Think Twice Before You Post

America has become a culture of “oversharing.” Many of us enjoy posting photos and videos on our many social platforms to show family and friends all of the fun things we are up to. However, some people post information that threatens their privacy and safety without even knowing it. Social media can be a fun and rewarding way to share your life with friends, but it’s important to practice safe social media policy to protect you, your family and your company.

Americans acknowledge that security is an issue on social platforms, as seen in the below infographic:

 

Therefore, we need to better educate ourselves to avoid falling victim to identity hacks that could endanger us.

Social media security is about how you manage and protect your personal social sites, like adjusting privacy settings, using secure passwords, eliminating geolocators and limiting the amount of personal information you share.

Most companies have a social media policy that applies for all employees and explains guidelines for personal and corporate social media use. Policies are also set by social networking sites to establish ownership of all posted content so they can edit or remove any posts that violate the established policy.  

THE SOCIAL MEDIA SECURITY CHECKLIST

The following checklist serves as a guideline for posting on social media to ensure a safe, private environment to protect you and your network of followers.

·         Be careful who you friend – As a general rule of thumb, you should not accept friend requests from anyone you do not personally know. Even if this person knows someone in your network, they could be using this relationship to get access to your personal information.

·         Adjust privacy settings – It’s important to adjust your privacy settings so only your friends can view content on your social platforms.  You should also monitor what photos, videos and status updates you are tagged in by others that might expose your personal information to people outside of your social network.

·         Monitor and eliminate geotagging – It’s important eliminate as much geotagging on social media as possible. By giving information about your location, you might be subjecting your home to break-ins.

·         Protect your passwords – Do not use a password that could be guessed easily, like the name of a family member or pet. Hackers can find this information from your social profile and easily access your account if the password is easy to predict.

WIRED reporter Mat Honan participates in a video discussion titled “Avoiding An Online Nightmare: Protecting Identity With Two-Factor Authentication” during which he explains how easily answers to security questions on accounts can be discovered, and offers tips for protecting your identity and accounts online:

 

Barry Herrin’s “National Labor Relations Board Posts Template Social Media Policy” explains the importance of protecting personal information online and ensuring that postings are consistent with policies outlined by your company (2012).

I’m certainly someone who likes to share events and activities on my social platforms, but after reading more about social media policy and security I will think twice before I post moving forward.

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References

 

Department of Defense. (n.d.). Social Networking V1.0. United States of America Department of Defense. Retrieved February 25, 2014 from http://iase.disa.mil/eta/sns_v1/sn/launchPage.htm.

 

Herrin, Barry (2012, June). National Labor Relations Board Posts Template Social Media Policy. Legal HIMformation. Retrieved February 25, 2014 from https://ilearn.marist.edu/access/content/attachment/7b6afcbb-f4aa-4003-8245-7ffb76fca959/Forums/920d8500-225a-4e8a-a57a-72031ec872ed/NLRB%20Social%20Media%20Policy%20Template.pdf

 

NBC News  (2013, March 24). 3 Tips to Protect Your Online Identity And Accounts Inside Dateline. Retrieved February 25, 2014 from http://insidedateline.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/24/17402115-3-tips-to-protect-your-online-identity-and-accounts?lite

How Social Media Has Forever Changed American Politics

We all understand the persuasive power of social media. People are more empowered to have their opinions heard, show support for a cause, offer advice to friends and share photo and video assets. This not only impacts the way we do business and conduct our personal lives, but it has greatly impacted the sociopolitical structure in our country.

Social media persuasive power was first seen in the Obama vs. Hilary Clinton preliminary election in 2008. It was social media that first put Obama on the map when Amber Lee Ettinger (AKA “Obama Girl”) released a video on YouTube called “I’ve Got a Crush… on Obama” which was viewed 11.5 million times in the months leading up to the election (Qualman, 2005, p.52).

 

This video greatly impacted Obama’s popularity and helped generate excitement for his campaign. Obama embraced social media early in his campaign, and he had over 3.1 million Facebook fans, 833,161 MySpace friends and 113,000 Twitter followers by the time he was elected, more than any other candidate (Qualman, 2005, p.51). This growth in popularity on social platforms resulted in endorsement dollars which helped fuel the campaign through the final vote against John McCain.

 

People are doing more than “following” or “liking” presidential candidates, they are engaging in active communication across multiple platforms sharing their thoughts on debate topics. During the 2012 election, “39% of all American adults took part in some sort of political activity on a social networking site” (Susskind, 2013). President Obama continued to develop his social network during this pivotal time in his career by engaging with his followers via Twitter Town Hall meetings where he utilized trending hash tags and posted immediately following his win.

People are also much more aware of political issues and candidate positions because of social media. 18% of voters reported that they took action on a political or social issue because of something they read on a social networking site (Susskind, 2013).  People are now walking into the voting booths in bigger numbers and better educated than ever before.

Our next presidential election is now two years away. What should potential candidates do to start growing their social fan base? What else can we predict will play an important role in allowing consumers to dominate the political conversation?

Kristen

 

References

Qualman, E. (2013). Socialnomics (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Susskind, Jane (2013, June 3). 10 Statistics About Social Media and Politics You Didn’t Know. IVN. Retrieved on February 10, 2014 from http://ivn.us/2013/06/03/10-statistics-you-didnt-know-about-social-media-and-politics/

Communication Imperative – What H&M was saying to their customers at Super Bowl

We all know that communication is key to effectively running a business, and it is imperative for all moving parts of the marketing mix to be dispersing the same messages. In their review The Strategic Communication Imperative, Argenti, Howell, & Beck explain that communication must be aligned with the company’s overall strategy to enhance its strategic positioning (2005, p. 83). I’m sure most of us agree that communication between constituencies is necessary for any successful marketing campaign. Not only is it important for the company to effectively communicate with their customers, employees and shareholders, but it is equally important for them to listen to feedback and adjust strategy accordingly. 

Let’s look at a real-time example of how a company values strategic communication today. As always, the Super Bowl featured highly anticipated advertisements from some of the country’s favorite products. The commercial with some of the most significant pre-buzz was the H&M ad with David Beckham. H&M ran a commercial spot during the Super Bowl XLVI in 2012 that introduced David Beckham Bodywear line of men’s apparel at H&M (Elliot, 2014). H&M is the only retailer to run advertisements during the Super Bowl, and they believed that their 2012 commercial was very successful in driving awareness for the Bodywear line. However, the spot was outshined by heavy hitters like Anheuser-Busch, Audi, Chevrolet, Pepsi and GoDaddy. H&M listed to this feedback and learned that they need to do more to communicate and engage with key constituents through the commercial.

What resulted was one of the most talked about Super Bowl advertisements of 2014. If you haven’t seen the ad yet, you can check it out on YouTube. Consumers were invited to vote for one of two endings to the Super Bowl commercial by tweeting #covered or #uncovered.

The communication strategy also extended to e-commerce, where viewers watching the game on certain Samsung smart televisions could actually buy pieces from the David Beckham Bodywear collection through a “T-commerce platform” powered by Delivery Agent, an ad-technology company (Elliot, 2014). CEO of Delivery Agent, Mike Fitzsimmons, said “This is a game-changer for the advertising industry. We are collectively redefining the power and effectiveness of television advertising” (Hellar, 2014).

With so many moving parts to this campaign, it was so important for H&M to follow the framework for strategic communication to ensure consistency across all platforms. What do you think? Do you like the ad? Do you think the messaging was succinct and memorable?

Kristen

 

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References

Argenti, Howell, & Beck (2005). The Strategic Communication Imperative. MIT Sloan Management Review Retrieved on February 3, 2014 from https://www.dartmouth.edu/~opa/communicators/fall08/reading/Sloan_MIT_Strat_Comm_Imp.pdf

 

Elliot, Stuart (2014, January 22). Lessons Learned, H&M Returns to Super Bowl With New Beckham Spot New York Times. Retrieved on February 3, 2014 from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/business/media/lessons-learned-hm-returns-to-super-bowl-with-new-beckham-spot.html?_r=0

 

Heller, Laura (2014, January 31). David Beckham and H&M's Super Bowl Ad Could Change Advertising Forever Forbes. Retrieved on February 3, 2014 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauraheller/2014/01/31/david-beckham-and-hms-super-bowl-could-change-advertising-forever/