Brittany Barret:
Madison Roesel:
Social Media and PR
In my opinion, social media and the practice of public relations go hand in hand. The landscape of social media has revolutionized the way that large and small companies interact with their customers. The internet in general has revolutionized they was business is done. A company no longer has to wait to receive letters in the mail or listen to customers complain about their service for hours on end. Now a companies are able to see how their consumers are feeling simply by asking them through social media. Social Media has truly made a company’s reputation an intangible money maker. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more has translated something as simple as a like or even a view into money. That’s why today it is more an important than ever for public relations practitioners to be at the top of their game.
Growing up in the digital age, I have witnessed the birth and growth of social media. How it started as a virtual hangout space for friends and has now transformed into a multi-million dollar industry. This class has taught me that there is more to social media than posting material and hoping that people like them. I have learned that to effectively use social media, a strategy must be applied as if it were a business plan. I plan on continuing to use all of my social media accounts. I want to continue to increase my effectiveness at using social media so that I may one day become my own media company in a sense.
Online Activist
I can agree that social mediums have become an active environment for many online activist. I haven’t participated in any online activist movements myself because I don’t pay much attention to social media and things that are going on across different social mediums. Also, I haven’t found an issue that I feel strongly enough about to create or join a movement for that issue. But for people that are a part of online activism I think it is a great thing if used for the right cause.
What causes someone to join or create an online movement is that they find something that they really and truly have an issue with so they seek out a way to make their voice heard. The easiest way to get your opinion out to a large amount of people is to take the matter online. There they can find individuals who feel the same way that they do and before you know it is a movement of online activist vs. an issue or an umbrella of issues that they have in common.
For me to participate in something like this I would have to feel very strongly towards the subject that I am for/against. It would have to be something that I feel violated my civil rights, goes against my ethics and morals, or something that directly affects my community. In the right hands online activism can benefit organizations. It can help bring awareness to an organization, help the organization raise fund, or increase the prestige of an organization.
Social Media Oops
While Shutterfly did make a mistake and send out that mass email, I feel like they did a decent job of recovering and send out an apology tweet and email. With a mistake like this one you may not notice it until people that aren’t new mothers start reacting via social media. I believe the key to a crisis like this one is making sure that the customers know that their complaints have been heard and that the company is working to resolve the matter as quickly as possible. If I were in charge I would have had an apology email ready to go not long after the apology tweet. In my apology email I would have included a special discount code or an exclusive deal that can be redeemed by customers.
After reading the story I read some of the comments and I thought that some of the readers had made a good point. They talked about how when companies make mistakes, no matter if they are big or small, that customers will try and cyber bully the company into deals and free merchandise. I also read comments that talked about how they considered this an invasion of privacy and that lead them to unsubscribe from Shutterfly’s mailing list immediately. I feel like some customer may have overreacted like the comment from Katherine Heidelberg saying Shutterfly can go F themselves. The company acknowledges that they made a mistake and that they were in the process of fixing it. They are humans too and humans make mistakes. It is our job as consumers to help them make it easier to fix the issue by expressing our complaints with civility, not by attacking them.
Social Media and TV
I think that it is great for TV shows to engage fans through social media during shows. I don’t participate in it myself but I know plenty of friends that do. It makes watching the show better for them and it’s another form of entertainment. It’s also a way for networks to gauge how their show is perceived by their audiences. Social media use allows networks to see what their audience thinks of their shows. I don’t follow a lot of actors but I do follow a lot of sports personalities like Stephen A Smith, Bill Simmons, and Skip Bayless. During their show, First Take, while they are debating sports issues tweets from fans and professionals pop up at the bottom of the screen. They also include different hashtags at the bottom of the screens for audiences to use while tweeting. Personally, I think it’s awesome because sometimes I see people tweet things that I am thinking while watching the show. It also makes the show more personable. I’ve never live tweeted at them during the show but sometimes I respond to things they say on twitter during basketball or football games. I’ve never been tweeted back but it may happen one day. On twitter I follow celebrities like LeBron James, The Rock, Kevin Durant, Kevin Hart, Blake Griffin and more. I don’t watch many television shows but I am really active in the world of sports. Often during games my friend and I talk about it on twitter. That’s what really makes games and shows interesting and fun.
PR Digest 