I signed up for Digital Frontiers on a whim at the last minute because it sounded interesting. Coming into this semester, I never thought that I’d learn so much. Books like What Would Google Do, guess lectures form Gainesville business leaders, the Innovation Challenge, and the class project of planning a social media marketing scheme for a real business all were innovative and creative ways for us to truly learn.
My favorite aspect of the class was the attitude. It was laid-back, and allowed for more student involvement. Blogging instead of homework assignments. Guest lectures and student run presentation instead of boring lectures from the same teacher everyday. A real world project that allowed students to gain valuable experience in marketing. This style allowed for a much better grasp of how this new business world works.
The main lesson that I took from this class is that nothing is permanent, especially in the business world. Things are always changes, with new inventions and innovations, so everyone has to stay informed to keep up. Although this constantly shifting world can be overwhelming, it is still possible to succeed. All it takes is creativity, persistence, and dedication. There will always be ways to be untrue to customers, but the Internet almost always exposes frauds, so it’s always better to be as transparent as possible. With these values in mind, the sky is the limit.
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The Internet has provided many innovative ways for people to communicate, whether that’s through messaging, blogging, Skyping, or e-mailing, ultimately, people are connecting in new ways. These connections allow both businesses and users to collaborate on projects like never before. However, the question become: is this a good thing?
In the Wall Street Journal article, World Wide Mush, and in another article, Is Internet Fueling Collectivism, Jaron Lanier claims that the Internet is leading us into collectivism in which individual creativity is becoming more and more stifled. He asks the question, “What if all of the voices that are piling on end up drowning one another out?” Wikipedia is a prime example of this new collectivism because anyone and everyone can work together to create the content. Lanier and other supporters (including Elton John) argue that such collaboration kills innovation, and leads to a mob mentality.
History can, to a degree, back up Lanier’s argument. Many of the biggest breakthroughs in history have come from individuals going against the the social norm and coming up with brilliant ideas. Many of these ground-breaking ideas were not appreciated until years after their publication. Today, these ideas could be drowned out and lost in the sea of average ideas.
Working together in groups is imperative in many projects and situation to reach the goal. However, it is when too many people start working together that a mob mentality is established, and the results are average. The way to avoid the negative impacts of internet collectivism is to create privacy between teams and individuals working on projects. This way, each team or worker’s individual creativity and innovation is maintained, and the best ideas can be judged from the end product.
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It began with an idea: Who does everyone want to be like? The answer? Jesus. But how? That’s where I come in. No, I’m not some crack head preacher who wants to steal your money. I’m an idea-guy. Here’s the product:
Introducing Jesus Feet, the one of a kind pair of shoes that let’s you walk on water! I’ll leave it to the engineers to come up with how it works, but let’s just say that it does. My generous investors have given me the funds to grow the company, but I’m left with no money for marketing. I turn to social media.
I use facebook and twitter to create a fan page in which users can provide feedback about the product. Fans can also post their ideas for the style of the shoes. I create my own site where, along with twitter and fbook, I create a lot of hype for water races, parties on the water, and many other unheard of events. I get Kanye West to do a remix of “Jesus Walks,” promoting the product, and put it on Youtube. I create a contest on facebook/twitter/youtube for the best video of people using the J. Feet. And the best part is I can do all of this marketing at almost no cost, except for the Kanye thing.
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Today, the Internet holds a seemingly endless list of possibilities. One can chat with friends, shop online, read the news, blog, watch T.V. shows, etc. However, the right to freedom of speech on the Internet is something that most people take for granted.
There are many countries who do not share the American view on the issue and are currently trying to regulate the Internet. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, and the Italian government have drafted a decree that would mandate the vetting of videos that are uploaded onto such sites as Youtube. (Read the Full Article) Economic supporters claim that the Internet must be regulated as other economic platforms are, or big companies will retain a monopolistic grip. However, Google execs are concerned that this decree takes aim at user-generated content, which drives Youtube. France has moved to take an even stronger position on regulation, blocking sites that the government deems “unsuitable.” (Read the Full Article)
Although these governments’ intentions are good (blocking content such as child pornography and hate literature), the actual task of regulating such an endless frontier as the Internet is nearly impossible. Even if such regulation was accepted by all countries, to survey and censor every website would be enormously time-consuming. With the rapidly increasing technology associated with the internet, it might soon be completely impossible to block content. If governments had the power to efficiently regulate the Internet to their liking, then the issue of what content to block comes to the surface. Some only want to block only the most offensive sites, but some countries want to completely shut down any sites that dare post opposition to the government.
Internet regulation could soon become a moot issue as the growth of the Internet could defy any such attempts.
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What do YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook all have in common? UGC.
User Generated Content, or UGC, usually refers to an open platform in which the users upload all of the web site’s content, such as text, pictures, or video. In the constantly evolving business market, UGC sites are becoming increasingly popular among businesses.
Many of which have used UGC to their benfit, increasing consumer relations through the use of forums. These forums allow businesses to listen to customer feedback, and respond to complaints.
However, UGC sites have obvious risks. Anyone can say anything about the business. An annoying thirteen year-old can post a link to his Twitter. Rival companies can post their ads on the company’s site.
Some companies are reasonably hesitant to create such open platforms in which all of their weaknesses can be exposed to millions. However, I believe that the benefits outweigh the risks. As WWGD explains, people will find talk about your company’s weaknesses whether you like it or not. You might as well join the conversation.
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Web analytics is the measurement, interpretation, and analysis of internet data, but its uses in the marketing world are crucial. There are hundreds of programs, like Google Analytics, that will quickly give you all the analytical data that anyone would ever need, but interpreting this data and forming an action based on the interpretation are much more difficult. Most businesses that use web analytics fail to view the data in context and focus on the right aspects.
Many online marketers focus too much of their time, energy, and money on hits, or page views, but this statistic by itself can be very vague. For example, if a news website has a million hits, this could be from a million new visitors or twenty returning visitors. Similarly, a high percentage of these views could be from people that went to the site and left immediately (the Bounce Rate). Most analytical programs have tools, such as average time per view and the bounce rate, that can help prevent an incorrect interpretation. The most important aspect of web analytics is the conversion of these page viewers into buyers, readers, subscribers, members, etc. This conversion, called conversion marketing, is the goal and web analytics give you the tools to succeed.
Web Analytics in a nutshell.
Web analytics are important for any web marketing plan, and for our social media marketing plans with the local Leonardo’s restaurant chain (Leonard’s Pizza by the Slice, Leonardo’s 706, and Bistro 1245), it will be no different. In our plans to create and update Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts, we can track our popularity and the success rate using analytics. We can also view where the current website viewers are coming from, and try to optimize those paths.
Web analytics offer crucial information that can undoubtedly benefit any company’s online presence. To ignore or misuse such a powerful tool in today’s economy can make any such company obsolete.
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Back to the main questions:
How do we get people excited enough about Leonardo’s Pizza to tell their friends about it? How can we create a digital community for our target consumers, cheap college students? How do we keep them there?
One of our ideas is to create a facebook fan page, or a twitter account, in which every week, there are online coupons that are redeemable at the restaurant. On this page, people can post new ideas about pizza additions to their menu or events that could be held at the restaurant. Feedback about the restaurant would be highly encouraged. In this way, we can get people to continually check the page, searching for coupons, and hopefully, while they are there, they will post some feedback or get involved in some way.
Another idea would be to go on Yelp and respond to the reviews, good and bad, that people already post. Consumers would be strongly encouraged to post their feedback if they knew that Leonardo’s Pizza’s employees will respond to their reviews.
Does anybody have any other ideas?
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“I used to think the brain was the most beautiful organ in my body; then, I realized who was telling me this,” -Emo Philips.
Since the early days of medicine, the brain has been of great importance. Neurology, the study of the brain, had quite a disruptive innovation in the form of the lobotomy. Although this psychosurgery procedure, in which involves severing the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, was originally very popular for treatment of psychiatric patients, it was also extremely dangerous. The lobotomy eventually declined sharply in popularity because of its high risk, but the procedure did lead to other, safer psycho surgeries, such as the cingulotomy for treatment of OCD patients.
Some of the biggest breakthroughs in brain research came accidently. Anti-depressant drugs were originally supposed to attack tuberculosis. This goes to show how truly complex the brain is. The health problems are easy to identify, but the solutions much harder to find. So, as in this case, a bit of luck s often necessary to solve a problem.
Today, the brain is still to a large degree a mystery. It’s interesting that one of the largest frontiers is in our heads. Brain research has been exploding recently, as its importance to other body parts becomes clearer. For example, some back pain can be cured by fixing problems in the brain. More research might find other similar findings.
It might not be too far from our time when people can control simple technology, such as cell phones, with their minds alone. Today, the technology to play video games with one’s mind already exists. (Find out more here) Here’s a video of this technology. The future for brain research is bright indeed as scientists try to harness the power of the mind.
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When I first heard the assignment, I admit I was a little nervous. How could we create value using only post-it notes? My mind leaped from bad idea to bad idea. Our group then decided to use the post-its to raise money and increase awareness about the tragedy in Haiti. In a popular tunnel on campus,we advertised an American Red Cross program that allows people to text the word “Haiti” to the number 90999 and easily donate ten dollars to the relief efforts in Haiti. You can find out more about this program here.
Although our idea was not overly creative, it led to a great amount of value. If only one person learns about this program and donates ten dollars, then the hour of work it took to set up the two signs was well worth it. Sure, we failed to entertain, but I hold the Haitian relief fund at a slightly higher priority.
Through this assignment, I’ve come to appreciate how important resourcefulness and creativity can be in advertising. If people can market effectively using only post-it notes and ingenuity, then the possibilities for marketing through the internet are truly endless. This truth will definitely help us in our group project working with Leonardo’s.
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The Internet is complicated, and I have no idea how it works. It has created many new types of marketing, but in essence, the main principle of marketing has not changed. To market a product, one must create excitement about it. Consumers trust other consumers far more than they will ever trust an advertisement. So, for a business to reach success, it has to get consumers excited enough about the product to tell their friends about it. This used to done through word of mouth, but the Internet has added many social platforms such as Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and hundreds more. <more>
For my group project, my group will be working with the restaurant Leonardo’s Pizza, located on University Ave. I’m very excited to work with this restaurant because the pizza is both inexpensive and delicious, so creating excitement about it should not be much of a challenge. There is a lot more than can be done online since right now their online presence is a simple website with their menu and reviews on Yelp. With the help of the group, I know that more people will get as excited as I am about Leonardo’s.
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