Getting to Know a Class in 28,000 Characters

As we wrap up this semester, I look at social media differently from my first post, where I said: “when I first think of social media, I instantaneously think Facebook”.  My first post focused on Facebook, however this semester Facebook and I took a break, Twitter and I rekindled our romance, and Blogs and I have gotten to know each other. I have learned to use Twitter in a professional realm, even being re-tweeted by social media experts along the way.  Furthermore, creating a personal blog in addition to our class blog has inspired me to continuing blogging long after #mi621 ends, in an attempt to spread my brand across the Internet.

Throughout the course of the semester, with over 200 personal tweets (28,000 characters), countless conversations, and multiple blog comments, I feel as though I was able to get to know my classmates outside the classroom setting.  I feel I know @livisocial, @teelatimer, @AbbeyLynBC14, and many other classmates beyond the classroom setting through continued conversations on Twitter. I feel I have actually further formed relationships with these classmates that will continue after Social Media for Managers ends. Friendships were fostered in #mi621 and conversations from the classroom became integrated into our daily lives, outside the school realm.

Through this course, I have experienced firsthand the impact of consumer brand engagement on Twitter.  I have learned that the rise and popularity of social media has created a portal for direct brand-customer interaction.  While many companies thrive at this, more have failed.  Billboard and television advertisements are no longer enough to rule a market place, rather there is something to be said about the effective ways in which brands should use social media, a common theme of discussion this semester.  My personal experience with this involved @vitaminwater.  I wrote a blog on their effective social media tactics and tweeted out the blog tagging @vitaminwater. Within 24 hours they not only “favorited” the tweet but tweeted back at me: “@margaretrizzi brilliant blog post, Margaret! Thanks for the shout-out! :)”  While I will never know if they actually read the blog post it was this engagement that sparked my attention and created a sense of loyalty for me with the brand.  When advertisers give their audience a response, consumers will watch, comment and share with friends. After Vitamin Water tweeted at me I instantly started following them of Twitter, and shared with the entire class my positive experience through another tweet, of which @vitaminwater also favorited. This one small move on their part made me feel a part of their #makeboringbrilliant campaign and influences me to continue drinking vitamin water. Well done vitamin water.

Vitamin water is a privately owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company.  Recently, Coca-Cola made an interesting move by removing all forms of advertising for the time being.  As of November 19, Coca Cola is not spending any money on advertising, and instead will be spending that money to relief efforts in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan.  Within just four days of this decision, Coca Cola had already donated 2.5 million dollars in cash, nearly 600,000 dollars in bottled water, and 1 million dollars through the American National Red Cross. It is interesting as Coke has not highly publicized this decision, but has gotten lots of positive feedback for their donations on their social media platforms.  A theme of this semester has been how brand engagement leads to brand loyalty. I believe Coca-Cola fans will continue to engage with Coca-Cola through social media regardless of their realignment of advertising funds.  This shows the power of brand engagement, because while ROI is beneficial in the short term, brand engagement is advantageous for long-term benefits.  I believe Coca-Cola fans will continue to remain loyal to the brand, even in times when advertising efforts are terminated.  I think socially responsible moves like these are very strategic for brands, as giving back to communities can actually create greater brand awareness than advertising alone could do.

Also guys, we are done with blogs for the semester so….

Overall, I have walked away from this class rethinking everything I thought I knew about social media. I have come to realize that brands need to have a specific brand message that they are aiming to embody, they need to have a strong social media team (not interns!) and they need to put fan engagement at the forefront of their goals.  Fan engagement will lead to brand loyalty, which in the long run will result in a positive return on investment for brands.  While return on investments for social media can be hard to measure, there is no doubting the beneficial role of social media to companies.  Lastly, I have learned the importance and impact of making an appropriate brand image for myself on social media.  I now have a professional Twitter and Blog account, which can help me with networking, job applications, and career opportunities in the future.

Making Boring Brililant

Vitamin Water is no stranger to social media marketing tactics. Looking back at 2009, they held a very successful contest on Facebook called the Flavor Creator Lab, which encouraged fans to come up with the next Vitamin Water flavor.  This crowdsourcing technique enabled Vitamin Water to obtain a large group of ideas from their online Facebook community.  Vitamin water even took the contest a bit further and let the contestants create the bottle design, which ultimately ended up sporting the Facebook logo in honor of their affiliation with the site.  This creative exercise in crowdsourcing produced the following flavor and label design shown below, a black cherry-lime flavor made with caffeine and 8 key nutrients. The winner was actually awarded $5,000 for their innovation (makes me wish I had participated!). Further showing their appreciation and love for Facebook, the drink was called Connect, in respect of the social networking site.

More recently, Vitamin Water has created a campaign in which they have chosen to take advantage of people’s boredom. Boredom: we all experience it.  Isn’t boredom half the reason we use social media, to occupy ourselves during boring times?  Vitamin Water chose to incorporate both boredom and social media into a campaign called: #MakeBoringBrilliant. This social media campaign is truly one to be remembered.

The campaign works by encouraging people to tweet @vitaminwater what is boring to them, and then Vitamin Water answers with a response that will “make it brilliant!”  They have basically become a “Boredom Emergency Hotline.” This campaign has attracted a more youthful crowd, complaining about trivial things such as class, the cafeteria, exams etc. However, Vitamin Water sees no issue with this as they understand that their average Twitter users and target markets are those of younger generations.  Vitamin Water is not trying to be anything they are not, rather they are finding creative ways to connect with their audience through social media platforms.  The video below shows some amazing ways in which they transformed people’s boring activities into brilliance.

This integrated platform has completely transformed Vitamin Water’s website as well. The homepage of the company’s website is completely devoted to displaying fan’s #makeboringbrilliant tweets.  In addition, Twitter followers have increased by 100%, because people understand that when they tweet #makeboringbrilliant vitamin water will do just that.  This campaign has created a strong consumer and brand dialog.

Vitamin Water has also incorporated Facebook into this social media campaign by posting photos of their fans participating in the #makeboringbrilliant campaign. One example, is they encouraged fans to upload selfies of themselves with unicorn horns.  While you may be wondering the correlation between Vitamin Water and unicorns, there is none.  Vitamin Water gathered photos from Twitter and made a photo collage for Facebook that received over 10,000 likes on this post alone.  This continued commercialization of their #makeboringbrilliant phrase is quickly increasing brand recognition.

As if their creativity wasn’t enough, Vitamin Water encourages fans to “one up it!” They ask fans to share their brilliance by tweeting brilliant videos, pictures, and comments using the hashtag #makeboringbrilliant.  Incorporating fans into the creation of this campaign makes fans feel a greater connection to the brand.  Vitamin Water also creates a positive message through this campaign.  As their target market for this campaign is teenagers, they encourage people to fight boredom with music, humor, or their own brilliance.  I think this message aims to steer teenagers away from harmful activities and rather instill creativity in the youth.

Do you guys think this is an effective campaign?
How would you make boring brilliant?

20 Things To Do In Your 20s

As today is my 22^nd Birthday, it seemed fitting to write a post on 20 things to do in your twenties, and how to incorporate social media into them.  And to answer the question I somehow frequently get asked, yes my birthday always falls on Halloween.  October 31^st is always October 31^st.

 1) Land your dream job.  Don’t settle for anything less than the job you have always dreamed of.  Message employees on LinkedIn, Tweet at the company, follow them on Facebook, any edge that will get you in the door.

 2) Travel to an unknown land and blog about it. Whether that be a part of Boston you have never been to or a country in Europe, experience the unknown and inform others about your discoveries.

 3) Try Twerking. We’ve all seen the viral videos. We all want to try it. Just do it.

 4) Love with all your heart.  Don’t be afraid to let yourself be vulnerable, and don’t be afraid of the highs and lows that come with relationships. Maybe even give some lucky guy/girl out there a boost of confidence by actually putting your relationship on Facebook.

 5) Eat as much McDonald’s as you want. Your metabolism will never be this good again. #Fries #Fries #Fries

 6) Dance in a culture show that is not your culture. I was recently invited over Facebook to be a part of the Filipino culture show in 4 weeks, and I’m challenging myself to completely immerse myself in another culture.

 7) Go on a road trip and only listen to 90’s music.  Think back to Britney’s first music video and channel your inner childhood.

 8) Exactly opposite of that, go on a road trip with friends and listen to no music and use no phones, rather completely immerse yourself in conversation.

 9) Have at least one night where you listen to the entire Taylor Swift album and cry while doing it, letting all your pent up emotions out.  But please, save us all and don’t post her lyrics on Facebook.

 10) Videotape a night out with friends. I don’t mean hire a professional camera crew or create a six second Vine.  Pull out the video camera and create a memory that you can look back on one day and watch.

 11) Go on a beach vacation and watch the sunset every night for seven nights straight. Document the experience through Instagram to remember how beautiful and different each night was.

 12) Do something that excites you, even if it scares you at the same time.  Go up to that person you’ve been wanting to talk to all year, and just do it.

 13) Teach your parents how to use Facebook.  Save all those embarrassing parents out there from their painstaking use of Facebook, and teach them Facebook 101. Hopefully this can remove all the second hand embarrassment we get from our parents.

 14) Kiss someone spontaneously on your next New Year’s Eve.

 15) Think back to a life changing moment that someone helped you with and reach out to that person over Facebook, E-mail, Skype, any form of communication and tell him or her how they positively influenced your life.

 16) Delete all your embarrassing photos on Facebook. Although as we recently learned nothing really gets “deleted.”

 17) Volunteer for the sake of volunteering, not because you’ll get anything out of it.

 18) As it is Halloween, dress in whatever you want for Halloween regardless of what people will think about it.  Unlike this USA Today article, don’t let social media negatively influence your Halloween costume choices.

 19) Be alone. Remove yourself from all your friends and all forms of social media for on night and really get to know yourself.

 20) Rage in the mods when the Red Sox win the World Series…. Oops checked that one off my list last night. #RedSox #WorldSeries

While I have many to go on this list myself, I hope I have inspired you all to do something fun, worthwhile, rewarding or spontaneous. Happy Halloween!

United Breaks Guitars

This past week, Twitter implemented a new option for direct messaging users.  Twitter lifted all constraints on direct messages, so anyone can contact you, regardless of if you follow them.  However, this option is not mandatory, users must opt in to receive these direct messages.  In order to opt in to this application, Twitter users must check the box next to “Receive direct messages from any user.”  While Facebook has had this ability since 2010, Twitter has always been a better source of communication between businesses and consumers.  However, this new option is good for brands and bad for consumers.

This new option is good for brands because it offers consumers an outlet to report their issues and problems in a less public manner.  This is good for businesses as the effects of negative consumer publicity can at times be devastating.  Listed below are some of the negative publicity stunts created by consumers that hit companies hard. This new Twitter opportunity could have prevented these situations, in particular through its ability for direct messages between businesses and consumers.  Through direct messaging, companies may have been able to confront the source before the complaints went viral like these criticisms did:

1) The United Breaks Guitars Video.  This video went viral in 2009 and to date has over 13 million views on YouTube.  The 4-minute video created by Canadian musician Dave Carroll was directed at United Airlines for their horrific customer service after the airline broke his guitar.  Within four days of this video going viral, United Airlines’ stock fell by 10 cents each, costing the shareholders 180 million dollars.  One small complaint blown completely out of proportion because no one at United Airlines would listen to Dave Carroll.  Could one direct message on Twitter with immediate response from United Airlines have prevented this 180 million dollar loss and unquantifiable loss of customers?

2) The Richard Neill Facebook Post.  On October 8, 2012 an angry consumer, Richard Neill, left an irritated post on the Bodyform’s Facebook page as felt he had been lied to by the company Bodyform through their misleading “happy periods” commercials.  His post got over 100,000 likes and 5,000 comments.  Bodyform actually responded with a quiet a witty video (that you should definitely watch!) that ended up getting over 5 million views.  The CEO actually thanks Richard for exposing their lies in a hilarious manner.  However, could this elaborate response to a Facebook post have been prevented had the conversation remained solely between Richard Neill and Bodyform? Are elaborate responses from companies really needed to keep consumers happy or would a simple Twitter response suffice.

3) Close This Loan! This newlywed couple, Ken and Meredith, wanted to close on their first home, but Bank of America was ignoring their emails, failing to respond, and eventually dropping their case all together.  The couple decided to make a music video out of their predicament, encouraging viewers to Tweet at Bank of America for them.  While the video wasn’t even close to Carroll’s millions of views, it did grab Bank of America’s attention and got a response within two days.  However, Bank of American suffered from the negative attention this video drew and made customers reconsider the quality of their work.

It’s evident why companies would like to keep the criticisms between them and the consumer only, as not all publicity is good publicity.  But, what does direct messaging do for consumers? If consumers opt to use the direct message method it means that their complaints about the company are no longer public discussions.  In particular with the use of hashtags on Twitter, if consumers decided to take the conversation out of the public eye, they will no longer be able to converse and relate to other consumers who are experiencing similar troubles.  The direct messages also offer a way for companies to sweep their issues under the rug, rather than informing the public of their mistakes and the solutions they will implement.  Seems like the direct message is a cop out for businesses. What do you think?

Prisoner Game vs. Boston College Community Game

This week I explored the science of cooperation by creating a Boston College version of the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma game.  The study looked at the way a set of information can change the way in which people interact with one another.   The Prisoner’s Dilemma game is an example of game theory that shows how two individuals, in this case Boston College “prisoners,” might not cooperate when being questioned, even if it would be in their best interest.  I will explore if certain students operate with self-intent as a primary motivator or if the Boston College community acts in a mutually beneficial manner.  The “Prisoner’s Dilemma” Logic Game was originally created by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresber, who were working at a global think tank nonprofit.  The temptation of the game is that each individual has the potential to walk away as a “winner,” however they must consider if this temptation enough to risk the worse consequence.

In addition to the regular rules of the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game I have decided to add another dimension by splitting individuals up into two groups. This is a concept we learned about in the article by Yochai Benkler called “The Unselfish Gene.” Half of the students will be told they are playing the “Boston College Community Game” while the other half will be told they are playing the “Prisoner Game.”  Other than these two characteristics, the groups are identical in all other respects; as all the students polled are Boston College Seniors.  Before collecting the data for the game theory, I predicted that students playing the “Boston College Community Game” would act in a manner of “men and women for others.”  This meaning that the students would act cooperatively and both confess to the crime.  Counter to this, I believed students playing the “Prisoner Game” would act in self interest, as the title of the game implies more that they should act in a manner that would reward self-interest, putting aside the feelings and concerns of others.

The hypothetical set up is that both Boston College students are in “BC Jail” for stealing another student’s Boston College Student ID and buying out all the food at Hillside (which is valuable money for anyone not on the BC flex plan).  AKA free New England Classics for everyone and their friends!  But, they get caught.  They are in the BCPD office each in solitary confinement and they learn the possible consequences of their actions. The possible consequences are as follows:

As shown in the chart, regardless of what the other decides, by confessing to the crime the Boston College student does not risk the chance of being suspended from Boston College.  By confessing, they may either walk away free or suffer the consequence of losing senior week and mod privileges (something no BC senior wants to face).  However, when both students deny they only have to clean alumni stadium one time after a game, but that puts them at risk of also being suspended. So what did Boston College students do?

I had 20 individuals, 10 groups participate in the game and the results were as follows:

For the most part, students reacted in the manner in which I predicted. For the “Boston College Community Game” there was an equal distribution of combinations for the game.  This showed that people strictly made personal decisions, and really were not as affected by the title as I thought they would be. For the “Prisoner Game” students were more likely to get betrayed by the other prisoner resulting in one individual walking away free while the other individual is stuck with a suspension from Boston College.  These results showed that students were influenced by context, and as we learned from Ross, “the framing of the game influenced 40% of the sample.”  While the results of this study are limited by my information-gathering techniques I found that the results showed that students are more willing to cooperate based on the framing of the game.

How do you think you would have answered this hypothetical situation?

To check out how this game has made its way into reality television watch this clip from the Bachelor Pad Finale.

Hooked by a Catfish

Online Dating.  There are currently 40 million men and women looking for love across the World Wide Web.  For many people, online interaction is only the start of the relationship, with long-term, healthy relationships coming to fruition.  For others, however, the relationship never moves from the Internet to the real world. The idea of “dating” someone without ever seeing them in person is difficult to reconcile considering that true dating usually involves social activities done by two people with the goal of finding if they are suitable for one another. So how then, does this act of physical engagement take place over the Internet?  To put it simply, it does not.  Without the initial pressures of in-person interactions, online dating might seem appealing to some people.  However after extended periods without meeting in person, the relationship starts to become suspicious.  Are these online daters always who they say they are? When these suspicions are confirmed, individuals realize the have been catfished.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term “catfish,” let me explain.  The Web 2.0 term describing a “catfish” is an impersonator on social media, who is pretending to be someone they are not, and potentially even act a different sex than that of which they are.  So what is the purpose of a catfish? A catfish is created with the intent to trick another individual over the Internet into falling in love with them without ever revealing their true identity.

This term became popularized in 2010 after the documentary Catfish was published, where filmmaker Nev Schulman realized the hot 20 year old he thought he was dating was acting under a false identity.  The concept has recently been popularized in the MTV show Catfish: The Show where Nev goes around and helps “couples” who have never met meet in real life.  But it isn’t always what they expected.

In one episode of Catfish: The Show that I watched, a young girl Aaliyah fell in love with another female, who lived only 70 blocks away from her. However, Aaliyah and “Alicia” never met up.  Alicia was always coming up with excuses as to why she could not meet in person. However, Aaliyah was sending Alicia gifts and money valuing up to over 600 dollars.   While Aaliyah thought she found the love of her life, Alicia was just using her to get money and deceive Aaliyah.  After months of this behavior, Aaliyah finally confronted Alicia only to find out she was only in it for her money.

In a world full of “catfish” how do you know whom to believe on social media? Below are some guidelines of things to consider in social media relationships to assure that a social media identity thief is not taking you advantage of.

1) If it sounds too good to be true… it probably is.  If this person is so amazing, why won’t they meet you in person?

2) Ask to video chat, to confirm photos match the person in front of you

3) Google search their images

4) Don’t wait months to meet them

5) Verify their identity through friends and employers

6) Reach out to their Facebook friends to confirm their identity.

7) Check out their social media activity, make sure they’re posting regularly

8) Profiles with low amounts of friends or followers are suspicious

9) You can’t be in love when you’ve never met

10) Avoid interaction with RANDOM PEOPLE on the Internet!

For further information check out these videos from Dr. Phil and Ellen

Dr. Phil

Ellen

Do You “Like” Me?

When I first think of social media, I instantaneously think Facebook.  As a millennial who entered college in 2010, Facebook was the first form of social media that I really familiarized myself with and it quickly became an integral part of my social life.  So what exactly does Facebook do for a millennial? It provides a community where “friends,” (more accurately “associates whom I’ve met once and/or never”) can share photos, memories, inside jokes, perform some casual “stalking,” and chat with one another. With over 80 percent of millennials using Facebook, it has clearly become an outlet for social communication that can be accessed from just about anywhere by just about anyone.  I also believe Facebook has a underlying competitive side, challenging peers to post photos that will make others envious, seeing who can get the most “likes” on a profile picture, making events “invite only” so that the list of attendees is more selective, and constant numerical reminders of how many photos, notifications, and “friends” you have.  This competitive nature can also help students feel supported through the “like” feature.  The social media realm has taught us that the more “likes” a photo gets the more well “liked” you should feel.

Although a college dropout created Facebook, the site can be looked at as a large popularity contest between and amongst colleges. In the college atmosphere, Facebook is used mainly for social purposes and a recent study showed that 43% of millennials believe their content is inappropriate in the professional eye (SocialNewsDaily).  While these statistics are alarming, Facebook is a company that was built, run, and maintained by millennials.  As Facebook’s popularity grew, its users also expanded from college students to the general public.  Facebook appeals to other generations as it plays an integral part for professionals in marketing their businesses.  This audience has careers on their agenda, rather than the college social life.

Social media can be utilized for professional and business networking purposes.  I recently worked on updating my father’s Facebook page, Jonlor Developments Inc. My dad is a small business owner and a certified architect and homebuilder. So you might think, how does an architect get involved with social media? In an every growing competitive market, small businesses have to come up with creative marketing techniques that continuously put them above their competitors.  As a very visual business, a Facebook page provides the perfect atmosphere to share images with potential clients. Facebook in particular helps small businesses as it provides a source for them to spread their company images, name, and message while increasing company branding.  I see social media as a free outlet for small business owners to gain more awareness and brand image for their business.  While this is one small aspect of the marketing capabilities of Facebook, this is the marketing area I am most familiar with.  However, as shown below the page only has 39 likes. So are older generations really active on Facebook in the same way that millennials are?

However, my understanding of social media goes far beyond Facebook.  From Instagram to Twitter to LinkedIn, the role of social media is ever expanding.  I have always looked narrowly at how social media can benefit myself until recently, when I started divulging into the ways social media plays a role in large corporations. This past summer I had an internship at Dunkin’ Brands and while I was in the Communications Department, I interacted with the Social Media and Public Relations Department.  I realized the important role that Twitter, blogs, and Pinterest along with Facebook can benefit a company. I was able to witness first-hand employee interaction with customers via Twitter, complaints addressed over Facebook, recipes shared over Pinterest, and interviews with company executives in blogs. This exposure opened my ideas to an entire new realm of social media and greatly changed my opinion of what encompasses the words “Social Media.”  This company interaction over social media built brand awareness and helped make the customers feel more connected to the company.  While these examples are just putting our toes in the water of social media, I am excited to learn about all that social media has to offer!