Branding, Influencers & The Human Observer

The social media world is a world of it’s own, made up of large social continents like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and countless other networks. Through social media, the world is globally connected, because of this, businesses have discovered a whole new playing-ground. Their objective is to reach their target audience through social media platforms, to influence them by using clever branding and marketing skills, and finally, to make a profit.

There are three important components when it comes to social media and consumerism. One should understand the significance of successful branding, the importance of both large and small influencers, and what it means to be a human observer.

Charlie White, the author from the online article Branding: How It Works in the Social Media Age, claims branding and social media go together like peanut butter and jelly, saying, “social media can serve as a gigantic megaphone” for one’s brand. Successful branding occurs when consumers connect a specific idea or image with one’s business or a particular product or service. Branding through social media allows companies to build their reputation beyond the actual product, all online. A Top 10 Brands list from a site called TopTenz claims that some of the best branded companies are Coca-Cola®, Disney, Whole Foods Market ®, Nintendo®, BMW, Starbucks®, Target®, Nike, Apple, and Google™. What do you think?

I’ve always known how important influencers are for a business. Recently though, I have learned that in the age of social media, the definition is slowly changing as to how one would define the term “influencers”. This is because of the opportunity all social media users now have, the ability to be an individual leader within their area(s) of interest and the opportunity to be heard. Because all individuals have the opportunity to be heard, they all have the opportunity to be influential too. I found an article titled, “Five Types of Social Media Influencers” from the website Social Media Today and the author, Raymond Morin, claims that there are actually five types of social media influencers out there. Here’s an overview:

• The Networker (Social Butterfly): pretty self explanatory. “The Networker” has the largest contact list and is found on all social media platforms.
• The Opinion Leader (Thought Leader): high credibility within his/her field or area of interest. He/she could become the best ambassador of a brand.
• The Discoverer (Trendsetter): he/she is always the first to use a new platform.  Always up to date with new trends.
• The Sharer (Reporter): he/she distributes information to the bloggers/journalists. Amplifies messages.
• The User (Everyday Costumer): he/she represents the regular customer. “The User” does not have a network as large as “The Networker”, but his/her network is just as important.

It’s important for one to be aware of the different types of influencers. Which influencer(s) does one’s business want to reach?

So, what does it mean to be a “human observer” within the social media world? It’s important for the average human observer to be aware of how the media can skew our behavior, interests, and beliefs. This concept is sometimes called “media awareness” or “media literacy”; Stephanie Cole writes about it in her article, “Becoming Media Aware: The First Step To Change“. As observers, we need to understand that there is such a thing called a “mindless consumer”. We need to think critically about the messages the media is trying to promote, especially in the social media world.

Measuring the Impact of Social Media

Can social media be measured?

Let’s say you have a small business, you’ve invested your time and effort into creating and keeping up to date with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, and the list goes on.

How do you know these sites are even helping out your business in the first place?

Here’s some ideas (with a little help from the Social Media Examiner).

The unit of popularity for a business on Facebook is pretty straight forward, do you have any fans? Yes, the unit is “fans” and your business can gain fans, as well as lose them. Chose a specific interval of time (for example, every week, two weeks, or month) and check to see how many gains of fans and likes you’re getting. It’s also important to check and see if you’re gaining more fans than usual while offering promotions or any special deals.

Twitter is quite similar to Facebook concerning the concept of measuring fans; however, with Twitter one must measure the unit of “followers”. On a month to month basis, are you gaining followers? You should be! Also, see if any of your tweets are getting retweeted, favorited, or responded to. If they are, this is surely a good sign.

For Youtube, check the amount of viewers, subscribers, and comments. As for blogs, check the amount of views and comments. These numerical values are quite significant, especially if the values are growing, because clearly, the goal is to grow.

While surfing the web I came across this neat, as well as helpful, chart explaining the five categories of social media (exposure, influence, engagement, action/convert, and money). This comes from the site The Social Media Examiner and I highly recommend you to check out the site, as well as the article! As you can see, the more action taken leads to more engagement with possible customers, thus the more influence you have, which ultimately leads to more exposure and profit.

The reliability of these numbers are quite significant. Yes, there are companies that do not take advantage of networking their business through social media and are very successful. However, I can guarantee you that if they did take advantage of it they’d be that much more successful.

A Comparison of Music Blogs

I’ve been searching through the internet for some new music blogs and websites to check out. Take note, I’m not looking for a music blog that only updates it’s readers on a specific genre. I’m just hoping to discover a website or blog that doesn’t put it’s focus on mainstream music that is so often featured on the radio. You know, just looking for some good taste in new music, frequent updates, and a heads-up for what I should be checking out.

There’s two sites that have recently caught my attention. One being a site titled “Pitchfork”, which ultimately is the site for Pitchfork Media, a Chicago-based daily Internet publication that keeps it’s viewers updated on new music and provides music commentary and criticism. The other site is titled “Pretty Much Amazing”, and is an independent music blog. It is quite obvious that Pitchfork is built up of more writers and employees than Pretty Much Amazing. In fact, there are only five official contributors for PMA. While researching more on each music website, I found it funny coming across a reference to Pitchfork in Pretty Much Amazing’s “About” section:

“Pretty Much Amazing is a music blog run by a self-proclaimed music nerd and contributed to by a handful of self-proclaimed music opinion specialists. We were once called “the true keepers of serendipity” in The New Yorker. MTV thinks we’re one of the “best independent music blogs,” and called us “a blog you should know.” Toronto Star thinks we’re “indispensable,” and The New York Post say we’re “one of those little website crumbs of deliciousness we visit every morning.” We’ve also been up for a couple Bloggies, but we’re usually beaten out by Pitchfork.”

There’s a sort of humbleness with PMA that I greatly appreciate, although I’ve found that overall, Pitchfork does update me on more newly released music and music news. But, then again, with Pitchfork I almost feel I have to search through a lot of not-so-noteworthy material, while PMA only posts new music that actually is worth listening to.

It’s a tough decision to pick one over the other, but all in all, it depends what you’re looking for. While searching through the two sites some more, I noticed that Pitchfork has links to their Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, and Spotify accounts. Their website has an intense, yet groovy, layout. Their site content is never-ending, with countless reviews, tracks, “best of” lists, and the list goes on and on, and on.

Yet, on the other hand, PMA’s site is laid out quite cleverly too. Not only is it visually interesting, but it’s a lot easier to navigate through than Pitchfork’s site. Then again, maybe it’s because PMA has less content to display and share with it’s readers. PMA has links to their Twitter, Facebook and Spotify accounts. They also have a link to their sole email address, which makes me think that they’d actually respond to an email if I sent one. This is cool.

Either way, both sites are quite impressive. It just depends if you want a site with more content or a site with less content but more to-the-point. I’m thinking I’d better stick to both and get the best of both worlds.