Megafile questions and answers

1.  How many slides does this Mega File contain?

The Mega File contains 1,292 slides.

2.  What company sponsored the "Will it Blend" video series?

The company that sponsors the "Will it Blend" video series is Blendtec.

3.  What is the name of the blogging platform you used to create your "Assignments Blog" for this class?

The blogging platform used for our "Assignments Blog" is Blogger.com.

4.  What is the attendance policy for this class?

Professor Halvoson-Sheldon expects students to be in class everyday, ready to ask questions, discuss weekly readings, and share your knowledge with fellow students. 

5.  What comedian thinks that "everything is amazing" yet he's not that thrilled about Twitter?

The comedian that thinks "everything is amazing" yet is not that thrilled about Twitter is Lewis C.K.

6.  What does URL stand for?

URL stands for Universal Resource Locator

7.  Name one grammatical "felony" according to Chris's grammar rules for the class.

One grammatical "felony" according to Chris's grammar rules for the class is when students write the wrong form of there, their, or they're.

8.  What New Hampshire hospital participated in the Pink Glove Dance contest that raised awareness for breast cancer?

The New Hampshire hospital that participated in the Pink Glove Dance contest that raised awareness for breast cancer is Speare Memorial Hospital of Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Sites used for social media marketing strategy

http://www.facebook.com/RallyAgainstPlannedObsolescence

The Rally Against Planned Obsolescence Facebook page has been my primary resource for my social media marketing plan.  I have posted statuses mainly to inform people of my cause.  So far with only 11 likes, I do not think people are very interested.

Youtube.com

I have been posting videos to help explain what Planned Obsolescence is and why it is a problem by way of my Facebook page.  I am doing this because I feel like videos are the best way to inform people and get them to be engaged.

Twitter.com/nolanchuck

I have tweeted links to my posts on Facebook and the page itself.  I feel like it has been more difficult to engage people via Twitter because it is hard to find the right time to tweet when most of my followers are on Twitter.

Sometimes it's best to keep opinion's to yourself...not for Facebook

This past election has got plenty of coverage from social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook with both political parties taking advantage of these tools.  However, other social media users are using these sites to voice their own personal opinions as well.  Here is an example of someone upset with the President Barack Obama and probably wished he had kept their comments to himself.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/christopher-castillo-obama-facebook_n_2137360.html

Christopher Castillo, a Florida man, was arrested by the Secret Service after a Facebook post he had posted on November 1st.  In an apparent response to Obama's views on health care, Castillo posted: "That's the last straw, if he gets re-elected I'm going to hunt him down and kill him watch the life disappear from his eyes."

When the Secret Service came to investigate reports from a concerned citizen about the post, they asked him if Obama was here in the room right then what he would do?  Castillo responded with saying that he would slap and beat the president.

There are some people that wish they could take back the violent or threatening things they say on Facebook.  It is apparent that Castillo is not one of these people and it is a good thing he is behind bars.

Steve Boucher taught us all a lot this past week during his presentation.  His use of the "no bull business" blog he had created before he joined Southern New Hampshire University shows just how hands on he is as a marketer.

His demonstration on the secrets to success was what I found most interesting and most impressive. He explained that the five things you need in social media are fresh content, creativity, synergy from within, a call to action for an audience, and understanding your audience. I also liked how he explained how controversy is not always a bad thing and can create awareness.

Overall I thought it was a good opportunity to listen to someone who is really involved in social media at our SNHU.

White Paper

The State of Social Media Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis is a report published by Awareness Social Media Software.

In the report, one key point was that organizations' social marketing goals are mainly just to engage with customers and not to focus on increasing revenue.  This means that organizations are using social media only by means of communicating with their customers instead of driving revenue.

Another interesting point in this report was that the top social marketing challenge for organizations in this study was measuring ROI.  Organizations are unable to determine how much they are actually getting out of their work with social media and are unsure how to measure it.

One other key point made was that 50% of the respondents in this study wanted tighter integration between social and the rest of their marketing department.  That means that only half of the organizations wanted social media to be its own department and the other half wants it to be a closer entity

Most marketers are yet to tap into the true potential of social media.  Only 16% of marketers who responded to the survey are currently using a Social CRM system, while another 21% plan on using it by year's end.  This will provide insight for marketers to be more effective and efficient in this social age.

Lastly, social marketing budgets and resources are too insufficient to drive real value.  54% of respondents in this study said that they do not have an allocated budget for social marketing and are relying on human resources.  With a low budget, it is difficult to drive a high revenue.

Social CRM- Social CRM is customer relationship management within social marketing.

Social targeting- Targeting certain audiences based on research of behaviors in order to engage with users.

Tight Integration- Centralizing departments in an organization into one entity.

This article did give me some insight I did not know about on organization's use of social media.  I did not realize how much research has been done based on ROI with social media.  Most of the points in this article were for businesses and how they use and should be using social media.  For my social media marketing plan, I am promoting awareness and not actually selling a product.  However, reading more information on Social CRM will only help with me trying to enlarge my audience.

Corporate Sponsored Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcOiw-PnilY

This video was produced by the St. Louis Athletica corporate sponsors in order to create awareness and excitement for their women's soccer team.  With soccer not being a very popular sport in America, women's soccer especially, I can see why the St. Louis Athletica may have felt the need to produce this video.  The video also focuses on gold medalist goal keeper Hope Solo.

As for the video working, I'm not so sure.  Women's soccer is a tough sport to get a lot of people's attention towards.  I do not think this video has accomplished its goal considering it is almost three years old and has only a little over 300 views.

http://www.youtube.com/user/adidasbasketball?v=fG0QtdHw1Og

During the playoffs last year, the injury prone season for Derrick Rose came to a tough ending as he tore his ACL and could not return.  Adidas, Rose's sneaker sponsor, has teamed up with the former MVP and have created a series of video's known as "the return".  I think this has been a brilliant idea for Adidas from a marketing perspective.  Why wouldn't they follow their highest paid basketball star around during his amazingly fast return from surgery done to his knee and document his success?  I do think producing this video will only help Adidas.  In theory, the more fans Derrick Rose has, the more fans Adidas has as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DnKOc6FISU

This hilarious video sponsored by Pepsi MAX features the NBA's reigning rookie of the year disguised as an old man playing a pick up game against some local players.  As for me, I thought the video was so entertaining that I would go out and buy a Pepsi MAX just because.  However, this might not be the case for everyone who views the video.  Most people who I show this video to never even realize it's a Pepsi MAX commercial at all.  The only places you even vaguely see Pepsi MAX is on the bottles of the spectators watching the game.  Despite all 15 million views and counting, I do not think that these views are necessarily turning into dollars for Pepsi MAX.

3 NH Facebook buisness pages

New Hampshire Lottery:

With over 11,000 likes and close to 200 people talking about it, I can assume that New Hampshire Lottery has been doing a good job keeping up with their Facebook business page.  Looking through their timeline, I noticed that they post daily and try to insight some humor.  For instance, one of the first pictures I saw was a dog dressed up as a cheer leader and the post read, "Who has their Halloween costume all picked out?  Any good ones?"  That's just funny.  It's also fun way for them to engage with subscribers without just always talking about the lottery.  They also shared a story about an elderly couple who won the lottery.

There is nothing that really stands out to me that I do not like about this page.  What impressed me the most though was in their description (the first thing I read) it states, "We take pride in being the first and one of the most successful lotteries in the country with over $1.5 billion going towards education."

New Hampshire Fisher Cats:

The New Hampshire Fisher Cats Facebook page does a good job a spreading out posts so they do not fill up timelines and possibly annoy subscribers.  I also like how they routinely have competitions to keep fans engaged.  There probably isn't a better way to keep people interested than to offer them prizes.

I was impressed with how much they are trying to keep the fans involved and encouraging engagement.  One thing I don't like is that there was hardly anything about baseball or the team itself.  I know that minor league teams focus more on keeping a family friendly enviroment, but I would be interested in players getting traded or even moving up to the majors.

Southern New Hampshire University:

Last but not least, the SNHU Facebook page has over 7,000 likes.  My opinion, they should have more.  Considering all the commercials that are on television across the nation and being Fast Company's #1 most innovative school, I would think that they would have more of a following on Facebook.  I think they should at least mention to viewers at home to visit their Facebook page, it would only help.

One thing I like though is the variety of different things posted.  I read an article of a friend of mine on the soccer team that interested me and I wouldn't have seen anywhere else.  I do think they should post more often though.  With the school being as big as it is now, SNHU should be posting daily at least.