Social Media Ethics…revisited

Throughout the course of my Social Media Marketing class, we were taught different ways to utilize certain aspects of Social Media in order to enhance marketing for a business, company, or idea. The few things that I realized social media marketing absolutely needed were people, communication, and impressions. But with these few crucial factors arises a variety of ethical viewpoints when it comes to the topic of how companies use social media in order to acquire the type of information or impressions that they need. For me personally, although I am fully immersed in social media platforms, there are things that concern me regarding ethics within social media: Privacy and Deceit.

                In regards to social media, when does someone draw the line in terms of privacy? With so many companies/brands tracking our movements online and collecting our data, are social media platforms really enforcing their privacy policies? Better yet, what are even in these so called privacy guidelines? Are these companies writing their policies in such a way that we are basically giving them permission to breach our private information? These are definitely serious inquiries and concerns I have regarding social media because it’s integrated in so many people’s everyday lives now. The younger generations are going to be born into a society where the digital world will be flourishing, so shouldn’t we worry about the future of privacy online if there are already concerns today? For the last few years, I’ve been going about my activity within social media without any types of concerns or thoughts about how it might be gathered or stored, but maybe I should have taken censorship a little more seriously. With shows like “Catfish” showing the public how easy it is to find personal information through other sources, I can’t help but feel uncomfortable with the fact that my information is easily accessible to some extent to the public.

                As for deceit, my concerns revolve around the ethics of misrepresentation within the digital world/social media. Like I said before, with social media being integrated in the lives of so many people today, the flow of information entering the digital world is innumerable. With people being able to share their thoughts, opinions and work as well as others’, an issue of original intellectual property comes to light. I definitely think it would be harder to keep track of original work, thoughts, and opinions in this age because of the mass amount of information posted and shared on the web. The ability for certain companies/small business to deceive the public by either hiring people to post biased reviews or creating fake accounts themselves cross the ethical line for me. This makes it very hard to know what to trust and what not to consider on the web and digital world. The ethical line, for me at least, is crossed when the company knowingly attempts to deceive the public in terms of making a unbiased accurate statement about itself.

The Power of Digital Stories

For those of you who are unaware of what Digital Stories are, they are basically a combination of animation, video, photographs, music, and sound that when put together, addresses a story that an audience can take away from . It is a great expressive median that can engage audiences in many ways. Here’s an example of powerful digital storytelling shown in this Thai Insurance Commercial titled “Unsung Hero” :

You honestly can’t tell me that this video didn’t make you feel some sort of way. What I find effective from this example is that it draws emotions from it’s story-telling and it makes the audience ask themselves crucial questions. What small, little task could I have done today, that would have made a difference to someone? The narrator  guides the audience to the ending of the story with the last few seconds of the commercial being the introduction of the Insurance company. I thought this was great because it wasn’t trying to take away from the story, but instead led the audience to believe that the Insurance Company is trying to do the same thing as the main character of the story: genuinely help others.  All in all, the commercial didn’t give off an advertising vibe to me at all which made it even better because in the end, i still understood what they were trying to do as a business.

Social Media Ethics

Now a days, social media is largely used as a way for people to connect with one another and share their individual thoughts and opinions. Being their personal social media accounts, people believe that they have the right to say what they feel and when they want. But do they? Maybe a better question would be : Can they without any consequences? What worries me about social media ethics is the thin line between personal social media accounts and the professional world.

Let’s say you are working for a certain company which is noted on several of your social media accounts that many people have access to. At that point, you are a representation of that company 24/7 despite you  being out of the office or not. There may be a day when your own (negative) opinions on a certain brand/business, event, or person can be reflected on the company you work for , causing problems for both you and your company. With such a broad amount of ways for outside sources to obtain information, should people censor what they say in their personal life in case it affects their professional one? Is it ethical for companys/businesses to peer into the privacy of their/competitor’s employees? Is it ethical for employees to voice out opinions regarding their professional life if it was NOT purposely meant to harm the reputation of the company? Is there freedom of speech when you are a part of the company atmosphere?Questions, Questions..

What’s new with SEO?

What’s new with SEO?

Recently, i found this interesting and informational link on the possible trends of year in terms of Search Engine Optimization.  From what i gathered from it, the world of SEO is definitely changing but the basics of it continue to play a structural role. Here are a few things i thought were particularly interesting to know regarding the future trends of SEO for the year:

1. Social Presence will become more important than search. Search rankings and putting resources towards SEO are still important but some say Social Presence will play a huge role in brand awareness and driving traffic.

2. Determining Ranks will become more complicated. A great deal of effort will be expected in figuring out how to sort the type of sharing and content that makes Google Rankings radar move.

3. SEO future=MOBILE. Who couldn’t see that coming? About 40 percent of emails are opened on a mobile device. Not only that but mobile search is developing faster than desktop searches. Proper Mobile sites will need to be worked on in order to keep up with this growing trend.

4. LOCAL. Sites such as Google and Bing will continue the trend of localizing results instead of having searches on a national level.

The article also goes on and lists some advice for SEO in 2104. This includes pinpointing customers biggest pain points, staying honest,consider link building and building a single site for mobile and desktop users. It definitely is an interesting article for anyone interested in SEO and marketing since search engines play such a major role. I recommend you check it out and take what you can from it!

Picture Perfect

The age of the professional iphonetographer/smart-phonetographer is amongst us. With the creation of instagram, people have been putting more and more effort into creating their own version of the perfect picture. But any “experienced” smart phone photographer would know that Instagram can only go so far. The limited editing options that Instagram provides just doesn’t suffice anymore to the common phone photographer. Picture editing suddenly became popular amongst everyday people which brings me to talk about my thoughts on the company VSCO(https://vsco.co/vscocam) and their use of social media. I first encountered the company through a popular user on instagram known to take exceptional pictures with their phone. I clicked on the hashtag #vscocam and instantly saw that it was gaining popularity within the phone photography community.

With more than 18 million picture posts that were hashtagged #vscocam (meaning they used the app to edit the picture taken), the company took advantage of a social media site such as Instagram to market their tools that enable each phone photographer to show off their individuality. In addition, by utilizing another social media platform such as Twitter, the company establishes active engagement with users of the vsco tool to ehance the brand’s reputation.

Also, the company utilized youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVRgWg3gjoDO5KasrQoxMUw/videos) by providing assistance with better familiarizing oneself with the different array of editing tools and giving examples of unique artists that use vsco to express themselves to draw motivation from. Here is an example

All in all, I would have to say that VSCO did a great job spreading its name and reputation through social media that got it so popular it is today. Vsco cam, making one normal phone photographer feel extrodinary one picture at a time.

Everyone’s Just Doing It

If I had to come up with a brand/company that I thought was successful in reaching a wide audience, Nike would immediately pop in my mind. I mean, who hasn’t heard of Nike now a days? The company’s slogan “Just Do It” has been killing it ever since 1988 when it first appeared. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

Now, some of you may be asking yourselves , what is so special about a topless old man running across the Golden Gate Bridge? It’s the one thing that Nike plays with in most of their campaigns and Ads, that I personally believe has made it successful with so many people…

IT’S MOTIVATING. Come on, he’s an 80 year old man who’s probably in better shape than a lot of us and runs more miles everyday than probably most people do in a week. How? Because he just does it(See the connection with slogan?) He pushes himself to do it and his choice of equipment? NIKE. And from that point on, Nike became affiliated with motivation and determination with the end result being success which is something everyone strives for. Here are some more examples of this that Nike has done great taking advantage of:

Nike takes some of the world’s most successful, popular, and looked up to athletes and uses their stories/hardwork to show that they are just people like the rest of us who…just did it. See, there it is again. Nike engages the audience with the stories of their beloved heroes and gives them an example of what hard work can get you. The company basically is saying to the world that ordinary people can do extraordinary things if they put their mind to it and Nike will help you get there. This last example is probably one of my favorites.

Nike has become so successful that they aren’t just an athletics company anymore but a lifestyle company. Not only are a majority of the most successful athletes endorsed by Nike, but actors,musicians,and fashion icons are all wearing the brand. Talking about all this is actually making me want to buy myself a pair of….you guessed it. Nikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that comes in different shapes and sizes

Other than this WordPress blog which i only began a few hours ago, I’ve been a tumblr user for a few years now. As of recently, i’ve began following a blog labeled “Humans of New York” (http://www.humansofnewyork.com/) that I randomly stumbled upon from a reblog of another user.  As my curiosity urged me to scroll through this blog, I came to realize how much time I’ve actually spent looking through it. This blog seemed different compared to the others. It was a photographer based in New York that took photos of everyday people he encountered in the streets and jotted down a quote from their discussion. Simple right? But what was so fascinating about this blog that made it so popular amongst many?

As an inhabitant of today’s society, i know how  life can surprise us unexpectedly and how much we can forget that we aren’t the only ones having problems. This blog took on one of the most famous , cutthroat places in the world and displayed the many different types of people New York was made up of. With each picture and quote, readers of the blog find that they can relate and feel for the people in each post which is why i believe i become so interested and engaged with it, The blog showed weakness, embarrassment, innocence , and a whole range of feelings that we as people seek support from even if we can’t admit it. The blog brings people in unison and shows that life gives us lessons to learn from to help us continue along the road. It is a perfect example of using relatable subjects to attract more people.