There is no denying the fact that when it comes to social media, opportunities are infinite for businesses to grow. It can scale up your enterprise and take your business to greater heights. In order to leverage the vast potential of social networking, a powerful and effective campaign is required. If you want to maximize your marketing efforts, you must tap the capabilities and limits for the type of campaign you wish to run and set your marketing objectives accordingly.

Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. are available all of the time for businesses to increase their brand awareness and to build a global presence. These can be used as a strategic tool to counter negative press if any, and instead build a strong online identity.

Here are some benefits of social media campaign:

Cost-effective Medium: It is a great inexpensive medium to cut down business costs. The fact that most of such campaigns are run without any cost makes them a perfect platform to magnetize prospective customers.

Viral Advertising: Branding or viral advertising is the biggest advantage that these websites offer.

Effective Platform for Sales: By engaging potential customers in a meaningful dialogue, telling them more about your products and services, you can generate big leads. Directly pushing for sales is an interruptive marketing technique. Today’s customers want to make intelligent buying decisions and social media strategies prove to be a subtle and effective alternative to intrusive mediums like text messaging, phone calls, email blasting, etc.

Global Presence: By being active on these channels, you can transcend the geographical barriers and reach to the most remote corners of the world.

Constant Availability: You can allure your prospective customers any time of the day. Social media platforms are active all time and you do not need to worry about any holidays or time zones.

Supercharge your SEO: By investing your time in SMO, you will get to see measurable results when it comes to ethical search engine optimization.

Increase your Linkability: SMO is an excellent way to boost up link popularity building. Social media websites make tagging and bookmarking easy and can get more rewarding inbound links for you.

ROI Measurement: You can track the progress that you make in your social media initiatives with tools like Google Analytics. By measuring your Return on Investment (ROI), you can make appropriate changes in your marketing efforts as and when required.

By embracing social media as an effective sales mechanism, you can build a strong profile online with a lot of connections and achieve success exponentially.

An advertisement by local micro-influencers agency, Faves Asia infuriated many for a few reasons but none of the offences were as great as misrepresenting the influencer industry as an easy road to fame and wealth. The video was taken off within days after overwhelming lash backs.

While one spends hours incessantly scrolling through social media gawking at the picture perfect lush lifestyles of influencers, it can be hard to refrain from thinking that a pretty face and a little bit of luck are all that it takes to be one of them. However, the reality is often much more different from our wishful imaginations. So, what are the three fundamental qualities of a successful social media influencer?

Identity

If you want to be known for everything, you’ll be known for nothing. – Dan Schawbel

To move beyond merely being a forgettable pretty face on Instagram, one needs to establish a distinctive online persona. This requires the influencer to have a clear sense of direction in content creation and to establish a reputation as the reference point for a single or a collection of interests. As such, a true influencer also creates waves and not merely ride on fads with generic content. This requires an intricate balance between being avant-garde and attuning to current market preferences.

Likability

A good influencer maintains their likability by putting time and effort into building trust and rapport among followers, clients, and other influencers in the industry. – Copyrise

On top of looking good and being creative, it’s important to have an amicable personality. When it comes to monetising the influence, influencers need to establish a healthy working relationship with brands and businesses. With the mushrooming of micro-influencers, it’s a buyer’s market. Given the same extent of influence, businesses and agencies will always go with those easier to work with over divas. It’s commonsensical to have common courtesy, especially when an influencer’s key criteria is to be likeable.

Integrity

At the end of the day, I’m selling my taste and my eye – if I do things off-brand I will lose the respect. – Camille Charrière, Instagram fashion influencer, 529k followers

However, being likeable does not mean being a yes-man or yes-woman all the time. For social media influencers who means business, while paying the bills is crucial, integrity should be the constant guiding principle. Influencers must genuinely like a brand and its products to be able to ‘sell’ it and for the followers to ‘buy’ the post and to buy the product. A mismatch of brands and influencers at best does not lead to significant sales and at worst, debase the reputation and following of the influencer. Camille has even turned down a contract worth £100,000 from fashion giant, Macy’s because the clothes were not of her style and not what her followers would appreciate [I].

Wielding significant persuasiveness in their domains, influencers may choose to monetize the influence, use it to further causes close to their hearts or simply remain as a gratis entertainer. To be able to choose among these options, an individual must meet the necessary pre-requisites. While appearance does help to pave the way, true influencers are certainly more than genetics and cosmetics.

[I] Vogue, What Is An Influencer, Mar 2017.

As a teenager there are many pressures to contend with. The social and academic pressures of school life, maybe the stress of leaving one school for another, fitting in, being accepted and acceptable, studying, keeping family happy with your progress, are all potentially stressful considerations.

Then, of course, there may be stresses at home, family concerns, problems with siblings and the personal issues that often accompany being a teenager; feeling different, uncertain about themselves, comparing themselves to others, fear of missing out.

Social media is a natural part of life for many people with statistics regularly being reported on its usage. Analysts say we check our mobile phones every 12 minutes and spend an average of 3 hours 15 minutes every day on the internet, mostly on sites owned by Google and Facebook.

Whilst it’s valuable to be connected to the bigger world outside there are also worrying aspects about the internet and especially around social media that cause concern regarding its influence on teenagers.

Social media can be a force for good or bad. Certainly chat rooms and forums can be a great place for someone who feels friendless and alone, with no one to talk to about how they’re feeling. Finding reassurance, answers to questions from people experiencing similar issues can stop a teenager feeling alienated, isolated and alone.

It can also help us tap into unexpected audiences, reach people we would never have been able to introduce ourselves to and, as a consequence, their friends. We have the potential with social media to speak to a vast audience, a community of like-minded people.

But there are others aspects of social media which are not so rosy. A degree of caution needs to be exercised. Living in a virtual world where we’re constantly checking our phones can persuade us that online is the real world, where the things we see and are being told there are the truth.

Which is why it’s important to;

– Choose who to follow with caution and recognise what their agenda might be. Be alert to the dangers of being groomed by someone who’s not who or what they claim to be, is encouraging you to do things you’re not comfortable with. Or maybe they’re aiming to become an influencer, are allied to specific products, gradually introducing and recommending certain goods or services, courting new followers and essentially running sales pitches. Step back and notice what’s really going on.

– Remember it’s your call, you can unfollow if you want to. If something doesn’t suit you anymore or you’ve become unhappy at what you’re regularly seeing you can choose to disengage and stop it. And if posts are appearing that you don’t like, that distress you, affect you negatively or you’re uneasy about trust your gut and block them. It’s your device, your media stream; close the door and don’t let them in.

– Set a limit for your time online, and use that time more efficiently. Yes, you may see your online family as a real, key element of your life, relationships that are genuine and supportive. It’s the only place you can be yourself and you need to keep that in your life, but actual person-to-person relationships are important too. Many people increasingly work, shop and manage their lives online, so it can provide less and less reason to leave the house. But relationships, learning to interact with others, develop social skills, understand yourself better all require some movement away from devices and an engagement in face-to-face communications.

– Meet others in person and experience the spontaneity and diversity of life. Incorporate personal development and growth by accepting that sometimes things may not go so well. You may make mistakes, be rejected, look silly. That’s fine, it’s part of life and an important way to evolve and mature as a person.

– Take charge and decide not to spread negativity and gossip on your social media feed. Commit to share only good news. You may think one person on their own cannot make much difference but when each of us takes a stand we can sprinkle sunshine in our tiny corner of the world. Be the person who shares positivity, good results and happiness. Influence, maybe in a small way, your social media feed, your world, your audience.

– Step outside your comfort zone. Join a class, a gym, a group. Visit the same places regularly and you’ll find you start to meet the same people. Get used to making an effort, dressing smarter, having to turn up promptly – a different set of skills which are required in offline modern life. Challenge yourself each day.

In the same way you’ve found your place and have been accepted online remember too to keep a tentative toe in the offline world and allow yourself to get to know many of those people who equally share your concerns and insecurities. Watch how others behave together, pick up some hints and tips, so learning different ways to contribute to conversations, enhance your social skills and develop a more confident approach to each area of life.

“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.” Galileo Galilei

Mass media forms thrive today. As development show itself scientifically, students experience various media forms through technologies. These flourishing materials shouldn’t be ignored; it is the role of ESL teachers to keep abreast with the present day coinciding language instructions to mass media forms as springboards of originally planned language tasks in attuning the interests of students that the real- world situation is constantly exposing them. There exist a one- to- one correspondence between technology and the mass media. As technology rises, mass media develops several forms that can be activated as operative materials in intellectually influencing interested individuals. To be able to discover these materials’ educational potentials, teachers need to discover the essence of media literacy by evaluating their viability, themselves.

Environmental changes influence learners prompting creative teacher’s initiative to employ innovation in constructing activities that cater to students’ interests for the promotion of interactive classrooms. The creation of collaborative instructional setting replaces learners’ tediousness and welcomes newly designed ideas that ensure knowledge absorption. This concept is not to absolutely replace mandated textbooks but expressing creativeness out of media forms may serve as tools to expand learning horizons of learners. Classrooms assist foundation learning not to mention that these aren’t the only outright sources of learners’ intelligence. With the breakthrough of technology currently, learners find the media in their homes. It is an educator’s accountability to guide them that these aren’t only meant for entertainment but could be extensions of learning while being amused. Thus, with the use of these media forms, English teachers may teach nonnative speakers through mass media as facilitators through any approach that they can hypothesize. However, such ingenious construction of instructional materials must be in conjunction with the curricula implemented by educational organizations where they are affiliated with. But using these materials need teachers’ readiness to aptly prepare. It is timely and pertinent that teachers’ readiness establish acceptable levels in order to maneuver learners didactically.

In here, the writer uses practical ways for teachers’ to reflect on their awareness regarding mass media literacy through evaluating present or prior exposures demonstrated to mass media forms and multimedia tools, prior and current mass media and technology material knowledge, knowledge of instructional technology tools that facilitate media materials, inter-linkages of mass media materials to the curriculum being taught, reflecting mass media materials as viable springboards for instructions, identifying some significant indicators of media literacy integration in an instruction and possessing knowledge of integrated instruction- design components for teaching through media materials alongside exemplified example of a material derived from films.

Acquiring the rudiments of mass media as a way of promoting 21st century learning can lead to assimilated awareness known as media literacy. As operationally used in this article, media literacy’s significance is to prepare educators to process varied learning styles through media forms by primarily gaining knowledge of them, understanding their contents, and analyzing their effects to learners as audience. It is perceived that through an intensive review regarding their significance and capabilities to challenge students’ critical thinking, educators can employ these materials for instructions.

These media literacy reflections can be applied to any academic discipline but the writer’s conception in here is geared through language instructions.

One of the means to appraise one’s level of media literacy is through reflecting formulated questions that determine the extent of perception.

1. Assessing former exposures to mass media and multimedia materials

Teachers may practically evaluate their experiences on mass media in and outside the classrooms.

1. Have I read various print media materials in preparing teaching inputs?

2. Have I accustomed myself with authentic materials’ principles and types?

3. Have I reviewed essential television programs /movies/videos/ documentaries, etc.?

4. Have I employed broadcast and print media materials?

5. Have I utilized print and broadcast advertisements as springboard?

6. Have I derived materials from print or broadcast media?

7. Have I obtained materials from sources I am familiar with?

8. Have I downloaded varied viable materials from the internet?

9. Have I given examples familiar to students’ current social media environment?

10. Have I disseminated the significance of mass media in teaching?

11. Have I designed tasks out of materials from other social media?

12. Have I disseminated knowledge in media forms with the facilitation of technological tools?

13. Have I integrated language functions aside from language focus in my materials?

14. Have I achieved my teaching objectives through mass media and technological tools?

15. Have I anchored my lessons with themes from media- designed materials?

16. Have I considered the genre of materials? Is it a film, an advertisement, etc.?

17. Have I employed visibly useful materials in the conduct of language lessons?

18. Have I inculcated media and technology learning theories when using these materials?

19. Have I employed mass media and technology- related materials over the last five years?

20. Have I noticed contrasting ideas in a planned lesson that aren’t suitable for the students?

21. Have I analyzed material backgrounds? Have they been connected to informative ideas?

2. Reflections of prior and current mass media and technology material knowledge

Teachers can reflect to their prior and current exposures and knowledge. Determining insufficiency of knowledge is significantly weighing and considering deficient salient points to be self-addressed.

1. Am I aware of mass-media related terminologies?

2. Am I familiar with mass media genre or classification?

3. Am I able to categorize materials’ media genre and sources?

4. Am I sensible about the distinctions between broadcast and print media?

5. Am I conscious of the materials that thrive in the Internet?

6. Am I aware of the nature of advertisements?

7. Am I able to classify news stories base from proximity, timeliness, human interest, etc.?

8. Am I able to identify the difference between media materials under authentic classifications?

9. Am I familiar with the general functions of mass media to learners?

10. Am I able to explain some restrictions or censorship to learners as audience?

11. Am I mindful of silent films, biographies, travelogue, documentaries, live reports, captions, film credits, trailers, promotional posters, loglines, film scripts, live reports, posters, movie themes, theme songs, soundtracks, cinematography, news elements, subtitles, punchlines, parental guidance, restrictions, film rating, programming, product endorsement, censorship, advertisements, obituaries, legal notices, lifeblood of the media, feedback, etc.?

3. Knowledge of instructional technology tools that facilitate media materials

The knowledge of instructional tool is vital in lesson dissemination since most mass media materials has the capability to dictate the use of technological tools which at the same time reveal and guide the strategies, teachers may employ in their instructions.

1. What are the multi-media instruments that I can operate in the conduct of my lessons?

2. What computer programs, applications, and soft wares can I manipulate?

3. What are some gadgets that create instructions to be fittingly technological?

4. How will I extract these mass media materials from its contemporary sources?

5. How will I download, redesign, enrich, reformat, and restructure a particular digital material?

6. What are the available institutional technologies aligning to my instructions?

7. Why do I use PowerPoint, Microsoft word, Movie maker, etc.to elucidate my springboards?

8. Why is it necessary to upload materials to the Website account of my students?

9. How do I upload and download teaching materials from the Website?

10. What are the proper forms of technological materials to conduct my lessons?

11. How can I possibly make a soft-copy of this material over hard copies?

12. How will I project these materials on the board while I highlight keywords in varied colors?

13. How can I display directly the short silent film from its source during a teaching session?

14. What hardware can I employ to replace a CD in the absence of a CD player?

4. Inter-linkages of mass media materials to the curriculum

1. Do they connect globally to sanctioned principles and theories of language teaching?

2. Do they link to the behavioral objectives of the English language program I am teaching?

3. Do they produce specific sub-skills to support the general objectives of my instructions?

4. Do they yield acquisition of cognitive, psychomotor and affective learning behavior?

5. Do they indicate thematic significance in the lessons’ textbooks’ chapters or units?

6. Do they indicate major significance to students’ language performance assessment?

7. Do these support students’ skill performance aside from competence?

8. Do these develop in ascending order, the thinking skills of my students?

5. Viability of mass media materials as springboards for instructions

1. Are these applicable to the suggested components of language tasks?

2. Are these viable as a springboard for language teaching?

3. Are these fitted to the right language contents to be deliberated?

4. Are these proper to the learners’ specified macro skill’s development?

5. Are these anchored towards the attainment of my lessons’ behavioral objectives?

6. Are these activities capable to suffice the relevant components of the tasks?

7. Are these accepted in terms of the principles composing authentic materials?

8. Are these possible for several tasks for the four macro skills?

9. Are these closely- related to grammar, vocabulary and the macro skills’ acquisition?

10. Are these culturally appropriate to the norms of my learners?

11. Are these able to yield systematic development of students’ critical thinking skills?

12. Are these aligned with favorable values that reinforce human behavior?

6. Some indicators of media literacy integration in language instructions

The curriculum you are following may not have stipulated the use of mass media literacy in language teaching. However, simply involving media knowledge and instructional tools in the program, implies that it is being practiced. In here, we developed some broad reflections that demonstrate media literacy applications based not only from one example but through general media materials. Here are some questions that imply the integration of media literacy in teaching.

1. Did I monitor my students’ judgement regarding themes aside from language structures?

2. Did I encourage them to express opinions through the practice of the language learned?

3. Did I offer homework in search for interesting topics connected to past lessons?

4. Did I introduce varied titles to be modified by retaining the themes?

5. Did I give them time to express ideas by varied media such as posters, drawings, etc.?

6. Did I present the sentence’s active mood favorable for information dissemination?

7. Did I discuss credible sources of ideas about modern learning to be surfed?

8. Did I employ varied mass media genre texts in my instructions?

9. Did I enrich learning through related visual and auditory media?

10. Did I utilize modern materials to reinforce and motivate my students to the current lesson?

11. Did I link examples in real -life contexts such as the siege happening in Syria?

12. Have I given them the privilege to speak or write an essay of their judgement or views?

13. Did I provide activities for students to express ideas by dramatizing, news casting, etc.?

14. Did I deal with hyponyms of the script that spurred discussions of terms in varied contexts?

15. Did I present social media as a way of featuring information and/or ideas?

16. Did I introduce critical thinking through a springboard in an ascending level?

17. Did I use television such as CNN, BBC, and Aljazeera news as tools in listening and writing?

18. Did I familiarize them on informative websites such as the disadvantages of virtual games?

19. Did I introduce a lesson through a material direct from the YouTube?

20. Did I enable evaluation of two contrasting culture, people, and places from media sources?

21. Did I assign an activity where computer applications are used to identify answers?

22. Did I display a graph for students to reflect and react regarding an information from media?

23. Did I encourage my students to express views from a video by producing their own versions?

24. Did I provide a material about mass media as a global way of disseminating information?

25. Did I give them an activity to evaluate the disadvantages of a particular advertisement?

26. Did I offer them an opportunity to provide defenses base from pictures, scenes, etc.?

27. Did I instill the idea that all movies aren’t quality-made during a discussion on films?

28. Did I incorporate the idea that children watching a show on TV needs guidance from elders?

29. Did I monitor suggested solutions during debates on issues that affect the present society?

30. Did I censor some uttered languages and displayed scenes from films to be watched?

31. Did I use materials within students’ level of interests, understanding and cultural upbringing?

32. Did I present a theme contradicting beliefs or religion? Is this acceptable in media literacy?

33. Did I plan, prepare and execute my media materials for instructions carefully?

34. Did I give background of the materials before proceeding further to demonstrate lessons?

7. Knowledge of integrated instruction design components for the media material

The teaching process entails some elements to be used in organizing lessons. Despite a common lesson plan formats, there are some components be familiar with as illustrated with examples. These design components are dependent upon the type of material to be employed for instructional designs and terminologies applied may vary institutionally. The components will be elucidated by media material from films trailer, particularly a script.

Institutional Learning Components

Input’s name: The Great Raid’s trailer’s script

General Instructions: Read the script of the trailer then watch and listen attentively.

Background information. During the world war two, the Philippines is one among the third world countries occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Japan then was an ally of Communist Russia.

Behavioral Objectives or intended outcomes

1. Note the events that occurred among the interspersing scenes in any order. (understand)

2. Sequence the events that you noted from the trailer. (analyze)

3. Write a narrative paragraph from the sequenced events. (create)

4. Use indirect speech and transitional expressions to write a paragraph. (apply)

5. Present an opinion regarding the effects of war. (apply)

The enclosed order thinking skills elucidate distributed order thinking skills based from the behavioral objectives or intended outcomes. All administered lessons are expected to produce outcomes. The outcomes are reflected in the specific objectives of teachers. These specific objectives are derived from order thinking skills’ sub-skills. These will indicate students’ performance levels.

Media material classification: printed material (script), listening and viewing material (trailer)

General Mass media Input’s genre: a film

Specific mass media Input (s): action film’s trailer’s script and scenes

Language Focus: indirect speech, and transitional expressions

Language functions: sequencing events, expressing sequenced Ideas and opinions

Target skills: listening and writing

Task output(s): narrative paragraph writing,

Opinion Monitor: Reactions of students on the devastating effects of war

The Great Raid trailer’s script

General Douglas Mc. Arthur: I am here to tell you man that you finally got a mission worthy of rangers. When you push through our front line / and rescue, 500 Americans prisoners of war. Before you start congratulating yourself, remember you haven’t achieved the damn thing in. With the best training and best proven in this battalion in the whole army, this is your one chance. Do something about it. I mean, one chance. Is that clear!

American Rescue battalion: Yes, sir!

Voice over: They were husbands, sons, and fathers… And so with the man inside

POW soldier: I spend the last three years thinking along the words I want to say to her.

Japanese Imperial army officer: This woman is the head of anti-front movement!

Japanese soldier: Who do you think smuggles our medicine into the camp?

Guerilla member: That’s not enough!

Woman: Let’s get out of here! It’s a setup!

Voice over: Their mission was almost certain to fail.

American Rescue Team Soldier:… we cannot guarantee the safety of the prisoners. Ten thousand at the river, Ten thousand wander by. I think we need a little miracle…

Japanese Imperial army officer: She stayed behind in the Philippines to be near you.

Do you think you have the reason to survive this war?

POW soldier: I like to be here for your surrender.

Voice over: But when face with the unthinkable!

American rescue team Member: As we advance in the area, I believe the Japanese will murder the prisoners.

Voice over: They would try the impossible… Miramax film presents the true story of the greatest rescue mission ever attempted.

POW soldier: Dear Margaret, while it comforts it’s been to know there’s someone who desires our lives more than our enemy desires our deaths. Without there is, there couldn’t be your love.

Voice over: In the moment in time, when men of honor become soldiers of destiny… there’s a prize for freedom. A prize -some are willing to pay.

To be able to gauge the effectiveness of your lesson through a mass media springboard, it is suggested to reflect on these questions.

1. Did I consider the components during the manipulation of media instructional materials?

(input, instructions, background information, objectives, media material classification, specific mass media input: specific mass media input’s genre: language focus: language functions target skills, task output(s) )

2. Were my objectives specifically expressed?

3. Did I variate my order thinking skills based from my specific objectives?

4. Were my objectives obviously attained?

5. Did the objectives synchronize with the evaluation which is the output itself?

6. Did I process the language focus specifically, transitional expressions, direct and indirect speech?

7. Were the language functions observably attained?

8. Did I introduce the procedures before the writing activity?

9. Did I exemplify topic sentence, supporting details and concluding sentence before writing?

10. Did I provide them a chance to express their ideas about the destruction of war?

11. Was the input appropriate for the language focus, language functions and outputs?

Humans are social beings and naturally like to be social. Social media offers numerous opportunities for both personal and professional purposes i.e., right from connecting with family and friends to like-minded professionals. Research also concludes the fact that people are logging on to social networking sites like Twitter; Facebook and LinkedIn like never before.

Social media has witnessed a sea of change over the past few years. Apart from networking, it also enables people to teach others to develop 21st century competencies. Let’s see the advantages and disadvantages of social media learning:

Advantages:

Support Interaction: What is the difference between traditional and social media learning? The traditional method is a typical classroom kind of learning with little chance for interaction. However, social media learning takes the form of interaction which is a highly effective form of active learning. It helps network with people of similar passion and goals. It helps to share ideas and experiences, and obtain competencies implanted in real life, unravel opportunities and recommend the path to success.

Natural Learning: According to research, people go to work to improve their relations with their colleagues rather than secure a good pay package. In one Telecom Company, the management kept employees from meeting each other during the coffee or lunch breaks. Soon, there was a drop in the employees’ performance levels. This, therefore, proves that social networking has a direct impact on the way people learn and work.

Easy Access: Social networking sites help access information anytime and anywhere. It also facilitates access of information of a diverse kind on a given topic with ease and efficiency. In turn, it supports lifelong learning processes and professional development.

Multiple Learning Styles: Social media learning involves accessing information through a range of visuals, text and perceptions on a given subject. It also encourages one to actively participate by posting content on social networking sites. It helps users post or express individual views, thereby generating tons of content onto the site.

Disadvantages:

Uncertainty: Social media is subjected to continuous change. Hence, this lacks the required structure to fit into the exact learning need.

Performance Tracking: A critical step for learning is measuring. However, at present, measuring tools are there but a few.

Managing Social Networking Sites: Once logged into a site, one gets invitations to log on to other similar sites. Thus, logging on to many sites is not possible for one person. Hence, its difficulty to manage and eventually becomes cumbersome.

In spite of these disadvantages, learning through social media via higher technology has a greater impact on learning and is appropriate for a professional environment based on competency. The latest advantage of this media is its ability to impart knowledge effectively. But often, many corporates are overlooking the advantages of learning offered by such media. The need of the hour is to help corporates understand the advantages of social media learning for employee training and knowledge sharing which is often overlooked.

In the present scenario, social media is turning out to be relatively inexpensive and accessible learning platform rather than just a place for networking. “Humans are social beings, hence learning through social media will surely impact the way for one to learn.

Two Ways We Know Social Media is Here to Stay

When it comes to the media, it takes a lot to really amaze me. It’s not that I’m a cynic. It’s just that I’ve been professionally involved with the media for over 21 years and I’ve seen its evolution. I’ve lived through the days when press releases were Xeroxed and sent in the mail with a postage stamp, through the times when the fax machine was king and finally into the age of the email blast through an electronic database. And while I’ve marveled at these technological advances that increased a PR professional’s speed and reach, none of them really floored me.

Until now.

Never have I seen a media tool so broad in its scope, so personal in its reach and so effective in its use as Social Media. It’s so powerful that I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything like it before and doubt I will see anything as influential in our lifetimes.

Let me offer two examples to demonstrate this point and then we can look at its impact on your own marketing and promotion.

Occupy Wall Street – It really doesn’t matter where you fall with regard to the politics behind the OWS movement. My only reason for bringing it up is to demonstrate the massive influence they’ve had over an incredibly short period of time because of their use of Social Media. When the demonstrations in New York began on September 17 with 1,000 protestors in Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district – spurred by an email campaign by the Canadian non-profit advocacy group AdBusters – the movement was ignored by the mainstream media. Not even The New York Times (considered the local newspaper for the island of Manhattan) bothered to write about the movement. Then, a Facebook page and a Twitter account were established, leading to the creation of a Web site. Soon after, the group published a manifesto of sorts and through their Social Media network, sent out a call to action for those around the world who shared their views to stand up and be counted through demonstrations. According to the Columbia Journalism Review’s New Frontier Database, the team, while unofficial, runs Web sites like Occupytogether.org, and video live-stream a “steady flow of updates on Twitter and Tumblr,” as well as Skype sessions with other demonstrators. Their reach has gone international, generating reactions from leaders and citizens of countries like Canada, Brazil, China, Greece, India, North Korea, Poland, Russia, The United Kingdom, Vatican City, Venezuela and others. They have no spokesperson and no leader doing the TV talk shows, but instead use Social Media to proliferate their cause. If they had a head of marketing, I’d mortgage the house to hire him or her.

Bank of America Debit Card Fees – I doubt Molly Katchpole ever thought her complaint would get so far. The 22-year-old recent graduate of Roger Williams University is credited with getting Bank of America to back down off its plans to charge customers $5 per month for the privilege of using a debit card. How did she do it? Social Media my friends.

She posted a petition on Change.org demanding that Bank of America keep their hands out of her purse and the purses of their millions of customers. Change.org is a Web site that allows people to solicit signatures via the Social Media universe. Well, her petition gained so much traction that the site took over from there, soliciting more signatures and reaching out to the mainstream media on her behalf. She told her story on TV talk shows, coming off as courageous and smart and, well, just like millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck who can’t really afford another $60 per year for something they had been using for free all along.

The end result of the campaign was Bank of America playing a pummeled Goliath to Molly’s triumphant David, and canceling their plans to charge the fees. When you think about it, Molly did them a favor. Based on the overwhelming response of more than 306,000 signatures, Bank of America avoided a massive disaster. It doesn’t take a genius to predict what happens to a company’s stock price when they very publicly lose 300,000 customers in a month or so.

“Clearly, the success of her campaign is a victory for Social Media and a demonstration of its power to get the masses involved in a cause,” said Yvette Kantrow, managing editor of the Daily Deal.

I couldn’t agree with her more.

At what point in American history can you point to 1,000 people demonstrating in a public park in New York, and a few days later a message is generated from a world leader, like Polish President Lech Walesa, in support of their efforts? At what point in time can you remember when a 22-year-old posted a complaint on a Web site that caused a billion-dollar world banking power – with 57 million customers – to eliminate a potential annual revenue stream of about $3.4 billion?

It has never happened, but with the impact of Social Media, you can pretty much count on it happening again and again.

Now, let’s bring all this back to you. Many of you already have the same tools these people had – a Twitter account, a Facebook page, a Web site and an Internet connection. The issue is how Social Media can help you proliferate your message. Actually, the question is how can it not? Social Media is the perfect marriage of one-to-one and mass communication. Its tactics and tone are personal, while its scope and reach are massive.

If you’re already working on a Social Media campaign right now, don’t stop. But, if you’re not, it’s way past the time for you to get going. To those who are still on the sidelines waiting for some kind of signpost that decisively demonstrates why the time and effort in Social Media is worth it, my advice is to look behind you. Truly that stake was in the ground 100 miles ago.

Social media marketing is really a rapidly growing technology that allows the ways and means for people to interact socially. Examples of social media marketing tools are Linkedln, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and You Tube. Defined, it means using such online tools such as blogs, marketing, customer service, advertising, and public relations. There are some fundamental concepts to this marketing venue that comprise its basic online activities like creating a buzz which is a way to attract attention. Buzz is perhaps what makes online social networking work. It relies on news worthy events, blogs, videos, and even tweeting. It is a very powerful marketing tool.

Being an advertising method, social media marketing is a method that relies on various online social network services which can be email or instant messaging for example. Social networking websites are becoming huge communication sites where people gather to share information, news, and idle chat. Recently many of these services like MySpace, Twitter, and Linkedln have developed ways to combine conventional email and instant messaging into their services. Until fairly recently these type of social networking tools were thought to be used only by techies and nerds. Nowadays, more and more people want to know how to use these services for marketing their brands.

Historically speaking, online social media marketing has been around for several years. People have been connecting to blogs for the past couple of years and even before the World Wide Web was created, folks were connecting to Usenet News. Actually, the early dial-up bulletin board services users were exchanging primitive text messages and limited graphics. There are some interesting parallels between the early days of online social networking and today’s most popular tools and services. That’s good news for the aspiring online marketing entrepreneur. If you are looking to market something online, this venue has some powerful capabilities for your business.

If you want to use online social media marketing as a means to promote your business, there are several thinks to consider. The key to remember when using this tool to market your business is that you have to target people who have a common interest in your brand. If you develop online social friends that have your same interests your community will grow as more people run across your blogs and posts. It’s analogous to using word of mouth to get your brand popularized. Your social networking can bring new friends into the fold for your business marketing efforts.

The internet has seen a great deal of evolution from when it first started. From being a mere avenue for data processing and connectivity, it has quickly gained a knack for being socially oriented, creating a multi community rather than just simply being a data transfer protocol. Businesses have emerged within the virtual universe as social media marketing companies.

Just like any business, aspiring social media marketing companies should be highly tenacious and competitive to stay afloat among others in its area. To be quite stable in establishing an identity in the business world, as well as good standing with investments and sales, here are some core competencies needed:

Main Promotion

Promotions and advertising go hand in hand by having the ammunition to be put inside a gun and fired, pointed at the right target. Without a target, there is no hit. Without ammunition, no spark and shot is created. Without the gun, the content is primarily useless and pointless.

Effective Blogging

Blogging and blogsites may already be considered as a part of social media network and activities, but they these two terms deserve their own subcategory. Remember the days when social media networking started as BB sites and were filled with posts? That was the precursor of blogging, wherein thoughts and anything under the sun was posted, published, and then opened to the public for criticism and opinions.

Blogging revolutionized the way people interacted with each other, hence paving the way to the complex form of social networking which social media marketing companies should be taking advantage of.

Go for the Press

Press releases are an essential way to call the attention of the more straightforward and factual viewers in the virtual world. With publishing backed up by large corporate networks, the buzz and hype on your new promotion is expected to be more concrete, without the thrills and frills. This is good for those who want direct news and appreciation.

Multimedia

With the huge market share for other forms of multimedia, social media marketing companies tap into this area to incorporate their promotions and allow it to spread into the networks. What makes videos and music great is that it is more creative, making them a highly potential method of spreading your advertising content.

There may be other core competencies which social media marketing companies could delve into, but having these in the bag secures your future as a marketer quite well.

In the world of business, marketing is essential. However, in our new digital age, traditional marketing is becoming increasingly ineffective, and a new form of marketing is on the rise. Because of its many advantages, social media marketing has become an almost essential part of any business’s attempt to establish a firm footing in today’s competitive market. When considering the pros and cons of different marketing methods, think of all the time and money that was traditionally spent on marketing your products or services, and compare it to what it now costs to market your business on social sites.

Originally, businesses paid out of pocket for advertisements on television, billboards, or in newspapers. Eventually, these strategies came to the point where they were not cost effective in the least. Of all viewers of advertisements, only one to two percent actually contacted the distributor and was interested in their product. Why was this? One of the most interesting advantages of social media marketing is that when viewing television, advertisements often irritate and interrupt viewers, causing most of them to be uninterested in the advertised product. With social media, the targeted audience not only watches the advertisement, but also participates in it.

Participation is a key advantage of social media marketing. Online, people willingly participate in activities and blogs that market your company for you. When the customers become involved with your business or company, they not only care about your products, the come to care about your business. Social involvement with customers usually leads to an increase in clientele and customer satisfaction.

Another advantage that comes with social media marketing is that online advertising with sites like Facebook is one hundred percent free. You no longer have to rent a billboard or air time on the television or radio. You do not have to pay for ink and paper and distribute fliers about your business. You can do it all electronically and be much more productive. Almost every human being, in the United States at least, has heard of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Most of them have profiles. By marketing your business online, a completely new world of advertising opens up.

With all these advantages, a business almost cannot survive in our world without internet marketing. The best thing about it though, is that it is affordable, effective and can work for anyone. Any business, no matter how small, can effectively market itself online.

Our society is making major changes every day, and social media is dictating some of these changes and is influencing how our society operates. As a result, whatever changes we see in society will have a definite impact on what happens in our schools. To run effectively, schools cannot ignore these societal changes. That’s why our students and staff need to develop positive experiences with social media usage in our schools. Schools and school districts that decide to embrace social media are utilizing new technology to inform, educate, and prepare students and staff for the 21st century.

Each school year the following question will have to be answered: What if a student or staff member is using their personal social media account off school property in a negative, inappropriate, or confrontational manner that has an impact on the staff or students? Additionally, does this usage impact the student’s ability to learn at school or impact the educational day? If it does, then the school should have the right to investigate and issue appropriate consequences. This is an important problem that has impacted schools from all over the world. It is vital that our schools address this problem in their student code or face the possibility of students, staff members, or both disrupting the school.

In an effort to be pro-active, schools and school districts have decided to prevent problems from occurring by teaching students the proper way to use social media. Schools are now showing their students how social media can be used to collaborate on school projects, find summer jobs, participate in online chats, discuss books read in class, share and receive positive information on the school’s Facebook page, keep up with what’s happening around the world, do research, share successful educational stories, secure classroom information, etc. Teachers can use Twitter accounts to send homework assignments to students, provide classroom information for students, and have classroom discussions. By embracing social media, schools are empowering their students to communicate more with their classmates, which will develop a stronger community of learners.

School employees should have procedures in place for how they use social media in an effort to monitor how educators use their personal and school accounts to interact with students. Schools should consider employees using their personal accounts to communicate with students as inappropriate and as grounds for termination. While this might sound harsh, sometimes staff using their personal accounts with students can lead to the appearance of an inappropriate relationship. In particular, staff members should never have a student’s pictures posted on their Facebook. These concerns should be addressed at the first staff meeting of the school year, and staff members should sign an agreement that the school’s social media account be used for teaching purposes only and not for reaching out to students.

Overall, schools know there is a lot of abuse involved with the use of social media, but research has shown that schools that take the time to educate their staff and students on the proper usage are developing a community of learning that will be productive in the 21st century