Why companies watch us?

Accessed on the 3rd January
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11450923

This article from the bbc news website explore how companies are becoming more active in social media due to wanting to influence and keep of track on word of mouth about them from their audience/consumers. Companies want positive words of mouth to keep sales and share price growing but with negative news can lead to these tumbling. With consumer being able to share their views further and louder across social media has created a shift towards consumer power. 

This has lead to companies wanting to monitor what is being said and shared bout them. However analysis programs have issues with context and regional use of language. But when successful these pieces of software can measure peoples moods towards the brand and the trends that according across the platform. 

An important question Tom Austin arises in they articles is what are companies trying to learn/gain from being on facebook? Without this focus it seems pointless for a company to invest much time into social media. 

He continues and states that companies might not be able to sell their product directly on the site but they are able to create a passion for the product. This is only successful if it not done through a hard sell, if people wanted this they would watch the adverts or go direct to you. 

The most important piece taken from this article is, Does your message and content add value to your audience and your companies image?

Another thing is rewarding key contributes, as they will be more willing to spread the word further. Plus more people will want to try to get rewarded by the company. Explain of this virgin giving out free  flights to key contributors.

Another important aspect Austin states is that you need to be flexible as everything can happen due to face books instant nature. 

"Your model has to be continual adapted."

Starbucks wants to be our friend.

Accessed 3rd January
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11465829

A short selection of video from BBCs CLICK reporter Rory Cellan-Jones who explores why companies are wanting us to interact with them on social media platforms. Dary Willson-Rymer from Starbucks says there has been an "erosion of trust with large institutions" over the years and being a more transparent and open company is the best way of regaining that trust. This is suggested to be done through social capital on Facebook as it is the best to conumicate with the customer according to Wilson-Rymer. Starbucks does not advertise in the traditional fashion but uses social networks to create a two way dialogue with its audience from discussing services, debate products and have a general "hang out on the web". This way the companies do not seem to become across as "tone deaf" like a television or billboard advert might do.
Towards the end of the video Cellen-Jones explores the company isoft who is obsessed with its analytic and what is being said about them on the internet. But the question is what are they really learning from it? Starbucks suggests they are learning what people really think and want.

Instragram selling images

Accessed 3rd January
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20767537

The upcoming change in Instagrams term and conditions allow for them to sell your images but also information to advertisers. This information ranges from what hardware you use (deceive, phone, tablet), your location, you content you create and others items which is stored and can be passed onto advertisers or Facebook. This seems to allow Facebook to create an analyse the user and this can be sold to business or use as demographic data. The advertisers are allowed to your use your content and name and I guess Facebook gains revenue to this access of information. 

Facebook and Instagram say this gathering of information and analysis will allow them to fight spam on their framework but also improve it through studying the way we use the sites and make it more efficient and allow new features. But I guess that this is more focused on trying to find a way of making money from their $1billion purchase.

Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
Accessed on the 18th November 2012
danah m. boyd 
School of Information
University of California-Berkeley 
Nicole B. Ellison 
Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media
Michigan State University 

Facebook Business

https://www.facebook.com/business/overview

Accessed on the 17th November 2012

https://www.facebook.com/business/promoted-posts?campaign_id=281942581907756&placement=homepagewhatsnew

Accessed on the 17th November 2012

https://www.facebook.com/business/influence

Accessed on the 17th November 2012

These are all pages taken off Facebook section for business and advertising which are appealing to companies to set up shop off at Facebook.com. This starts to show in more details how facebook is making its money for hosting all this information and traffic to their site. So a sponsored story is when they post on the users feed when they do not follow them or when one of your friends likes a fan page and it posts through that users account.

This page simplified what I have been exploring through this blog. "Build relationships with them, reach new people and drive sales using facebook." It is basically saying about tapping into the word of mouth marketing section that facebook has created through the framework on sharing upon things each user is using and liking.

So when a user is interacting on a brands fan page the brand is able to "sponsor" the story the user was interacting with onto their feed so everyone else in their network can see what they have been doing. This enables peer to peer recammodation in an indirect form. Sponsored and promoting a story is when the brand pays money to Facebook to get that story spread into the user network, this is were Facebook makes some of its money from.

Starbucks Contiuned

http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks

Accessed on the 15th November

 Here are screen grabs from facebook and more specify Starbucks Fan Page. On the 15th November when I collected these images facebook had 32.7million facebook likes from sperate users across the global. Which is the size of a country let which shows the reach these huge brands have. They also had 297,190 talking about this which means people mentioning the company in a personal status or comment on a users profile. Showing the word of mouth created but these 297,190 comments/status will reach more people than just that because it will appear on feeds and facebook walls for all their friends to see. This enable for other businesses to see how important social networking is to businesses to spread the word about their products. This seems to make a more lasting imprint on a person than a television advert as people are actively engaging with friends about these items rather than inactively watching a television commercial. Plus 6.3million checked in to Starbucks which is basically the same as comment and status as it posts to your facebook maps on the users profile.

I have highlighted on the right hand side to show they have back dated their history/posts back to when the business was created in 1982. Showing Starbucks has really took on board what Mark Zuckerberg stated "tell the whole story of your life on a single page"

The cover image (large image at the top of the profile) is the first thing you see on the page when you log then the display picture which is Starbucks corporate logo. The image has been produced in Instagram which is owned by facebook and it allows users to place fliters onto their pictures that make them look like they have been taken by a film/lomography/instragraphic cameras, this software is only available upon phones and tablet and gives a dream like quality to the image with its blured and faded and burnt colours. Instagram is a hugely popular with over 100million users (september 2012 http://mashable.com/2012/09/11/instagram-100-million/ ) and is the trendy way to publish your images onto the internet, giving them that more personalised/unique image?
The content of the image is interesting to as it has a users name on it, this is because of when you physically go into a Starbucks they write your name onto your drink (so they donot get lost or taken by another person) however this gives the sense of a highly personalised service. As it feels like they want to know your name than other shopping experience, giving the feeling that you matter to them. So they have translated this onto their facebook. This and the quality of the image gives a warmth of homeliness to the audience?

Starbucks uploads lot of images relating to their products like this one of which looks like it is out of their development kitchen or a tasting panel. Do these images display the lifestyle that people inspire to? Through the sense of city lifestyle, professional life and a taste for the better things in life? What is for sure they use more informal tone of voice to their facebook fans, "For coffee lovers only." Does this give a sense of community of using the idea of us and then them, us being the coffee lovers. Plus I have noticed that all of their status are short and too the point. They do not rant onto the consumer about what they offer they let the images talk for them and then the users to comment to create more content to go along side the content displayed?

Here is a good example of how the timeline profile is adaptable for the user by highlighting a story by spreading it across the whole screen with Toms New years resolution image. Aswell you can see how Starbucks publishs links to its website onto its timeline to drive users back to their website where more content all about Starbucks culture and products is at.
A great demonstration of how businesses can update their audiences of changing and important issues is displayed in the botton right of this screen grab. With Starbucks updating their audience that their is a Scam occurring so they do not negative views from their audience they have been scammed as they have spread the word through a site were most of Starbucks fans are already at.

 Another great example of Starbucks use of image updates via the medium of Instagram. The two images on the right give a sense Starbucks is always there for you. With the top image the cup is by his side as he waits to meet his girlfriend? Giving the sense that the cup will always be there for him giving him that reassuring warmth from the coffee inside. Then the image below of the fair ground give the sign of the importance of the cup in "Alison's" life as the instagram allowed the user to blur out the rest out and focus in on the cup. Plus the title being "One more round." gives the sense that the audience should just indulge themselves in the another coffee (similar to the reassuring sense given in the man with the flowers.)

 The following screen grabs are from the so called"back dating" of the timeline to give the user the full history of the company. This manner of displaying the information gives a bite size history for users to understand where a company has truly come from. Bite size in the sense of an image (when available) and small one or two sentence description allows anyone with a small interest to see the path (which might not be unlike some of the users who maybe classed in know where).

The timeline gives a great opportunity for Starbucks to show its narrative/journey to everyone and to allow they to add and engage with that history.

Starbucks

http://www.grandsocialcentral.com/hustler-marketers/brand-managers/starbucks-brand-managers/starbucks-use-of-social-media-keeps-customers-coming-back
Accessed on the 16th November
http://www.jungletorch.com/blog/2010/12/14/starbucks-effective-use-of-social-media/
accessed on the 17th November

This article gives example of what Starbucks did in 2009 to get people interacting with the brand from offline sources. 

In May 2009, in an attempt to get Starbucks lovers involved, Starbucks launched an online/offline campaign.  They noticed that daily people are on Facebook or Twitter posting pictures and chatting with friends about what they have been doing during the day.  Taking that into consideration, Starbucks placed pictures in major cities of the US. They then challenged fans to be the first to post those pictures on Facebook and tweet about them.  They used common knowledge of what people do daily and turned it into a game. Great way of using the fan base you already have to your advantage by getting them active and spreading the word by word of mouth.

Another interesting thing Starbucks does is actively asks for peoples opinions for suggestion and improvements to the services they use. This seems to be a kind of ownership for the consumers over the brands. 

This source states that Starbucks has gained over $67.8million worth of social media impact through their facebook site. I have tried to follow the source given of "General Sentiment" who took out the survey only has links to other news stories about it on their website. The article does state like others I have referenced in this blog that Starbucks is the leading company on facebook making the most of Facebooks brand page.