Social Marketing Compass & Conversation

Hey COMM 3309, we're almost done!!! Lets just take a second to virtually high five one another and breathe a sigh of relief.

Alright, back to business, lets talk about the final chapters of Brian Solis' Engage. We've certainly learned a lot from this man and I think we can all agree it will help us tremendously in our future endeavors. For those of you tuning in from outside our class (I know that at this point I must be one of the most famous and sought after bloggers in the blogosphere) Engage is the "complete guide for brands and businesses to build, cultivate, and measure success in the new web."

I found chapters 19-23 to be some of the more interesting chapters we have covered this semester. I especially enjoyed the information describing the Social Marketing Compass and the Conversation Prism, mainly because I can really see us applying this in our future PR classes and in work related research.

Among having other benefits, the Social Marketing Compass is extremely helpful in understanding how brands can better communicate with their customers, peers and influencers. However, what I found most helpful from this entire segment was the Conversation Prism. The Conversation Prism allows a to understand "a whole view of the social media universe, categorized and also organized by how people use each network." Also explained as the art of "living, listening and sharing," the Conversation Prism allows brands to better themselves by understanding what is being said about them and how they can respond, thus benefiting from the conversation.

personal branding & instant news in the digital age

For our COMM 3309 assignment this week we are focusing on chapter 12-18 of Brian Solis' Engage, which was especially interesting as I found two specific topics that apply to my own life.

Solis covered a topic which ties in with my semester-long personal learning project (PLN). The project involves creating an online resume/digital portfolio, and for it I have had to find experts in the field on Twitter, Delicious, blogs and other internet networks. Most of the experts I have connected with have a similar interest: personal branding.

 

Solis discusses personal branding at length in this segment of Engage. Even though this information is actually geared towards companies, industry professionals and management, it is still been very useful for my project and has helped me to better understand what everyone is talking about on Twitter. Hooray!

Another point made in this segment which resonates with me is the recent advancements of instantaneous, constant flows information. Like the rest of you, I have become extremely spoiled in recent years with technological advancements that allow us real-time updates of what is going on when, where, and with who. It all ties in with social media as well, allowing for a web of instant information that we have not only grown to expect at all times but have become very dependent on. Just this morning, I found myself annoyed at the fact that NPR hadn't updated their Facebook feed in the past 5 minutes to tell me exactly what was going on with the government shutdown situation and the deals being made regarding federal spending. In reality, I'm spoiled rotten by technology, and nothing new had happened in the 5 minutes since I had checked last.

where social media & PR collide

In chapters 3-6 of Engage, Brian Solis discusses our use of social media and the "next web" and their implications on our lives.

In our expanding world of social media, which most of us practically live our lives on, there exists many words, terms, and phrases having having to do with the practices of our online network activity. Solis brings to mind the fact that it is important that we not overuse or misconstrue such terms or they will lose their meaning or take on new ones.

The term "next web" refers to blogs, wikis, podcasts and the like. Far and wide people, corporations and organizations are mastering the fine art of the next web to their public relations advantage. Doing so can veil the fact that it is actually the person/corporation/organization behind the online project, like in cases of blogs that seem to personal to be corporate, or wikis that support a specific company or organization because it is actually their property and under their direction.

Engage has given us a lot to think about in our world of social media. I'm sure I will think twice next time I see a company-driven blog or wiki or misuse a word associated with networking.

"new influencers" in the new world

In this ever-evolving world of social media, we are constantly finding new ways to find and share information. Many of us, myself included, get a large portion of their news from online sources, usually through links on Facebook and Twitter.

So how do you find sources of information? For starters, these people who are referred to as the "new influencers" in Brian Solis' article on the subject are not only sharers but listeners. They have a weighted network and a large following - popularity being an obvious marker of an online influencer. He or she must be an expert of sorts on their subject. For example, you wouldn't turn to Paris Hilton's Twitter account for information on interesting political matters just as you wouldn't trust an opinionated status update from John McCane about summer 2011's expected fashion trends.

The influencer may only be considered so when they have established themselves in their online community, doing so by two-way communication and networking with followers and those that they follow back. The ratio of followers-to-following is a good indicator that this is someone who not only shares but listens.

What makes these new influencers so important is the fact that we are in an age of opportunity and information. We are not just being fed the news; we are creating it, finding it, sharing it, and most importantly - discussing it. I myself have been inspired to become more influential in my web presence, though only time will tell if my skills and motivation to do so are up to par.