We never mixed business with pleasure… well until now

In the news we are hearing about a young man, Justin Bassett, who went on an interview… Nothing strange about that. So why is it news worthy??

After that interview, but before his lovely drug test, this young man was asked to sign into his facebook account and display it to his future/possible employers.

Bam! There it was, the news worthy situation… Not only did he have look professional and use social cues and say witty things as well as being overall sensational, but now he had to bring these strangers into his personal life. What could they possibly be looking for?

We were reading about brands in Engage, and two great (terrible for them, awesome examples for us) situations came about, Kony 2012 and The Bassett/Facebook debacle.

This company felt it important to check out their goods before continuing further, it’s almost as if they were protecting their brand before anything could/might possibly happen in the future.

Either way this company was wrong, not only does Facebook store a timeline of pictures and interactions but personal information that can be used to discriminate against an individual like religion or sexuality… To take it further, who your friends with could influence an employer as well.

“You are who you hang with,” but not in every case… And are Facebook friends all really personal friends or are some/most acquaintances.

Many people are against the company, saying that it’s going too far to demand passwords… Even Facebook is saying it’s a breech in confidentiality.

How far should a company go to protect its brand? Is this the type of censorship that can be compared with Apple and their bloggers?  Should it be required to show what pleases us outside the workplace in order to get the job? Thoughts?

Chapter 15/16 response

The rude awakening is apparent, Brian.

In this week’s chapters I found myself painfully aware of some of the things I do (rather often). Brian talks about the ways we use social media and how it defines us. Blogs, newfeeds, all these tools/attachments on social networking sites… they are all apart of a person and their brand.

Whether or not the person is a student or an established business person what they post can affect them. So post wisely.

Some of the networks allow you to specify on content (blogs, photo descriptions…) while others “get what you give”…

Maintaining an image, voice, idea or a persona goes hand in hand with posting wisely. Without consistency a brand can lose it’s credibility and the reputation won’t matter anymore.

Maybe social networks shouldn’t be the place for work and pleasure… you have to pick either or.

When reading these chapters I couldn’t help but think of Invisible Children and how that brand was ruined by a “foolish human act”…

On page 170 of Engage Brian Says,

Everything we do, online and offline, builds the public perception of not only our personal brand, but also that of the organization we represent. They must be symbiotic. And while many insist that a brand must “be human,” it must not act or interact as one…”

The founder of Invisible Children lost sight when it came to his actions… He let himself get in the way of a huge project that affected a lot of people. His credibility was then tested and more aspects of his company/organization were looked at. The organization lost donors and supporters alike.

I thought that me posting curse words and raunchy cartoons on my facebook was bad, but in some ways it still is.

I’m giving my peers an idea about me… And that may not be what I want people to see and it might not be who I really am, but you are what you post and you are what you do… And they have to be consistent.

A not so “mashable” merger…

In class we talked about the importance of branding… We were even given an example of a company who maintained their brand successfully even after they were sold.

The key is to be consistent and to think of your consumers as well as your employees. Many companies fail when it comes to employees, it’s not just costumers that you have to please and keep happy, but the people that work for you too…

Zappos had a fun work environment, offered their employees benefits and was a reliable source–if a customer didn’t like a product they could return it up to a year later–giving the phrase “the customer is always right” a new meaning.

After selling to Amazon for a hefty settlement, but not before the company’s owners made some demands. They wanted the company to be ran the same.

This morning, our board approved and we signed what’s known as a “definitive agreement”, in which all of the existing shareholders and investors of Zappos (there are over 100) will be exchanging their Zappos stock for Amazon stock. Once the exchange is done, Amazon will become the only shareholder of Zappos stock.

Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say “Amazon acquires Zappos” or “Zappos sells to Amazon”. While those headlines are technically correct, they don’t really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”)

We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos — continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are switching out our current shareholders and board of directors for a new one, even though the technical legal structure may be different.

Basically saying “just because we are gone out of town doesn’t mean we want you to feng shui our home…” Unlike many companies (Apple, Walmart, etc) this brand cares for it’s employees, is honest with their customers and overall a decent brand.

A solution Mashable should have looked to when selling their company to CNN. Although the company isn’t as well known as Zappos, Mashable has definitely made a dent in the “interwebs”, enough of a dent to attract the attention of a major news network.

The only problem with this… most of the employees might get screwed over. With the buy, CNN gets all Mashable employees but because there was no prementioned agreement, all their contracts can be changed, benefits altered and hours deducted.

When you create a brand you need to first think of your customers and employees, be consistent and have a plan… the money will come because if everyone’s happy their won’t be a problem.

Thoughts?

Response to Reading

Chapter 12 could definitely be read by companies to promote better  business.

I believe the problem with businesses today is that they are so focused on making the “picture perfect” brand, that they don’t realize how the company as a whole is perceived. In this Chapter, Brian talks about the importance of company awareness. You must know what you want for your company in order to market yourself, and only after that can you make promises to your public.

In Chapter 13 (I think I favored this chapter!), Brian talks about the shift in control. Corporations had control over the messages that went out and the stories that were told, but now… “Our” social media has changed everything. There is no big brother controlling and overseeing everything we do. Although there are still companies that try, the shift will soon get them too.

He also talks about the transition to how we get our “relative/hard-hitting” news.

Saying…

“Now and in the future, information will find you.”

I feel that in a way information has always found us. Either through gossip and “girl talk” over coffee or our mothers calling to make sure we knew about something or other…. The transition to everything digital is the thing that is affecting us. The time it takes for us to get that information instead of getting a cup of coffee with a friend and gabbing on, I’m reading about it on my phone (maybe as I stand in line for coffee!) because it’s trending…

Thoughts??

Trending Topics

 

In this weeks reading, SMO (Social Media Optimization) was the topic of discussion . After reading I couldn’t help but think about trending topics and how we use them as the “this just in” news.

In this generation it has become clear that not everyone is into broadcast news (channel 7/fox 2/etc) or even newspapers, most up-to-date information that is received is through social networking sites.

From little things like movie releases/reviews and sporting events to celebrity deaths and murder trial updates all that information can be found through trending topics or a quick keyword search.

 

Example?

Last night I was looking through trending topics and found Despicable Me 2, at first glance I assumed that people were talking about the possibility of a new movie, but the trailer for the second movie was released and it was awesome!

But not all the trending topics/searches are so passive and meaningless…

Some people use the network to find jobs, one user gave a kidney because of a tweet!

It’s all about how you search.

Reading Response #sm379

In chapters 10-11 of Brian Solis‘ Engage, we learn that social media sites are used as search engines more often than traditional search engines like Google or Bing.

Brian talks about the stages of the way we share and “search”… Using keywords and tags to generate views as well as keep up with certain topics. The stages he refers to are known as the SMO (social media optimization) and aggregating social objects.

SMO: Is the research. May it be traditional or through networking sites, a person is looking for information either through facts and data or conversations made relevant.

By using tags and descriptions it makes SMO easier to use and skim through and hopefully if the information was useful, then the person using would share with others.

It’s all about connection, really.

On page 116/117 of Engage, Brian illustrates a social feed, a network of friends/co-workers/common interest having people that share a large amount of information which can be linked out to other sites.

Further saying that it is important not to cross the links…

“… Tumblr might publish both the post and the tweet about the post, the Tumblr post about the post, and the Tumblr post with the aggregated tweet from the post,” said Solis.

Having a linked status to a tweet about a post could overwhelm and I think it would be easier to manually post things rather than “link” all the social networks together.

syndication

Status of a Tweet of the initial Post (Cross linking!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

These chapters have been insightful.