Week Three

Assignment: Howard 29-41 and Gillen 40-58

Chapter 3 of Professor Howard's book Design to Thrive focuses on why companies should invest their time and effort into social networks and online communities. What are the ultimate benefits?  There are ten reasons explained why social networks and online communities are a good thing; any company should be able to relate to at least one, but probably more.

The two things that I found most interesting include the idea that online communities can "enhance and sustain intellectual capital" and "increase creativity and cross-fertilization."  I think I already knew this, in a way, because I am part of a few online communities that focus on certain topics in which everyone contributes their own knowledge and input.  If this concept is true for college students blogging about their interests (like fashion, books, fitness, crafts, etc.), why wouldn't it be true for a company?  Also, I love the idea that Professor Howard makes about the "multiplicity of perspectives" which help bring out new angles and eliminate errors.  Companies have been doing this forever through traditional brainstorming, which usually took longer and required people to be sitting in a room together.  However, if people are in an online community, they can post what they think as soon as they think of it.  For example, I'm on the yearbook staff and we have just recently adapted the use of Google documents for collaboration between the editors, writers, and photographers.  Everyone can view the document and instantly update on ideas and progress for stories, which relieves stress and increases efficiency.

Ear to the Ground, Chapter 3 of Secrets of Social Media Marketing, is all about the different tools that marketers should be using in order to create an effective campaign geared toward the company's desired audience.  Gillin gives good advice to "think like the customer while searching" and "get creative with search terms."  I personally like the point Gillin makes about hierarchies on social media sites.  While every user is "created equal," there are obviously those who have greater influence than others.  For instance, users who have a wide fan base or a large amount of followers are obviously ones to take into consideration.

I enjoyed watching the videos about YouTube's history because it never fails to amaze me that a website that is more popular than CNN was started by three guys in a garage less than ten years ago.  Stories like this one, as well as the story of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, are truly inspiring and give people the motivation to fulfill their dreams.  Consequently, there is a very big similarity between YouTube, Facebook, and many other social network websites.  They rely on people.  The idea of community on these sites is immense and without people logging on daily and posting their ideas, pictures, and so much more, there would be no social media and no Web 2.0.  As in the video ("A History of YouTube"), when Google paid over a billion dollars for YouTube, they were actually buying the people.