Last day!!!!

This being the last time we were going to meet together, we made sure everyone was on the same page.  Everyone in my group brought their drafts to class. We wanted to make sure our plan was cohesive. Our group worked a little more on tactics, and we came up with some really good ideas. I am compiling our final draft, so everyone is sending their parts by noon on Saturday. I will put everything together, and send it back to them to make sure they like. The last day of class was productive, and that was surprising. :)

Project 3- Almost there!!

This is the last week of class!! On Tuesday we all brought final drafts the our sections. In class we worked on the plan. We had our objectives pretty much ready. We had to make a few changes, but they are solid objectives. In class we decided to work on strategies and tactics together. We all had ideas and decided as group which ones we wanted to use. I think we came up with some great strategies and tactics. On Thursday, we are all going to have our sections completely done.    

Thursday: Project 3

On Thursday, my group decided to start on our plan. Everyone brought in a rough draft of the first section. These rough drafts gave us what we needed to start our plan. We divided the plan up between the 5 of us, but want to also work on it as a group. We talked about the differences between objectives, strategies and tactics. We all seem to be on the same page now. Tuesday of next week, we have another rough draft due. We are also going to work on our plan during class time. Last week of class!!!!

Project 3 Week 2

We have been working in project 3 all week. My group has been setting deadlines for every class. It is good that we are doing it this way, because everyone has been staying on track. On Tuesday, we all brought in key points for our sections. We then talked about what we were still missing. I am looking at Red Bull's competitors, and there is just so much information. I am trying to pick out the most important information to use. Marcus is doing this section with me, and I know that he is finding a lot as well. Our group is doing great as far.

Project #3

In class on Thursday, we started talking about project #3. As a team, we decided who was going to do each section. Marcus and I are splitting up the competitors section. I wanted to do this section, because I enjoyed the monitoring in the last project. I will looking at Rock Star and Amp. Marcus will be looking at Monster and Nos. We have set deadlines for every ones sections. On Tuesday we are all bringing in key points, and our rough drafts on dues next Thursday. We want to work on the plan in class, so we all can put our ideas into each part. We all work very well together, so I think our plan we come out really good.

Project #2 Final

On Tuesday my group came to class with rough draft ready. We went over every ones draft, and made suggestions on changes. I was having some trouble on my section, because I just needed some more information. I had to ask my job, which specific search words they used for each social media. Once I had that information, I was good to go. When meeting on Tuesday, we also realized that we didn't monitor forums. At first we thought that they weren't relevant to Red Bull. When we thought about it, we realized that there are Red Bull forums. We are going to monitor them now, so we can use them for for Project 3. I am just really happy with my group, everyone is pulling their weight and it's great!! Go Team!!

Team Red Bull

In class on Thursday, my team discussed our tables. Everyone had a good amount of information about the technology they were researching. I personally had a few question about what I should look for on Pinterest. We all talked about our tables individually, and answered questions when needed. We then talked about what sections, we each were going to do. We all wanted to do part sections, so that part went pretty smoothly. We all agreed to have rough drafts ready on Tuesday. The Regina is going to put everything together, once we send her our final copies on Tuesday night. Our group works really well together!!! I think that the final assignment will turn out great!!

Group Project

My group is doing Red Bull, and they are very active in social media. The brand is very much photo based. I have been researching Pinterest, and Red Bull has several pages. One of their pages is called Illume, and it is photo competition that Red Bull sponsors. The Photographs on this site are really amazing. The photographs are from all around the world, and feature just about every extreme sport. The deadline to enter photos is at the end of April. I will be interested to see who wins!

Team Red Bull

Project is going great so far. We all have been monitoring our specific areas, for the activity on social media. I am only doing the curating technologies now. Marcus joined our group and he took over the sharing technologies. The was so much information in both of those technologies. I was really glad when he joined our group. It was way to much, for one person to monitor all of those social medias. Red Bull does some very interesting things with social media. The brand uses all of them to their advantage. That is the main reason why we picked Red Bull; we knew that we would be able to find a ton of stiff to work with. We are all working well together as a team, and I am excited to see what everyone has found come Tuesday.  

Group Project

My team has decided to use Red Bull for our project. I was excited when we decided to use them, because they are such a huge brand. Red Bull uses every social media out there. I personally will be researching curating and sharing. When I first started doing researching, I quickly realized how much work this would be. The brand itself has over 3 YouTube channels. This doesn't included that channels that are made by fans. Red Bull does have a pinterest page, and I have found a lot of interesting pins on there. I think that we will have no problem finding the information that we need.

Project 1: Coca-Cola

When reading over our options for project one, I decided to go with Coca-Cola. I have always liked the way the brand uses social media. The companies campaigns are always creative and different. I am really looking forward to researching a Coca-Cola campaign. 

The campaign that I will be researching is the "Open Happiness" campaign. The company decided to travel to 206 different countries where coke was sold in 365 days. This is such a great way to use social media, because you can document the entire experience.

Discovering

When talking about discovering technologies in class, we talked about foursquare and Groupon. I personally have never used foursquare. I understand getting the deals that come along with it, but I don't want people to know where I am all the time. I have many friends that used it when it first came out, and now they use the Facebook version. If I am on vacation I might use it, but who cares if I am at  Target in Brentwood. On the other hand, I love Groupon!! I go on Groupon everyday and look at the deals. I usually just use the restaurant and spa deals, but it features many other products. Most of the deals you get about 50% off, I don't understand why people wouldn't be using Groupon. I like to save money and try new places; Groupon allows me to do both!!
When talking about Groupon in class, I learned about Groupon's Grassroots program. This allows people to donate money to local charities through Groupon. This is such a good idea and it allows people to give back to their communities. This is set-up exactly like a Groupon, it shows how much people have donated, how much time is left on it, and how much money the charity needs to raise. The Grassroots program is unique to Groupon. This will help them when more discovering technologies come about, things like this will set them apart from the competition.  

Discussing

In class we talked about discussing technologies. Discussing technologies are all about communicating with peers about a certain topic. Forums are the main discussing technology that we talked about in class. Forums are usually about certain topic of interest. The people on the forums ask and answer questions and talk about a certain product. Most forums are started by customers and not the actual company. In class we talked about how companies have forums, but most customers use customer made forums. We talked about the TiVo community forum in class, and this is a forum run by customers. I would have never thought that so many people would be on a forum, but people posted on this one all the time.  
When looking for a forum, I wanted to think of something that I used personally. I decided to use this Netflix forum. I use Netflix all the time, and when I have problems with it I just re-start it or don't use for a while. This forum will be really helpful for me, and I never even thought about using a forum. This forum is not the companies, it is a customer made forum. It is very easy to use, because everything in separated into categories. It even breaks down what kind a device you use Netflix on. There are not people that are posting daily, but maybe that means their questions are already answered on the forum. Forums are meant for customers to discuss the project, and this one allows people a easy way to do this.

Monitoring

Monitoring technologies can be extremely helpful for companies. These technologies allow you to see what is being said about your company, and figure out what is important to your customers. Monitoring technologies allow companies to monitor everything that is being said about them via social media. I am not on Twitter, but I think TweetDeck is my favorite. I just love they way the dashboard is set-up, and it seems very user friendly. I couldn't get to far into it, because I don't have a Twitter account.
I checked out Google Alerts, and found that to be pretty interesting. I set-up a couple different alerts, and am interested to see what it comes up with. For our class project, my group is deciding between Red Bull and Vera Bradley. I set-up Google alerts for both of those brands, and I hope I can get some good information from it. I had a hard time trying to find examples of these technologies. I am sure that every company uses them in some way. I found a website that offered tips on how to use Google alerts. I thought this would be helpful for everyone in class, because we are starting to do research for our group projects.

Networking

In class we talked about networking technologies. The two we talked about in class were Facebook and  LinkedIn. I think that most people in our generation, are pretty familiar with Facebook. I was not very familiar with LinkedIn, but I am glad we learned more about it in class. I am a senior and will be graduating in May. I am going to start looking for jobs soon, and want to get on LinkedIn. Whenever I talk about looking for a job, everyone says get on LinkedIn. I never really knew how to use it, or how to even get started. It is nice to have some basics on how to started, and I plan on starting a LinkedIn profile really soon.
Most companies these days have a Facebook page, but that doesn't mean that they are active on Facebook. I started looking through company Facebook pages, and wanted to find a company that was active on Facebook. When I came across Converse's Facebook page, I was really impressed. They make post at least twice a day, and their post are about current events. SXSW is a music festival that just happened in Austin, and they followed bands and fans throughout the festival who were wearing converse. They have also done a few Facebook campaigns, the most recent one being 'Show me Yours'. This campaign asked converse customers, to take photos of where and how they wear their converse. The campaign featured thousands of photos of people doing all kinds of things in their converse.
 

Sharing

The next technology we talked about in class, was all about sharing. This includes YouTube, Flickr and Instagram. All three of these technologies allow you to share content with others, through videos and photographs. I personally have never used Flickr, but I am really into Instagram. I post photos on there often, and like to get on there just to look at what other people are posting. I use YouTube pretty often, I will watch music videos more than anything. I usually get on YouTube, when a friend tells me that there is a funny video that I need to watch. 

I started looking through different Instagram accounts and Red Bull caught my eye. I am not a Red Bull drinker, but its Instagram page really hits its target audience. Red Bull's slogan is, "It gives you Wings" and the photographs that are posted show that lifestyle. The page features photographs of people doing extreme sports, all over the world. The photos are set-up from most recent to oldest. They allow people to like the photos and make comments on them. This Instagram account has about 600,000 followers and they follow a good amount of people as well. I like almost everything about this Instagram account, except for one thing. Currently they have 785 photos posted, but I would think that there would be a lot more. It would be cool if they would post more fan photos on their Instagram.   

Twitter

I really enjoyed having a guest speaker in class talking about Twitter. She really knew what she was talking about, and her job is all about using Twitter at Panera Bread. I feel that I understand how Twitter works a lot more now, then I did before the class. I don't have a Twitter account, its just not something I have been interested in getting. I think I might set one up now. It seems like I great way to stay connected to friends. I love that fact that you can only type 140 characters, because it drives me crazy when people write long messages on Facebook.
The Twitter that I really like is Starbucks. I wanted to talk about this one, because I love Starbucks. I go there about 4 times a week. They have millions of followers, and they also follow about 80,000 people. I like that they post deals and coupons on there. They also post photos of different products, so you can see what they look like. It looks like they don't really tweet that often, unless I am reading that homepage wrong. I think they should be tweeting daily.

Blogs

In class we started talking about different types of social media, the first being blogs. I personally didn't know a lot about blogs and how they worked, because I had never used one before this class. I also have never really been interested in reading other peoples blogs. I never really thought that people read blogs, but you showed us several examples that proved otherwise. The example I remember you showing is the SuddenLink blog. There are people who made comments on the post, and a lot more people that were reading it. I liked that the blog included pictures, surveys and video clips. Those kinds of things keep people interested in reading more.
The example that I found was the Whole Foods Market blog. The blog is very visually pleasing. It includes a lot of pictures and video clips. The blog posts are about recipes, craft projects, sales and many other things. In the side bar you can search posts by category, you can look at blog archives and there is a section of links. The one thing that I don't like about this blog, is that they read every comment before its posted. I understand why company's have to do this, but then they can just post the good things and leave out the bad. That is not how social media works.  

Honesty

When reading the about the principle of Honestly, you would think that most people would know what this means. It is sad to think about how many people are dishonest in social media; because they think that no one will figure out who they are. In class we talked about a case where a blogger Crystal Cox started making up things about Kevin Padrick. He was involved in a bankrupt company, and she blog about a lot of false accusations about him. She ended up getting sued, and had to pay a huge settlement.  However, many people believed what was said and he lost creditability.
The article I found talks about the show Catfish on MTV. The shows is all about how people lie on Facebook. The host of the show finds people in online relationships, that have never meet the other person. The host will then do research about the person who seems to be lying, and will find a way for them to meet. Most of the time the person is lying, and not really who they say they are. Sometimes it is little things like weight or jobs. It can also be gender, or they are a completely different person. I have seen a episode where someone took all of these pictures from someones MySpace page, and created an entire new identity. It is really weird that someone would go that far.

Control

The principle we talked about in class was control. It seems to me that there is a fine line when it comes to control. A company wants to have control, but it is not possible to have complete control. One of the cases we talked about in class was about Marie Callender's. The company that owns this brand decided to have a dinner, and invite top food and mom bloggers to attend. The invitation made it seem like a top chef was going to be cooking their meals. The plan was to serve Marie Callender's lasagna as the main dish, and see what their reaction was. Many of the bloggers got upset, because they had special dietary needs that were ignored. After the dinner the bloggers went and blogged about their experience. That is when ConAgra lost control, because they have no control over what they post on their blogs.

The article I found, was about McDonald's and how there newest twitter campaign went all wrong. They wanted to engage with their customers, so they created to hash-tags for customers to tweet with. McDonald's wanted people to talk about the good experiences they had at the restaurants. Instead many customers started telling bad experiences they have had there, and all kinds of bad stories. When this started to happen they lost control of this campaign. It completely backfired on them. It is hard to keep control of this type of social media, because people can post whatever they want to.
  

Tone

This week in class we talked about the second principle of post-engagement, which is tone. The cases we talked about this week were all pretty interesting. One case was about KLM and how they interacted with its customers. The airline would monitor tweets, and when someone would mention the airline they would look to see what it said. In cases where customers talked about waiting for their flight, the airline would try and gift something for that customer. KLM would look at their customers Facebook pages and see what their hobbies were. When they found out, they would meet them at the airport with a gift. An example they used was giving a runner, a sports watch. This sets a great tone with the airlines customers, it shows that they have an interest in them. The company is treating them as friends, and not just random people.
The article I found was about Disney and its social media. The article talked about how Disney has multiple Facebook pages. They have pages for all of the their different audience groups. They have a Facebook specially for parents with infants called Disney Baby. Having different pages allows Disney to set different tones with each type of consumers. Companies want to set they right tone and speak in a language that their customers understand. Disney being such a large company, split things up in order the reach all if their markets.

Endurance

This week we started to talk about the post-engagement principles. The first one we talked about was endurance. The case that stood out to me was about the NRA. When the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, the NRA was under a lot of pressure. Many people were writing on the NRAs websites, and many of those people were very upset with the organization. The NRA didn't comment on any ones opinions, the organizations basically stayed quiet for days. I don't think the NRA handled this the right way. In my opinion the organization should have said something. There should have been a statement issued, saying that their thoughts and prayers went out to the families of this tragedy. Something along those lines. The organization should have showed that they cared about the huge loss. I agree that the NRA made the right decision not to address the gun issue, but it is important to show compassion.

When trying to find an article about endurance, I came across the new Mellow Yellow campaign. This article talked about several different unique campaigns. Unique content is something we discussed when we talked about endurance. Mellow Yellow has been around for a long time, but has been pretty much unknown in recent years. The company decided to use a new approach by starting a Facebook page for Mellow Yellow. They used a retro theme, and customers were able to upload photos and get a retro look in a photo generator. This allowed the company to reach a whole new audience. They found that 80% of the pages fans were 24 and under. This company went through a time when they were pretty much forgotten, and now have a whole new fan base. This case of Mellow Yellow shows how endurance can pay off.

Integration

When talking about integration in class, we talked about General Mills. In this case the company used different types of media in reach its audience. They started running a series of commercials, that featured its Pilsbury products. General Mills also used social media, by sharing recipes on blogs and Facebook. Another case we talked about was the WWE. The brand integrated using all types of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. I thought that it was a smart idea to continue the story on social media outlets, so the brand so stay in the fans minds. WWE only airs once a week, so to keep the story going all week keeps the fans engaged.
I found an article talks about how A&G uses integration in its new campaign. The company is starting a new recruitment and awareness campaign, and trying to target people from the ages 17-24. The company has decided to use Twitter to reach those people, and created a new hash-tag for this campaign. A&G will also be using broadcast, print, digital, and out of home elements in this campaign. This seems like a good way to reach the target market the company is aiming for. It is smart to also use other types of media, to reach those who are not on Twitter.    

Content

In class this week we talked about content. There are four things that are needed to make content "spreadable". These four components include the campaign being relevant, interesting, unique, and useful. If a campaign has all four of these things, then it's a solid campaign. The GYT campaign that MTV did, met all four of those criteria. It was relevant, because teens need to get tested. It was interesting and unique, because they didn't tell anyone what GYT meant. They used celebrities in the campaign, and they tried to guess what GYT meant. It ended up being useful, because numbers showed that more teens were getting tested after this campaign came out.

Free people is a clothing brand owned by Urban Outfitters. Its most recent campaign incorporated using  its customers Instagram photos on its product pages. This is relevant to the customer, because they can see how the clothes look and what to wear with them. This is interesting, because most companies don't  do this. The customers can see the clothing on many different body shapes, and see how different people style certain items. Its unique for the reasons I just mentioned. It's rarely done, and lets the customers be involved. This campaign is useful to the customers, because they can see the clothing on an actual person. When you shop online, it's hard to tell what the clothing will actually look like on a real person (not a model). This new campaign allows you to do so.

Objectives

In Thursdays class we talked about objectives, and how they are key in figuring out how you want to use social media. There are five different objectives that we talked about they are, listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing. All of these objectives are about how the customer will help the company, and how the company will help it's customers. We discussed five different cases, each one talking about one of the five objectives. The case that stood out to me was the Ernst & Young case. Their objective was talking, and the company used this to it's advantage. The company hires many employees that are right out of college. On their Facebook page when someone had a question about a job, they would respond back to each person. This was a good way to reach out to new hopeful employees, and also many people who probably wouldn't think of working there.
The article that I found, talks about how to acquire new customers using social media. It lists five different ways, and they are about talking to potential customers, and making people excited about the product. Making people excited, reminds me of energizing the customer. When you make people excited about a company, they will want to seek it out. The article talks about making social media personal, so people can connect to the company. It also important to take pictures and post them, to show potential customers what to look forward to.

Listening

In class we talked about, how important it is for companies to listen to it's clients. There were several cases that we discussed that really made that point. The case with PSE, talked about how they listened to their customers and made changes accordingly. They watched to see what they were saying on twitter and Facebook, and then used that information to their advantage. In doing this, they were able to reach many more customers.
When looking to an article about companies listening to their customers, I found one that worked perfect. In this case not listening to their customers was the problem, and the company lost many of them because of it. The case I found is about Netflix. In the summer of 2011, Netflix decided to change the packages that they offered. They wanted to separate the programing into two different packages. When doing this there was a 40% increase in the price of the packages. The company lost 800,000 customers, and it's stocks dropped dramatically. Before they changed their packages they had focus groups, asking what customers thought of the changes. The company then said that, they weren't sure what exactly people had said about the new changes during these focus groups. This is a prime example of a company not listening to it's customers. 

The Reach and Impact of Social Media

This week in class we talked about the reach and impact social media has today. Social media affects everything from laws to music trends. In class we talked about how much social media, can impact someones decision a certain product. People are now using avenues such as Facebook, in making decisions about travel. The video we watched in class really shows you; just how important social media is today. Seeing the actual numbers on video really put it into prospective for me. I started to think about the reach of social media; and found an interesting article about just how far it reaches. The article talks about, how The Weather Channel is now naming winter storms for social media reasons. The Weather Channel decided to name these storms, so people can access important news easier. Using the storms name with a hash tag, can take you to any information about the storm. This is such a great way to get important weather information out there. I know when I think about the weather, social media is not the first thing that comes to mind. It is amazing to see just how far social media can reach, and this particular issues has a huge impact on people.        

Introduction Post

My name is Amanda Facklam, and I am a senior. I will graduating in May, and I am excited. I am from Kansas City, MO and have lived in St. Louis for about a year and a half. I have one older sister and we are really close. I love living in St.Louis, but I miss Kansas City. I am a bartender at Pi pizza in the Delmar loop. When I have free time I enjoy reading, watching t.v., and cooking. I am a vegetarian, and like to try new recipes.
The purpose of this blog is to post weekly, about the topics that we have discussed in class. Through this blog, the class will be able to get everyone view point the the topics. I was interested in taking this class, because it is relevant today. These topics are things that you will need to know, if you want a career in PR. I am not sure what I want to do with my communications degree. I would like to do something along the lines of HR, but I am not certain on that. I graduate in May, and I will just what is out there.