Reflection report communication in business
kabita33
Lecture12SocialMedia.pptSocial Media
And Online Business Writing
Lecture 12
The lecture material contains content owned by KOI and other materials copyrighted by Eunson, B. (2016) Communicating in the 21st century, 4th edn, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, Milton, Qld
The most
popular
social
networks
@
April
2020
| Network Name | Number of Users (in millions) | Country of Origin | |
| 1 | 2,498 | United States | |
| 2 | YouTube | 2,000 | United States |
| 3 | 2,000 | United States | |
| 4 | Facebook Messenger | 1,300 | United States |
| 5 | 1,165 | China | |
| 6 | 1,000 | United States | |
| 7 | TikTok | 800 | China |
| 8 | 731 | China | |
| 9 | Qzone | 517 | China |
| 10 | Sina Weibo | 516 | China |
| 11 | 430 | United States | |
| 12 | Kuaishou | 400 | China |
| 13 | Snapchat | 398 | United States |
| 14 | 386 | United States | |
| 15 | 366 | United States | |
| 16 | Baidu Tieba | 320 | China |
| 17 | 310 | United States | |
| 18 | Viber | 260 | Israel |
| 19 | Discord | 250 | United States |
Learning objectives
- Outline the key differences between old (or traditional) and new (or social) media
- Explain the basics of social media sites and tools such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, wikis and Wikipedia, YouTube, podcasting and Rich Site Summary (RSS)
- Provide an overview of social media issues relating to marketing and monetisation, as well as how individuals use social networking sites
- Summarise the pros and cons of social media
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Social Media vs. Mass Media
Similarities
Designed to reach large numbers of people
Made to inform audiences
Differences
Social media reaches users in a shorter amount of time
Social Media gives audiences an opportunity to give feedback
What is Social Media?
Social Media is defined by Boundless.com as interactive platforms where content is created, distributed and shared by individuals on the web.
What is it’s purpose?
To provide users with a rich experience, dynamic content, scalability, openness, and collective intelligence (B. , 2016, May 26).
Social
Media
Popular style of communication - Supported by:
- Technology (iPhone)
- Free/unlimited access to social sites (Facebook, Twitter)
Part of Web 2.0
- User generated content and mobility
Social media is no longer a choice: Socialnomics 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IcpwISszbQ
Social media
Social media marketing is a HUGE opportunity for small businesses and entrepreneurs to connect with customers, grow brand awareness, and drive sales.
13 Proven Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_RVYMN2SB8
Refer to the table to discuss the evolution
*
SM Briefly
3.8 billion social media users worldwide 2020
2.32 billion active monthly users on Facebook 2018
500 million daily active Instagram Stories users 2019
80% of total time spent on social media sites is mobile 2018
An average person spends 3 hours per day on social media 2019
Twitter has 152 million monetizable daily users in 2020 (up 21% year over year)
Its used for
The top (2017)
5 reasons social media
is used for are :
To catch up with friends (42%)
To get news updates (41%)
To fill up spare time (39%)
To find entertaining content (37%)
To network with other people (34%)
What Social Media Platforms Should I Use? 10min
Yes to LinkedIn
Recruiters and HR professionals are on LinkedIn
Extensive job listings from around the world
Endorsements and testimonials help employers rate your skill set
Important business and alumni connections
Yes to LinkedIn
Professional groups with like‐minded people
Easily updated online resume
LinkedIn content platform to post articles
News updates from your connections
Your books, courses, websites, blogs get visible
How To Use LinkedIn For Beginners - 7 LinkedIn Profile Tips
What kinds of social media are there?
Blogs/Microblogs
Collaborative Projects
Content Communities
Social Networking
Virtual Worlds
It is also essential for businesses to use the social media sites that their customers and stakeholders use.
Not targeting their efforts is a waste of valuable time, effort and money.
This infographic breaks down the key demographics and characteristics of each platform.
The user numbers are very interesting.
(Lecturer can make their own observations about each site).
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What is Social Media like today?
Blog: Tumblr
Microblog: Twitter
Content Communities: Youtube
Social Networks: Facebook
Virtual Worlds: World of Warcraft
Pros of Social Media
Pros
- Direct access to a wider network of people.
- Information can be disseminated quickly.
- Greater opportunity to communicate brand messages across a range of platforms.
- Access to a wide range of ways to promote their business (text, image, video, live video etc.)
- Ability to converse with people easily.
- Can become aware of issues with customers and rectify them quickly.
- Access to data about followers.
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It’s important to look at the pros and cons of all communication tools to do your best to avoid any issues or select the ones most suitable to your (and your customers’ needs).
The great things about social media are that businesses can have access to more people (existing and prospective customers) than they would have had access to before.
There is now a much wider range of communication channels thanks to social media.
There are also much greater options in terms of content to promote a business. Video is fast becoming an essential form of content for any business.
It much easier to interact with and build relationships with people because of social media, particularly with the proliferation of smart phones. Also, developing content that works well on smartphones and other devices must be a high priority for businesses.
Social media has provided businesses with much greater opportunities to understand what customers say and think about them. It has allowed businesses the ability to solve issues and turn negative customer experiences into positive ones, when in the past, they may have never been aware of them.
Cons of
Social Media
Cons
- Greater pressure to produce content
- Increase in staffing to monitor and respond to customer queries, and complaints and brand mentions
- Information is permanent
- Word-of-mouth travels further and faster
- Customers listen to peers more than organisations
- Complaints are aired in public
- It can take time to build a social media following
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However, there are a number of disadvantages.
Functioning successfully on social media takes people, time and money. Content needs to created, activity needs to be monitored and issues responded to and this takes staff to do this. Social media has placed extra pressure on businesses in this respect.
As mentioned, information is permanent. Errors in communication and content can be amended, but if someone takes a screen shot of the error, it will live on the internet forever.
We have already mentioned the next three cons, but the final one is important.
There is a lot of pressure on businesses to have a large following, but building a following can take a long time. The focus needs to be on creating valuable content and building strong relationships with the existing followers and the following will grow over time.
What is Web 1.0, and what is it like?
Website hosts were primary content contributors
Audience just received information from websites
What is Web 2.0
and what is it like?
Allowed audiences to
‘like’ , create, and post
images/statuses, as well
as upload video content
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Blogs
- A log or record or diary on the web
- Entries are made frequently
- Usually individuals create the entries
- Topics: children, technology, politics, personal diaries
- Blog sites: Technorati, Google Blogs
- Packages: WordPress, Typepad
Starting a Blog in 2020 That Actually Makes Money: Tips for Beginners
Blogs
Advantages:
- Better informed communities
- Stronger relationships between organisations and customers
- As an intranet, knowledge is shared within an organisation
- Feedback and knowledge about current issues
- Writer gains a profile and reputation
Refer to Table 21.3 for details
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Blogs
Disadvantages:
- May not be interesting or compelling for readers
- Writer real expertise may not be revealed
- Time-consuming and may lack quality
- May present disparate views to outsiders
- May be written by other than the named writer (ghostwriters)
Refer to Table 21.3 for details
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Blog Platforms
Tumblr
Each user has his or her own Tumblelog where they can publish short posts of text, images, quotes, links, video, audio, and chats
Acquired by Yahoo! In 2013
550 million monthly users
280.4 million blogs
Yahoo domain websites are still among the most popular, ranking 10th in the world according to the Alexa rankings as of October 2019
Microblog Platform
Consists of broadcasting daily short burst messages to the world, with the hope that your messages are useful and interesting to someone
A “Tweet” is only 140 characters available to share information
319 million users as of 2016
750 tweets per second Jan 18
Who do you know ‘Tweets’?
Twitter (microblogging)
Moved from personal exchanges to business and political messages
Tweet
- A message sent or received via Twitter blog
- Limited to 140 characters per Tweet
- People become followers or are followed via Tweet
Avatar
- Picture of Twitter blogger
Complete Guide to Twitter 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US8pb2ysPwE
Refer to Table 21.4 for Tweet business and political examples
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Twitter (microblogging)
Value of Tweets?
- Trivial personal details
- Narcissistic generation focussed on self
Security concerns
- Personal details available to all
- Linked to professional sites (such as Linkedin) – possible reputation damage
What are the most important trends in Social Media today?
Snapchat vs. Twitter
Snap, Inc. is growing
Twitter is dying
Living through others
Social media is opening new doors
Especially for business
Collaborative Project
Wikipedia
A free encyclopedia, written collaboratively by the people who use it.
5,357,012 total articles
41,677,432 total pages
30,444,460 users with about 140,722 active (Statistics, 2017, March 16)
WIKIPEDIA (Mark Angel Comedy) (Episode 128)
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Content Communities
Youtube
Is a free video-hosting website that allows members to store and serve video content
Over 1 Billion users (Almost one-third of people on the internet)
More than half of Youtube views come from mobile devices
YouTube
- Anyone can upload a video for free
- Playback on computers, blogs, email or mobile devices
- Main content - music videos – but subject to copyright
Demographics:
- Male 52%; main age groups: 45-50 years, over 55
Other content
- Advertisements, movie trailers, events, newscasts
YouTube
How to monetise?
- Advertisements – but only quirky, edgy or striking will gain a following
- Videos may become cult objects
- Gain brand awareness
Viral marketing
- Use social networks rather than conventional channels
- Embarrassing moments cause reputation damage
YouTube for Business! How to GROW Your Business with YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQRTrJDn82w
Social Networks
A popular free social networking website
Debuted in February of 2004
1.86 Billion active monthly users
Maintains over a billion dead accounts
Social networking site
500 million users since 2004
Mark Zuckerberg claimed sole patent rights; challenged about ownership
Process:
- Create a profile
- May control access settings
- Load photographs, messages and videos
Controversies and criticisms
- Stalk a person to respond
- Privacy settings not robust
- Blurred between personal and professional lives
- Compulsive for some
- ‘Breeding monopolies or silos counter to the idea of Web developers’ (Berners Lee 2010)
Facebook Tutorial For Setting Up A Business Page (2019)
"Facebook is going to be the most valuable company in the world within 24 months," predicts NYU professor Scott Galloway, speaking at a 2010 Social Graph Clinic. Highlighting the generation of young people who are already using Facebook, Galloway argues the social media giant will eventually become the Internet's operating system.
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How has Social Media Changed Over Time?
Past
AIM - 1997
Open Diary - 1998
Advances in Social Media
that came later
Wikipedia - 2000
Myspace – 2003
Today – The Universe
Virtual Worlds
Locations - Walk through the Louvre, The Moon, The Great Wall of China, Mt Everest? Maybe not yet
Enter environments
Start a Virtual Business
Virtualization Explained 5min
Virtual Worlds - Games
World of Warcraft
A Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)
Released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment
Passed 10 million subscribers in 2016 after
releasing it’s 6th expansion called Legion
Visit Disneyland and go on the virtual rides
Yammer: Transforming the Way We Work
The world moves fast -- and companies need a new way to work together to succeed. By breaking down barriers and fostering open communication, Yammer helps teams better collaborate, empowers and engages employees, connects organizations, and makes businesses more agile.
What is Yammer?
MySpace
- Facebook competitor
- Hundreds of millions of users
- Losing relevance, going downmarket
- Younger demographic than Facebook
Wikis and Wikipedia
Wiki
- Document with multiple collaborating authors
Wikipedia
- Online dictionary where the public can create and edit entries
- Egalitarian spirit of contributors
- Challenge – reliability of entries, low standard
Wikileaks
- Full disclosure of all documents regardless of consequences
Podcasting and RSS
- Initially recorded music only
- Used for audio file backups, speeches
- Video podcasts also available
- MP3 format – digital audio devised to compress original file size
Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication RSS
- Aggregator of sites, blogs, audio video and photos and delivery in a compact package
- Users capture what they what to aggregate from
RSS as an acronym stands for ‘rich site summary’ ‘really simple syndication’
Refer to RSS in Plain English video on YouTube.
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Social media terms
How did social media evolve?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2GRAVpbDds
Enhance social skills
- Phatic – shared feelings to encourage sociability
- Homophily – friendships between similar people; too many sources lead to over exposure
Security alerts
- Hacking – illegally break into computer systems
- Phishing – transmit fake messages asking for respondents’ details
- Cyber bullying – use technology to bully others
Refer to terms on page 723 that support increased confidence in users; security terms
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The future
- Continuing migration to mobile devices
- Growing move to want news online
- Challenges to Wi-Fi usage
- Tools may be harmful
Uncertainty of the future
- Will users pay?
- Will technology be proved benign or harmful?
- What is the global impact of social media?
- What is the future for existing news channels?
Continuing migration to mobile as an increasingly important source for news and entertainment. Almost half of all Americans (47 percent) now seek some form of local news on a mobile device.
More people are moving away from television, cable, and newspapers, looking instead, for their news online. With increasing audiences and revenues, online news sources hired their own reporters in record numbers in 2010, and some expect to hire more. These increases, in the face of newspaper and broadcast and cable networks losses, are significant. Moreover, news organizations rely increasingly on outside providers to sell their ads, combine their readers, and develop the software that lets them deliver their content digitally.
Driven by profit, other news networks will soon adopt France 24's model. Reporting in French, English, and Arabic, the network uses thousands of "observers", throughout the world, including professional journalists, as well as enthusiastic amateurs. Once registered, anyone may contribute a piece---and enjoy onscreen credit with his/her picture. This model has tremendous appeal to providers and consumers alike. (Hermann Trend Alert, April 20 2011).
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Create a Website
If time watch the following before your tutorial as it will help in your creation of a report website.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnhU7ainAkA 25 min.
10 things every business website must have | GoDaddy Webinar
Why Social Media is reimageing our future
https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_kramer_why_social_media_is_reimagining_our_future#t-6185 12 min
Bryan Kramer believes that social media is so popular because it allows us to control our personal brand: aligning the perceptions others have of us with our perception of ourselves. Concluding with a live Twitter experiment to test the true reach that sharing can have, he makes a case for the use of social media, and -- in the process -- illuminates the reason over 700 million photos and videos are processed on Snapchat every day.
BUSINESS EMAIL WRITING
* Before sending an email, copy it and paste it into word, has a much better spell-checkers than email packages, consider also Grammarly. People will judge you on sloppy writing, and if you are the only person in the organisation who is non-sloppy, that can only be good for you.
* Use a greeting and a signoff, no matter how brief.
* Take time to set up a system of folders, exactly as you would do with hardcopy mail and your stress level will declined with the use of effective filing
BUSINESS EMAIL WRITING
* Have a good internal search engine to locate an email by critical word.
* Keep file sizes relatively small (say, less than 6 megabytes/MB) as some servers cannot handle large files.
* As with letter writing — indeed, all writing and speaking — build in a time cushion to respond if the response is fairly long and important.
* Never ‘flame’ — send off a response when you are angry.
BUSINESS EMAIL WRITING
* Never use ALL CAPS — it appears like you are shouting through the screen, and is difficult to read.
* If using hyperlinks, check just before sending that they still work — many links may go dead if you haven’t checked them for a while.
* Never use more than two colours in your text.
* Never use more than two fonts.
* Never use more than two font weights.
* Always have a signature block that contains your full contact and location details, problems may be solved if the recipient can pick up a phone or walk down to your office.
BUSINESS EMAIL WRITING
* Use white space, font type, font weight, headings, numbering to make your text more easily
readable.
* Use graphics or links to video if it will make your point more dramatically.
* Keep copies of emails in another place (Dropbox, cloud programs, backup hard disk, USB
* Don’t forward emails without the consent of the main recipient.
* Be careful of using the blind carbon copy (bcc) function — your fingers may slip and send it as a cc.
BUSINESS EMAIL WRITING
* If you are in conflict with someone or an organisation, keep full copies on your main computer or on another. You never know when they will come in handy.
* Spend ten minutes every two days cleaning out your spam folder — the discriminating software which parks stuff there is still not very sophisticated, and there may be something
important there. Similarly, avoid using exclamation marks (!) and any mention of sexual matters in the subject line — they’ll be junked into the spam folder of the person you’re trying to communicate with.
Chapter 21: Social media
Summary:
- Blogs
- Microblogging with Twitter
- Facebook and MySpace
- Wikis and Wikipedia
- YouTube and podcasting
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Business emails and websites
