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In this assignment, you will create your own blog topic and post three comments that you believe would be relevant to this topic, and generate replies from others if the blog were to be published online.

Include the following in your paper:

Choose a topic that you wish to create a blog about. This may be a product, service, idea, cause, etc., that you know something about and wish to discuss. Describe the topic before preparing the blog entry.

Prepare a set of opening remarks to the blog as an initial post.

Prepare 3 comments in reply to this blog, as if you were monitoring the blog site and looking to generate replies from others. You may ask questions, add details, or offer a controversial spin to the topic to get people's attention.

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Joshua Stredder
Joshua StredderLv10
28 Sep 2019

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The topic is: How has the social network reshaped marketing today?


Thanks to the new advent of social media, marketers, and advertisers have to take a hard look at the way they conduct business. Marketers looking to promote their businesses online have recently begun to adapt themselves to the growing trend of using social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. This new trend of social networking websites such as Facebook and Youtube has proved to be a goldmine of opportunity for businesses looking to maintain and expand their clientele. Online sponsorship is just one of the many options companies have discovered for being successful online. While a lot of companies were leery of social media at first, they ultimately realized that by navigating this new road, they could better serve their customers.

Branding is a vital key for a business to garner the utmost benefits of social media. One important aspect of branding involves establishing personable relationships with people. To be effective in branding also requires that businesses share information and include others in potential business opportunities when relevant.

The best method for attracting people into a business is magnetic sponsoring. Instead of businesses limiting themselves to one side, they should use multiple sites (e.g. Facebook, Myspace, Foursquare, Twitter, etc.)

Social network marketing tends to succeed when one can attract people; a fun, lighthearted, unimposing, hard-working personality incites a sense of curiosity in others to familiarize themselves more with a company. The famous social networking sites BetterNetworker and Warrior Forums are popular with network marketers on the Internet. If proper rules of engagement on websites such as better Networker and Warrior Forum are followed, then congenial relationships can foster and generate some solid business contacts. Adding some value while on these sites also helps foster growth in businesses.

Keeping in touch- The advent of social networking sites makes theInternet very popular as a mode of communication. Common people post personal profiles, pictures, videos, music, and messages on these proprietary websites. Users of these social networking sites can invite other "friends" to join their network so they can view and share personal information with each other.
By creating a profile on these social networking websites and adding friends, business partners can constantly keep in touch with one another. Posting and messaging the latest information allows businesses to promote various business developments without paying anything.

Social Networking has incorporated marketing strategies into sites like Facebook. When a Facebook user likes a certain movie or food product, advertisements will appear on the right side of the User'sFacebook page pertaining to whatever the person likes. The advertisements that appear on the right side are all things that may interest him/her. The advertiser (working in collaboration with Facebook) uses certain demographics from the user to know when and where to place their product advertisement. This has, in turn, changed marketing and reshaped it.

Job hunting- Social networking sites also allow many companies in the US and Europe to search for competent employees. Job applicants are posting their resumes and credentials every day on these job-hunting websites. Using these sites as a tool facilitates the process of selecting employees applicable to certain aspects of a business.

Emergency- In addition to helping with keeping in touch and finding employees, social network sites also help in times of tragedy. Websites such as Twitter help to pass messages to thousands of concerned citizens or business relations in a snap. In conclusion, social networking sites continue to transform the world and remain a powerful tool for marketing and advertising.

Sources:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Social-Network-Marketing-Strategies-and-Techniques&id=5499700
http://aryacetas.posterous.com/how-social-media-has-helped-to-reshape-market
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-of-Social-Networking-in-Our-Society&id=4114348

Ethics Case: Facebook's 'Unfriendly' Privacy Policies (adapted from Spinello, R. (2017). Cyberethics: Morality and law in cyberspace. Jones & Bartlett Learning)

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, couldn't quite believe all the attention he was getting. Facebook was on the verge of its initial public offering (IPO), and it seemed that the media couldn't get enough of this Cinderella story. Zuckerberg had created a primitive version of the Facebook application in his Harvard dorm room. Thanks to its immediate popularity, he commercialized this product and founded Facebook, a pioneer in social networking. There were 1.4 billion active users on Facebook and the company's revenue exceeded $12 billion. As Zuckerberg traveled around the country to promote the IPO, the press followed him everywhere. The Facebook IPO took place on May 18, 2012, making many of its brash and talented managers instant millionaires by the end of 2014.

Most people at the social network company welcomed the publicity and attention surrounding the IPO. But over the years Facebook has attracted negative publicity and unwelcome attention for its controversial privacy policies. Facebook has had to deal with several embarrassing missteps as it struggles to reconcile user privacy with an open network. The company's policies have been the object of scrutiny by the FTC, which has investigated a number of privacy-related complaints. In a recent ruling, the FTC persuaded€ both Google and Facebook to consent to a biennial audit of their privacy policies and practices for the next 20 years. What were Facebook's most contentious privacy policies, and why are key regulators still threatening to block the social media company from carrying out its strategy of boosting advertising revenue by leveraging its user information? The following is a brief historical overview.

Facebook first caught the attention of privacy advocates in 2007 when it implemented a technology known as the 'News Feed'€. This feature was designed to display in real-time changes a person makes to her user profile on the home pages of all of her online friends. To the surprise of the company, users balked at this innovation and Facebook had to abandon this default feature. In that same year, Facebook also joined a commercial venture known as the Beacon program so that every member would be notified immediately as soon as one of their friends made an online purchase. Beacon also seemed to clearly violate users' privacy expectations. As resistance mounted, Facebook abruptly ended the program.

In December 2009, Facebook once again shocked many of its users by suddenly changing its privacy settings. A person's 'friends'€ could no longer be kept concealed from the public or from each other. As a result, information that was once private such as one's profile picture, name, gender, address, professional networks, and so forth, became publicly available by default. According to Rebecca MacKinnon, these changes were motivated by the company's need to monetize this 'free'€ service and were consistent with Zuckerberg's strong personal conviction that people everywhere should be open about their lives and actions. Facebook's decision to make previously confidential information publicly available€ was reversed thanks to public protest, and users now have the capability to control access to most of their personal information.

In 2010 the company took public its instant personalization€ scheme, which allows partner websites to access Facebook information as soon as a Facebook user visits the site. This all happens by default before the user gives consent to the sharing of his or her information. In that same year, the company introduced social plug-ins, including a social widget known as the 'Like' button, that appeared on other websites (like Amazon.com); if a user likes an item she sees, she clicks on this button and the item appears in a list of things she likes in her profile. This plug-in architecture, a further evolution of cookie technology functions as follows. When a user logs into a social networking site like Facebook, the site sends a cookie to the user's browser, which is disabled only when the user logs out of his her Facebook account. As the user visits various websites, the Like architecture will report back to Facebook whether the user has clicked on the Like button (even if the user doesn't click on this button, Facebook knows that you've been to this site and looked at this item). This social widget provides a history of a user's web-browsing habits that can be linked to personally identifiable information. The social plug-in architecture has the potential to be an especially powerful mechanism for behavioral advertising, though Facebook claims that (at least for the present) it anonymizes this tracking data after a period of 90 days.

Online photos on Facebook pages have also been a bone of contention. When users post a photo on their Facebook page, they can tag it with the names of the individuals in that photo. They can also establish links to the profiles of those individuals, assuming that they too have a Facebook page. Those who come to realize that they have been tagged can serve the link to their profile but can't do anything about the actual photo.

It remains to be seen whether Facebook can successfully fend off regulators in Europe and the United States and live up to the expectations of its investors, who expect the company to be able to exploit the commercial value of the information it collects. To this end, Zuckerberg has repeatedly sought to diminish privacy expectations and encourage Facebook users to share their information in the spirit of openness and greater connectivity.

Questions:

What is the problem that is described in the case?

What are the known facts (from the case or references provided)?

Who are the key people (stakeholders) involved?

What is the timeline of events?

What are the alternative courses of action that can be implemented to solve the problem?

Which of Facebook's past or present privacy policies do you find to be the most troubling? Which ones are not a 'big deal' in your estimation?

Should social media sites like Facebook be subject to more regulations to ensure the preservation of privacy rights?

How much do you think companies like Facebook really know about their users? How much of that knowledge can be a potential revenue source? What is the economic value of such user data?

Lonely Planet In 1972, Tony and Maureen Wheeler were newlyweds who decided to have one last adventurous travel experience before settling down. Their trip was an overland trek from London to Australia through Asia. So many other travelers asked them about their experiences that they sat down at their kitchen table and wrote a book titled Across Asia on the Cheap. They published the book themselves and were surprised by how many copies they sold.

More than three decades and 60 million books later, their publishing enterprise has turned out to be one of the most successful in history. The Wheelers%u2019 publishing company, Lonely Planet, has grown rapidly, with typical annual sales increases of 15 percent or more. In 2007, BBC Worldwide purchased a 75 percent ownership interest in the company and purchased the rest of the company%u2019s stock in 2011.

Lonely Planet TV now produces a variety of travel and documentary programs that appear on cable networks throughout the world. As a BBC subsidiary, the company does not release sales figures, but industry analysts estimate current annual revenues to be about $110 million. Lonely Planet publishes more than 600 titles and holds a 20 percent share of the travel guide market. The company has more than 450 employees in its U.K., U.S., French, and Australian offices performing editorial, production, graphic design, and marketing tasks.

Travel guide content is written by a network of more than 200 contract authors in more than 20 countries. These authors are knowledgeable about everything from visa regulations to hotel prices to the names of the hottest new entertainment spots. The combined expertise of the in-house staff and the in- country authors has kept Lonely Planet ahead of its competitors for many years.

Lonely Planet also offers travel services that include a phone card, hotel and hostel room- booking, airplane tickets, European rail travel reservations and tickets, package tours, and travel insurance. These services are sold by telephone and on the Lonely Planet Web site. The Web site has won numerous awards, including the Society of American Travel Writers Silver Award and a spot on Time magazine%u2019s %u201CFifty Best Web Sites%u201D list.

The site was launched in 1994 and includes an online store in which Lonely Planet publications are sold. However, the site%u2019s main draws are its comprehensive collection of information about travel destinations and its online discussion area, the Thorn Tree, which has nearly a half million registered users. The company has had trouble turning any of this information into a source of revenue generation. Despite its excellent Web site and its use of new technologies, most of Lonely Planet%u2019s revenues are still generated by book sales.

The typical production cycle of a travel guide is about eight months long. This is the time it takes to commission authors, conduct research, work through several drafts of writing and editing, select photos, create the physical book, and print it. This production cycle causes new books to be almost a year out of date by the time they are published. Only the most popular titles are revised annually. Other titles are on two-, three-, or four-year revision cycles. The time delay in publication means that many details in the guides are outdated or wrong; restaurants and hotels close (or move), exchange rates and visa regulations change, and once hot night spots are abandoned by fickle clientele. Lonely Planet publications are well researched and of high quality, but the writers do not work continually because the books are not published continually.

The Web site often has information that is more current than the published travel guides. The site%u2019s online shop does offer some custom guides, which are parts of its existing travel guides packaged in different ways, and it does let customers buy specific chapters from its books, but it still is largely focused on selling books, although the site does offer PDF files that can be downloaded to mobile devices. Lonely Planet has adopted some new technologies, but has not used them to change its revenue model in any major way or to make basic changes in the production of its main product, the travel guides.

Required: 1. Review the company%u2019s offerings for Apple iPhone and iPad products and for Android smart phones (Trippy). Evaluate those products and identify opportunities for other products or services that the company could offer for mobile devices that would take advantage of Internet technologies (including wireless technologies for mobile devices) and address customers%u2019 concerns about the timeliness and currency of information in the printed travel guides.

2. Prepare a report in which you analyze the marketing channel conflicts and cannibalization issues that Lonely Planet faces as it is currently operating. Suggest solutions that might reduce the revenue losses or operational frictions that result from these issues.

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