Facebook

Eckles, Franz, Okdie, Rose, & Vogel (2015) were interested in exploring the relationship between the use of social applications (e.g., Facebook) and its relationship between social comparison orientation (SCO). Unintentionally people compare themselves to others, and with the advancement of technology and social networking sites (SNS), it has been theorized that more substantial use of social media such as Facebook can negatively affect a person’s wellbeing.

Social networking sites display what people choose to post, most of it being accomplishments, attitudes, daily habits, and routines. Social applications offer various opportunities for people to self-evaluate and compare, which can provide evidence on how it affects a person’s welfare. The authors hypothesized that people that are high in SCO are more likely to engage in social applications because it offers a platform for social comparison, and with this behavior results in a negative shift in a person’s well-being made on social media.

The study consisted of 145 undergraduates (106 females) from Midwestern University who received course credit for their participation. The study was completed on computers in a lab using MediaLab software where participants completed a series of questionnaires involving social media use in college students.

The materials used included an online survey made up of four parts. The first part involved a 6-point Likert-type scale in measuring the frequency of use in Facebook. The second part used the Iowa Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (INCOM) which consisted of 11 statement on a 5-point Likert-type scale to measure individuals’ differences in social comparison orientation (SCO).

The third part used the State Self-Esteem Scale (SSES) which consisted of 20 statements on a 1-5 Likert-type scale that measures self-esteem levels. The fourth part used Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) which consisted of a 20-item scale to measure positive and negative mood states.

The fifth part use trait self-perceptions which included evaluative statements consisting of 11 traits to measure self-comparison. For the procedure, a consent form was administered to participants. After, participants were thanked and debriefed.

The data analysis regarding participants high in SCO being more negatively affected due the upward social comparison was used to examine the psychological outcomes. The correlated variables were compared between both the experimental condition variable and the Facebook experimental condition.

The researcher intervals the dependent measures onto SCO to find the relationship between the dummy-coded variables included in the model. The variable comparing Facebook experimental condition to the control condition was insignificant to show differences in self-perceptions.

However, the relationship between SCO and the dummy-coded variables compared to Facebook experimental condition against Facebook control conditions showed significance in trait self-perceptions.

The authors’ hypotheses were all confirmed by the results. The results overall demonstrated that social comparisons negatively impact people high in social comparison orientation. Research shown that high-SCO participants tend to be heavier users of social applications. As a result, researchers suggest that the greater social comparison on social media leads to negative and unintentional psychological outcomes.

The limitation addressed was the association between SCO and Facebook use in the study that was based on cross-sectional design. Future research could measure Facebook use with different techniques such as experience-sampling. Overall, the researcher’s findings provided helpful information for my hypothesis regarding the influence of social networking sites on a person’s psychological state.

As time progresses, the use of technology is reaching an all-time high. The rise of digital media has become an accessible source that anyone can make use of. It seems like everyone nowadays knows how to work a tablet, smartphone, and a laptop device. Digital media is present throughout the rest of the world, and continues to change the world in various shapes and forms. With the exponential increase in digital media, the majority of society may believe that the digital media is detrimental to society.

Even famous, notable figures such as Albert Einstein believed that “technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” However, society fails to realize that digital media serves a countless amount of benefits. The use of digital media has a positive impact on the learning process, which stimulates life-long learning, builds collectives, introduces learning through play, and creates a digital network.

To begin with, digital media serves as a tool that encourages education and life-long learning. When using digital media to further one’s knowledge, one begins to use learning as a resource. Based on the book A New Culture of Learning by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, the authors demonstrate the idea that “googling the error” gives people the opportunity to find solutions. The book describes a man named Allen who had trouble with computer coding.

Instead of giving up, he used his mistakes as an opportunity to learn. He would post his mistakes on a Google search engine and would discover results from people who were facing the same situation. This highlights the importance of searching for questions and finding solutions. The many search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, can provide unbelievable amounts of information that people can use to their advantage.

Also, technology supports education and life-long learning because it creates new learning environments. By creating this, people are able to gain knowledge in a particular field. This opens doors for people to learn more valuable skills and achieve new ideas. The work “Seven Keys to Unlocking School Transformation with Digital Media,” explains how schools “need to direct their efforts toward changing the school culture as it impacts the learning environment.”

This statement is very true. Schools have to make an effort to change the way the world thinks about learning. Introducing others to new learning environments enhances innovation and creativity. By creating this, students will become even more engaged with their classmates. Students will be able to solve problems and adapt to new situations.

Also, new learning environments build more interactive activities. This is very beneficial to a new outlook on learning because it will create many different learning experiences. Especially in a school setting, young students are able to express their ideas and share to their peers their recent discoveries. Students will be able to develop their learning style and also find other ways to obtain information. It is essential to realize that digital media creates a positive impact on the learning process by inspiring others find a passion for learning.

What makes digital media so fascinating in this day and age is the formation of collectives. With this new concept of learning process accompanied by digital media, we begin to see the rise of the collective. Due to digital media, forming collectives is a much easier, accessible, and faster process compared to the past. Digital media helps people learn and work more in the collective. The pace of forming this type of group as of now is rather quick compared to the past.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a collective is known as “involving all members of a group as distinct from its individuals.” This term is present all over digital media. What is very essential to the collective is that everyone has the chance to learn from each other. The emerging collective is demonstrated in author Timothy Ferris’ work, known as Seeing in the Dark. Ferris calls this work “revolution now sweeping through amateur astronomy.”

From this story, it is demonstrated that the power of the collective is very important. What drive a collective ultimately are two key things: desire and interest. What is great about the collective is the use of observation and collaboration in order to perform a particular assignment. This way, more useful information and data can be developed. This data can be easily spread with the formation of the collective. To sum up, the people involved in this real life event were driven by interaction and sending each other information. Through collaboration, great results can be achieved.

This concept is very similar to the use of social networking sites. Some prime examples are the use of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. These websites are very effective, and exceed our expectations in learning. With these websites, users are able to focus on peer-to-peer learning.

In the article “Ryerson student fighting cheating charges for Facebook Study Group,” freshman student Chris Avenir formed an online Facebook group known as “Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions.” He and one hundred forty five other students participated in this group, where each member would help one another solve homework problems. With this design, Avenir and the other students encountered a problem and used this type of peer learning to find innovative solutions. Creating a study group allows the students to learn so much more compared to what they would have learned independently.

Luckily in March 2008, there was “no proof the Facebook group led to cheating.” The use of collaboration, similar interests, and dedication towards a certain subject heightens this new form of learning. Students have the ability to address specific problems of the subject material. Others can either help the student or learn by observing how other students encounter the problem. Interacting with other peers to find more results and conclusions creates better problem solving skills. Collaboration leads to setting goals and sooner or later achieving them. Users address certain obstacles and make an effort to overcome them.

Another emergence of the collective is shown through blogs. The website blogbasics.com describes a blog as “a frequently updated online personal journal or diary. It is a place to express yourself to the world. A place to share your thoughts and your passions.” Blogs are websites that can be personal.

This website is created by an individual who records their own beliefs and ideas on certain topics. Each blog is different in its own way. The user who has a blog website can update their page with new ideas, thoughts, and opinions. The attitude of the blog can be different for every user. What makes this unique is that this content online may be very similar to other experiences and ideas of other users. The similarities between certain blogs can bring users together.

The one benefit that a blog provides is building a community, network, and like-minded group. A great example that demonstrates the positive impact from blogs is in the article “Why I Blog” (November, 2008) by Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan was known as a senior editor for the Atlantic. In his work, he explains how the creation of blogs is changing the way people use journalism. Sullivan states that the “blogger can get away with less and afford fewer pretensions of authority.”

The boundless ability of blogs creates unlimited amounts of resources in terms of learning. Because of blogs, it has changed the forms of communication. Blogs can constantly be edited by the user and the audience as well. This idea forms collectives that can help form the reader and author’s perspective on certain subjects. Sullivan also notes that “Jazz and blogging are intimate, improvisational, and individual- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both.”

Through blogs, people are able to learn a concept known as “process orientated learning”. This approach is referred to as utilizing information processing and communication skills. The importance of this idea is that the audience is more interested to become involved in the subject matter.

The audience and the author can bring up certain topics, pressing issues, and ideas that they both have a particular concern for. What makes this form of digital media great is that people have the choice to build on these ideas. These collectives play an important role in engaging others in the learning process. In summary, forming collectives from digital media is an important aspect in the new way of learning.

Lastly, digital media is essential in the fact that it gives the world an opportunity to learn through play. This type of learning is the most simple, yet one of the most effective ways of learning. In summary, utilizing digital media gives people a chance to learn through play. One way that represents this idea of learning through play is through video games. There is typically a negative stigma between the uses of video games. But what society fails to realize that people can learn so much from this type of digital media.

One piece of knowledge that is gained is digital literacy. Videos games genres, such as “Role Playing Games”, and “Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas” help facilitate a unique approaches to learning. The article “Literacy in the digital age: Learning from computer games” by author Christopher Walsh claims that “The richness and complexity of young people’s textual/literate experience in online worlds has increasingly challenged contemporary iterations of literacy in the school curriculum.”

Many of these games include concepts that deal with complex stories. There is a variety of use of vocabulary that is used in these games. These terms merge education and play in a very distinct way. This gives players a deeper understanding of language. Many of these kind of words can be formed and in many different ways. These words express certain ideas in a particular game. A great example is farming, which is a term that describes the “act of accumulating currency or items in role playing games” (mmoterms.com). These terms help express various strategies within the respective game.

One of the most important things to note is that video games increases learning through play in many other ways as well. Who would have thought that a video game can teach so many valuable lessons to the players? To many others’ surprise, video games actually provide a foundation that increases participation and engagement. This is a very unique way of learning through digital media, and is quite effective.

These games heavily rely on teamwork, and critical thinking skills, and because of digital media, the digital network helps the learning process grow. For example, the hit game World of Warcraft, serve to be a different way of learning by doing. To many people’s surprise, this video game and many others is an actual resource for learning in a shifting and changing environment.

The article “Blizzard’s success isn’t magic; just hard work and open minds” by Rob Fahey shows claims that this massive multiplayer online “game still has almost [ten] million people paying to play each month.” So many users learn essential skills along the way of this online journey. Team members in a group help analyze and critique each other’s performance, abilities, and skills. Every member is striving to search and share new information that will help them become better players.

Fahey’s article follows up by stating that “Blizzard probably has more data about what players actually do in their game than any other developer on earth.” Many massive-multiplayer online games show in-game statistics to the users. Players use this data to determine how well they are doing in the game. They use this as a track record to see what skills and strategies that they can improve on. Many players use this as a tool to test and discover even new findings.

What is important is that people are actively participating in this collective. Each user is finding different sources of information in order to complete a certain task. Because each member is constantly engaged, the levels of inspiration will be at an all-time high. This type of learning makes it enjoyable, appealing, and fun for these users.

Playing games is a process that involves everyone as a whole. It is solely not based on an individual who does the most work. It is rather about the journey that a team goes through to conquer a challenge. The levels of satisfaction that users may experience as they finally complete their goals is uplifting. Massive-multiplayer online games clearly show how learning can be achieved through play.

All in all, the findings of digital technology are ground breaking. The use of digital media has a positive impact on the learning process. Digital media in society has many benefits. It stimulates life-long learning, builds collectives, introduces learning through play, and creates a digital network.

If the world continues to become proactive and open minded towards this new approach to learning, we will soon prove Albert Einstein wrong. The world will have a generation of geniuses, prodigies, and masterminds. If society begins to make the most out of the resources around us, many benefits will soon take place. Another important idea to remember is that learning can be a fun and enjoyable experience.

The world is so used to believing that learning can be strenuous, boring, and tedious. Learning is typically associated with the words “school” and “teacher.” If society uses new, creative, and innovative methods, the perceived idea of learning will definitely change for the better. There is so much potential for growth. The great thing is that technology is only getting better, and more methods are being created. It is never too late to learn because we are always learning something new every day.

Television has truly changed the lives of most people in Britain. Nearly all British households have at least one colour television. The amount of time people spend each day watching TV is increasingly significantly every year. In the first three months of 2010 British viewers watched a record of more than four hours of TV a day on average. Some children have become addicted to watching TV and watch it all day when not in school. Referring to Passage B, children will have watched about 25,000 hours of TV by the age of 18.

I believe parents need to be stricter with their children and get them involved with sports and clubs to prevent them from watching too much TV or playing games indoors. A lot of the programs on TV today including Big Brother, The only way is Essex, etc, are reality programmes that are meaningless to our everyday lives.

People will do anything to get on TV nowadays!

Technology is getting more advanced each day and has taken over our lives. From small fuzzy TV’s with few channels to plasma screen TV’s with hundreds, from writing letters to instantly texting someone on a touch screen phone. These are all amazing advances in technology and have changed people’s lives. Although as it says in Passage B, TV violence contributes to real violence and it influences people into bad language, sex and pain.

The Internet has also changed many people lives. In Passage A, it mentions a new technology called VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol, so now people can phone there friends, wherever they are, for as long as you want, for absolutely free. I think this is good and bad because all though it is fast and doesn’t cost, people may then spend to much time on their phone, knowing there are no restrictions.

There are also many social network sites where you can chat to friends instantly and share personal information. People as young as 10 have an account on these social network sites, which can be highly dangerous. There are pedophiles on these sites that can easily manipulate young kids. The sites try to stop these things from happening but with so many people online, it’s almost impossible to stop them all.

Facebook is one of the biggest online social networking sites with over 850million users and over 3000 employees. It is one of the fastest ways to communicate with friends and share personal information. Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site and was created in 2004. You must be 13 or older to have an account on Facebook but there 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site’s terms of service.

Technology is a massive thing in our everyday lives and we use it for almost everything. People can accomplished so many things using technology and it helped companies become more known, millions of people can watch the same thing at once, but its not just TV and Internet. With new technology we can fly jumbo jets around the world, visiting 100’s of different countries each day.

Technology has changed massively within the last 20 years, which is very good, but could also be very bad. We need to control how we use technology, especially watching TV and the internet, because it is wasting our lives when they are many things to do and things t accomplish. This is what we have come to.

Comments, pictures, “about me” section, and last login date are a few of many things one can choose to show or keep hidden on his or her profile. Namespace allows its user to choose songs to post on their profile. This means the user has the ability to create an infinite amount of song playbills for friends to listen to while visiting his or her profile page. Namespace also supplies Its user with a personal homepage aside from a profile page. This Is In turn helpful because it allows the user to check messages, notifications, and picture comments. Namespace has simple and “to he point” privacy settings as compared to Faceable.

The user may choose to allow everyone to view his or her profile, or Just his or her friends. This same rule Is applied to picture album access. Namespace also tends to aim its site towards teenagers by providing its users with a cornucopia of gaming applications like “Mafia Wars” and “Sorority Life”, and allowing its user to find friends by high school name. A major downfall regarding the Namespace site is its inability to limit the number of friends a user can have; he or she may have two million friends and up which can be Mathew overwhelming to the account holder.

Namespace carries a lot of spam on its site as well. On any occasion, a user’s inbox can be filled with unnecessary messages from anonymous people. One of the most problematic Issues with Namespace Is the fact that It Is extremely easy for one’s account to get fished; or hacked. By simply opening a message, a Namespace user’s account may become hacked or encounter a harmful virus. Faceable, a second and recently more popular social networking site, delivers the same purpose as Namespace but differs in certain aspects. A Faceable user has no actual “profile”.

He or she is provided with one page that is seen by friends. The user has a comment wall that displays recent activity which cannot be customized. Faceable allows its user to post “What’s On Your Mind? ” in the form of status updates. Unlike Namespace, Passbook’s page design is the same for everyone, meaning that nothing on a user’s page can be customized or tweaked to his or her own specifications. Faceable also has an over abundance of applications as well as unnecessary groups one can Join. The user may add as many applications as he or she wants, and can Join groups like ” I hate cold peanut butter”.

One unsatisfactory feature of Faceable Is Its complicated privacy settings. “Friends of friends” can still view an individual’s page unless he or she specifically changes it, tagged photos can stall De seen Day toners even IT ten user may not want TN s, an I Is extremely easy to view other people’s wall and photo albums if one user posts a picture or link on another users wall whom he or she is already friends with. Faceable is a more mature site than Namespace in the aspect of its site being geared towards college students and people in the business world.

Faceable allows it user to be “straight forward” by posting links and having simple methods of contact, instead of slowing the user down by having musical playbills and such. Another positive feature about Faceable is it being much easier to keep in close contact with friends and family members. This is due to the friend limit Faceable gives to its users. In actuality, both Namespace and Faceable are great social networking sites. Namespace has positive and negative elements as well as Faceable, and they can both be used according to one’s personal reasons for socially networking. Word count: 762

Over the past several years, social media marketing has been an addition to an increasing number of companies’ integrated marketing plans. Firms of all sizes are employing various platforms of this marketing tactic. At the most basic level, social media marketing enables conversations between firms and their customers, as opposed to traditional marketing methods where the firm directs the message. Businesses are beginning to realize that they cannot control these ongoing conversations, but rather, influence them. This trend has resulted in the growth of SocialCorps, “companies that are learning to take advantage of the power of social media to reshape their relationships with customers and other important audiences.

Becoming a SocialCorp allows a company to gain benefits that are otherwise limited with traditional forms of marketing. Such advantages include: unparalleled access to market research, enhanced brand awareness and perception, better engagement with all stakeholders, increased control over the company’s marketplace message, and a richer user experience. This paper will explain how various companies have used social media marketing differently to achieve these advantages.

Social networking websites are visited by three-quarters of all Internet users. With the growing popularity of social media usage, many companies believe Web 2.0 marketing is the future3. As social media marketing gains headlines in companies’ strategic agendas, astonishing statistics are revealed about the use of this marketing tactic:

• Dell estimates that through its various communication channels, the company has two billion “conversations” with customers every year.4
• 88% of marketers are using social media marketing for their business. Of these, 72% reported that they had been using social media marketing for a few months or less.5
• 79% of the Fortune 100 companies are present and listening, using at least of one of the main social platforms to communicate with their customers.6
• By 2011, online social media advertising in the U.S. will be approximately $2.5 billion.7

From these statistics, it is evident that companies of all sizes are actively using different social platforms to reach their target segments. However, a shift of focus to social media marketing will bring substantial transformation to a company’s strategic planning process. As such, this paper will answer a question that companies should ask when engaging in social media marketing: will it be more beneficial to leverage publicly available social media platforms or to build a platform in-house? Will the choice differ between companies, and what are the benefits and risks of either solution?

Benefits of Leveraging Established Social Media Platforms

The advantages of using an established social media channel over one created in-house are lower production and maintenance costs, quick access to a large established user base, ease of use for the consumer and increased information credibility. Businesses create company-specific marketing campaigns on established social media channels to leverage these benefits in order to engage consumers, increase brand and product/service awareness, reduce customer support costs, and drive revenues.

The Ford Fiesta Movement Campaign

A successful social media marketing campaign which demonstrated the benefits of using established social media channels was the Fiesta Movement Campaign by Ford. Ford gave 100 participants Ford Fiestas for six months and asked them to complete a different “mission” every month. These “agents” delivered dinners from Meals on Wheels, eloped with the help of the Fiesta, and wrestled alligators8 among many other things. Agents were required to document their adventures on Youtube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter pages which Ford had created.

The Ford Fiesta Movement was considered an extremely successful social media campaign. Agents produced 700 videos which generated 6.5 million views. Photos taken by the agents have accumulated more than 670,000 views. The campaign prompted over 50,000 U.S. consumers to request more information about the car, 97% of which did not already own a Ford vehicle. In the first six days of sales, Ford sold 10,000 units.

First, using established social media channels allowed Ford to gain quick access to a large established user-base. for its small European cars is Millennials, those born between 1979 and 1996. It is estimated that 75% of Millennials use social media sites and one in five have uploaded a video of themselves online.10 Ford therefore focused their efforts on the established social media sites, as a large majority of their target market is already using these sites. It was easier for Ford to leverage existing websites instead of working to direct consumers using an in-house social network.

Second, Ford was able to benefit from consumers who were already familiar with popular social media websites to build awareness. Ford hand-picked “agents” in their 20s who had already successfully built an online fan community of their own and who were able to craft a narrative.11 Instead of pitching the idea to agents as the means to a free car, agents were incented to create content for their own benefit to feed their current networks and build their own profiles. In the process, the agents contributed to building Fiesta’s brand by helping develop an image of glamour, uniqueness and excitement around the car.

Third, Ford created a sense of credibility by using external social media channels on which the content would be harder to control or modify. Ford took a huge risk by taking a “hands off” approach, telling agents to be completely truthful and agreeing not to edit or censor any information that was posted. This showed consumers that Ford cared about what they had to say which was particularly important at a time when consumers were not happy to be bailing out Amercian automotive companies.12 Allowing agents to freely express their opinions about the car also helped Ford to fix any reported problems or improve functionality based on the agents’ suggestions.

Key Takeaways

Ford used established social media channels to engage consumers and build brand awareness. Using Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube, Ford was able to gain quick access to its target market with consumers who were already users of these channels. Ford was also able to use specific consumers who were experts with these established channels to attract more viewers as well as raise awareness among the experts’ large base of followers. Finally, Ford established its credibility by allowing agents to post whatever they wanted. While Ford took a huge risk by agreeing not to edit the agents’ content, it ultimately worked in their favour.

Risks of Leveraging Established Social Media Platforms

Along with the many strengths of social marketing, there are also many risks that are associated with relying on third party platforms. For one, companies that engage in this medium often experience lack of content control. Second, information gets spread too quickly due to the large user bases of established social media websites. Third, the effectiveness of conventional social media marketing is limited, due to the sheer volume of companies already utilizing this mechanism.

Molson Coors Dorm Room Campaign

Molson Coors Brewing Company (Molson) is a classic example of how a company underestimated the negative consequences that are associated with traditional social media marketing mediums. Molson is Canada’s oldest brewery and the world’s fifth largest brewing company. Therefore, it is well-recognized within Canada and has a significant market share in the beer industry. In the past, Molson has experimented with blogs13 and a static corporate website, but has had very little social media presence overall. Recognizing that a large portion of their current target audience utilizes these mediums and wanting to catch up to its competitors, Molson initiated an online media campaign.

On October 18th 2007, Molson officially launched its “Dorm Room” project on the fastest growing social networking site – Facebook. The campaign encouraged Canadian university and college students from ages 19 to 24 to post pictures of themselves partying on campus. The school with the most pictures uploaded would win a trip for five to spend spring break in Cancun, Mexico. An advertisement for this campaign read, “Be the #1 party school in Canada; show everyone how you and your crew get the party started.”14 According to Molson, the intention of the campaign was to show “school spirit and sociability;” however, these goals were not reached and the campaign placed Molson under public scrutiny.

The nature of the campaign was highly criticized by universities, parents and students because they blamed the company for encouraging binge drinking. Even the front-runner of the contest, Memorial University in St. Johns, stated that the contest made them look bad. Within days, the company received numerous complaints. Several universities – including Queen’s, McMaster and St. Francis Xavier – condemned the contest in the Globe and Mail as “glorifying excessive drinking.”15 As a result of the public backlash, the contest was shut down a week prior to the November 29th deadline. While there are advantages for Molson to engage their customers via social marketing, the message of the “Dorm Room” campaign was controversial. As a result, this exemplifies how marketing using established social networking mediums can bring significant risks to the brand.

First, on Facebook and other traditional social media websites, companies cannot control how much freedom they give to their audience. Users have the freedom to post pictures, messages and videos. However, on in-house websites, companies have the ability to adjust the amount of power they give to the end consumer. Molson did not have the ability to control how much freedom they gave to consumers, allowing consumers to post whatever they wanted and consequently, violating the privacy rights of many individuals. Once a picture was posted, only Molson could remove the picture. Molson was unaware of certain individuals’ resistance to having their pictures posted on the site and the campaign generated negative backlash. Even as Molson shut down the contest, they could not ensure that they erased all traces of the pictures posted on the Internet.

Second, by using traditional social media websites, the established user base compounds the speed at which information is spread. In Molson’s case, pictures spread quickly across Facebook, much to the dismay of many students featured in the photographs. Facebook has over 500 million users who all had access to Molson’s pictures. Further, the pictures could be immediately viewed by the members of one’s network with the “tagging” and “news feed” features.

Finally, the effectiveness of conventional social media marketing is limited due to the sheer volume of companies who are already marketing to consumers on these websites. In 2006, U.S. companies spent $920 million on advertising on social media websites. Despite high spending, only 12% of Facebook users have added a brand to their page, and over 75% of Facebook users said they would not purchase a product or service from a brand via their profile page.16 Therefore, social media marketing should not be viewed as an infallible way for companies to promote. The Molson campaign was one of the many campaigns on Facebook and was popularized by the outcry of the public, rather than direct support from its target market. In total, only 200 pictures were uploaded onto Facebook and large universities such as the University of Toronto and Guelph University only submitted 15 photos each (Exhibit 3).17

Key Takeaways

By using traditional social media channels, managers might be forced to give up control over the contents to the websites and to their users. In Molson’s case, it passed the power to individuals who posted images onto Molson’s Facebook campaign page. The company should be wary of the freedom which the users can have when it reengages itself in conventional social media marketing. Also, social media websites have large user bases; this implies that the information found within these sites can travel at an extreme speed. Photos posted on Molson’s page were not limited to just Molson’s examination but they were available for the entire network.

Finally, even though social media websites have gained tremendous popularity and enormous adoption rates, every campaign should be redesigned for each medium in order to stand out from the competitors. Molson failed to capture a large audience with its campaign because Facebook is already saturated with many advertisers. Therefore, Molson needs to establish a creative method to market its campaign when it reengages in using conventional social media websites. In general, social media advertisement can be a phenomenal way to increase brand awareness when it becomes a company’s integrated marketing campaign, as long as the associated risks are acknowledged and accounted for.

Benefits of Developing In-House Social Media Platforms

There are many benefits associated with creating and managing an internal social community. First, a company has the flexibility to display information in the way they intended. Second, keeping a social network in-house also helps bring legitimacy and credibility to the information available on the platform. Finally, creating a separate social media platform allows users to have access to a closed network.

Pampers Village Campaign

Pampers’ slogan, “every step of the way”18 embodies their overall strategy. Pampers strives both to provide a high-quality product and a supply a service for women throughout their pregnancy and early child rearing years. The company has created and continues to host an online social community, Pampers Village, to facilitate an open network of communication between itself and its customers (Exhibit 4).

On the website, parents have access to a breadth of information about the pregnancy process. They also have access to parenting tips and advice as their child ages. Parents have the ability to communicate with both other parents and also with Pampers’ panel of “baby experts.”19 Pampers Village exemplifies many of the benefits associated with hosting an internal social community, as opposed to promoting their brand via established social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

First, Pampers Village ensures that Pampers has enormous flexibility in the way data is displayed and how communication is encouraged. On Twitter, or example, messages are limited to 140 characters. Although websites such as Facebook allows more flexibility than Twitter, the pages companies can create nonetheless have preset layouts and formats. Pampers Village is divided into five sections depicting a stage in a child’s life. Each section is further divided into categories which discuss various issues a mother may face at that stage. Existing social media websites would not have been the appropriate medium to host Pampers Village on as the display and organization of data would be restricted by the inherent limitations of the existing platform.

Second, developing their own social network brings legitimacy to their message. On traditional social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, anyone can share their thoughts and claim to be an expert. However, on Pampers Village, there are a variety of experts from the Pampers Parenting Network (PPN) moderating discussions and providing pregnancy and parenting advice. PPN members participate in Q&As, write blogs and articles and post video demonstrations. PPN experts include: Laura Jana, M.D., a widely recognized parenting expert; Lisa Druxman, founder and CEO of Stroller Strides; and Julian Claus-Ehlers, executive chef and expert in healthy eating habits for the family.20 Mothers visiting Pampers Village recognize that they have access to high-quality and credible advice from parenting experts and thus continue to return to the website.

Finally, creating a social media platform separates the audience from their traditional network. Mothers have to register to use Pampers Village; however, they can register under whichever name they choose, bringing anonymity to the platform. If Pampers Village was hosted solely on Facebook, the forums likely would not be as active. Forum conversations include, “Actively trying to start a family,” “LGBT Parenting”21 and “Baby Basics.”

Mothers would be less likely to be open and honest on these forums if their posts were in full view of their entire social network, as it would be difficult to ensure confidentiality of these discussion posts on traditional social media websites such as Facebook. Pampers Village provides mothers the opportunity to network with other mothers in a closed network. Jodi Allen, North American vice president and general manager for Pampers echoes this sentiment, “All moms share a common goal — to raise a healthy, happy child. And the great thing about Pampers.com is that moms can connect, bond and chat with other moms all over the globe in real time and share in each other’s experiences.”22

Key Takeaways

A strong online presence is critical to Pampers’ success. “We leverage Pampers Village to maintain a constant conversation and relationship,” says Zeeshan Shams, category brand manager, baby and toddler care, Procter and Gamble, Canada. “Our online properties help to keep our brand top of mind.”23 Despite massive competition in the online parenting field, Pampers Village has been largely successful in accessing new mothers. In 2009, Pampers Village generated 20,000 unique visitors per month in Canada.24

It is likely that the Pampers Village concept would not have been as successful if it had been hosted on a traditional social network. The creators of Pampers Village correctly recognized that in order to gain an audience in the online parenting field and consequently learn more about their customers; they needed to create their own social community. The development of a brand new network allowed the company to distribute a wide variety of content in their own format, brought legitimacy to the platform and created a new community where mothers could connect anonymously. The success of Pampers Village illustrates the benefits of taking a risk and developing a new social network.

Risks of Developing In-House Social Media Platforms

Despite the many benefits that can be gained by developing a unique in-house social media platform or campaign, this approach presents a number of risks and challenges. First, it can sometimes be difficult to engage consumers and draw them to newly created social media websites. Second, in-house social media efforts are likely to require greater maintenance and monitoring. Third, in-house developments demand a greater degree of corporate responsibility than is needed when using publicly available social media platforms.

GM Chevy Tahoe Apprentice Campaign

In the spring of 2006, General Motors teamed up with Donald Trump’s The Apprentice franchise to create a website that allowed contestants to develop their own commercial to promote the new Chevy Tahoe SUV. Their website, ChevyApprentice.com, encouraged participants to design a 30 second digital advertisement by selecting from a variety of pre-set backgrounds, video clips, and theme music that GM had constructed. These user-generated commercials could also include floating text over the images of the creators choosing.25 In addition to having their personal commercial aired on television, the winner and other top contenders had the chance to win a number of big-ticket items, such as a trip to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.26

Over the course of the contest, thousands of users took the opportunity to share their personal thoughts on the Tahoe. Not surprisingly, the ability to share one’s thoughts freely created the perfect opportunity for the anti-SUV crowd to voice their discontent for GM’s newest vehicle. Of the 22,000 commercials that were submitted, approximately 4,000 took a negative tone.27 The majority of these submissions were either anti-SUV, promoted a specific cause, defamed a particular group or directly attacked the product (Exhibit 5).

For example, some critics pointed fingers at GM for contributing to global warming, as witnessed in an ad that featured shots of the Tahoe zooming through snow, mountains, and desert. Over these clips appeared the phrase “Global warming isn’t a pretty SUV ad. It’s a frightening reality.” In another clip, the words “Yesterday’s technology today” appeared over a clip of pumping engine pistons.28 Many of these negative commercials went viral, and could be found everywhere from YouTube to Flickr to specific message boards, such as DemocraticUnderground.org. The Chevy Apprentice campaign highlights many of the risks associated with creating a social media website in-house.

First, the biggest risk that companies face in attempting to create their own social media website is attracting traffic to their newly created websites. GM mitigated this risk successfully by launching their campaign on the popular television show, The Apprentice, and leveraged other forms of marketing to generate awareness of their social media website. Ultimately, over 22,000 people were enticed to participate in the campaign. ChevyApprentice.com generated 2.4 million page views, with the average visit lasting more than nine minutes.29 A truly unique platform has the potential to draw consumers if it is able to create a novel social media experience.

Second, developing a unique social media website is a large investment, as the company is building a new infrastructure for social interaction from scratch. The company must devote significant resources to maintain the website, as they are solely responsible for managing and storing data, enabling security mechanisms, user identity management, and continual upgrades. A flaw in managing any of these aspects has the potential to hamper the overall success of a social media effort.

Third, companies are directly accountable for what happens as a result of their personal social media efforts, as they have the ability to directly control content and how the public can view it. On publicly available platforms such as Facebook, companies can blame negative content posted by consumers on the open-ended nature of these platforms and the lack of control the company has over filtering content. GM did not explicitly state rules for contestants designing an advertisement, which gave consumers the impression that GM was not taking responsibility for the content that is being generated.

Further, they did not screen any of the submissions before it became viewable by the general public. After negative submissions surfaced on the website (Exhibit 5), GM did not remove these commercials, specifically stating that they would “begin screening ads for offensive and inflammatory content but would not remove any material based solely on a negative tone toward the company.”30 Although GM was attempting to maintain their customers’ freedom of speech, they did not account for differences in opinions when deciding what was “offensive,” and were criticized for not monitoring controversial topics in their campaign.

Key Takeaways

General Motors’ Chevy Tahoe Apprentice Campaign provides an excellent example as to how using in-house social media can backfire and lead to negative consumer reactions towards the brand. The debate still continues as to whether or not the GM campaign should be deemed a marketing failure or success. The majority of reviewers have labelled it a social media disaster, based on the negative feedback generated. In contrast, GM and a select handful of reviewers believed that this campaign was a marketing success. GM was pleased that the website was highly trafficked and that over eighty percent of commercials depicted the Tahoe in a favourable light. Overall, the campaign generated significant buzz, which was precisely what GM hoped to achieve.31

Despite these apparent successes, there are certainly efforts GM could have undertaken to avoid some of the negative reactions. The company could have taken a more proactive approach to prevent negative backlashes by screening ads more carefully before they could be viewed by the general public. Perhaps a campaign intended to engage participants to create videos about “how much they love the Tahoe” would have been a better approach.32 Although this may not have generated as many entries, it would eliminate the participants’ ability to demote the brand and introduce controversial topics. A handful of authentic, homemade video submissions would have been a better way to promote the vehicle and generate word of mouth buzz in a positive manner.

Conclusion

The paper examined campaigns that were successful and unsuccessful in utilizing both established social media platforms or developing platforms in-house. Ultimately, a consensus was not reached regarding which strategy is most effective, as there are numerous considerations to take into account given the context of a company’s current position.

In order to leverage existing social media platforms, the company’s target segment should already be current users of these channels so that quick access to these consumers is gained. Additionally, these consumers must be active users of these platforms so that the company can leverage these users to raise awareness about a specific product or brand. However, managers today should nonetheless recognize that social network marketing is still a novelty.

Thus, many companies hoping to “hop on the social media bandwagon” may opt for using existing platforms as these platforms are inexpensive and familiar to their existing customer base. As the number of companies using existing platforms grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate a product and brand on these platforms. Lastly, opting for this marketing tactic ultimately forces the company to give up control regarding the content that is being posted on these third party websites.

On the other hand, creating and managing an internal social community allows a company to gain both flexibility with the way in which they choose to display information and bring credibility to those information that is being passed onto the consumers. However, if a company chooses to develop an in-house social media platform, attracting consumers towards this platform may prove more difficult since the in-house platform will not be as well-known as traditional social media sites. In-house social media efforts also require greater maintenance and monitoring and the company creating the site holds a greater responsibility for the content posted since they have the ability to control and filter content.

For many companies, social media marketing should be used as an integral part of the company’s strategic marketing plan. However, with so many strategic options available regarding social media, it is essential for the company to acknowledge that different social media tactics are suitable for different companies, products, and target customers. The most successful social media marketing campaign requires a thorough understanding of the company’s customer base and online habits.

Against – Individuals connect through faceable to their co-workers or colleagues which helps them to remain up to date. – Faceable is used to advertise products which are relatively new in the market and can be easily purchased through faceable. – It is good way to update people about the recent events taking place nearby or in the world. – Faceable being a quick and effective way of communicating (people separated by time zones) can not be termed as a time pass activity. – Faceable teaches a lot of new aspects about different websites. Faceable is Just a fad that will pass Yes because… No because…

The Web Is something rich and strange and Faceable Is not Back in 1988 before the Web arrived we used to play a lot of image based games around the internet, passing encoded images back and forth and basically working hard to make some sense of this dark network where no-one could see anyone else. From that point on for me the internet and the web have been a rich and strange something unknowable to the sum total of where we worked and played. Faceable doesn’t really do any of that. It’s a nice tidy ‘bur where everyone has more or less the same house, same garden, same car, same attitude.

Sure, we can all add friends and Join networks and add applications, but it’s always clear that there is no curtain behind which strange things might lurk. Faceable is the Auber controlled environment – useful and wanted by many, but not pregnant with potentials. Faceable is more about the known than the unknown – and that’s a good thing. Who but the most insecure of us cares about having 429 ‘friends’, most of whom we wouldn’t talk to twice if we met them in real life. Faceable provides a way of connecting to the people you already know – but for one reason or another don’t stay in regular contact with.

As we get older, settle down, have kids and spend more time at work, those little catch up chats or times hanging out with friends dwindle to almost nothing. That’s not to say you don’t like the people you don’t see as much, Just that they’re not in your immediate circle and the genuine desire to ‘meet up soon’ Just never gets realized. Faceable allows us to keep in contact with them through their status updates, when they add pictures, when someone they know tags them in a picture, when they add an app and ask a question – or in a hundred other ways.

This is a way of connecting to them and of ensuring we know what they’re up to. It is therefore easier to send a quick note about their daughter or wish them a happy birthday. These small things break down the distance between us, they make the barrier of getting in touch smaller to cross – and they make the real world meetings more easy to make happen. Furthermore, faceable lacks clarity in who you are actually becoming friends with Faceable is Just a fad that will pass There are only so many new people Faceable is experiencing a huge wave of migration.

This is held up as proof of the genius of Seersucker, and indeed in many ways they have played a blinder. From a closed College based network, they have taken a gamble to open up to anyone and everyone and seen it pay off begrime. The viral nature of Faceable is supreme, with member get member raised to a new artwork. Eve read dozens of articles about how all of someone’s friends have arrived in Faceable in the very recent past, usually it looks safe in here and there are lush pastures for the cattle. Then everyone else takes up residence, and as they overlap with other social groups, the process repeats itself.

There is something engaging and exciting about arriving in n easy to understand social network, with tools to explore and people to Poke (ooh, the underlying sexual thrill of it all, it reminds me of my first disco, I didn’t know what that was all about either, but by God it turned me on). Face it, when someone invites you to Join Faceable and be their friend, its a cheap thrill to sign up and be that friend. If people want a social networking site there are millions, faceplate, hi, bebop, namespace etc… Casebook IS a fad that will pass, as some person eventually will outdo it, one of these pages will take all it’s features and make something better, as yuccas has done with bebop, as bebop has done with faceplate, etc.. Anyone could log onto namespace, and minus a few ‘pokes’, they can pretty much do the same, look at their friend’s status updates, chat to their friends etc. Why should faceable be THE social networking site? And also, namespace is the site that seems to get all the hype for getting musicians noticed. So what’s the fad for bands? Namespace!

Faceable is Just a fad that will pass There Just are no sophisticated tools in Faceable I’m used to some level of sophistication in my tools. I don’t mind using your online lolls, after all, it’s your community. But ifs, all I can do in my Groups is write on the wall? And then you can write on the same wall back to me. I can upload photos? Every time someone does something, I get sent an email without the content. There Just are no sophisticated tools in Faceable – everything is like a shallow version of what we’re used to on the outside.

For sure, the APS have started to put some depth back into the system, but it’s hard to imagine that we’ll en masses abandon our email and our IM and our other contact and memory tools and use the stubs that Faceable offers. Not for a while anyway, we’ll get disillusioned and wonder off as our attention drifts. Getting an email without the content was annoying, though this has now changed, and there are bound to be other parts of the site which don’t work as well as tools which are specifically designed for the Job.

But if there is a demand for features not currently provided someone out there will provide them. And some of the features Faceable does provide, such as tagging photos, inviting others to events, and garnering support for a great cause, are great It’s also worth considering the value of Faceable as a social aggregation tool for non- chess. Sure you’re used to some sophisticated tools, but the majority of internet users aren’t. They’re people with non-technical Jobs who Just want things to work. Faceable works without anyone leaving the comfort of a great LU and the safety blanket known as a privacy controls.

There are other colors I know this will sound very shallow and pathetic, but I really can’t imagine living with #baobab only for the rest of my life. As someone who was working with the web when there was not even any right align, let alone fancy layouts or the CSS wonders we see today, it pains me to have to use such a limited interface. With respect, it is the sort of interface that the East German government would have commissioned for their citizen network if they had lived to see in the true glory of the web.

Where I come from we call this color Navy Blue and with good reason, children grow up to hate it. Allied to the fixed layout, baobab is the antithesis of everything that design stands for and everything that the web has taught us – that we are individuals and that we make and remake our environment to work with our needs and desires. Even Google, that great interface reducer, has relented and offered multiple funky interfaces to heir start pages. So what’s with the fascist control freakier? Don’t you trust me to change things the way I like ‘me?

Think I might, like, go mad with funky colors? So what, that’s my freedom. Hammy, Faceable or Namespace which is the easiest to use? Given most people’s inability to create a readable web page I’m happy that Faceable restricts the look of its pages to one recognizable format. Give people free reign over the look of their page and they’ll go the flashy, blinks, confused way of Namespace. And there are friends I’d rather keep than lose for the knowledge of what they think looks cool. Call that a network? I live in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, UK. So for some reason that’s my network.

It has 54,384 members who, I guess, live in Brighton and Hove. The total population of Brighton is 247,820, which means my network contains approximately one sixth of the entire population of this town. There are only 117032 15 to 44 year olds, which means that almost 50% of them are members of my local network. Huh? I mean, this is some kind of groovy town, but I find that rather unlikely. Every single sentient being between the ages of fifteen and forty-five in my town? I see I can go to a costume making event at pm or GUILFORD MONDAY UNITE at pm that’s Guilford, not Brighton, but hey).

Popular in Brighton and Hove includes the faceable wide food fight and Britton’s Largest Water Fight. The Discussion Board has 164 discussion topics, starting with ‘How Many Wap To Say I Love You? , but frankly life’s too short. And then there’s The Wall. 754 posts starting with a bit of spam from Ben Williams. To say the will to live deserted me at this point would be an exaggeration, but to say the will to live in Brighton and Hove fled my feeble frame Just about sums it up. Why am I in this network? I am a sophisticated online denizen, I partake of and participate n hundreds of online societies and for a of all kinds.

Some are good, some are bad, some are essential to life. But none are as depressingly pointless as this all consuming Brighton and Hove Network. And yes, I know I can change my regional network, but what exactly would be the point of that? I quite like seeing my local friends’ faces peering out at me from the sidebar – but that’s not quite enough to make it worthwhile. I guess this approach worked quite well when it was a college based network, but imagine what it is like to be a London or Shanghai network member – they’ve elevated inanity to a whole new level.

Faceable offers a unique perspective to social networking in that you can friend people you know and the people they know to an extent. I find Faceable most useful for college because it helps the organizations I’m a part of invite people to our events. I can also find out about other group’s events on campus and even Join a greater cause to support Darker, let’s say. I’ve been able to keep in touch with people I went to kindergarten with! Granted most of them went to school with me since eighth grade, but it’s interesting to see where hey are based on how they were way when (the ass for us young folks).

It’s cool to see how they’ve changed and how they’ve stayed the same. I’ve also been able to keep in touch with high school friends who I get to visit a few times a year back in California while I go to school in Philly. No matter what my URL is I’m still unique. Having a long URL with a combination of random numbers and letters doesn’t decrease individuality at all. Sure I have a lot of friends I don’t really talk to and some I have never met, but at least it opens the door to a conversation: “Hey we’re Faceable friends, right?

In fact I was walking down the street yesterday, no Joke, and I saw two of my friends with one of their friends. We’d never met, but we were Faceable friends through each other. It was great to meet the guy and get to know him in person as much as it is to get to Basically the regional network lets you see people in the same one as you and helps people know where you’re from. I keep my network as Los Angles even though I go to school in Philly. It lets my friends know where I’m from. High school and college networks help you know who that person is trying to friend you and if you actually now them from somewhere.

For now Faceable rocks. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into another Namespace. Gaining Revenue for Networking Sites is Extremely Difficult Faceable, like Namespace, has not been able to successfully fund itself via advertisements. Click through rates are low, and Namespace has tried desperately to salvage funds from these ads. Menace’s home page is filled with ads that most users don’t click on. Case in point: http://www. Businesslike. Com/technology/ content/ Feb../tc2008024 252834. HTML? Chant=search Unless Faceable can gain revenue from ads it will suffer and possibly go bankrupt.

Faceable knows how old I am, what interests and hobbies I have, where I live, what my social network looks like and even what my educational and work history is. Are you telling me that’s not a potential goldmine for advertising? Sure at the moment you get the generic breast enhancement and zany college t-shirt ads (or perhaps they’re not generic and faceable has decided that’s what I most want in life), which are going to generate as much response as any other banner and popup ads. But if Faceable can utilities it’s main resource, information, it will make Microsoft’s revenues look tiny.

Faceable has been slow at incorporating music It can be argued by some that Faceable has taken over from Namespace in terms of which is the better social networking site. Although this may be valid, there is one area in which Faceable is clearly lacking – and that is music. One of the main building blocks of Namespace is the close links with music – bands can have pages on which they are able to upload their music and reach out to a new crowd, members may add a song to their profile which gives other users more of an idea what the person likes and there is even the Namespace record label, getting physical copied of USIA out.

Although Faceable are now beginning to add pages for artists, these are not as built on the foundation of music so it will be more difficult now to lure over music lovers from similar social networking sites (such as Namespace, Purposeful and Buzzed) that cater more to their tastes. Admittedly it would seem that, thanks to it’s emphasis on music, Namespace is more popular amongst wannabe rock stars than Faceable.

On the other hand almost every university student in the I-J (and I’m assuming the US, Australia etc) has a faceable account, in 10 to 15 years time that will mean that he majority of the best paid 50% of society in the English speaking world have faceable accounts. Let’s see which contributes better to the long term survival of the respective business models. People have been put off by scandals concerning identity fraud If a ‘fad’, then Passbook’s passing will only have been hastened by the widespread concerns over identity theft as reported in the UK national press.

Perhaps more importantly, people have grown increasingly aware and scrutinizing of Passbook’s capacity to allow potential employers to ‘snoop’ on one’s character as an employment suitability exercise. In short, people grow less and less eager to share their lives on the web, curiously perhaps because Faceable has been thrown open to wider and wider groups of people. Privacy controls? My friends get annoyed that they can’t trawl idly through photos of me surging drunkenly at a camera, but it means I’m less likely to get fired in the future.

And I also highly suspect that the potential employer snooping is a little bit of an urban myth, seeing as even if you drag all the privacy slider bars down to their minimum your profile is still only visible to those in your network. Just bad luck if you .NET to the same Nun as your prospective boss I guess. If celebrities are punished more severely then surely other influential people should also be. There are many people within society who make huge decisions regarding our country and who have the potential to endanger thousands of lives with their decisions if those decisions were influenced by drugs and alcohol.

It has been speculated for many years that highly trained professionals such as consultant doctors, airline pilots, and managing directors who have huge responsibilities also punished for their influential status surely it would only be fair to find these individuals as well and severely punish them ? There is a trend and acceptance regarding drug taking among celebrities but celebrities lives often require them to speak in front of millions of people, they are Judged constantly by society and the media and anything short on perfection is publicly ridiculed.

It might be that they choose this fate for fame and fortune however if other people who benefit from this national recognition are found to be taking drugs this argument implies they too should be punished and although it might be wrong for these people to take drugs ND alcohol I doubt that our country would work in the same way if these people were punished in a way that prohibited them from working for an extended period of time. Many of our greatest, artists, musicians and composers took a wide and varied selection of drugs some of which used these substances to influence their work.

How in this day and age can we separate artist from celebrity. This point does not even remotely relate to faceable will have a large impact on coming generations… Face book and other socio s will probably be adding to the knowledge of the youths all over the world especially the teens.. TTS the time when the teenagers absorb the special interest on getting connected through some or the other way with their friends and contacts…. What is actually binding everyone to face book is the likes of its easy and simple networking process . Ace book uses a very simple way of connecting a person to another which makes it a very advanced and widely proffered compared to the others. Faceable with its such wide network would be difficult to end or quit but surely be fading out because of advancements and dynamism in peoples lives. It helps me to communicate and stay in touch with friends However you have to have the acceptance of the friend you wish to be in contact with. In any case, some day, another site will pop up that makes it Just as easy to communicate with people, and everyone will flock to that.

Namespace usage plummeted when Faceable became popular, and when another “next big thing” emerges, no doubt Faceable usage will go the same way. It’s accusable and easy, it’s a free way to remain in touch with people. Internationally especially. It enables people to get in touch with old friends If you’ve fallen out of touch with people it’s usually for good reasons. Not to say that our old friends are bad people Just that you’ve both moved in different directions. I’ve had a few different emails from long-lost friends and after the initial wonder of seeing them again there’s not much which really connects us.

You can find people that you haven’t been in contact with for years, or maybe went to school with. Faceable is good too for students based in a university environment as they can keep in touch with friends, online. Not only at university, but School contacts too. Its a useful way to find out how your school friends have got on in life and to even arrange a reunion. If, after all, relationships made in school fizzled out once the connection of going to school together is lost – they wouldn’t have added you would they?

As a university student, faceable is simply, but wonderfully, a device to contact friends about meeting up, homework etc rather than spending phone credit by testing. Faceable. A cheapskates haven. It’s free and easily accessible What’s wrong with calling them or going to visit them. We spend far too much of our time online and far too little in the real world. Faceable Just makes this worse. Faceable is ‘at home in your boxers’ Faceable is not real world socializing. People should hang out and visit friends not scribble something on their ‘wall’ or go ‘poking’ around complete strangers.

It is cost effective and has made keeping in touch with my friends from home while I’m at nun much easier. Also sometimes real-time communication is less than practical. If someone lives in a different time-zone it may be difficult to Just phone the person. People invest too much time in Faceable to let go. The same was said of Namespace and Friends before it. Faceable is an addiction that will run out of steam and it is one that annoys many schools colleges and universities, so much so that is has been banned from being accessed either completely or during teaching hours.

I think faceable possibly has a time and a place but it annoys me when people are taking up computer suites Just to chat, applicant or poke people on faceable. Students are the biggest users of faceable and spend hours on it unknown to them that half the day has gone. I think it is something which Faceable has its pros and its cons. However, the matter of fact is that most Faceable users spend hours, days, weeks and even months customizing their profiles, finding rinds, adding photos and videos, creating groups and events. This is a heavy investment and most users will never seriously consider closing their faceable accounts.

People have begun to identify themselves with their Faceable profiles. Hence, it is close to impossible for people to Just get off Faceable. Passbook’s Terms of Service ensures that people’s social information never leaves the walls of Faceable and therefore the social network will remain very popular and influential. Faceable has many practical applications and raises many more concerns. We have read quite a few of these in this debate. However, the question remains whether “Faceable is a fad that will Just pass”. I beg to differ.

Social Networking is a whole new form of communication, of which Faceable is the most successful. Your argument is invalid. Did you even read the topic before posting? Its not saying social networking will die out, its saying (like namespace) Faceable will fade to the next amazing social networking site If you want to communicate with someone, in the old days you would either talk face to face or send a letter. Then came the telephone. Then came emails, further revolutionaries communications. Now there is social networking. Social networking is different. It can be very private, or very public.

People have their own ‘space’ or ‘profile’ online, which people can search for as long as they know the persons name. No number or address is required or needs to be stored (and potentially lost). When you have a persons profile, you can add them as a friend in order to socially interact with them – which they must accept to facilitate the interaction (ensuring mutual consent of communications). When you are friends with someone, you can invite them to an event (along with an assortment of any or all of our friends) with a single click, and dispense information about that event.

You can publicly display as much or little personal information about yourself as you wish. You can write on people’s walls to tell them information, which other people will freely be able to see. Suddenly people become so much more informed within their social circles, and for a social animal this is broadly positive. Faceable facilitates the spread of social information (or gossip) and people often consider faceable profiles to be an authority on a person (whether they are in a relationship, etc).

IKEA has created a global brand focused on low prices and contemporary designs. In 2009, Interbrand ranked IKEA 28th on its list of the top 100 global brands (# 35 in 2008 indicating 10% increase in brand value over just year). IKEA’s success is attributed to its vast experience in the furniture retail market, its product differentiation and cost leadership. The brand Ikea has become iconic in consumers’ minds. CEO, Anders Dahlvig, states “the awareness of our brand is much bigger than the size of our company” (Kling, K & Goteman, I. 2003). IKEA is growing aggressively around the world and at each of the store openings there are wacky promotions. For example, at an Atlanta store opening (2005), the company offered a $4,000 gift certificate for the first person in line. (The man who won the contest camped outside the store in the boiling heat of summer for seven days. ) The recent “IKEA facebook campaign” shows how they are leveraging the power of social media networks to attract target customers.

To promote the opening of its new store in Malmo, Sweden, they created a facebook profile for their store manager and the team then uploaded IKEA showroom images into the store album. People were encouraged to tag items in the photos with their name to win it for free! As the word about the campaign spread (through participant’s profiles, news feed links and other forms of word of mouth), the photos were tagged in seconds and brand awareness grew rapidly.

Not only did the Malmo IKEA store became popular in just few weeks, the story was picked up throughout the world by various news channels and online blogs. IKEA’s competitors include: Kmart and Target Corp. in the US, Fly in France, Japan Nitori Co. in Japan. They differentiate themselves from their competitors on the basis of: Price: IKEA is perceived as a value brand following their “affordable solutions for everyday living” tagline. Ikea focuses on lowest price segmentation. The company can do this because they have one of the lowest operating margins in the industry, 10%.

As compared to its competitors, IKEA stands out as a cost leader providing affordable products with good quality and design. “To achieve that goal, the company’s 12 full-time designers at Almhult, Sweden, along with 80 freelancers, work hand in hand with in-house production teams to identify the appropriate materials and least costly suppliers. With a network of 1,300 suppliers in 53 countries, Ikea works overtime to find the right manufacturer for the right product. Simplicity, a tenet of Swedish design, helps keep costs down. For e. g. the 50 cents Trofe mug comes only in blue and white, the least expensive pigments! ). ”(Carpel, K. , 2005) The company focuses on cost control, similar to Wal- Mart’s practice of squeezing suppliers and Toyota’s elimination of waste and errors in manufacturing. IKEA is highly Competitive at this front while constantly dropping the price (2-3% annually) to provide the best values for customers. The suppliers and designers have to customize some Ikea products to make them sell better in local markets.

For e. g. Julie Desrosiers, the bedroom-line manager at Ikea of Sweden, visited people’s houses in the U. S. and Europe to peek into their closets, learning that “Americans prefer to store most of their clothes folded, and Italians like to hang. ” The result was a wardrobe that features deeper drawers for U. S. customers. (Carpell, K. 2005) Majority of products at IKEA are designed for flat-pack distribution so that they can be easily stored and then transported in the average car.

They are easy to self-assemble by the customer. IKEA’s brand positioning and how it impacts their brand image and branding strategies. As IKEA is expanding rapidly around the globe, it faces a number of challenges in terms of varied cultural, demographic and market specific needs. The ‘one-design-suits-all’ global expansion strategy might not be suited for the culturally diverse markets, yet the brand is perceived in a similar way by the customers around the globe exhibiting low price as the core brand value.

As IKEA expands globally, the branding strategies revolve around providing value (quality and design) to the customers at affordable prices. References Capell, K. ( November 14, 2005). Ikea, How the Swedish Retailer Became a Global Cult Brand,” Business Week, pp. 96-101. Retrieved from http://www. businessweek. com/magazine/content/05_46/b3959001. htm Lee, S. (2007). IKEA: A Branded Experience Is More Important Than Customer-Centricity. Retrieved from http://www. customerthink. com/article/ikea_branded_experience_important