Wow. It’s been an entire semester, and I can’t believe this amazing class is over now. Just thinking about it makes me sad. I’m going to miss the openness of the class, from class discussions to a wide range of guest speakers, each bringing in their expertise on social media marketing and how it affects the business world.
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Lessons Learned
Some of the things I will take away from this class, aside from using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media services to promote your business and get your name out there, is that you can’t ignore the bad things people say about you or your business on the Internet. If you have negative reviews about one of your products/services, you have to respond. Deleting bad comments or ignoring them will only hurt you more, and customers will think you do not care about them. For example, the Best Buy Facebook Fan Page allows customers to post comments on the wall about their buying experiences, and not all of the comments are good, with some leaving scathing reviews. However, instead of ignoring them and deleting bad reviews, Best Buy strives to respond to every comment, even the good ones, asking how they can make the buying experience better.
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Surprises
Something that caught me off guard was the fact that businesses are using Facebook Fan Pages as more or less their actual web pages. For example, One Greek Store uses a custom made Facebook Fan Page tab that shows most of their home page, including a tab for deals and discounts. Clicking on an organization takes you to their website where you can order items.
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Paradigm Shift
This class has shaped how I will use social media to promote myself. I am currently developing apps for the iPhone, and already have a successful app in the store already, Formulus Free – Formulas for Calculus, and hope to create another popular app. This class has shown me how important it is to interact with my customers, as the only interactions I have right now are email correspondence with those few people who email me with suggestions and errors to be fixed.
Over the summer, I plan to create a Facebook Fan Page to promote myself as a developer, and hopefully increase my “brand” awareness and possibly get internships, freelance jobs, a real job, etc. I will put my portfolio on the fan page so that others can see my works, and comment on my apps and give suggestions on apps they might want to see created.
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All in all, this class was a very refreshing break from the daily grind of Computer Science and general education classes. The unique structure of the class allowed us to learn things as we discovered them, instead of following a rigid structured syllabus. There were “guidelines” on what was to be discussed, such as learning about crowdsourcing, brand awareness, customer service, but the manner in which we learned these lessons was what made the class unique. In what other class would the instructors send you off onto campus for a class period armed only with a stack of Post-It notes?
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