Social Media Marketing Ethics

Social media is a part of most people’s daily routines, and with that comes the burden that we are always being tracked in some capacity. We are connected on our computers, our tablets, and even our phones. Every move we make online leaves a sort of “cyber footprint”  that is constantly being monitored and analyzed to use for marketing purposes. Even though social media is meant to be shared with the people we care for, at what point is our privacy being invaded? With time this issue will only continue to get more and more complex with advancements in technology. Above is a video that shows just how much information a stranger could find out about you just by finding your more recent location online!

Currently one of the most concerning issues to me is how companies track us for their own benefits. This ranges from online site like Facebook all the way to retailers like Nordstrom. Over the last decade Facebook has exploded, and as it continues to become linked with more social platforms, the more data the social media giant has on our personal preferences. Facebook is a service that is leveraged as a social platform that allows us to dictate our privacy preferences when in reality they keep records so detailed they can see how many posts you discarded rather than actually posting. This is concerning because not only is this information being used for marketing purposes but it is being stored and sold to companies all around the world. This is also an issue in major retailers such as Nordstrom and Macy’s who track your shopping patterns in their store if you are connected to the companies Wi-Fi network. This allows companies to see how much time you spend in certain departments, where you stopped, and which areas you rushed by. This allows them to better design their floor plans to get people the most engaged and spending the most money. This is concerning because our behavior and our thoughts are being tracked which is a pretty scary thing.

For the future what concerns me most is the idea behind wearable technologies. Currently there are things on the market that do a fraction of the things that wearables of the future will do but even these devices pose privacy concerns. As of right now companies like Nike and Jawbone are tracking peoples activity and sleeping patterns all of which is stored and maintained. Although I don’t love the idea I’m not sure I am that concerned about Nike having access to how many steps I took at work yesterday. What concerns me about wearable technology is the future. With time wearables will track our health, our goals, and even our medical records which will be readily available both to patients and to their primary care providers. But what do we do when these companies start storing this information. With time this could impact peoples ability to get health insurance, or even worse their ability to have a job. Although I do see value in the idea of managing your own health on your time I also see this as a potential hazard of ethics. The more information that we choose to record about ourselves, the more information about ourselves we are essentially giving away, and when do we decide that enough is enough?

Greatist

http://greatist.com/

Greatist is a website that combines articles that fall under the categories of “eat, move, grow, play, connect, and discover” which cover a wide variety of topics ranging from why antioxidants are important to stories about alcohol and humor which all some what relate to bettering yourself. Overall I think this website is very effective due to the way it combines text, images, and info graphics to get their point across to readers. Not only is the content relevant but it is graphically a very strong website which makes it easy to just keep scrolling through and reading articles. Another thing i found very interesting about this website is how well it has integrated other sites such as Pinterest straight into their articles and website as a whole. This allows people to easily share with their friends and family.

http://greatist.com/health/what-are-antioxidants

One specific example of a webpage that I thought was very effective was an article titled “What Are Antioxidants (and How Do They Work)?” The site has managed to take a fairly boring and routine topic and turned it into something that you look at and think is relevant to you and makes interested in learning more about the topic. The website not only has intriguing text such as “If the human body were a baseball game, antioxidants would be the first baseman,” but the info graphics are also simplified, easy to follow, and easy to connect to your every day life. I think another reason this website is so effective is because they do a very good job of consolidating information and making it short, and easy to read quickly, which is important to people who are just bored and skimming the internet looking for something interesting to read. Below is an example of one of the info graphics included in the article which shows and explains what processes cause free radicals, which sounds boring, but looks interesting!

Social Media Ethics

Social media and social networking are all around us. We are connect on our computers, our tablets, and even our phones. There is nowhere we go without being connected in some way and usually this activity is being track as we move through our daily lives. Every  move we make online leaves a sort of “cyber footprint”  that is constantly being monitored and analyzed.

The process of mining online communication has already helped Microsoft identify women at risk of postpartum depression. It’s also allowed Facebook to study how parents and kids interact. The possibilities appear limited only by the imagination of the researchers. But how much are they tracking? This tracking goes as far as Facebook having the knowledge that 71% of people have drafted at least post without physically posting it to their pages. There is even research describing the online relationship children have with their parents. Before age 13 there is consistent online communication between kids and their parents and this communication drops significantly until the children move out of their parents houses.

Social psychologist James Pennebaker explains that “Facebook especially, and Microsoft, is scared to death about privacy issues,” he says. “A bunch of researchers have access to everybody’s posts and Facebook is built on what’s yours is private.

A persons Facebook page can tell you their life story. From where they live, where they went to school, where they work, pictures of the people they are friends with, pictures of their wedding, posts and likes containing a database of their personal preferences, any photo can be automatically tagged with facial recognition software and all of this is accompanied by their location when the change took place. The content also links with every other digital aspect of our lives: twitter, instagram, our contacts, google profiles and much more. As convenient as it is to have all of your accounts linked it turns them into a database of your personal information.

The outcome of all these? Serious privacy concerns. from 2011-2012 it was discovered that anyone could gain access to private information on peoples profiles even if they are set to private. Employers have ways of seeing your profile before offering you a position with their company.

This raises concerns because they sell this information to other companies in order for them to market to your individual means. But is this ethical? To take something that is represented as being private and personal and using that for a marketing agenda? And what about the potential for actual people to steal a persons identity through information stolen from a users Facebook? Facebook has always faced issues with privacy concerns and this is only going to become more and more of an issue for the company with time.

SEO TRENDS

1. A strong SEO strategy includes links, content, and social media
2. Mobile optimization is necessary – 50% of search traffic is mobile!
3. Localized search results – 20% of searches on google are related to a location
4. Author rankings – the higher ranked the author the higher up in the search results the pages will be
5. Linking your website with Google+

SEO BEST PRACTICES

1. If items are out of stock leave the page up and direct customers to a similar item and redirect expired products
2. Add content for your most popular items
3. Leverage user generated content
4. Count and analyze popular searches
5. Invest in SEO tools
6. Do manual testing
7. Use keywords

GoPro

When GoPro launched in 2004 the brand was relatively unknown to people other than sports enthusiasts with a passion for extreme sports. With time the brand has launched itself into social media and is now a fairly well known device and company around the world. What makes GoPro stand out to the masses is that they engage with every kind of consumer and they get their customers to be a part of the conversation. They then feature this engagement on their website http://www.gopro.com with an entire page on their site called “channels” which is where they showcase all of their fan engagement with their own featured videos with fan comments as well as featuring both the photo and video of the day from a fans GoPro footage.

Beyond the companies website they also have a popular instagram with just shy of 2 million followers where they feature their photos of the day, athlete photos, and other contest winning photos for people to share, like, and comment on. If you search the hash tag #GoPro what you find is even more engaging, there you will find all the images and short videos that fans take with their GoPros and share with the community which is pretty incredible.

The companies facebook page also enhances their brand through enagement because on facebook people are able to respond with their own photos and videos rather than just text, so on their facebook page you may see them post a photo and then 5 other individuals will post their own similar photos which has turned this brand from a video camera company to a community of people who love to share experiences. They also have a successful youtube channel which allows consumers to send them their own footage and keep up to date with the latest GoPro uploads from the company itself, sponsored athletes, and other fans.

GoPro captures to hearts of people around the world with the variety of not only their communications but their videos as well. On GoPro’s youtube you can find everything from fire fighters saving kittens to 80 year olds rock climbing. Social media has enhanced this brand by not only starting conversations and creating a community around their brand but by making their customers feel like they are a part of the GoPro story. Their social media allows consumers to stay connected and makes them want to go out and continue to use their GoPro rather than letting it sit on their bookshelf.

 

Engagement

When asked to write about social media engagement the first thing that came to my mind was Taco Bell’s twitter which has mastered the combination of re tweets, sassy comebacks, hash tags, and entertaining life advice. As a result the twitter has seen engagement from consumers like nothing I have ever seen, the site has been so successful that it has more followers than Rhode Island has residents.

And these are just a few examples about what makes the chains twitter so entertaining. Taco Bell’s twitter is so successful because they have gotten on a human level and made their content interesting and funny rather than just raving on about promotions and their latest loco taco. The site has created such a buzz that people tweet the most ridiculous things they can think of just to see if Taco Bell will respond and when they do respond, because they typically do, people rave about it for days like it was a celebrity. Taco Bell listens to its fans well and as a result people love the brand and continue to talk about the brand.

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The second website that has ridiculous levels of consumer engagement is Amazon. Everyone loves Amazon, yes because they carry just about everything for reduced prices, but mostly because anything you could imagine has been reviewed by other consumers, which makes us view Amazon as reliable and trustworthy.

For example, Cards Against Humanity, which is a popular party spin off of the well loved Apples to Apples has been reviewed by over 9,000 people! Amazon then sets the bar even higher by answering customer questions about each specific product which makes us trust them even more. People get very passionate about their reviews which make people keep reading them and thus makes people buy the products.

If you aren’t a horrible person already, you will soon be. You will play Cards Against Humanity, and as others have said, you will be shocked, appalled, and worst of all, you will learn and adapt. You’ll reach for your smartphone and search for terms you’ve drawn such as “The Übermensch”, “Heteronormativity”, and “The Three-Fifths Compromise”. You will commit these and many other newly-learned words to memory.

Reviews like these get people so excited that the review itself has over 50 replies! And this is just a card game, things we use more regularly every day get even more attention! As a result of Amazon carrying this product the Cards Against Humanity website itself starting taking suggestions for new card ideas as well as giving customers a space to create and print their own cards! This has made Cards Against Humanity incredibly popular to the point where I own the game and all three expansion packs even though there are few opportunities to play.

 

8tracks

For my first post I am going to talk about www.8tracks.com and why the website in itself is so engaging. 8tracks is an internet radio and social networking service that revolves around the concept of streaming user created playlists that consist of at least 8 tracks. This service allows people to be listeners, DJ’s, artists, or developers which allows for a broad range of discovery for all types of music lovers.

What makes 8tracks stand out amongst other streaming websites such as pandora, or spotify is that when you go to http://www.8tracks.com you are prompted to select a word, emotion, or genre, such as indie, coffee, or workout. You are then prompted to pick a second phrase and 8track produces a list of recommended playlists. This makes their service unique because they have playlists that capture an emotion or feeling rather than just a genre and I myself have found some pretty amazing on this site through this method.

The site has a good mix of hits and undiscovered music which makes it easy for everyone to find what they are looking for. It gives artists a platform to share their art with listeners and listeners an outlet to share this with their friends. This site is so engaging because you never hear the same mix twice, and often you wont even find the same song twice. I always find myself getting lost in this site because of the amount of engaging and rateable content. Once you find one playlist you like the website auto populates other mixes that people who like the one you’re currently listening to recommended and begins to learn your personal preferences. This website makes people talk because when people fall in love with a playlist they share it and their friends fall in love with the site as well.

Overall I feel like this is a website anyone could find engaging and something that more people should take the time to explore.