COMM 597: Social Media Evaluation

COMM 597: Social Media Evaluation: Module 1 - Instructor Blog Post There’s much wisdom in this saying, which has been attributed to both W. Edwards Deming and Peter Drucker...

I initially had a difficult time applying the readings to

myself as I currently do not use any social media platforms in my employment position,
as the Albert Government (Human Services) has not been an early adopter of
these platforms. Kane, Palmer, Phillips and Kiron (2014) discuss the ideal of social
business maturity in 3 stages:  early,
developing, and maturing. The area, in which I work, falls under the early
stage because social media is only used to market services and no measurements
of possible data occur (p.84).

As a Career & Employment Consultant, social media can be
used to increase social business maturity in many ways. Facebook and LinkedIn
can be used to advertise job openings. Twitter can be used to provide job
seekers with information on how to find employment. Two way conversations can
occur on any of the platforms. These opportunities focus on the external
business (developing stage of social business maturity) and can be measured
with conversation, amplification and applause rates, as well as, economic value
(Kaushik, n.d.). These measurements can help identify and target the audience
and areas of labour market shortages.

As the measurements become more sophisticated they begin to
help management make decisions about how to operate their business internally, reaching
a maturing social business (Kane et al., 2014). I could measure the number of
audience comments to a post to inform me of what kind of information job
seekers are looking for. I can then providing the most relevant information to
job seekers, which could result in increased clientele and profits. Applause
rates could help us identify which careers are in high demand and allow us to
reach out to organizations with those careers to develop potential paying
customers and increasing profits.

Social media metrics provide us with predictive data, but
don’t always give us a better understanding because not all data is measurable
(Baym, 2013). For example, when we help an individual find employment they may
provide us with message to thank us. It is not something that can be measured/ tracked
through various social media channels, but is impactful information.

References:

Baym, N. (2013). Data not seen: The uses and shortcomings of
social media metrics. First Monday, Vol. 18, No, 10 http://www.firstmonday.org/ojs/index.pjp/fm/article/view/4873/3752

Kane, G.C., Palmer, D., Phillips, N., & Kiron, D. Finding
the values in social business. MIT Sloan Management Review. Spring, 2014, Vol.
55, Issue 3, p.81-89.

Kaushik, A. (n.d.). Best Social Media Metrics: Conversation,

Amplification, Applause, Economic  Value.
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/best-social-media-metrics-conversation-amplification-applause-economic-value/

Module 4: Visual Communication (Pinterest)

Weeks 10–13 Module 4: Visual Communication (Pinterest)

Nov 06: Social Media Pinterest Board activity due by 11:55pm Using the Module 4 readings as context and theory, curate a Pinterest board. Your board must be related to ONE of our course Modules (Twitter, Facebook, Visual Platforms). You must include 3-5 pins. Each pin must include a description that draws from the Module readings. Remember, you are curating specific and pertinent information artefacts. Cite any references using APA style. Embed your completed board in a blog post on the course blog (this is practise for embedding your Pinterest on your Professional Facebook Page). Tweet a link to your Pinterest blog post. Use the class hashtag #COMM597 and always tweet to your instructors. . Nov 16: Final Assignment Presentations webinar from 6:00–8:30pm. Partnered peer-review activity to follow, on eClass. Dec 04: Final Assignment due by 11:55pm.

Pinterest Board: Twitter for Business

Below find the link to my Pinterest board with content curated to aid in the effective use of Twitter within business to engage followers. The pins found on this board are of special interest to me, as before this course, I had little knowledge of the potential of Twitter for professional use. Contrary to what I may have believed a few months ago, Twitter has the potential to create meaningful and gratifying connection that can fulfill a social need (Chen, 2011). More specifically, "this sense of social presence is formed by immediacy-related characteristics,” meaning that interaction and consistency is required to properly engage Twitter users (Han et al., 2015). 

What “curation” consists of has changed over the past decade, as the Internet has brought about new tools to index collections online (Lambert & Frisch, 2013). However, with these new tools come challenges, as “complex arrays of multidimensional, multimedia data must be displayed on a two-dimensional computer screen” (p. 136). I have been a long time fan of Pinterest, and love that as I browse the web and come across DIYs, recipes, and products that I love, I have an organized way to keep them all in one place. Pinterest replaces the newspaper clippings that used to clutter our drawers, and the recipe cards we used to scribble on in our kitchen. However, using Pinterest to find educational information that might profit a business is new to me, and requires more thought in regards to the validity of sources. 

Sources:

Christine Erickson, ( 2012, June ). Pinterest rolls out curated newsletter for users.Mashable.  Available from http://mashable.com/2012/06/02/pinterest-curated-newsletter/

Han, S., Min, J., & Lee, H. (2015). Antecedents of social presence and gratification of social connection needs in SNS. IJIM, 35(4), 459-471.

Hodis, M. A., Sriramachandramurthy, R., & Sashittal, H. C. (2015). Interact with me on my  terms. Journal of Marketing Management, (ahead-of-print), 1-30.

Lambert, D. & Frisch, M. (2013). Digital curation through information cartography: A commentary on oral history in the digital age from a content management point of view. The Oral History Review, 40(1), 135. doi: 10.1093/ohr/oht035

Masullo Chen, G. (2011). Tweet this: A uses and gratifications perspective on how active Twitter use gratifies a need to connect with others. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(2), 755–762. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.10.023

Twitter as a Communications Technology

My Pinterest board entitled Twitter as a Communications Technology illustrates the use of Twitter as an influential communications technology tool.

In April of 2010 the US Library of Congress (LOC) and Twitter partnered to attempt to archive all tweets for future research purposes. Their original intent was "to create a structure for organizing the entire archive by date" (Allen, 2013). This linear approach has proven difficult as the information is indeterminately dynamic. The LOC faces the challenge the HUB model attempts to alleviate. 

Twitter as a communications technology tool is dynamic since through hashtags conversations can be had with multiple accounts regarding a single topic. The pathways of conversation are not linear. The hashtag also has the ability to reduce the six degrees of separation to a lesser number. In my Pinterest board through Twiplomacy (Lüfkens, 2015) and the history of Twitter I demonstrate the non-linear connectivity of Twitter as a communication technology.

[NOTE] I kept getting an error message when trying to post a comment with the following pin. This message was meant to go with my infographic on The History of Twitter: Communications and Technology.

In Tweet this: A uses and gratifications perspective on how active Twitter use gratifies
a need to connect with others Chen states, “Twitter evolved from an online application where users answered a simple question to a ‘’new economy of info-sharing and connectivity’ between people” (2010, pg. 755). I would argue Twitter went from a status sharing tool to an event sharing tool. It became so much more than a group texting technology initially designed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to let your friends know where you are and what you’re up to. Twitter is now used to broadcast emergency information, document and engage in discourse about events which are history in the making as well as connecting with others. Gratifying a need for connection happens when people share an experience.

Allen, E. (2013). Update on the Twitter archive at the Library of Congress.

Retrieved from 
http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2013/01/update-on-the-twitter-archive-at-the-library-of-congress/

Chen, M., G. (2011). Tweet this: A uses and gratifications perspective on how

active Twitter use gratifies a need to connect with others. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(2), 755–762. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.10.023

Findlay, K. (2010). An introduction to network theory. Retrieved from

http://www.slideshare.net/ervler/an-introduction-to-network-theory

Lüfkens, M. (2015, March 24). Twiplomacy Study 2015. Retrieved from 


http://twiplomacy.com/blog/twiplomacy-study-2015/

Pinterest Board: Maximizing Social Media

For my Pinterest board I have focused on social media generally and how to maximize its uses. My pins consist of a variety of topics touched on throughout this course, Facebook, Blogging, and visual Content. I included my descriptions and references with comments right on my pins. You can access my Pinterest Board here.

References:

Findlay, K. (2010). An introduction to network theory. Available from http://www.slideshare.net/ervler/an-introduction-to-network-theory

Garabian, L. (2013). Digital influence: Blogs beat social media networks for driving purchases [Web log post]. Available from  http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/10336/digital-influence-blogs-beat-social-networks-for-driving-purchases

Smith, S. (2013, April 05). Conceptualising and evaluating experiences with brands on Facebook. International Journal of Market Research, 55(3), 357–374. doi:10.2501/IJMR-2013-034. Available at http://login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=87975676&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Social Media Pinterest Board: Leveraging the Power of Visual Content

There's a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, technology has certainly made it easy for us to take good quality pictures in an instant with our cell phones and tablets and, there are many social media mediums that embrace the power of photos/images (e.g., Instagram and Pinterest – to represent Pins).

Reports say that our brain processes visual content 60,000x faster compared to text (More, 2104). In my personal opinion, it seems that more of our world is moving towards visual content. As such, my Pinterest board focusses on incorporating images into online content as it relates to the course material -- two sources in particular: Smith (2013) and Stelzner (2010).

The Pinterest board also contains multidimensional indexing in the board's description, which I understand to be essentially hashtagging (something I already do often on Instagram, but just didn't realize there was a concept behind the madness!). Multidimensional indexing is appropriate here because the board contains information that may have multiple uses in different fields, depending on the lens, as well as help facilitate searches (Lambert & Frisch, 2013). 


References:
Lambert, D. & Frisch, M. (2013). Digital curation through information cartography: A commentary on oral history in the digital age from a content management point of view. The Oral History Review, 40(1), 135-153.

More, T. (2014, May 21). The importance of visual content (and how to deliver it effectively). Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/dd/2014/05/21/importance-visual-content-deliver-effectively/


Smith, S. (2013, Apr 5). Conceptualising and evaluating experiences with brands on Facebook. International Journal of Market Research, 55(3), 357–374. 

Stelzner, M. (2010, Aug 2). The inside scoop on how Intel manages its Facebook page. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/intel-case-study