A day in the life of Social Media

I found a video that shows how important Social Media is, the facts are pretty interesting and hopefully will grab your attention like it did mine. With how important social media is, it must be used in a business to make it better and stand out in a market.

check out the video :) comment your thoughts about social media !

Harlem shake firing

I am almost positive everyone has heard of the Harlem shake. In this case a bunch of mine workers performed the Harlem shake on video, not expecting to be fired for it. The video was posted on you tube which was than seen by the company. All of the men were fired! It just goes to show how you can be fired over social media by not only posting inappropriate comments or hate about the company you work for, but by simply posting anything the relates back to your job. Be careful, because what you do in the workplace will always end up all over social media, and could result in a loss of jobs.

Although social media wasn't the real reason for the firing, I'm sure if the video was kept a secret between workers and not shown to the world, the company would have not had access to it.  And social media sites were encouraging people to post their outrageous Harlem shake videos( the real cause for firing was safety violations)
Here is a link to the website:
News Article

Enjoy the video as well :)

Mandatory Training?

Should companies provide mandatory Social Media for use in communication and marketing to consumers?
In my opinion I believe they should, if the company is trying to connect with consumers through the use of Social Media, I think they should be properly trained. In my experiences trying to teach my mother how to use Facebook has been one of the hardest things. Its been over a year and I still get random calls and texts of how to do simple tasks. Teaching her to use Twitter- or even describe the basis of it, was even harder. People who are in companies now did not grow up with social media, like the generation of teenagers and young adults who will be entering the work force did. So if the company wants effective use that will increase traffic and sales, they must train employees to do it properly.

Some tips on Social Media marketing in my opinion that need training:
1. If you don't have a large following posting to your status wont cause enough traffic, Post to groups and pages with a description of products or services by the company; The more shares and likes, the more likely it will increase traffic and bring attention to what your doing.
2. Advertise, Facebook is full of advertisements. They are usually directed at the demographics of the users. If there interested in the ad, they'll click it.
3. The unwritten rule of twitter "follow and ill follow back" Follow as many people as possible, they'll click on your profile to see who you are, if they like you they will follow back. and if they don't at least it brought attention to your page.
4. Twitter uses promotions, even if your not following them they will still be on your news feed. This is a form of marketing.

Some people do not realize these are simple forms of marketing, this is why training employees is very important.

Do you think training employees to use social media is important?

Social Media Marketing

Here is a link to a website that talks about Social Media Marketing; what it is, how its done properly, how it works and how you can do it yourself. It has a video that's really short but it gets to the point of what social media marketing is. Check it out and read below the video to learn in depth about what social media marketing really is.
video link & website link



Would you use Social Media to market your company?

Social Media to find employees'

Social Media pages contain almost everything someone needs to know about a person. It has your previous work history, past and current education, current location and home town plus more. This gives employers the perfect opportunity to use social media as a hiring tool. While I believe this makes it very simple for the employer, I feel it is dangerous for a possible candidate. While personal life and business should be separated  employers are constantly using this as a tool to measure your personality. "Once its on Facebook it is never really gone" this quote is detrimental to a possible candidate. While most candidates probably used Facebook to post funny photos or in some case inappropriate photos of partying in their high school or college years, employers use this to evaluates your character.  This however is illegal because it is classified as discrimination. But how easily is this proved? the likely-hood of a candidate being able to prove discrimination in a possible job offering is slim to none, mainly because its costly and time-consuming to prove. So before you post photos that you no will get you lots of likes on Facebook or re tweets on Twitter, think about your future. If the photo or post could never really be erased would you still post it ? If an employer finds it, you may be out of the job.

Do you think this is an effective method of hiring new employees?

Here is a photo I found that basically sums up what I was suggesting about social media; the job search and how many employers actually use it. While the other post was my opinion these are now the statistics. http://visual.ly/social-media-todays-job-search, 

Social Media & reputations

Today I was driving down a street in Milton, Ontario and saw a man protesting outside of a Nissan Car dealership. He had a sign that stated " Unhappy with my Altima". Of course like many other people, I was curious what had happened to the man that made his so upset he was willing to protest in -15 degree weather for more than a week. I searched the Milton Champion newspaper and every where on Google, but found nothing. Until I logged on to my Facebook yesterday. I saw a thread talking about Milton- Web, which lead me to a social media forum that had the whole story. This forum allowed for both the dealership and the man protesting to state their story. So how does this relate to social media in the workplace? The dealership went and posted on the social media forum and defended their side of the story. Bringing light to the situation and providing good customer service to the individuals interested. It most certainly change my perspective of what I thought had happened. By posting to the page, a lot of people commented on the good relationship they had with the dealership and any problems they encountered. This man protesting could have affected their customers and business. But by posting to this page they received support, which in my opinion will only make the business more profitable. Not only did they get free advertising, they gained support through a community. Social media is not always about posting photos and talking with family and friends, it around to provide business's with the opportunity to bloom and to advertise and to protect their reputation. 


Here is the link I found through my Facebook page which lead me to a social discussion board
" http://www.hawthornevillager.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=52812"

Working Socially: Money spent on social media tools in the workplace

This just outlines how much money is spent on social media within companies. Starting from 2010 and projecting to 2016. You can tell by the graph that it has drastically increased and is projected to continue. Showing how important social media is becoming in businesses.

Social media to increase work efficiency & productivity

In my opinion social media has given me the chance to learn how to multitask more efficiently . I believe i am not the only one who agree's with this. While doing school work i'm able to log onto my social pages check information and continue to work. so why not in the work place? to me social media gives me a break to relax while in stressful situations. I think this is appropriate in the workplace, if someone is at work and stressed over situations, the use of a social media page can lighten their mood and clear there mind. Giving them ability to start working efficiently again. If individuals can learn to multitask between business and social media sites, i believe it will likely increase there ability to multitask in the work place between business objectives which will increase the work efficiency and productivity. 

I found some evidence to back up my opinion. 

"The research comes from AT&T who surveyed 2,500 people across five countries in Europe and reports that 65% of respondents claimed that using social networks had made them or their colleagues more efficient; 46% said it had sparked creativity."

Taken from " http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2008/11/so-how-does-social-networking-improve-efficiency-at-work/"

Do you agree or disagree with the statement "social media can improve productivity?" 

RBC & MSN

My mom works for RBC in the estates department, and i felt it was necessary to share personal findings rather than statistics and opinions of others all the time. While talking to my mom she stated that her company monitors her computer and every call she makes during her working hours. My mom works from home, so i thought before speaking to her that she can do whatever she pleases on her computer. I was completely wrong. They have rules regarding internet use and use of social media. While at work, workers are not allowed to use internet EVER. Workers can not violate this rule, because RBC does random screenings and monitoring of computers that employees do not know about. Which means if there's no internet use there is obviously no social media allowed. Stating that, they do however have RBC MSN, which is a type of social media but within the company. Most people are familiar with MSN as a social chatting site, but RBC MSN is strictly for RBC employees. You can add friends from work and communicate with them freely and employers do not have the right to stop you from the use of this. While it would be irrelevant to stay at home and not use social media when work is slow, the use of MSN for the employees is a great alternative. It gives them an opportunity to communicate with people they work with during office hour.

hierarchy of needs- social media

I found a photo I thought was pretty entertaining. It compares Maslow's hierarchy of needs and a social media hierarchy. It just show, how important social media is to everyone. It compares the 5 stages of the hierarchy and relates them to affect how we need social media to complete our daily lives. If social media is this important to our daily lives, it most certainly interact with our purchases or services from businesses.

What do you think about this new social media hierarchy of needs? agree or disagree?

Employee VS Employer

Here are some statistic's on what employee's think about social media VS what employers' think about social media:
Employees Say:

• 52% of employees say their social networking pages are none of their employers' business
• 74% say it's easy to damage a company's reputation on social media
• 15% say that if their employer did something that they did not agree with, they would comment about it on-line

Employers' Say:

• 40% of business executives disagree that what employees put on their social networking pages is not the employers' business 
• 30% admit to informally monitoring social networking sites

Source: socialbusinessnews.com

Here are videos about employee and employer views of social media in the workplace, check it out and comment on the points you agree and disagree with in the videos.

Access to social media in companies

A survey was taken that collected information of companies or corporations access to social media use in the work place. Surprisingly 43 percent of companies leave social media completely open and accessible. Personally I believe this is not appropriate. while social media should be used, I believe it should be monitored to make sure employees are still working efficiently. Monitored social media in corporations took second place with 24 percent. 

If you were a company owner/manager what restrictions would you put on social media ?

Social Media to engage customers and prospects

I found an article about IT services Management (ITSM) software and services company, that use social media to get the word out and get consumers interested. The article is fairly long, so I've only posted the important relevant information. the link below has the whole article if your interested. This article is extremely relevant to modern technology and how people engage in buying and learning about services. Society revolves around technology and by getting the word out through social media it can boost a companies presence in the market.
http://navvia.com/resources/articles/social-media-in-the-workplace/

"We are living in an age of information overload. Emails, phone calls, voicemails and meetings – it’s a wonder we ever get anything done.

We have developed mechanisms for controlling the influx of information. In short, we “call screen”. We only let in what we want to let in or what we seek out to learn.

As a company we have relied heavily on telemarketing, email marketing, conferences and advertising. But as a consumer, I ignore calls from telemarketers, flag marketing email as spam and complain after I receive dozens of calls after a conference. I’m sure most of you do as well.

So how does a company with a limited marketing budget get the word out? As a small company, word of mouth has always been a good source of leads. Do a good job for one client and people talk about it.

Social media, combined with the techniques of in-bound marketing, help people find you and get them talking about you.

Even though we are a small company of 20 people, the combined social network of our employees is in the millions, with most of them working in our target market.

By creating and sharing compelling material across the combined social network of our employees we can potentially reach a significant number of prospects with our message – provided the message resonates with the target audience.

This content, if managed correctly, will actually increase our presence on Google and other search engines. People interested in our message will “opt in” and allow our messages through their screening mechanisms.

The result is that we start engaging people interested in who we are and what we do. They become “friends” who visit us at tradeshows, read our content, attend our webinars and refer us to their friends, thus expanding our network.

From a business perspective, it’s always easier to engage someone interested in your message rather than bothering someone with a “cold call”.

Anyway, that is the theory. We have a plan that we are working, and metrics to measure results. I’ll talk more about that in a follow-up article."

Most commonly used social media sites, in the workplace

What social media site do you use most often at school or work?

Video: social media in the workplace

http://www.commoncraft.com/video/social-media-and-workplace

The link is a short video about using social media in the workplace. Social media is now encouraged in companies, and the ability to understand how it works, for use of communication with customers. It gives an example about a company that uses social media. It shows check lists and guidelines used for social media in the workplace, and the advantages and benefits about the growing influence of social media.

Social Media

Today social media is an extremely useful tool in communication whether with friends, family or colleagues. Social media technology presents a unique opportunity for companies. While most companies have policies about the use of social media, with technology frequently soaring and doubling, social media is becoming acceptable as a tool for communications and opportunities in business. Social media is a channel in which companies can deliver information and engage customers using different levels of creativity that would not normally be used by large corporations or companies. Or social media can be used for employees to communicate with each other.  Technology is constantly improving, with more and more companies using social media; it can result in great outcomes and engage employees in communication skills.  The real question is if social media should only be acceptable for professional use in the work place such as advertising and sales, or if social media should be acceptable for employees to use freely, or if social media should not be allowed at all. 

Here is the link to a quiz to see if you are addicted to Social Media
QUIZ LINK
I took it and go 53% addicted, take it and comment what you got :)