A few weeks ago, I posted about my experience on Klout.  My rating went from 10 to 50 in a span of 4 days, and I had literally done nothing on my Facebook.  I have been monitoring my Klout score and 3 other people’s scores.  Here are the final results.

Ginny  – was 50, now it is 47

Kerry – was 44, now it is 57

Jane – was 48, now it is 58

Scott – was 14, now it is 56

Here are a few things that they did that may have affected their scores.  I am not surprised to see mine go down, except that I added my LinkedIn account to it and that was when my score went down.  Kerry is on Twitter and Facebook all the time, so I wasn’t surprised to see her score go up.  Jane is always posting lifestyle stuff on her Twitter and Facebook, so again, her score should have gone up. And now, we come to Scott.

Scott started with a score of 14 and then sky rocketed to 61 and then dropped a little, but has stayed pretty much around 56 for the last month.  He has only linked his Facebook, as he doesn’t use any other social media platforms.  His last post on Facebook was September 17th.  He has done nothing on Facebook since then, and yet his score was at one point the highest.  Here is where I have issue with Klout.com.

I can’t figure out what they are basing it off of.  Do nothing and your Klout score goes up, do something and your Klout score goes up.  Perhaps when you initially sign up it  takes a few days for Klout to go through your posts on Facebook for the last while and that’s why it jumps so significantly.  I’m not sure that it is an accurate enough platform to use as a tool for hiring people.   It is not consistent enough when it comes to measuring klout.  I’m going to give Klout a score of 20.  Fun idea, but needs some work.

As 2014 is winding down, I thought it would be fun to check out the best social media campaigns of 2014.  I will list my 3 favorites, and hopefully you’ll be enticed to check out all 30.

1.  Samsung celebri-tweet.  Remember Ellen Degeneres’ Oscar selfie with other famous faces like Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts.  This was a genius ploy to get Samsung’s name all over the web, as users of twitter re-tweeted that photo so many times it ended up crashing Twitter.

2. Samuel Adams Helium Beer.  April Fools Trick that went down like gangbusters on YouTube.  The premise:  Samuel Adams added Helium to their beer to give it a lighter taste in your mouth.  Their 1:27 video has had over 600,000 views.

3. Virgin Airlines April Fools on YouTube.  The video has Richard Branson talking to the owner of Nest who they say they have teamed up with to give customers the ultimate experience 35,000 feet in the air.  Featuring Climate Controlled Flights, each seat can give you the experience of a windy day in Chicago or a beachy tropical feel at the twist of a gauge.

These were my favorites, but I feel that one a little closer to home should have been featured in this list.  Westjet has been using YouTube for different campaigns for Christmas, Father’s Day, April Fools, etc.  Here are the links to some great social media campaigns.  My sister works for Westjet and she told me that they hoped to get about 100,000 views.  In the end they had over 36,000,000 views and ended up on the cover of People’s online magazine.  A little campaign that a huge impact. This gave Westjet a really personal brand feel and shows how much they care about their guests.  Love it.

1. Christmas Miracle

2. Child Free Cabins – April Fools

3.  Father’s Day

This link will let you read the entire article of the top 30.  Great read. http://ow.ly/EqRVZ

Some say that Facebook doesn’t hold any real staying power, just like it’s predecessors, for example Friendster, Classmates and MySpace.  It was the new thing and someday it will be replaced with the ever changing social media platform trends.  However, I read something this week that shows it still holds some sway against it’s platform competitors.

Last week, Sean Smith, a man from Port Alberni posted a Facebook message to BC Ferries.  It was in response to the possibility of BC Ferries shutting down their Horseshoe Bay-Departure Bay (Nanaimo) Ferry route. He publicly called BC Ferries out and offered his suggestions on how they could save money.  In fact, he says that they don’t need a marketing department….they need a social media department.  His post has been liked over 10,000 times and has also had over 7,000 shares.  In fact, his post, which I suspect he never thought would have so much impact, received a direct response from BC Ferries explaining their ideas for suggesting it.

You never know when your rant could go viral.  Is this the way to keep corporations in check?  Perhaps.

Read the full article here, which includes the Facebook Post and BC Ferries full response.  http://ow.ly/EmPPp

Something that I have run into on this journey with e-marketing, is that sometimes people are unwilling to accept your help or suggestions.  It’s not always easy. Are they listening to your recommendations when you work with certain companies? They have their own idea of how and what works best.  So, how do you convince people that your ideas might actually help?  I have a few ideas about this.

1.  Communicate your idea clearly.

Put together a really carefully worded document that explains everything step by step with reasons for every step.  Respond to their questions before they even ask it.

2.  Don’t let them focus on the fact that you are a student.

Students have a wealth of knowledge that they might not know they possess.  Although I am not necessarily your average student, being slightly older, but I think that students today hold the key to information that every business would love to have.  The older generation are desperate to figure out how this generation thinks, because social media is really used by those in there early twenties and businesses want to know how those kids think and why they like what they like.  Tell them what you think.

3.  Don’t be afraid to push.

if you are worried about being forceful, don’t. That older generation is used to people talking to them that way.  They deal better with forthright speaking and communication.  I have seen it often in my workplace.  It is better to be transparent and say what you think than miss out on your opportunity because you danced around the subject.

This is just another thing I think about things.

See the link to the article I read here –> http://ow.ly/DmKTv

I worked in advertising for a few years and have always loved clever ads.  The Breast Cancer Foundation revamped the logos for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, to resemble breasts.  The tag line that goes along with the photos is “If only you checked your breasts as often.”  This is a great example of how a group is attempting to spread information and awareness by using social media.  Not only did they create very similar looking logos, that you have to look closely at to see the difference, but they also include a link to a petition meant to encourage each of these social media networks to use the modified logo during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

After the tremendous success of the ALS “ice bucket” challenge this summer, perhaps we will see more and more of these kinds of campaigns linked to social media networks.   I am going to sign this petition.  I can get behind some good coming from sites that are generally very “me focused.”  Let’s start using our networks to save lives.  The trick is finding something that catches on.  I hope this one does.

Last Thursday, I signed into Klout.com.  I wanted to search a few people for an assignment and decided to give it a go myself.  I linked only my Facebook page to it.  My score came back as 10. The score is between 1-100, letting you know how much influence you have on social media.

I was far from surprised at my pathetic score.  I rarely post on my Facebook, so I was happy with my score of 10, which I suspect, in Kloutland, means,  “Hey, you put up a picture once and 4 people liked it. Hooray.  Non-social media chick, enjoy your score of 10.”

This Tuesday, 5 days later, I again visited Klout to search for someone for an assignment.  This time when I opened it, my score had jumped to 50.  I went back into my Facebook to see if I had posted something that would have boosted my score.  The last time I posted on my Facebook page was September 30th, and Tuesday was October 14th.  This made me wonder what had happened, and why had it changed.  I could understand if I had linked other social networks, but I hadn’t.  So, I decided to link one other site, and added my LinkedIn.  Nothing has changed so far, but i feel that perhaps 5 days of not doing anything may make a difference, since it did the last time.

This experiment is two fold.  First I’m testing my own and 2nd I’ve got a few others signing up to see what they get.  First, my sister (Kerry) who owns her own business and is twitter crazy with tons of followers.  Second, my friend Scott, who is a fairly famous voice actor that has some serious fans interacting on his Facebook.  Third, my friend Jane who is a local actress in Vancouver.

Initial results:

Ginny (limited user):                        50                 (Facebook & Linkedin added)

Kerry (heavy user):                             44                 (Facebook only)

Scott (1000’s of fans):                      14                 (Facebook only)

Jane (actress):                                   48                 (Facebook only)

To be continued……

Here I am, 37 years old and just finishing up my undergraduate degree in Commerce.  I find myself staring into a virtual sea of hashtags, links, social media networks and wondering, what am I doing trying to figure all of this out?  Well today, I think I found my answer.  The whole point of going to university again was not only to learn something new and expand my understanding of the world, but also to get a job that doesn’t require me to work until 2:00 in the morning kicking out drunken bums.  So, I am going to accept “TwinkedIn Challenge“, that’s what I’ve decided to call it.

The article I read today, Rethink Your LinkedIn Strategy: 6 Benefits of Treating It More Like Twitter, had some insightful ways to get your personal branding beefed up on LinkedIn.   I plan on revisiting my LinkedIn Profile and really getting that social media on a mission to find me a job. The main idea of this article is that limiting your connections to only people you know, isn’t going to help you in the long run.   If you treat LinkedIn more like Twitter, and try to increase your connections, you will get more out of it.

Here are their suggestions in brief, please be aware that these are not my own ideas, just paraphrased from their page.

1.  People will want to meet you and hire you if you are a “most-viewed connection”.

2. Networking is about visibility.  Get more views, more often.

3. Increase your personal endorsements.

4. The more people you know, the more people want to know you.

5. Increase traffic to your website. (This one doesn’t really apply to me, as I don’t have a company.  I’ll keep it in mind for the future).

6. Increase your content exposure and get featured in LinkedIn Pulse, increasing your exposure even more.

There you have it. Some ideas from the day of reading. Now, if I can find the time to tear myself away from reading books on international biz and writing blog posts, I plan on starting to really use LinkedIn in a way that will increase my professional network.

I don’t make a secret about how much I like Netflix, and they keep coming up with interesting jobs.

Currently Netflix is looking for “Official Instagrammers”  to head out across America taking photos for Netflix Instagram channels.  They refer to these Instagrammers as Grammasters. All the travel arrangements are paid for and you’ll find an extra 2000 bucks in your pocket each week.  Remember when people started finding fame through Youtube? Justin Bieber, for example.  Perhaps Instagram is the next place to find fame, using photography rather than video.

Earlier this year, Netflix hired a professional tagger, who essentially got paid to watch Netflix TV shows and movies all day.  Greatest job in the world? Possibly. This person had to describe what they saw using “objective tags” in order to better customize the Netflix customer viewer experience.  I think this relates back to customer segmentation and really understanding who your clients are.  I like the innovative ways that Netflix has grown over the last few years.

Check out these articles if you want to learn more about jobs with Netflix.

Netflix Pays for Instagram Play

Get Paid To Watch Netflix All Day (Unfortunately, this job is only available in the UK.  Fingers crossed Netflix Canada jumps on the bandwagon)

I read the other day that only 19% of Millenials think that most people can be trusted.  If this is true, then why are they so willing to hand over untold amounts of personal information to whatever site comes their way? Our class recently was required to sign up for Hootsuite, with the additional incentive that we would receive Hootsuite Pro for free.  Does anyone read privacy policies anymore?  Perhaps it’s the Gen X in me that makes me read every single one of them. I’m old school,  There are disclaimers when you are adding your social networks that say that Hootsuite is able to post for you, see your personal messages, etc.  I’m one of those people that has her Facebook locked down.  I don’t want my personal social media sites interacting with my professional or school career.   I’ am eternally grateful that cell phones with cameras didn’t exist when I was in my twenties.   Am I being paranoid?  Maybe, maybe not.

I can see the benefits of Hootsuite if you run a business.  Capturing information about what your competition is doing, searching LinkedIn for upcoming jobs in a specific area, and scheduling posts to hit all of your social networks at the same time.  It seems to be quite a powerful little tool.  There are benefits to being able to see which of your posts are effective and elicit a response and which don’t.

It’s interesting to see what is out there to ease the onslaught of information from multiple social media avenues, but I am not linking my personal accounts to it.  Not yet.

I read an article called, 12 usability flaws that are spoiling the mobile web, for class.  Interesting that David Moth belittles mobile sites for making the big mistakes, while posting his article on a very cluttered and messy website.

The right hand side is filled with advertising, trending things, and top jobs; the bottom has an irritating banner at the bottom which covers over content; and the colours and fonts are not the easiest to look at in the background while reading. I found it particularly hard to remain focused on his message, because there was so much going on all around it.  My overall feeling as I read through his article was, I just want to finish reading this so I can get away from this insulting website.

You’d think that people who build these sites would have learned by now that that sort of overkill really doesn’t work. at encouraging people to check new sites out.

It is not that mindsets have changed.  I have met with other medias that believe having as much information possible is the best way to go.  I used to have to convince clients, for whom I wrote radio commercials, that having your ad filled with your address, phone number and website was not going to work in creating new business.  I tend to think that less is more in general.

It is something that I have always loved about Google, they keep it clean.  When will everyone else catch on?