media Case Reflection 1

          My first personal encounter with “fake news” will probably date me a little bit. Before internet was a mainstream think in homes we kids would send around chain main via the postal service. We would receive a fun letter from one of our friends threatening us with certain death or at the very least severe illness if we did not forward the letter onto to 7 of our closest friends. If we followed the instructions we would be blessed with our crush confessing their love to us or even better with super athletic powers, both pretty important things to a 10 year old boy. Of course as a 10 year old boy I was easily duped into believing that said promises would come true dependent on the action I chose to take and not wanting to die an early death I would promptly forward on the messages and wait for my athletic ability to increase tenfold. It is obviously to know either by my lack of Olympic medal or common sense that those promises never came true. It is easy to look back as an adult and laugh at a child’s propensity to believe something seemingly unbelievable but it is even more disheartening as an adult to read a news story and have to wonder if you are being duped once again. 

         Those chain letters, turned into chain emails, which turned to “fake news” being spread about social media websites. I have been on Facebook for all of a week (I know, crazy) and I have seen multiple stories of fake news all over the site. So what is it? How can you tell if something is a fake news or not? What can we do to stop it? Can it even be stopped? These are all questions that any responsible social media user should ask themselves although the term “responsible social media user” might be a contradiction.

          FactCheck.org provides a good basis for the definition of fake news and ways to spot it. Fake news is deliberately published hoax new stories, propaganda and disinformation that  uses social media to drive up web-traffic and/or perpetuate a certain agenda, political or otherwise. I would say that based on that definition alone the publishing of fake news is unethical. Over the years we have seen the influence that social media has almost everything it touches. It has the power to make careers overnight and it has the power to destroy them. It has the power to raise millions of dollars for wonderful causes and it has the power to cast doubt on the relevancy of those same causes. This effects is increased exponentially when something goes “viral.” This is the hope for these “fake news” creators, if a story goes viral and is shared and liked then their web traffic increases which ultimately mean more money in their pockets. I highly doubt that thoughts of whose career might be hurt or what damage might be done from their story really matters to them.

          The real issue though is not the content creators though it is the content consumers. Obviously it would be nice if those who are creating these stories just suddenly stopped and we could go back to believing everything we read on the internet. According to the Ethical Journalism Network “The economics of social media favor gossip, novelty, speed and “shareability”,” which makes it the perfect medium for fake news stories. These leave us as consumers with the responsibility of doing a little bit of research before sharing something online. Sometimes it is easy to spot a fake news story but most times it can be difficult especially when one tries to base their assumptions on a summary or headline alone. FactCheck.org suggests that you read beyond the headline since they are specifically thought up to shock or interest the reader. Another suggestion is to check the author and the originating website for credibility. Lastly they point out the importance of checking your biases. I found this suggestion to be particularly interesting considering the political climate we find ourselves in and all the news we are hearing about fake news in politics.

        FactCheck explains that we tend to put more stock in information that confirms our beliefs and are quicker to discount information that does not. They make the very understandable suggestion that the next time you are appalled by a story involving a politician you dislike to not automatically share it but to take some time to check it out. If the story proves to be true there is nothing wrong with sharing it on your social media as a way to express your beliefs or thoughts but you will find that the more appalling and outlandish the story the more likely it is to be fake new propagated for views.

        I think the real question becomes, are we as the content consumers the ones responsible for the fact checking or is it the social media websites’ responsibility to do that for us? In my opinion it is ultimately the responsibility of consumers. If a person is going to have a social media account then they should be concerned about what content they are perpetuating and should have a hand in deciding if said content is legitimate and verifiable.

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