“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the choice is how well we do it” – Erik Qualman. This was the quote at the beginning of the 19 social media facts video on mashable. Social Media has become such a part of our daily routine, it’s only natural that companies vying for our attention would follow in that respect. The quote really got me thinking though, off the top of my head, I can’t name a single person that I’ve met that doesn’t have at least one account on a social media site. My public speaking class recently had a guest speaker that talked about the importance of networking and a major part of the presentation was linkedin. It’s sort of crazy to me how society has made social media change into something that is now a necessity if you want to keep up with possible employers. It’s not a choice, it’s now treated as something that even a career could depend on. One of the statistics from that video that really stood out to me was that the linkedin age has been lowered to 13. It made me think, when I was 13, I definitely wasn’t even thinking about networking or what college I would end up going to. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t even know what networking was. People always say that technology is making us lose intelligence rather than gain it. But I disagree, I think people have access to more information than ever before. All they have to do is go out and get it.
I found the Hootsuite University Lecture very interesting. The main thing that I took away from it, is that a business now more than ever needs to present itself as a person, rather than an entity that’s only sales focused. The more personable it is, the better. I can think of plenty of times where companies have jokingly interacted with one another on twitter, it’s funny and in my opinion it’s good marketing. Those are the things that are more eye-catching and interesting for a person to read than something like hey, you should buy our product because of x,y, and z. It’s the things that a company does, that makes people remember them and makes a person more likely to choose their product over someone else’s. Another point brought up in the video was to listen and respond accordingly. The more willing a company is to accept feedback and change something to make it better, the better their sales will most likely be. It’s kind of cool to think that by providing feedback, you could potentially alter something for the better. I guess you could say that the main thing I learned today, was that people have a lot more power than they realize. A company wants to sell products that people will buy and we have the power to decide exactly how they will do it. But to me, it’s so crazy to think that something like social media has been able to change the way that people do things. ex. business practices, etc. It’s kind of mind blowing.
That’s all for now
– K
Great summary and “take-aways,” Kylie!