More Social Media Questions
I found another post on LinkedIn about social media. This time it was someone expressing that the ROI is very low, from what I could tell. Here is what I had to say.
The cost of investing in social media is $0 for the tool, and whatever time you want to spend using it. The problem from my viewpoint is that companies or people who try to leverage social media do it incorrectly. Partly, this is because the people and companies who use these tools to market their products and services do not understand social media, have not grown up using social media, or will not hire young talent that lives and breathes social media.
Social media should be seen as an interactive method of communication. Another point of contact. It must be treated as such: professional and something that cannot be ignored. It will become part of your brand image; keep professionalism in mind. If communication that comes from these tools is ignored, the customer will see it just as you ignoring their phone call.
Social media is VERY CHEAP to implement, and very powerful if used correctly.
Here is the original post:
CorporateCritique
I have decided to start doing some analysis of current business processes of companies. Hopefully I can come up with some valuable input for these companies; free of charge. I will post my findings and analysis at www.CorporateCritique.com. It amazes me how such large companies let seemingly small problems fester and create such huge problems!
Now I just have to figure out who my first victim will be. I have so many to choose from… Dunkin Donuts, Aetna, Realtors, Developers, Auto manufacturers, Building Management companies, Phonebook companies, News papers…
Social Media
This question was presented on a LinkedIn group that I subscribe to:
60% of Gen Y’ers think social media is discouraged in the workplace, yet 87% think leveraging social media can grow a brand and business according to recent Brill Street study. What’s your experience?
As a young adult who embraces social media, I believe that I have a valuable opinion on this matter. Here was my response:
Most legacy media companies have yet to create an effective web presence/brand, or embrace the power of the internet, let alone create an effective social media presence. It seems like the management of said companies has remained stuck in old business models that are failing on a daily basis.
With that said, I do not believe the majority of Fortune 500 companies are correctly embracing the power, versatility, or cost effectiveness of social medial. Here are some examples:
CTA Fare Beeps, Devices, and Processes
I just read an article in the Chicago Tribune about the different types of beeps CTA fare boxes make on buses. After reading it, I could not stop thinking about the decision making process the CTA used when designing the form and functionality behind the fare boxes, Chicago Card readers, and fare acceptance process.
If I were designing the bus fare system and process I would have done the following:
Fixed: Firefox Showing Mobile Pages
I had a problem with my MacBook running Mac OSX 10.5 where FireFox 3 would report to the server that I was using a mobile platform. The server would then redirect me to their mobile page. This made it difficult to brows PayPal.com and Schwab.com (among others) because they were always taking me to their mobile or wireless pages, no matter what URL I went to. Turns out I had a plug-in to “enable WML browsing”. I deleted the plug-in and the problem went away!
Symptoms
Firefox redirects to mobile versions of webpages.
Solution
Remove/disable a plug-in that enables WML browsing.
ED HAYES 