HITCHHIKERSTHE

GUIDE TO S O C I A LM E D I A

INTRODUCTION

SOCIAL MEDIUMS

NAKED CONVESATIONS

CASE STUDIES

SPEAKERS, ODDS AND ENDS

TREVOR ROBERTSON, ADVERTISING AT CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY

FOREWORD: THE INSIDE SPACE RACE

Since the 1960’s, the next frontier was always thought to be space: a vast, unexplored wild-west of an area, the prospect of mastery over ex-tra-terrestrial worlds was an inspiration to a generation.

It’s now 2012, and I maintain that we’ve come farther than we could have imagined, not by looking outward, but by looking inward. We im-proved communications amongst ourselves, made great strides toward fostering a global community that shares information rapidly, succinctly, and on a massive scale. This means that the next frontier wasn’t, and isn’t, outer space, but the distances we have between ourselves as citi-zens of the world, and the bridging tool we use to span these inner spaces is social media.

Though nothing will ever trump face-to-face communications in terms of genuine emotional connection, Social Media is useful in an entirely different way. We can use this tool to feel empathy for someone we’ve never met, who lives thousands of miles away. We can use it to connect to thousands with just a few keystrokes. And, as we’ve seen in Syria, Libya, and Egypt, we can use it to inspire a revolution. This can seem overwhelming, as Social Media is also misunderstood. That’s where I come in:

I am a Millennial, and this is what I can do for you.1

ME, MYSELF, AND MY SOCIAL MEDIA LIFE

Student: Public Relations and Advertis-ing Major, English Literature Minor, at Chapman University, graduating in the spring of 2013.

Musician: As both a musician and so-cial media enthusiast, I use Soundcloud, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other means to advertise my indie rock solo project, Guilt Engine.

Design: From art, to website layouts, to well-written copy, to fashion, I enjoy well-thought out, well-designed things.

Media Consumer: I love catching up with my favorite shows on Hulu, Netflix, and watching web serials on Youtube. I also listen to music using Spotify and Pandora.

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TOP OF THE CLASS

Cory O’Connor is our head honcho in the classroom. He inspires us, teaches us, and, perhaps most importantly, isn’t above learn-ing from us.

The quick facts:

Graduated Harvard Business School.

Former Senior Vice President of Synergy Pro-gramming andCommunication at The Disney Channel

Professor of Internet Communication (#INTCOM) and Principles ofAdvertising at Chapman University.

Creator and Advocator of relationships with-in class.

Spurrer of lively conversation between stu-dents.

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#INTCOM

Internet Communications, a required course for the Public Relations and Advertising program at Chapman’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, allows students to explore the web and how it relates to brands, both individual and corporate. It is focused on business: the business of people, and how they connect. We’re required to set our phones at the front of the class at the start of each class, turn off our monitors, and meditate, which symbolizes that though we’re learning about the internet, life is about what happens outside of a computer.

We primarily communicate with each other via Twitter, tagging any pertinent information with the #INTCOM hashtag. This allows us to talk to each other, and Cory, about things relating to class, interesting topics, and everything in between.

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INTRODUCTIONS ARE IN ORDER...

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Jennifer SharpPaper or Pollution

Justine SuzukiMultiracial Identity

Lillie WojcikCelebrating Modern Writers

Katie Hendricks MacKenzie Weber

Tim HanLee and Me

Boycott Ads for Kids Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Pua Sze Emily Pizanie Sasha Habash

Lauren Meyer Olivia Barker Dylan Roley

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Linking Panthers Together Save Bruiser’s Mom All in Good Health

Colorize My Planner The Transitor The Power of One

MORE INTRODUCTIONS ARE IN ORDER...

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Kara Scofield Anapau Larriva Samatha Militante

Meghan Langsdorf Lauren Borba Colleen Evans

Healthy Night Owl Staying Fit in College Have You Seen Molly?

Staying Fit in College Adam, Eve, and the Media Blood Diamonds

Gabi David Laurie Swain Jessica Phelps

Catherine Del CasaleLauren Chouinard Amanda Pham

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Help the Skinless Babies Looking Past our Differences The Tail of a Dog in Quarantine

Ubuntu United Against Puppy Mills Our New Normal

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WORLD OF THE INTERNET

Social Media is defined as an interactive platform that allows individuals and communities to share and consume information. When you look at it this way, as long as there’s been the Internet, there’s been social media.

1971: The world’s first email is created and delivered, making international communications possible.

1978: The first public dial-up Bulletin Board System was created by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess in Chicago, Illinois. This system was an early forefather of online forums, which, in turn, were instrumental in the creation of social media as we know it today.

1985: America OnLine service (AOL) opens its doors. This was the first uni-fying online presence that provided news, chat, and email.

1993: The WWW technology is first used en masse, as the first graphical browser, Mosaic, is debuted, allowing for websites in their current itera-tion to exist.

1994: Geocities, the first service that allows for user-created content and websites, begins.

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1997: AIM lets users chat in real time, will pave the way for broader in-stant messaging adoption and the current iteration of Facebook Chat.

1998: Google opens as a major search engine and, more importantly, be-gins to research and index the internet.

1999: LiveJournal and Blogspot become popular, kick off ‘blogging’ as a presence in pop culture and online lingo.

2003: Myspace, the forerunner of Facebook’s current content model, takes off with more than one million users signing up in the first month.

2006: Twitter launches. Now, over 4000 tweets are posted every second

2012: Pinterest gains traction with the female demographic, Facebook is the first social network to reach one billion users, and Myspace relaunch-es under the ownership of Justin Timberlake.

Overall, the trend we’ve seen is the replacement of top-down commu-nications with networked communications, with brands opting for social media presence instead of solely website views. It’s all about inclusion.

#INTCOM RITUALS

Tripolar world: We all live in our very own world, with our own ideals and beliefs. In interactions and collaborations with others, we live in tripolar worlds: your world, my world, and the world we collaborate in. This provides the genesis necessary for synthesis of new ideas.

Narcissism: Everyone is a narcissist, and we are all our own greatest limiting fac-tors, because narcissism leads to selfishness. Embracing and getting past this narcissism creates a better world, more prone to col-laboration.

Understanding: To create genuine and last-ing connections, we must actually connect with those around us, whether they be col-leagues, customers, or other stakeholders. The best way to do this is through face-to-face communication, engaged listening, and a need to understand each other.

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SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T THAT SOCIAL

Social media is a great tool for marketers, because it’s inexpensive, drives awareness, engagement, and other KPIs, and it can or-ganically grow out of the brand.

However, one of the most important things we’ve learned in #INTCOM is to realize that social media is a means to an end, not the end itself. It’s a way to engage people into face-to-face conversations, and the brands that use it most effectively realize this.

It’s easy to get caught up in the buzz of so-cial media, as everyone’s using it, or talking about using it, now. But the most important thing about using it correctly is that trying to shoehorn it in as a strategy doesn’t work; it has to be applicable, relevant, and interest-ing to the consumer and also, perhaps more importantly, to the brand.

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THE SOCIAL MEDIA SHAKEDOWN: FACEBOOK & TWITTER

Facebook is obviously the biggest social media network right now. With the most brand presence on the web (and only rivalled by Twitter), it’s also the prime launching spot for WOM communications.

Facebook is obviously the biggest social media network right now. With the most brand presence on the web (and only rivalled by Twitter), it’s also the prime launching spot for WOM communications and engagement, due to its high population, and easy metrics.

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Though in a shorter format than Facebook, Twitter allows people to send spur-of-the-mo-ment updates more easily. In fact, the Israel Defence Force used Twitter as the initial me-dium to break their killing of a high-ranking Hamas officer, and has utilized the tool in news.

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THE SOCIAL MEDIA SHAKEDOWN: KLOUT & INSTAGRAM

Klout isn’t as much of a social media presence as an aggregate metric tool to measure your influence across multiple networks, which makes it a great tool for marketers and people look to brand themselves throughout the web. You can also get perks, which are neat.

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Since being bought by Facebook, Instagram has seen many changes, including a static web profile and newer search algorithms which makes it more brand friendly. It’s one of the most personal forms of social media, as essentially a social photo blog.

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THE SOCIAL MEDIA SHAKEDOWN: LINKEDIN & PINTEREST

Linkedin is one of the four pillars of #INTCOM, as it allows our class to connect in a more professional environment pending our gradutation. It’s an invaluable tool in making connec-tions in the industry and being aware of industry news and jobs.

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Pinterest is the newest thing in social media, and has changed the game in terms of mar-keting on internet space. Since it’s commodity based, it allows for high brand integration, though many companies are struggling to overcome the female demographic skew.

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THE NEW MYSPACE IS NOT THE NEW COKE

Myspace was one of the earliest social networks, but fell to the might of the Facebook. However, the company has been making major overhauls to the site, and now it’s only Mys-pace in the name. It’s a completely overhauled, music-driven experience, and it’s beautful.

One of our classmates, Emily Pizanie, offered to invite anyone in our class who wanted to check it out, and I asume it will have this invite model for a while while they test the site. Music radio based on your favorite songs and genres is integrated right into the interface.

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I’M JUST SAYIN’ THAT JUST SAYIN’ IS JUST OKAY

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This year in #IntCom, we got to experience a brand new, up-and-coming social media site called Just Sayin’, a platform that focuses on human interactions online using vocal mes-sages, and speak with the creator, David Hayden, and main investor. Seeing the prod-uct from its inception, you never realize how little social media offers us unless you see it before consumers have accepted it. We were told to create an account, get accustomed to the layout, and start using the application on our smartphones (mostly to communicate with classmates and our Professor).

Just Sayin’ is still rough around the edges. The main screen is a little too cluttered for my tastes, and there are still a few features that are, as of this writing, still in the works, but their absences severely take away from the experience (private/direct messaging, for in-stance). The app is also going through a bit of an identity crisis, not knowing for sure what its target market is or what niche it’s trying to fill.

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One of our classmates, Dylan Roley, and his clothing company, CMNTY, are looking to expand into Just Sayin’ and make their mark on the app, anticipating a huge following into it.

As for myself, I don’t see the usefulness just yet. While I agree with the idea that human emotion is tied more to vocal communica-tion than to text chats, the project has no perceived function in society that other apps don’t fulfill on a larger scale, and I think that it is difficult to shake social media users from complacency without a ‘wow’ factor.

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As such, they’ve gone about recruiting Ricky Gervais, comedian and creator of the Brit-ish version of the Office, to get involved and prove the versatility and importance of the hu-man voice in online communications, particu-larly in regards to sarcasm and comedy.

The partnership, though, does feel a bit forced and overall, I don’t think it will be effective in getting their brand out into the main populace.

Gervais has also developed odd commercials and digital spots for the app using guinea pigs talking which, I think, might alienate potential users more than draw in consumers.

I’M JUST SAYIN’ THAT JUST SAYIN’ IS JUST OKAY

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Just Sayin’ is the spiritual successor to multiple different apps, and therein would lie its per-ceivable usefulness.

Most prominently, Just Sayin’ draws a lot of inspiration from two ‘walky-talky’ apps: Voxer and HeyTell. The only thing is that Just Sayin’ doesn’t yet allow for private, direct messages, so the entire thing is a bit to social right now.

Not that that’s a bad thing, but there’ll be things you’re bound to not want to say to an entire network of people.

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In summation, Just Sayin’ is the epitome of a mediocre idea done poorly. The app just doesn’t have enough niche draw to either set itself apart from the pack of other content-delivery web apps (tumblr) or social communication apps, or do what it sets out to do with the array of missing functionalities with the app the way it is. In addition, the jury is still out on whether people even prefer to use voice anymore, even in short message format, when text-based com-munications lend themselves so aptly to subtle multitasking in a present where all of our time is precious.

The introduction of Just Sayin’ into the social strata also brings out an indication of the inundation we endure when it comes to the fastly-growing social media landscape. With a growing number of similar social mediums, content falling through the cracks due to static is inevitable, therefore targeting and smart use of web real-estate are a much better strategy than a Jack-of-all-trades approach.

I’M JUST SAYIN’ THAT JUST SAYIN’ IS JUST OKAY

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NAKED CONVERSATIONS GONE WILD

The premise for Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble is that there are right ways for businesses to have blogs, and there are wrong ways, but regardless, blogging is a powerful business tool in terms of connecting with a target demographic and even giving a multi-national corporation a human sensibility. This furthers the pursuit of ‘face to face’ interactions by essentially giving an entity, whether it’s an indi-vidual, brand, or corporation, a virtual ‘face’ to identify with.

NAKED CONVERSATIONS GONE WILD

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The book says that there are six “Pillars” of a blog that can make or break its viewership and reputa-tion. I like to call these “Blog Commandments:”

1. that a blog should be publishable (Thou Shalt Publish)

2. that a blog should be findable (Thou Shalt Include SEO Tags and Writing)

3. that a blog should be social (Thou Shalt Network With Likeminded Bloggers)

4. that a blog should be viral, or have the capacity to be (Thou Shalt Make Content Engag-ing, Unique, and Easily Digestable)

5. that a blog should be syndicatable (Thou Shalt Have a Relatable Platform)

6. that a blog should be linkable (Thou Shalt Not Make Your Blog Private)

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According to Israel and Scoble, the two ingredients of a successful blog are passion for the subject and authority on the subject, based on cited research and respect of those in the blog’s community. We learned about both of these in #IntCom, where we were instructed to do preliminary research on something we are passionate about and form a blog around it. This was a crash course in tagging, post and content creation, and most importantly, networking with everyone else in the class.

NAKED CONVERSATIONS GONE WILD

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Corporate blogs have risen in prominence over the past few years, due to the transper-ant nature of the medium and the ability to reach the company’s organization and marketing goals, as well as let the company involve their consumers in their strategies and values.

For a corporate blog to be successful, though, it must be true to the brand it is based on, and it must follow all of the rules laid out in the Commandments. A surprisingly small num-ber of Fortune 500 companies use corporate blogs as a way to mobilize goal-setting (22%).

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I found Naked Conversations to be a great read, particularly for those interested in how social mediums can shape or augment the sta-tus or perception of a brand. It contains many case studies useful for those involved with blogging, as well as guidelines and principles used for blogging.

One such case study, in the school of what NOT to do when blogging, focuses on Mazda, who repurposed professional footage of a new car going through the paces into a blog, supposedly authored by a young driving enthu-siast. The blogosphere was wise to the smoke-screen, and needless to say. Mazda was eaten alive by the bad publicity.

NAKED CONVERSATIONS GONE WILD

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With the role of blogging becoming much more prevalent in both company presence on the web and transparency to the public, focus on learning how to blog effectively, or at the very least how important they can be to a company’s brand image, is a huge part of understanding internet com-munications as a whole.

Seemingly unrelated, I was also struck by the difference in how we consume media, even from 4 years ago, when I started college. I read this book completely online through Amazon’s Kindle ser-vice, which would sound impossible to freshman me.

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FACEBOOK: ON THE RISE OR ON THE ROPES?

Facebook has had a rough year: from the disappointing outcome of its IPO, questions about its privacy, the rise of Pinterest, to the god-awful commercial it released, one could see why some are espousing the ‘death of Facebook.’ While some can’t imagine a world without the influence of Facebook, others are heralding the supposed ‘downfall’ a move in the direction of less privacy invasion from social media developers.

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However, far be it from Mark Zuckerberg, his second in command Sheryl Sandberg, and Facebook’s army of thinkers and coders to take this criticism sitting down. Right now, they’re working on a brand new feature from one of their Hackathons (massive coding sessions that result in many inno-vations) that they hope will give Pinterest a run for its money: the ‘Want’ button.

Similar to the ‘Like’ button, the ‘Want’ button allows users to select images and items they ‘Want,’ and compiles a database of these items, presumably for wishlists and the like. We’ll have to see how it pans out for Facebook, and if it’s enough to compete with the homespun charm of finding arts, crafts, and recipes on Pinterest.

FACEBOOK: ON THE RISE OR ON THE ROPES?

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Another new feature Zuckerberg and Co. are trying is the use of sound notifications for the web-based iteration of Facebook, similar to the ‘dings’ that are heard every time someone mes-sages you on Facebook chat. Users who were chosen for soft rollout of the feature are already complaining that the sound is annoying. “It drove me crazy,” said Mashable commenter NoturaverageASH. “It interrupted my whole screen...”

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FACEBOOK: ON THE RISE OR ON THE ROPES?

The Facebook IPO is now famous for two things: being overhyped and losing a lot of people a lot of money. But now, as of Mon-day November 26, it seems that Facebook’s stock prices have risen quickly, topping $25 for the first time since the abysmal public offering only a few months ago.

This follows a lot of criticism that Facebook has recieved, mostly in terms of the site’s user privacy. Marketers, howerver, have also had their doubts that Facebook is inherently use-ful in reaching their demographics, another possible reason for the company’s weak stock presence.

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Facebook’s mobile applications, specifically for the Android operating system, have come un-der scrutiny by the users themselves for being ‘buggy’ and frustrating, according to comment-ers in a Mashable article.

This has been rectified by Facebook heavily suggesting employees to use Android phones as thier main phone, instead of an iPhone, so that they can more effectively bug test the iterations of the Facebook app as they are released. This shows commitment to user satis-faction on the part of Facebook, and indicates that they are listening to their consumers.

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Facebook’s had a tough time of it lately, with privacy controversies, dubious stock presence, and features that some would describe as ‘really annoying’ (again, from Mashable). However, the fact that they are willing to listen to their users, both the ad-vertisers that cause them to turn a profit and the website visitors that enable the profit, and the fact that they seemingly won’t stop innovating, leads me to believe that they won’t fade away into obscurity just yet.

FACEBOOK: ON THE RISE OR ON THE ROPES?

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Neiman Marcus and Target are from seemingly different consumer spheres: one is a higher-than-high end department store, and the other is a commodity store that dabbles in clothes and electronics. So when they partnered together to create a line of limited-edition designer items, it seemed to be a little arbitrary. But each had something to gain from the endeavor: Neiman Marcus could appear more accessible to markets under their price range, and Target got good publicity from being in cahoots with Neiman, one of the big names in high-pricepoint fashion.

The brands tied this together with a campaign featuring the popular ABC show, Revenge, us-ing actors and plots from the show in organic TV spots in pods that appeared during the show’s broadcast to push the partnership.

NEIMAN MARCUS AND TARGET OUT FOR #REVENGE

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NEIMAN MARCUS AND TARGET OUT FOR REVENGE

The campaign utilized social media in a streamlined, fully-realized, and yet applicable way, including #thegiftofrevenge being used as a trending hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, and even Facebook (though hashtags serve no purpose other than to garnish status posts

Parts of the campaign also lived on Pinterest, where many of the luxurious designer items were showcased and able to be re-pinned by other users.

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APPLE: LESS IS MORE THAN MORE

The popular notion is that every single brand needs a strong social media presence to thrive and prosper, but I’d like to quickly spotlight a case (a technology brand, no less) that disproves this theory: Apple Com-puters.

You can scour the entire internet, and though you’ll find a metric ton of news ar-ticles about Apple, you won’t find anything more than a few accounts, most dead, with almost no corporate engagement.

I’d like to argue that this is an intentional move by Apple, as an extension of their almost Willy Wonka-esque mystique around their products. Less information means more intrigue, which means more hype, which is what Apple thrives off of. What’s more, this is completely in keeping with Apple’s minimal-istic brand image.

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: CHAD CADELINA OF DRAFTFCB

We had many great opportunity to pick the brains of industry workers and pre-eminent members of the advertising community. Chad Cadelina was the first to come to our class.

He spoke about social media, how it relates to brand identity, and how to get into think-ing like your target demographic. He talked a lot about Facebook, Foursquare, and In-stagram, and how you utilize all of them in sparing amounts for maximum engagement.

Chad is an Account Executive at DraftFCB Orange County, in Irvine, and works on the Taco Bell account for them.

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: AMANDA VO OF DGWB

Another very insightful speaker we had this semester was Amanda Vo, who was an employee at the Santa Ana-based agency, DGWB. She spoke about her experience in branding Dole bananas, and how they used social media as an extension of that.

She also gave us unique insight into the function of Facebook contests and givea-ways, and told us the right and wrong ways to post on behalf of a brand: users want to be engaged with pictures or videos, but they don’t want to be sold anything. This means that you must know your market segment, and more importantly, you must know what they would not like to see.

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DAVID MURPHY OF SAATCHI AND SAATCHI, LAMBESIS

Perhaps the most insightful speaker we had all semester was David Murphy, who is quite literally an industry veteran. As former president of Saatchi and Saatchi, and current director of a boutique shop in San Diego, he had a wealth of wisdom and experience, and was gracious enough to share it with the class.

David’s presentation to us was all about challenging the status quo of the Advertising industry, and it really renewed my love of the industry. He challenged us to think not only about metrics, but empathy and emo-tion within advertising, leaving us with the fact that the best way to engage a person is to tell a compelling story.

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CONNOR MARTIN OF CON BRO CHILL

Connor Martin, or Con Bro Chill as his alter-ego is known online, came in to talk to us about building a brand solely on the inter-net. Connor is a professional lacrosse player, but also has a band/skit company that lives online, named after his nickname in college, Con Bro Chill.

The crux of Connor’s message was that taking things too seriously, unless your client demands it, comes across as stuffy and un-interesting. He built his brand by personally connecting with people who engaged with his brand, remembering them at his concerts, and coming up with silly nicknames for any fan that asked him, proving the methodol-ogy of social media as a means to face-to-face communication.

For years, Google has been a purveyor of almost every type of internet good imagineable: mu-sic, maps, even 3D simulations of the world and the stars. But this year, Google continued its trend of web integration with the addition of Google Drive, which is an overhauled Google doc program, allowing people to save, edit, and share documents, such as presentations, word docu-ments, and spreadsheets, online. However, with the advent of Google Drive, there is also the prospect of saving pre-existing files to the cloud.

Not dissimilar to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform or Apple’s iCloud, Google Drive represents a paradigm shift in the entire web community: away from higher storage sizes for physical hard drives and instead toward storage that’s immediately accessible and omnipresent.

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GOOGLE ON CLOUD 9

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SEO AND BLOGGING FOR BEGINNERS

Rarely are we able to make an impact in the world around us simply by doing classwork, but in #INTCOM, we were able to do just that. From the start of the semester, we were told to come up with something that was very important to us, and try to ignite a change in the world through a mandatory online blog, which we used to connect both to other students in the class and to people outside our network.

Loren Nason, a professional Wordpress developer, helped us set up out Wordpress sites and get started. We learned about SEO and how the new Google search algorithms are changing the way people set up Search Engine Optimization. We also learned how to recieve constructive criticism on our work.

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THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

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I’ve chosen to theme this book after the seminal British satire, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Gal-axy, for a very specific reason: Social Media is big, Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. And yet, it’s a tool us humans use to make the world feel small.

That’s what guides do: they endeavor to make the unexplainable simple, and the most Herculean of things accessible. And, just like Douglas Adams’ work, it works best and is most impactful when it’s not taken entirely too seriously.

I hope this portfolio has been illuminating in terms of what I know about Social Media trends, strategies, and case studies. I know my #INTCOM class was extremely helpful in teaching me, and has also taught me a zest for the industry I will continue to carry out into the big, scary ‘real world.’ Because social media, though we marketers tend to see it as an advertising tool with high engagement, easily-understandable metrics, and high incorporation potential (all of which is true), to most people is a way to say ‘hey’ to an old friend, or celebrate their cousin’s birthday.

Let’s not forget the most important factor of social media, is that it’s a network made of people; without us, the content we create, and the relationships we share, it’d just be a ghosttown. That’s where I come in.

I am a Millennial, and this is what I can do for you.

DON’TPANIC

TREVORMCKINLEYROBERTSON@GMAIL.COM(661) 809-5055