Chapter 2

The first thing I learned in this chapter is the power of social networking. A trusted network is not a new concept; it can be defined as a group of like-minded people who have come to together in a common place to share ideas, thoughts, and information of themselves. These networks, which today contain more than 100 million people, have been utilized by advertisers to develop trust and create influence among consumers to increase their sales. By embracing social networks, digital connections, and the online experience the advertisers are taking advantage of a new way of selling and there has the potential to become bigger than the product they are selling. The ultimate goal for social networking is to build trust within a given community and the advertiser must utilize this through newsletters, blogs, comments, telephone, email, instant messages, audio, and photographs. These things must be used collectively for social, professional, and educational purposes to build that level of trust.

The chapter continues by comparing the three big social networks: Facebook, Myspace, and Linkedin. Facebook has 425 million members, Myspace with 76 million users, and Linkedlin with 60 million users. Facebook is by far the most popular and most widely recognized but is similar to Myspace in that it is an interactive international web site that allows its members to create a network of friends, personal profiles, groups, and photos. Reading through this chapter is the first time I learned the details about the functions of Linkedin. Linkedin is a professional contact database emphasizing connections. Different from Facebook and Myspace in that you can view friends, of friends, of friends profiles as long that they are all connected through their profiles.The point of this is to emphasize that we are all interconnected and we can use social networking to build trust and provide effective social contacts.

You can see companies using social media in the example of Southwest Airlines who used Twitter to their advantage. The engaged customers on Twitter, built a following, cultivate relationships, and monitored activity. They launched a 48-hour fare sale using nothing more than social media and public relations to promote their airline, with no paid advertising. The result, the airline achieved its top two sales and website traffic days in the airline’s history

For what I’ve seen of social media, it sometimes can get frustrating for other forms of advertising. The consumers no longer hear advertising messages as clear if it is not surrounded by social media, this almost forces advertisers to fully embrace social networking. As a consumer I was initially annoyed with advertisers using social media to get in contact with me, I thought it was just another way for them to spam mail. But now, as an advertising major, the use of social networking is unbelievable to me still. I first started as a 7^th grader with Xanga, blogging about my middle school feelings. There was a limited amount of networking, with the use of groups being the only thing I utilized. I think it’s amazing to see how far social media has come since then, it only seems to be getting bigger and more powerful with each new feature and with each new message. Companies and advertisers not fully embracing this social networking movement with their public relations attempts would be a bad move for their business. It is a powerful moment that isn’t disappearing anytime soon, only growing. The key to networking is to participate.

Chapter 1

The first chapter begins with clearly defining social media and it works within the advertising world. Social refers to the instinctual needs we humans have to connect with other humans while media is what we use to make all of those connections. The book explains how we can use social media and other technologies effectively to reach out and connect with other people to create relationships, to build trust, and to be there when those people in those relationships are ready to purchase the product we may be offering. The social media that has emerged in the last decade is effective because it is two-way communication and the new way to sell is to not sell at all. Social media is all about listening first, understanding the conversation, and then creating a dialogue last. The most obvious use for social media is for marketing sales, public relations, and communications.

The book gave an example of Pioneer Electronics Inc. and their attempt to increase their click through rate during the holiday season. They became successful through PostRelease and online forums. They found that consumers visit discussion forums to discuss a product and are therefore more open to relevant sponsored messages and they’re more likely to respond.

In my opinion, social media could be successful if the service the company is providing over the media is successful and provides a good service, but if that service is received negatively the customer’s reaction could spread like wildfire. Advertising started with “word of mouth” advertising, and that form of advertising is still present today. It used to be if some released a bad or good service they would spread their experience to about 10-20 people, but now with social media customer’s experience with a company can be spread to thousands of others. This is an example of when social media can be either positive or negative, it all depends on the approach of the media vehicle that the company uses. I think social media can be very effective to build the trust for customers, for example airlines now use twitter to reimburse customers and address complaints (see JetBlue twitter http://twitter.com/#!/JetBlue!). In one instance JetBlue addressed a customer about a mechanical issue while the customer was still on the plane. These company’s uses of social media allows them to address customer’s quickly and directly which further contributes to their brand image and reputation along with positive advertising. The use of Twitter that these airlines have started using is an effective form social media that I believe other company’s should invest in for further customer service opportunities.

-Caroline