Google+ About To Hit 10 Million Users
Wow, I have to admit I was skeptical about this at first but after reading this article I immediately added my name to the huge list of people wanting a glimpse into this website. Some of my lucky friends who have it already love it and one even posted (as a facebook status) “Goodbye Facebook, Hello Google+”. Currently waiting eagerly for my email invitation!
Social networking is something I have become very interested in lately. I have been a part of the major social networking sites since I got my first Xanga account back in 7th grade. Since then I have moved on from Livejournal and Myspace to Facebook and Twitter, and even LinkdIn. Recently I have noticed that I am using it not for dramatic and emotional journal entries or designing the ultimate myspace profile, but I find myself networking a little more and making sure all of my media outlets are age-appropriate and relatively free from insinuating evidence of my college lifestyle. Also new for me is having to decide how to utilize various forms of social media from a business perspective. My internship is all about using Facebook, Twitter, online blogging, and a company website to gain customers and keep them interested in the company.
I find it very interesting that The Social Media Bible awards Myspace as being the biggest and most popular social network on the internet. The amount of members is certainly staggering and would seem to be an advertisers dream. However, I honestly hardly ever hear of anyone using the site anymore. Certainly none of my friends are using it and I don’t think I’ve visited my page in years. I definitely didn’t know anything about all of their new features, some of which seem like they would be a huge asset to a lot of companies. The company I am interning with also seems to have no interest in using Myspace at all so it seems to me that music is really the main focus of the site nowadays. With the recent purchase of the site by Justin Timberlake I’m sure that will become much more relevant in the next couple of months.
I just recently joined Linked in at the behest of my dad, and even more recently started networking and building my portfolio. It definitely motivated me to be more active on that site when I started reading about all of the amazing networking opportunities available there.
The Voice: How a TV Show Became a 24/7 Social Media Conversation
This is definitely one of my new favorite shows of the season. I love the “realness” of it all and I feel that it is much more genuine than American Idol, and I find the judges more personable. It really has utilized social media completely and instead of dreading when they cut to the girl who reads off tweets I enjoy watching it and love to see the stars respond to them right away. Recently, Maroon 5 (lead singer Adam Levine is one of the judges) debuted a world premier of their new single “Move Like Jagger” on the show, and the song was trending from 10 a.m. that morning to well into the next day.
(as a side note I am a mashable junkie so most of the links I post will probably be from there!)
This chapter was a very good introduction to the contents of the Social Media Bible. I thin it was great of him to poll people about what they would like to learn from his book. Just from looking over the social media categories he included in Table 1.1, I know that his polling strategy worked because those are all things I would love to know more about. The repeated statistic about a negative tweet/comment reaching 20 people and a positive one reaching about 9-12 was pretty surprising to me. It makes me wonder about the length of time it takes to make up for those negative comments. Can that be measured in time or must it be measured by more positive comments being generated to drown the negatives out. Hopefully as I delve more into this great book I will get my answers!
To really be successful I think that a company really has to utilize most if not all of the categories mentioned to be truly social media successful. It is not enough just to be a part of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc., a company must remain engaging and interesting while managing to instill some customer service as well by answering questions, addressing complaints, and accepting (humbly) any praise.
I found the “Expert Insight” from Peter Booth Wiley was a very interesting read and allowed me to see how social media has evolved over hundreds of years. As Wiley says, “Back in the 1800s, when our company was founded, social media was writing a letter”. That got me really thinking about just how much advertising and technology has evolved. It’s easy to waste time surfing the Internet or tweeting about the concert you’re seeing without taking the time to appreciate how we came to have such amazing abilities. I think we have to take more time to remember that social networking tools all evolved from pen and paper.
Social Media Scoop! 