A few weeks ago, I found this Infographic which makes it clear what the 9 common social media marketing mistakes are. This infographic from socialtimes.com wants to prevent us from making this common mistakes.

Everything we learned in class can help us during our jobs or interships in the future. Using our social media and social networks minor in possible functions like marketing and pr can help us understand the best ways to design and implement a social media strategy. One of the highlights of this Infographic is definitely the fact that focusing on too many social media channels can damage your company.

Snapchat for example is a very popular and active service were users are able to send pictures to friends for a short period of time. This seems attractive for companies to increase awareness about your brand. I use snapchat a lot and I do follow some brands who post about their ‘product/service’ like Victoria Secret. They stand out for me because they are dedicated in increasing awareness about their product. If however your company is not dedicated to keeping this account up to date, this will not have any positive effects on your possible market. Business should make sure to only join those social media platforms which can help them interact with customers and increase awareness for new customers.

Oh and if you (with your business) were wondering about joining snapchat, here is a nice infographic to help you make that decision:

Keep this info in mind if you are managing or going to manage social media accounts for companies!

– http://socialtimes.com/9-common-social-media-marketing-mistakes-infographic_b205565

– http://socialtimes.com/snapchat-marketing-brand-infographic_b201873

Nowadays, there are many social platforms for different purposes. For instance, Facebook to keep in touch with your friends, LinkedIn to find a job or employee and Dating websites to find a partner. In the future a new sort of platform will probably enter the internet.

[Holland needs more donors. Would you like to be a donor? Yes. No.]

The new foundation “Donate and Transplanting” wants to create a special platform for donors where they can choose to whom they will donate their organs. They are already talking to different relevant organisations, including the Kidney Foundation to develop such a platform. This takes all place in the Netherlands, where 1200 people are on the waiting list for a new organ. In their opinion, by creating such a platform, they think it will partly solve the problem of the stagnant number of donors in the Netherlands. The number of new donors is declining each year, which is a big problem for the growing number of people in need of an organ. On this platform, healthy people and people in need of an organ can register in order to find an match.

This idea originated from the fact that more and more people from waiting lists are searching/asking for kidneys on social platforms like Facebook. The foundation therefore thinks it could be a wise idea to centralize this with a platform.

What do you think about this social issue? Is it fair to let donors pick their own people for donating an organ? Will it solve the issue of the stagnating number of new donors?

– http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/23284684/__Donor_kan_ontvanger_kiezen__.html

– http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/3919862/donoren-mogen-ontvanger-gaan-kiezen.html

Postcrossing is an online project website, on which people can exchange postcards with other people all over the world. Their slogan is “Send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!”

And following I will explain how the website works. If a postcrosser A wants to send out a postcard, he clicks the “Send a Postcard” and then will get a Postcard ID and an address of a randomly picked Postcrosser B via email. Also the profile of B will be sent to offer some ideas for A what type of postcard would be liked by B, for instance, B’s hobbies and preferences of the postcards(not demands).

And in the meanwhile, A will also be randomly picked by another user C, but A will not be informed about it. So A will receive a postcard unexpectedly from someone she never knew before. The feelings of expecting and surprising keep people involved in the exchange of postcards. After A receives that, he needs to “Register a Postcard” with the Postcard ID on it, and then A could upload the photo of the card and also write comments or message to C.

Postcrossing tries to keep a balance of sending and receiving, so there is a limit of the number of travelling postcards. As you exchange more postcards, the limit will be looser.

Postcrossing sends emails to you regularly about your monthly and yearly statistics, like how many cards you sent, from what countries you have received cards etc. You could also see a map of where postcards are from and to. It is like a journal to record the trips of your postcards.

Above is my profile page. I joined Postcrossing three years ago, having sent 40 and received 39(all of them happened three years ago also). Now I reactive my account and will start exchanging with others again! Hope I will still receive postcards from the Netherlands!=)

A recently published article on Gizmodo discusses the idea behind the platforms that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter create for millions of users. A space for free discussion and constructive criticism.

A new report from Pew Research investigated why many people remain silent on social media platforms, even silent with family and friends, and they found that many people don’t think their views are widely shared. Instead, rather unique and most users both online and offline rather not argue their points and try to prove why they are right. The research also found that people were less likely to share their opinions online rather than in person with other people who also shared their opinions on a particular topic.

Another interesting finding that this article presents is that Facebook and Twitter is powered by algorithms that are designed to “feed us news that aligns with what we want to see and hear”. Do you find yourself often intrigued by posts you see on your Facebook news feed? Or notice that you usually see posts that your Facebook friends are posting that you would also be interested in?

Whether it’s for us to click on, read, or share, many videos and articles are easily visible on social media platforms as that is what most people spend their time reading on Facebook. What was opinion based content, such as posting statuses, is now including content from third-person parties.

Do you find yourself agreeing with the news or articles you read on Facebook? Or even more interesting, do you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the opinions and comments of others in regards to the issues and topics being discussed? Are you more willing to share your thoughts on social media vs. face-to-face discussions?

Source: http://gizmodo.com/social-media-users-are-unikely-to-disagree-with-consens-1627342507

Almost on Facebook is now aware of the “Report for Abuse” button for when you see something disturbing posted. From naked pictures to inappropriate content, the button allows users to alert Facebook employees that there is something on Facebook that shouldn’t be seen. Who takes care of this? I think many of us just assume that a Facebook employee or team is in charge of deleting inappropriate content. “Pretty much any social media site you can think of uses some sort of moderation to keep abusive content off its page.”

What’s interesting is that many people don’t know how disturbing content on the internet can get. Most people think of videos that involve violence or nudity, but there’s everything from child pornography, beheading’s and brutal violence that is posted on social media sites. This sort of content takes a toll on content-moderating workers – of whom there are an estimated 100,000 worldwide.

In the November issue of Wired, Adrian Chen offers a peek into one of the darkest aspects to the social media industry. A scary fact is that the average length of employment for content moderators is between three and six months. Most of them don’t even work for that long, and end up quitting much sooner.

There is a lot of negative content online and for an estimated 100,00 moderators worldwide, you would think most of the content would be strictly regulated. However, one of the best things of the web is the freedom to post whatever you want under whatever account you like. That causes some positive and most definitely, some negative aspects, to social media.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-horrifying-lives-of-facebook-content-moderators-1649825388

It seems that certain dreams are finally becoming a reality. Or at least, one-step closer. A Slovakian start-up company called “Aeromobil” promises to commercialize the first flying cars for consumers across the globe. What sprouted as an idea from researcher Stefan Klein, in formerly known Czechoslovakia during the 1990’s, has finally begun to take on serious forms. In co-operation with Slovakian aviation authorities the company expects to launch its first models for the public in the beginning of 2015.

Like a futuristic transformer, this high-tech piece of technology can transform from car to place with a simple touch of a button, in a bit less than 2 minutes. It can reach speeds of up to 160 km/h while driving on the road whereas in air a top speed of up to 200 km/h can be reached. Will this be the end of traffic jams? What makes it even greater is its ease of use; this hybrid runs on gasoline instead of kerosene, so owners can easily fill them up at regular gas stations.

Unfortunately, for now, a normal driver’s license isn’t enough to operate this type of bat mobile looking thing. A sport pilot license is required, which if you’re not careful will cost you over 10,000 euros alone. It consumes approximately 15 liters of fuel for a maximum flight time of an hour with a ballpark price tag 223,000 Euros for consumers.

With the use of YouTube the company has managed to accumulate over 2,500,000 million views with its latest promotional video of only 3,5 minutes. This has all happened in a time span of less than 5 days. Would you call this a successful marketing campaign so far? If this all sounds very interesting to you, please, proceed to the video underneath.