Social Media, Networks and Business Course Reflection

Although I interact with social media platforms and the online world on a daily basis, I never fully realised the impact it has, not only on my social interactions, but my privacy, data, and the affect it has on my non-digital life. This module has brought to light many of the easy-to-miss aspects of social and digital media. Although I cannot cover the last four months of material, I will discuss two topics I found most interesting which  I often find myself discussing with friends and colleagues outside of class.

Filter Bubble

I was always aware that my data was constantly being collected and that advertisements related to my interests would appear on webpages I clicked on. However, discussions in this course taught me to the extent that this ‘filter bubble’ we all are in controls what we see and what we do not. I learned that Facebook has stopped showing me old friends’ posts in my news feed because I never engaged with the content they share and that my Google searches are different than if I used someone else’s browser to search because my server has algorithmically tracked my history and shows results based upon what it ‘thinks’ I want to see. This was unfathomable to me that the information I see is not only tailored to me, but is also restricted, which has the pros of adhering to my interests which can sometimes make searches for clothing for example more convenient, but has colossal negative connotations in that it is often best to be exposed to all information, even information I don’t want to see. I don’t want to be filtered to the extent that I’m not learning anything new or different to my own ideas and preconceptions. I don’t want to be stuck in a bubble of information that is so consumer-driven and vapid, seeing only a reflection of myself in my online world, when I would otherwise be exposed to inquisitive, thought-provoking opinions and information in the vast sea of digital media around me.

Six Degrees of Separation

Also known as the small world experiment, an experiment undertaken at Harvard University in the 1960’s found that sending a letter starting with one anonymous person on the west coast of the United States could be sent to another anonymous person on the east coast through social connections of less than six connections. However, 60% of the letters sent out never reached their destination, but those that did were received in a surprisingly short chain of connections. Although there have been many modern experiments testing this with success offline and through social media such as FaceBook’s six degrees of separation expirement, I am also interested in the psychology of social networks on and offline and behind humans’ comfort in discovering the world is a small place, even if the 60% odds are against it.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding, also known as crowdsourcing, is an interesting concept and one that came from the internet and its ability to reach a multitude of people, in turn creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to accomplish their otherwise unimaginable goals. This idea of having ideas funded by other people who believe in it as opposed to more traditional methods of bank funding, which usually comes with high interest rates and little capital investment for small businesses, if accepted at all, has completely transformed the business market and the limitations that come with starting a business. Social media has not only been a tool in which to catapult ideas into a vast aggregation of social networks, but also as a way to unite communities and different people to join together for an idea, company or cause they believe in.

Crowdfunding platforms like KickStarter and IndieGoGo have made it possible for people with little means but substantial ideas to publish their ideas with the potential to gain sufficient funding for their business goals from those who support and encourage their proposals. This has completely transformed markets similar to the impact Etsy and Uber have had in creating jobs, but with potential to use social media as a catalyst to reach thousands of potential social networks.

Some of the most popular crowdfunding ideas are those that benefit a social or virtuous cause posted on platforms like GoFundMe. There are many examples of charitable campaigns going viral through social media, even receiving more funding than asked for, like Natalie Dubose’s GoFundMe page asking for help after her small bakery, opened a few months before, was vandalised and destroyed in 2014 (Dubose, 2014). Her goal was set to $20,000 but received over $272,000, with social media playing an extremely large role in the campaign. It was shared more than 40,000 times on Facebook and Twitter (Dubose, 2014) and assuming only the people who shared the page donated to the cause, not taking into account those being reached within the network of the people sharing this, each person would have only needed to donate $0.50 to reach the funding goal. It’s interesting however that people seem more willing to donate above and beyond to a struggling individual than to a large charity organisation helping many different people. This could possibly be explained through social networking in that it may be easier for one to feel more attached and empathetic toward an individual with specific situational problems, especially if that empathy is shared with others in one’s online social networks. Furthermore, because large charity groups help such a vast amount of people, it can be difficult for donors to feel connected to the group that would be helped with their donation, especially because some larger organisational campaigns are unclear about the specific impact the donor would have on those receiving help. On many of the crowdfunding platforms however, individuals can see how much money has been raised already and how their individual donation would directly impact the cause.

 

Dubose, N. (2014). Natalie’s Cakes. [online] Go Fund Me. Available at: https://www.gofundme.com/NataliesCakesnMore [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].

 

 

SeaSalt Clothing GEPHI Analysis

SeaSalt Clothing is a mid-size company in Cornwall established in 1981, promoting sustainable and responsible clothing and were one of the first brands to use organic cotton for their clothes (SeaSalt, n.d.). They donate to many charities every year and are constantly fundraising for various causes such as the Fisherman’s Mission and other local projects (SeaSalt, n.d.).

Using Gephi, I am able to analyse the social network of SeaSalt’s Facebook page, focusing on the major categories of the pages they like, the degree of each node’s connectivity within the network, post activity and fan count. The graph below shows SeaSalt Facebook analysis in terms of the categories the pages they like fall into and the nodes degree. The categories of the pages SeaSalt likes are extremely varied, however the majority fall under Hotels, Non-profit organisations, communities and magazines. The degree of each page’s connectedness with other pages in the network shown via the size of each node is dense and very connected within some pages, mainly the local pages, and smaller with more popular pages unlikely to like local pages that SeaSalt likes. This can be seen with many of the smaller nodes on the outer edges to the left and bottom of the graph.

From this graph, I find it interesting that the company likes mainly local pages in and near Cornwall, such as the pages “Tall Ships Falmouth 2014”, “The Old Quay House Hotel”, “Dreaming of Cornwall” and other accounts that would most likely be of interest to the community living in and around that area. Based on the curves of the edges in the graph, it is evident that many of the local pages SeaSalt likes also like them back, including “Baker Tom’s”, “7^th Rise” and “River Cottage”, which are local businesses in that area. According to their LinkedIn, SeaSalt has 500-1000 employees, which is interesting because at this size, the store would be at an expansion stage, which it has done with over 50 stores in the UK and 400 stockists in the UK and Europe. They however, are evidently attempting to stay close to their roots in Cornwall, only liking local pages with the exception of a few large brands like Good House Keeping and other popular magazines, to demonstrate their brand as an authentic, English seaside family brand.

When conducting diagnostics for the talked about count compared with their network, SeaSalt ranked 14th highest with just under 3,000 posts mentioning their brand. With over 66,000 likes on Facebook, this figure should be higher. SeaSalt is also only posting 0.11 times every hour, with little engagement. This could be improved with better social media strategy implementations and higher interaction between the brand and their consumers.

 

Seasalt. (n.d.). Our Responsibilities. [online] Available at: https://www.seasaltcornwall.co.uk/m/customer/pages/about/our-responsibilities [Accessed 2 Dec. 2017].

Viral Marketing

It can prove extremely difficult for companies to create ‘viral marketing’ campaigns. Viral marketing can create buzz for a brand, increase engagement and involvement with consumers and of course improve dissemination. Although there are various action plans available, it ultimately depends on the consumers’ desire to associate themselves with the content and encourage others to watch that will determine if the media will go viral. If no one engages with the content in terms of likes, comments and shares, it won’t reach a wide audience and will instead fade into the abyss of content floating around the web. The ultimate goal for companies who want to create viral content is to increase sales, or in the least increase the brand’s positive image in order to be subconsciously linked to favourable attributes in the consumers subconscious, increasing the likelihood of customer loyalty. An example of this particularly positive viral situation is Always’ Like A Girl Campaign, linked below, which shares a positive message to women around the world in breaking society’s limitations of girls because of their gender and encouraging them to be themselves regardless. Although no social offers or invitations were implemented as the active components to the viral marketing landscape, user-generated notifications were utilised to allow maximum exposure and reach to consumers wanting to share the positive message. The original video linked below received over 65 million views with little negative responses (Always, 2014), which has damaged other companies attempting to send a positive message in advertising in the past like Chipotle.

Chipotle, a popular world-wide Mexican restaurant chain, released a narrative marketing campaign in 2013 of a scarecrow video game they created in a short film advertisement, linked below. They received an abundance of praise and success from the campaign, with over 5 million views in its first week and increasing sales every quarter thereafter. However, a lot of backlash came along with their success, including claims that their advertisement explicitly advertised for a vegetarian diet with the scarecrow representing the brand in the film only cutting vegetables to sell at his market, whereas Chipotle is a primarily meat-based brand (Weiss, 2013). Another issue was a vastly popular video parody released shortly after Chipotle’s advertisement debut, which depicted the same scenes from the advertisement and the same song, but with a different singer describing Chipotle as a large chain attempting to trick consumers into associating their brand with small family and ethical business with this emotional ad, when in reality, they only care about their own profit (Weiss, 2013). This parody video was greatly shared on social media with over 350,000 views on Funny or Die.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/da66b8f1aa/honest-scarecrow

It’s very interesting that although these two advertisements from two extremely different companies are both attempting to share user-generated notification focused content with a positive message, and even if both brands’ main goal is to increase sales, it’s up to consumers whether they find the content genuine and inspirational or whether it should be criticised for being hypocritical and unauthentic.

 

Always (2014). Always #LikeAGirl. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs&t=4s [Accessed 2 Dec. 2017].

Weiss, E. (2013). What Does “The Scarecrow” Tell Us About Chipotle?. [online] The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-does-the-scarecrow-tell-us-about-chipotle [Accessed 2 Dec. 2017].

First blog post

Today I started my day at 6 am with a coffee and a slice of bread I accidentally burned in the toaster – no time to retry. On my hour and a half commute to Royal Holloway, I was browsing the assignments for my Social Media & Networks module this term and found that one of the assignments was to create a blog and upload various posts. Very excited about this, I created this blog on the overground line and am currently writing this article after our first lecture which gave us a brief overview of current social media platforms, their evolution, their value and their effect on society. Excited for next week!