Social Media Involvement in Daily Life (Post 5)

As social media is expanding, business are also using it for the hiring process of employees. Social media sites help businesses to find a valid candidate for the company. However, if they do not know about the law of screening process then it can be dangerous for them. The article “Social Media, the Law and You, by Mike Thompson discuss about this topic. He explains that we can easily do online search for the jobs. There are some popular sites that we can visit and find the jobs such as Monster.com, LinkedIn, or JournalismJobs. Com. Searching jobs is not difficult now, however these social media sites sometimes make difficult for someone to get hired. Author mention some statistics that 2 in 5 companies use social networking sites to search job candidates and technology industries are also use social sites to look up valid applicants based on employee’s social profile.

Author says that candidates should be careful for posting their pictures on Facebook while they are up for a job. Employers do use social media sites for screening the candidates. Thompson has provided the statistics for this as well. He mentions that a 2009 Career Builder Survey reported that 45% of employers are using social media cites for screening applicants for the position.

California Government has considered this issue seriously and they signed 2 bills to stop universities and employers from taking the candidates social networking and email’s passwords. Furthermore, author have include other authors and CEO’s point of views about this social media activity by businesses. They think that demanding candidates for their social media sites passwords can give access to employers to reach to applicant’s privacy. Jason Falls, who is the CEO of the digital marketing agency and education products company Social Media Explorer, says that “In my opinion – and I’m not a lawyer –demanding someone else’s password is a clear violation of privacy.”

Gilmore who is the author of the book “Social Media Law for Businesses says that “employers go to social sites before deciding that if they are hiring the candidate or not. Most employers use social networking for screen candidates and monitor employees”. He thinks that businesses should be careful with checking social media sites of the applicants. Using social media for applicants screening can be risky for employers if they are not aware of the laws. Without understanding the guidelines of the social media screening laws business can be point out for crimination or violation. 

Social Media Involvement in Daily Life: “Post 4”

The peer reviewed article I would like to discuss in this blog post is from Logan Kugler “Keeping Online Reviews Honest”. In this article, author explains that as social media is expanding, consumers are relying on online reviews for making decision about products to buy and for searching the reliable brands and businesses. Author has also provide some statistics for those consumers who get interact with online reviews.

88% of U.S customers depend on online sources to make decision that whether the local business is good business or not. 77% says that positive online sources help them to trust a business, 88% consumer’s thinks that trust online reviews like a personal recommendation. 30% people say that they trust online reviews if they are real reviews. It is important that the online reviews are the authentic reviews and not a fraud. Author discuss about the Amazon’s Canadian site which had found that there are some authors who are using fake names and giving favorable reviews to their books. In cases like this the websites business also goes down. This is bad for both consumers and business as well. Small business are not much efficient with online review system and they should not use fraud reviews because they can experience such attacks where people can find that they are adding fraud reviews. Fraud and fake reviews can negatively affect the customers. By reading fake comments or reviews they can make wrong decisions.

Now question is that how can we find that a review is a fake review? Author explains that they are some ways which can tell if the reviews are fake or not. He explains that online reviews has options where we can see that does this reviewer has reviewed anything else or not. A reviewer with a single review can be considered a fraud. Computer can also detect the fraud reviewers and there are ways to identify fraudulent reviewers operating as a group. Researches are also working to detect fake reviews by considering the online review contents. Paper presented at the World Wide Web 2012 conference, described about the behavior model called GSBank which can detect fake reviewer groups. The book of Bing Liu, also discusses about some methods which can help detect the fraud reviewers. He explains that fake reviews don’t make consistency and their style of comments are also different from real reviewers.

Author also have this question that what can we do with these fake reviewers? Yelp is also approaching to resolving the doubts about fake reviewers. They are separating recommended reviews from those that do not satisfy its screening standards. Other are limiting to write the reviews for those who adding the comment at first place. Scholars suggest that we should do background check and identity verification and others are promoting the voting system for the consumers.

Author explains that it is very important for social media and social networking to provide authentic reviews to their customers so they can make right decisions. He thinks that computer science can help to find more ways to detect the fraud reviews. 

Social Media Involvement in Daily Life: (POST 3)

The researcher related to social media and business field that I would like to introduce my audience with is Andrew Stephen. Andrew Stephen is Assistant Professor of Business Administration & Katz Fellow in Marketing at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburg. He complete his PhD in Marketing with Distinction and an MPhil in Marketing from Columbia University. He is recognized an expert of the social media and marketing field and has strong experience with different companies one of them is American Express. At the University of the Pittsburgh he is responsible for the Digital Marketing with in Katz MBA program and also teaches social media marketing and digital media analytics.

Professor Stephen’s research is related to understanding the causes, types, and consequences of using social media in marketplaces. He studies that what causes social media interactions in the business world, he identify the types of interaction that can occur, and how these interactions can affect the customers and businesses routine. His research program focusing on the social media, social networks, mobile advertising, social exchange, crowdsourcing, and word of mouth.

Stephen’s research is focusing and contributing on social interactive marketing channels, he is searching that what motivates people to contribute and invest on the social media sites, and what type of users are effectively getting information from the social media. Moreover, his other researches extend to on focusing that how social media information affects the decision making of the consumers and productivity.

 In Journal of consumer research one of his journal articles is “Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control”. In this article, he explained about the social media, self- control and self-esteem. Researcher explains that there are many people who use online social networking and it affects their behaviors. Scholar has done five researches to demonstrate that social network develops self-esteem in users who are focused on close friends while using social network. Social network increase self-esteem and decreases self- control. The research also present the evidence that greater social network use is related to higher body-mass index and higher levels of credit, debit cards. This research also explains that self- control is an important element for balancing social level and well- being.

Professor Stephon researches are the great contribution for the social media and business related subjects. I also agree with him that usage of social networking with strong ties with friends can enhance the self-esteem and low the self- control. Focusing on others while using social network can change your opinions and decision making.
Professor Stephon has recognized for his work and also received many awards for his contributions. The awards includes the Marketing Science Institute's Alden G. Clayton Award, a Google-WPP Marketing Research Award, the American Marketing Association's John A. Howard Award, and the American Marketing Association's Donald R. Lehmann Award. For the complete award list please visit the website.

 

 

 

Social Media Involvement in Daily Life: (Post 2)

For some businesses, social media brings benefits and for some it affects their businesses negatively. Businesses which are not using social media properly for the advertising are not progressing in their business. They have to adopt this social media change in order to get successful in business world. With the change of social media, the demands of customers are also changing. In this era of social media people want to make decisions by reading about the product and they are seeking for the specific information about the products and companies online. Moreover, they want to receive the sales messages and ads on the social networking sites. By using these sites, customers can reach to the information of products easily and faster. Social media educates customers about a company’s standard, quality and value of the product.

80% of US social network users prefer to connect to brands through Facebook. Social media is playing an important role in engaging customers to buy the products. The revolution of social media forces these companies to use networking sites who are not using it for advertising and promotion purposes.

However, some businesses do not know how to use the social media affectively and they are not aware that social media can damage their reputation in the business world. Moreover, a business’s sale can be affect by the changing views (positive and negative) of customers because of social media.

From times article, I found that Dominions had damaged its reputation in the past. Two dominions employees put their prank video on YouTube which showed that they are violating the health code standards. Social media sites promoted it and these two employees got charged for selling prohibited food. Brands which are not using social media should understand that their wrong and inappropriate information can cause trouble for them

Business should be careful about the words and posts they put on the Social Media sites because their advertisements can impact customers. It is important for corporations to use appropriate strategies of social media in order to expand their businesses.

There are some people have this misconception that they are using social media for their personal uses, so they can also manage their businesses easily on the social media websites. These individuals should be using some basic knowledge of business advertising on social media. They should make strategies about promoting their product on the social media sites and be aware about the consequences as well. Business should hire agencies or professional individuals that can only focus on handling the social media advertisements. Moreover, they should know how often and when they should post their ads to get most views from the customers. They must know what sites and apps they have to use to get most views and likes on their posts and ads. Additionally, they would have knowledge that what their customers like the most and what they want to see on the social media sites from the company’s advertisements. Using these strategies can make big changes and make companies successful.

Social Media change is a great invention to connect people, and business should get advantage from this to expand their businesses. 

Social Media Involvement in Daily Life:

Social Media and social networking making our communication easier and faster. Social media comprises large community who follow the social media sites and sharing information with each other. Social media expanding the communication channels. In past communication usually took place over the phone and postal services and then the email creation made the communication faster and easier. Now social media is taking over the email and we can perceive this by the social media sites. Websites like Facebook, My Space, change.org, and LinkedIn encourage people, so they can send their messages, posts, profiles and exchange their information with each other.

Communication through social media giving people a platform where they can communicate conceitedly. Using social media sites people can talk about anything openly. They share their thoughts, ideas, opinions, personal matters, and can access the news faster which is not possible from postal services, email and telephone.

The change of communication social media is inspiring and positively affecting our society. Social Media giving opportunity to people so they can easily reach those who are in different countries. Social media allow them to post pictures, do video chat and text. This is more convenience and time saving as well. Mail, telephone calls and emails requires time and are not much faster than the social media sites.

However, this change of communication negatively affecting business world. Business advertising utilize older form of communication to get interact with customers. To promote their business they are using mail, telephone calls and email.  Social Media taking people away from these methods and forcing businesses to move to new communication channel of social media. As social media is expanding rapidly it can also bring good change to business world. If business use it correctly then it can bring positive change to the advertising region of business.