MIS3538a-CEMcGrail

Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

The first brand that I examined was Google. I visited Google’s website and found the ‘Press Center‘ section. On the left-hand side of the ‘Press Center’ page, they contain links to directories for the Facebook and Twitter accounts for Google and its products. They clearly have a presence on both sites, with accounts made for Google in general as well as accounts for their specific products, such as Google Chrome. From my research, the purpose for this is to have accounts where the specific product teams can interact with users.

The second company that I chose to examine was Yards Brewing Company. I chose to examine Yards because it is a much smaller company located in Philadelphia. I visited their website and noticed that they had icons at the bottom-right side of their website that linked to their Facebook and Twitter pages. The social media pages didn’t have as much ‘likes’ or followers, but they were still updated pretty frequently. For a local brewery, they had good social media presence.

My impressions:

Both of the companies are doing a great job of promoting themselves through social media. They are completely different companies in terms of size and reach, but they are doing well at promoting themselves to their audiences. They both update pretty frequently and they are clearly doing much to engage the fans of their products. In regards to what they are trying to achieve with social media promotion, I believe they are just trying to inform fans of new developments and products, while also informing fans of upcoming events related to the company. In short, they are looking to engage their fans with their brands on a consistent basis.

If I was in charge of a company’s social media initiative, I would measure success by how involved our fans are with the social media page. I wouldn’t measure success by the number of page ‘likes’ or followers, but rather by the number of people that ‘like’, comment, or re-tweet specific news posts. To me, that means that the company is doing a good job because it keeps the fans engaged beyond the initial ‘like’ or follow. Additionally, it proves that the audience has chosen to follow the specific pages because they want to kept up to date with the developments of the company.

Social media, and Facebook in particular, have revolutionized journalism. That’s something that everybody is aware of nowadays. It’s the reason the newspaper industry is dying and it is the reason that most people turn to Twitter and Facebook to find out what’s happening in the world. I would go as far as to say that almost everybody with a Facebook account will use Facebook as a news source. Whether it is news within your social circle, your local community, or even on a broader scale, Facebook is the place to go to for news. With that being said, I think the notion of a Facebook-only news portal is viable, although it still needs time to develop. As mentioned earlier, most people get news and info from Facebook, so it makes a lot of sense to just have a Facebook-only news portal. The obvious advantage to a Facebook-only news portal is that it has massive reach, while giving people the ability to re-post news. However, the main disadvantage to a Facebook-only news portal is that it is exclusive to only Facebook. This means that anybody without a Facebook account will not know what’s going on in their world. Furthermore, a Facebook-only news portal is extremely disadvantageous to people that live in countries where Facebook is banned or censored.

If I created my own online news organization, I would just have my own website and social media accounts. I wouldn’t rely on one over the other, but would utilize both of them for the journalistic experience. To me, the social media sites and my websites would be seen as two halves to the whole, rather than separate entities.

I think social media gives people the best chance to understand what’s really happening in the world and gives them a great opportunity to get word out during a crisis. In an emergency situation, social media should act as a news aggregator, where many different sources or people can contribute what they see and know to the understanding of the current emergency. There are three different social media tools that would be ideal for emergency situations. Facebook would be good if something happened and you want to inform those within your social circle of the news. Twitter is similar to Facebook, but with Twitter trends, it gets the word out to more people, including local media outlets that follow Twitter trends to learn of news stories. Reddit would be an excellent tool to get the word out to people that aren’t in your social circle or even your area.

If I was in a emergency situation, I would utilize all three of the social media websites that I mentioned. Facebook would be good if I needed to inform my friends and family of the situation. Twitter would be good if I wanted to get details out that weren’t being covered in the local media. I would use Reddit if the situation was something that not many people outside of the local area knew about. This would be good to use if I needed advice or assistance as well as many Redditors are willing to help out during emergency situations, no matter how small or large.

In my opinion, whether or not Facebook should be banned depends on the type of company and what kind of work that company does. I think that it is perfectly fine for companies that deal with very important things, such as money or health, to ban Facebook at their workplace. My reasoning behind that is that if an employee is expected to work at a company that deals with very important, and often private, information, they should not be allowed access to a site that unnecessarily consume their attention. In addition to that, if they are working with very private information, they should not be allowed to access a site that easily allows people to share information with others. It is because of this that I agree with Goldman-Sachs’ decision to deny Facebook access to its employees.

On the other hand, there are certain companies that have no need to ban Facebook. Certain industries, such as the media and entertainment industries, have realized how much social media actually benefits their work. For these industries, it is almost even necessary for them to hire an employee, and sometimes even entire teams, that focuses on the company’s social media presence. These types of industries truly benefit by having the direct connection to their fans that Facebook provides. It would not make sense at all for these companies to ban Facebook.

For me, what it boils down to is if you’re spending time on Facebook at work, you should not be working in a position that requires much responsibility. If you’re working in a position that would not be negatively impacted by Facebook usage, that’s fine. Moderation and self-control will always be the two factors that will really stop somebody from spending too much on Facebook at work. In response to the second question, I most likely would not work at a company that banned Facebook. For what I want to do for a career, I would not want to be in a position where Facebook usage could negatively impact others and their personal information. If anything, I would probably be working in a position that required me to do social media tasks at work.