Social Media

Editor's Notes

1. As the Internet era began, Web sites such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, and many others we fail to mention in this presentation have emerged. Public interaction has enabled consumers to voice an opinion, share experiences and simply reach out. Transition from monologue types of media, mainly used by television broadcasting, converged to dialogs. As a result, the traditional content recipient, who watched television ads for decades, became the content contributor. Businesses realized this convergence, and tapped into the information and feedback ocean, which in the past they could get only by allocating humongous budgetary funds for marketing surveys.
2. The user pumps information into the social media spaces, content gets published, and trends and preferences are drawn from published content. From there products and services are - that were created based on user feedback - placed on the social media interfaces to trigger the user’s attention. This is how we describe the continuous cycle of social media for business-to-consumer environments. The name of the game became “Engagement”. The more engaged the business is with the consumer, the more precise a one-to-one relationship is generated out of the interaction. Without a doubt this cycle creates leaner marketing strategies where measurements such as conversion per click exist to rapidly evaluate the effectiveness of marketing strategies.
3. Each social media tool functions differently to deepen consumer relationship. Blogs, branded social media network sites and other Web sites - where the content is distributed, discussion forums exist, innovation hubs are created (by central consumer community) to foster innovation , Wikis exist, Twitter exist and ratings/reviews exist - had their own affect on creating consumer trends.
4. The study done by Wetpaint and Altimeter ranks the top 100 companies for engagement. The graphs shown (this one and the one that follows) were created from the engagement rankings. The conclusion is that the greater the number of social media channels employed, the higher the engagement rate. The engagement scores, for the auto companies shown on the chart, also correlate with revenues of the companies. The higher the engagement, the higher the revenues. The dotted line represents the median to set the standard for the industry.
5. Once you begin a social media program, it is an on-going process. You cannot quit. Carefully pick channels and only engage in areas that make good business sense or meet the needs of the brand. Toyota encourages its employees to engage in the company’s social media channels.
6. This graph shows the performance of technology companies in the social media engagement game. The dotted line represents the median to set the standard for the industry.
7. Traditionally the buying cycle in B2B takes longer than B2C. Therefore, having an open door of communication between the potential customer and an online community manager could be the determining factor when it is finally time to make a decision. That open door is the social media’s engagements through selectively targeted networks. Anyone who has valuable input or feedback is included in the SAP social media network, which utilizes forums for feedback on possible an idea or a potential opportunity. Product managers use the social media tools to communicate information about their new products. As far as selection strategy of social media networks, SAP engages in channels where clients (people) already exist. SAP’s Twitter channel invites current users to communication to learn about customer needs. The open-end communication strategy is also a reflection of the organizational culture at SAP. The end goal is to enable SAP consumers to be more successful, so that they buy more SAP products and services.
8. As we looked at both B2B and B2C practices for social media, it is inevitable that proper implementation and usage of social media promises a great value for both public consumers and enterprises. Not only does social media promise more precise product and service determination, but it also signals great economical benefits, especially as marketing efforts become more condensed and measurable. However, there remains a great deal of privacy issues yet to be addressed.
9. DMA’s (Direct Marketing Association) published guidelines for ethical business practice states that as an organization, it favors self-regulatory measures over governmental mandates for all marketing practices. However, misuse of information may result in harm to businesses and consumers due to the readily available nature of information that travels over the Internet and intranets of businesses. Article #38 – Online Information section on page 20 of DMA’s guidelines state that the organization should use methods and security technologies to prevent unauthorized access, alteration, or dissemination of personal information during transfer and storage of such information. Unfortunately, Article #38 does not clarify if the consumer is protected by the Online Privacy Policy act in the case of failure of the organization to safeguard personal and private information. We were unable to find any example of an organization that was fined on its online privacy policy act for failure to safeguard private information . For example – Facebook recently amended its Terms of Service agreement; basically if you use Facebook, you grant it “ revocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.” The privacy statement of Facebook correlates with a recent law that was passed under section 230. Section 230 of the Act was enacted to ensure that providers and users of "interactive computer services" would not be exposed to liability as "publishers" of any information provided by another "information content provider." Basically, Section 230 states that sites such as Google, eBay, and Facebook are not held responsible for users ‘actions such as false advertisement, or attempting to sell misleading products or services.
10. Google stores user personal information in encrypted form on its servers and processes personal information for purposes described in its privacy policy, which include (see table above). Google restricts access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents. “ These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.” http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html Facebook follows two core principles: Users have control over their own personal information. Facebook helps you share information with your friends and people around you. You choose what information you put in your profile, including contact and personal information, pictures, interests and groups you join. And you control the users with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on the Privacy page. 2. Users should have access to the information others want to share. There is an increasing amount of information available out there, and you may want to know what relates to you, your friends, and people around you. We want to help you get that information easily. Sharing information should be easy. And we want to provide you with the privacy tools necessary to control how, and with whom, you share that information. If you have questions or ideas, please check out our privacy help page .
11. We identify the urgent need for creating standard measures to safeguard certain information over social media. There should be legislative regulation for the security technologies and methods to be used by organizations safeguarding information. The failure to safeguard information, due to lack of implementation of standard security technologies and methods, should be classified as negligence and should be subject to infringements. If using an online service such as Wiki or Twitter, it is strongly recommended to use a strong password, change it regularly, and protect it carefully. The service you use should have published an easily understandable privacy policy that clearly outlines the nature of service, what data it collects, and what expectations you should have regarding the protection of that information – from acquisitions through disposal . Also, be cautious of the info you provide. If a vulnerability is discovered in the service, you will typically have zero ability to address it yourself and will have to rely on the operation’s staff of the service to fix it while your data remains at risk. Additionally, users should become familiar with the service’s capabilities in reporting potential security compromises or fraud. For example, MS MSN Passport, Hotmail, and Messenger services provide consolidated security contact information. If such a capability does not exist, or you experience problems in attempting to contact security personnel at the service, then it is probably best you take your business elsewhere.
12. Due to advancements in social network technologies, advertisers are capable of creating a profile that outlines friends (via social networks), product choices (via reviews posted on e-tailers), and physical locations (via microblogs). The question is how this deep knowledge of consumers will affect consumption, and whether or not the world is ready to share personal information in such an open and ubiquitous way. On public social networks such as Facebook, Google and many others, the privacy policy gives users a reasonable idea about how their personal information may be used. However these policies are subject to change and alteration. As a result, users of such social media sites should be constantly reminded to be watchful of sensitive information they make available.