Social Media and it's usage in Business

     This week I found insightful articles about social media and its role in businesses. One article comes from Growth Gurus and it explains the importance of social media. Social media for businesses can help build a brand and increase its visibility by building relationships and communicating with potential customers. Because social media is a fast growing industry with more and more users every day, it's important for businesses to use those platforms to advance their brand. Facebook, even though it's not the most popular with the younger generations, is the biggest and maybe the most powerful social media platform. It is one of the best platforms for a business to use because of its adsense. Twitter is a "in the moment" platform that is perfect for businesses that want to communicate with consumers immediately, while Instagram is great for customer feedback on products and services. Growth Gurus also explain the benefits of social media marketing. Social media marketing helps to validate your brand.  A company’s social media presence, when done correctly, tells consumers that their brand is active and focused on thriving communication with consumers. 63% of consumers who search for businesses online are more likely to use ones with an informative social media presence. All of the information in this article is super helpful for small business owners, startup companies, and individuals. Reading this article helped me understand the use of social media in business along with personal branding. 

Another article that I found extremely helpful is The Complete Guide to Optimizing Your Social Content. As the title suggests this article breaks down each social media platform what to post on them. This article is informative for both personal use and for businesses, because not all content needs to be shared on all of the platforms. For Facebook its better to post videos, live videos and blog posts. Facebook has become popular for short videos because they are more engaging than just plain old posts. The best things to post on Instagram are high resolution photos, quotes and to use the story feature. Businesses can really thrive on Instagram from product photos and behind-the-scene posts. The story feature is the newest on Instagram and it's perfect for announcements, promotions, offer giveaways and consumer interaction. Twitter is perfect for news, blog content, and gifs. Whether you are using it for a business or for personal reasons, Twitter is the platform for instant interaction with consumers,networks, other businesses and friends. Linkedin is used primarily for employers and employees. So the most important thing to post is job and career information. Businesses post company news and milestones. This article also explains Pinterest and Google+ but I felt these four were the most important platforms that affect personal branding and business strategies. After reading this article it really made me think about my content and how I should be posting on the platforms I have.  

Social Media for Business: A Marketer's Guide is the last article this week and it pretty much wraps up how each platform helps businesses. They go over Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Youtube. This article was the only one to include Snapchat which I thought was interesting considering it is one of the top apps the younger generation uses. I only know a few companies that might use Snapchat but not many do because it's the posts are so temporary. Youtube has become a business of its own because it basically is a business itself. Creators can make money off of the ads put into the videos. But that's only used by personalities or groups, companies don't really use Youtube unless they are partnered with a popular Content Creator. But this article is basically a quick overview of how social media can be used as a marketing tool. 

     This week, I had the privilege of watching an exclusive google hangout with Mark Schlereth. As some of you might know, Mark is a former NFL player, but recently and more importantly, he is a business man. Mark is a part of multiple projects which he touched upon in the video and he gave a lot of good advice for those building a personal brand and for just everyday life. When Mark was explaining his journey with his gourmet green chile sauce he expressed how it is difficult to advance your business if you don't know your audience and how to get to them. At first he tried to just promote it on his radio show but soon realized that wouldn't work because his target audience for the sauce isn't the same as the one listening to the radio. Through his social media platforms he was able to engage with his audiences differently. Mark then explained that to have a professional network and to be in the public eye you have to be careful with what you say and brush off criticism. To learn from a successful professional, really makes you think. Mark has experienced so much that to not listen to his advice of "overnight success takes 7-15 years" would be crazy. He put things in perspective for me and I can't thank him enough.  


     Other then these articles I also read a couple chapters from LOLOMG by Matt Ivester. Chapter 3 and 4 are broken down into multiple sections about students and their digital content. As young adults, we don't think that much before we post something online and these chapters explains the importance of being cautious online. These work perfectly with this week's articles and the guest speaker. 

     Chapter 3 explains how social media platforms control your content without you really knowing. In this day and age we have the ability to create anything we could imagine but, when it comes to posting content on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, we don't always have the control we want. When you post anything it is most likely, if not always, achieved by that platform. This can come back to haunt you in the future but Chapter 5 talks about that more. This is important though, because for businesses they have to be extremely careful with what they post because of the access they have to the public. Billions of people use the internet and if you make a mistake it will last forever. Another thing to think about is how customers will review products or services, one bad customer can really ruin a business if that person has a strong internet presence. This chapter is really a warning and after reading it, it made me think about everything I have ever posted. 

     Chapter 5 explains how carelessness in posting can hurt young adults. Right off the bat, is that I knew employers looked into your social media accounts but I didn't know about Social Intelligence! That is a crazy intense company but who ever founder it is a genius and knew what the future held. Anyway this chapter is incredible for students and other young adults because it breaks down not only how it can affect your job search but also your reputation and explains psychological reasons behind careless content. This ties in great with what Mark said in the video. He talked about his son, who's a young adult, and how he isn't ready for a Twitter because he wouldn't be able to brush criticism off. Mark knew his son wasn't ready because there can be consequences if you aren't careful. 

Before reading this I never thought about psychological aspects in posts before but it makes perfect sense. This plays in perfectly about This book is really insightful and I strongly recommend students to read it because it really explains why you need to be careful on the internet in ways I have never thought about before.