Social Media Innovation Blog

One viral video came to mind when I read this weeks discussion post… a viral video made by Coca-Cola about a very interesting Coke vending machine in a college cafeteria. This is really the only viral video that I have every participated in just because it makes me smile every time I watch it. Check it out…

I think that viral marketing is going to be much more successful for products with network effects because with each person who watches the video they can each tell two other people who will each tell two other people and so on. If the product or company has the capability to access a network effect then viral marketing can be extremely beneficial to them.

Budweiser;
website, FB, Twitter

There is definitely a presence on Facebook (They had multiple pages for different countries – GLOCALIZATION) but it wasn’t easy to find them on these social media sites. On their main webpage there was no link (or button) to find them on Facebook, Twitter, or any site for that matter. I had to actually go to Google and search them with specific social media sites in mind. This can be a giant problem for them because people don’t usually actively seek out brands on social media sites. I believe people generally end of ‘liking’ a social media fan page when they stumble onto it after visiting the companies website or seeing the benefits of joining the page.

Bagel Hut at Temple University
Facebook

The second company I picked was the Bagel Hut on Temple University’s campus. While it doesn’t have a regular website, it was extremely easy to find them on Facebook. Once on their Facebook site, I could see all of my friends who ‘like’ them as well as all of the specials they are having this week.

While Budweiser definitely had a presence on social media, it was difficult to find them. Their website was not linked to their facebook which I believe is a bad move. If they would link the two sites together they might find a larger following within the facebook community for their product. I think most companies are trying to simply enhance their brand image and loyalty when breaking into the world of social media. The Bagel Hut has done an excellent job of creating a following on their Facebook by encouraging interaction with users. For companies like the Bagel Hut and Budweiser social media can’t hurt!

Task FACEAD (75) ($ - costs money): Place an advertisement on Facebook and write up a blog post explaining the process (and results)

Like I mentioned in a previous post, Temple University’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity has been trying to engage in the world of social media to get the word out about our organization. Recently we have created a Facebook ‘page’ so people can ‘like’ us as well as having a concrete place to get information about our group. To help promote our page we decided to advertise our page through Facebook which was surprisingly simple.

After going to the page that you wish to advertise, you simply click ‘promote with an ad.’ This will take you to the first part of the online form that you need to fill out which is all about the design of the ad. The second part is about who you want to target with your ad. For Habitat we targeted anyone in the Temple network who are not already fans of our page. Since Habitat is open to anyone, we didn’t have to define our target market too drastically. Lastly, you have to fill out a section about how long you want your ad to run as well as how much you are willing to pay. Since we have never done this before, we made our max amount $50.00

Facebook ads work on a pay per click system in which you pay each time someone clicks on the advertisement. We selected that the ad would run until the end of May. About a week into it, I got a charge on my PNC account for $9.52 which means we got about 8 clicks!! Even though this is a really small amount I am ecstatic!

There is a fine line when it comes to social media and sometimes that line can be very hard to see. Ethical decisions in the world of Facebook and Twitter can sometimes be a little hazy and may not seem wrong right off the bat. In an article written by Erik Sherman, it discusses how the military plans on implementing software where 50 people control 10 fake persona’s each to inject into the world of social media. They don’t exactly say what they hope to accomplish with this new software but some of the repercussions are quite obvious. While I am sure that many good things could come from this new initiative I am also sure that many bad things would as well. People don’t want to feel like the government is ‘keeping tabs’ on them . To quote a great movie

“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
-V for Vendetta

I really think that this is a bad idea and that the government should find another way to accomplish whatever it is that they are trying to accomplish. I think people will be outraged when they find out the scale of this operation. Like I said, there is a fine line…

I believe the main takeaway from the class Social Media Innovation is that the internet can open up a vast realm of opportunities. It can be applied to a business setting to help increase not only profit but brand loyalty / image as well. There is so much more to the internet and social media than just ‘Facebook.’ By becoming familiar with and utilizing this tools we have the opportunity to increase traffic as well as track and manage that traffic.

My Foursquare badges:

*Newbie – the first achievable badge – obtained on your first check in

*Adventurer – achieved after checking in to ten different places

*Explorer – achieved after checking into 25 different places

*Superstar – achieved after checking into 50 different places

*Bender – achieved by checking into different places on 4 consecutive days

*Crunked – achieved by checking into four or more places in one evening

*Local – achieved by checking into the same place three or more times in one week

*Super User – achieved by checking into 30 places in one month

*School Night – achieved by checking into a place after 3AM on a school night

Well folks, the day has come for me to cash in those foursquare points for quest points.

I have finally achieved a new high score as well as beating Professor Johnson for the lead! Yay!!

Bonus30

Overall Impression:

April 12th marked the date for the annual Fox IT Awards to commemorate outstanding achievement of MIS professionals, students, and professors. It was a fun and fancy evening filled with fabulous food, business professionals, heart-warming speeches… and not to mention the open bar

Even though I’m not an MIS major, I really enjoyed hearing what great accomplishments people have had in the MIS field. One of the recipients of the awards was even a Temple grad which was really exciting!

It was also really awesome to see other students getting awards for really giving college their all. It was super motivational to see how much these student’s have accomplished! It made me want to go home and be productive and study or something (haha).

I even made a new friend at the It Awards. His name is Greg and he is an MIS major as well as a member of QSU (Queer Student Union) an organization on campus. QSU’s office in the village is right across the hall from Habitat’s office so we have actually seen each other quite a few times since the Awards!

I took some video footage of my time at the ceremony and made a short video to highlight what it was like. Unfortunately YouTube took the music off of it because of ‘copyright infringement’ issues, so just pretend you are hearing Vagabond by Wolfmother as you are watching it. Enjoy! =]

For my animation video I decided I would make something that pretty much encompassed all the shenanigans that we deal with at undergraduate admissions. This is kind of a ‘day in the life’ type of video. Enjoy!!

p.s. I just realized that this is set in a police office… woops didn’t mean to do that haha!

Temple’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity has recently decided to rev up our engines and get the word out about our organization. Habitat for Humanity is a pretty well-known organization around the globe but Temple students are generally surprised to hear that we have a chapter here on Temple’s campus!! With over 250+ organizations at Temple, it can be kind of easy to get lost among the other groups. So the E-board of HFH has decided to launch a new marketing campaign where we will be posting flyers and truly taking advantage of EVERY social media outlet available.

To start our new campaign we took the approach “Out with the old, in with the new!” and began by creating a new Facebook group. We had already had a Facebook group with about 150 members but unfortunately the name of the group was just ‘Habitat for Humanity’ so it wasn’t very clear that it is TEMPLE’S chapter. I created a new page for HFH titling it ‘Habitat for Humanity – Temple University’ so that it is clear and easily searchable. I included plenty of information about our organization such as our mission and our events. I added a few pictures to create some visual interest and then proceeded to invite all of my friends in the Temple network to ‘like’ the page.

I thought it would be easy to get people to like the page since we already had 150 on the previous one, but so far we are only up to 14. Hopefully things will start taking off in the future!!

To ‘like’ our page on Facebook click here!