Magazines and the Internet

Advertising to multiple markets can often be costly and time consuming. Unlike newspapers that are updated on a daily basis, these publications can be circulated on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. A magazine publication is a beneficial relationship for both publisher and advertiser because money is being made and news is being spread simultaneously. Yet the effectiveness of publications vary considering where they are sold. The ability of magazines to sell globally differs from that of international sales. On an international scale, a company based in one country sells their product in a different one whereas on a global scale, a company views the entire world as one market.

Ultimately, the Internet has access to an International database around the clock. Rather than have to specifically target certain countries, the work is already done for social media advertisers. Through social media, people can integrate magazine publications and target a larger audience without all of the unnecessary extra work.
The Internet seems to be the tool of choice in 2010 while magazines are still considered an effective tool in brand advertising. The so-called spirit of the magazine has shifted to electronic publications because of the ease and efficiency of the web.

Everyone thinks that paper publications are diminishing as we look toward virtual communities yet these virtual communities are reinforcing the paper publications.

How to "Do Good" in 5 Minutes Using Social Media at Zero Cost

Non-profit organizations and cause groups use the Internet as a tool to attract donors and volunteers. Often people do not go to these sites because of the preconceived mindset that their participation alone won't really make a difference; five minutes may not seem like a significant amount of time to make an impact on the world. On the contrary, many sites are currently contributing to a greater cause in this small amount of time.

Freerice.com is a site on which Internet users can answer a set of multiple choice questions to aid the fight against hunger. In just 5 minutes, you can donate 10 grains of rice with every correct answer you select. This will help World Food Programme feed the millions of starving people around the world. Advertisers pay for the rice and the project is sponsored by Harvard University.

CauseWorld is a site similar to FourSquare that lets you earn karma points, acquire badges, make donations and share accomplishments with social networks and charities.

GiveWork is an iPhone application that helps to increase the working wage of African refugees. Through earning points, a user can virtually help an African refugee with microwork duties in less than 5 minutes

The organization "SocialVibe" pairs brands with consumers. Micro-action games and activities are created by brands for users. Consequently, the brands pay for the interaction by donating to a charity or cause of the user's preference.

With the existence of all of these programs, good can be accomplished at zero cost in five minutes. Next time you have nothing to do for a short amount of time, think of a life that you could be saving by going online.

Tv Newsroom Focus In On Social Media

With the rise of the social media, some may consider the resources offered by the virtual community are a danger to those in television. Not only are individuals using social media at home, but professional such as newscasters, are beginning to utilize these virtual resources more and more. A recent study shows 77% of newsroom use networking sites such as Twitter, 35 % of those using the site at least once a day.

Twitter, which started out as a site on which people could "tweet" what they are doing, is gaining much popularity because of its ability to broadcast news a second after the event occur. Newsrooms find social media particularly relevant because not only because of the textual information but because of photos and visual data. News outlets are starting to extract photos from social media sites and crowdsource them, especially photos of natural disasters that occurred halfway across the world (real footage of tsunamis and earthquakes are hard to obtain without actually being there). 27% of tv stations are also using Twitter and Facebook to obtain more information on certain topics. In addition, these stations are using mobile devices to deliver information.

The Influence of Media on Contemporary Society

With the growing technological advancements, media is becoming more dominant in the lives of individuals from as early as childhood. An eight year old will mimick one of their favorite characters on a television show just as an adult might imitate an actor in their favorite action film. Media is a contemporary social phenomenon which has the power to shape and influence our lives on many levels.

When considering the functionalist view of media, the obvious reason is entertainment. People watch the same television shows religiously to ease boredom, or often to escape what’s going on on their lives. Media frequently acts as an informant, educating teenagers and children distress about the danger of their actions with anti-drug commercials and reality television shows. For example MTV’s reality show “True Life” educates teens about the dangers of drug use,; hence acting as an enforcer of social norms, distinguishing between what is socially acceptable in society and what is not. Yet media can also act as an agent of socialization. Aside from broadcasting the traditional reality t.v.show, television also serves as an agent of communication by broadcasting important events such as natural disasters and urgent news briefs. The Internet for example, allows individuals to have access to news updates with just the click of the mouse. Media also has the power to confer status on certain issues. We often see high ranking celebrites on the cover of magazines to draw the consumers attention and think wow they must be important, The Internet often shows issues form multiple perspectives; something most magazines lack.

Trust, Transparency and Social Media

Due to the fast paced nature of social media, gaining the community's trust from the beginning is very important. Chances are if someone does not feel your are worthy of their trust at start-up, they will not be one of your followers during more mature phases. Trust and transparency in social media are valued equal to product quality and functionality; in Europe and the United States these factors are valued over the other two characteristics. Consider what is happening now with television. The credibility of television is slowly diminishing as around 800,000 people "abandon" television sets and look toward the web. This is not because the quality of televisions are deteriorating but because their is more transparency in the virtual community than what's on television.

But what can companies do to be more transparent and increase their trust score? With all of the information we have access to its hard to know who we can trust. Companies that maintain consistency, focus on promotion rather than knocking competitors and follow through with their competitors gain the most trust. Being consistent is important because individuals do not want to build relations with a company that is constantly in flux. Often companies are not transparent and use slanderous techniques to hurt the competition; people are not interested in companies that focus on negativity. Individuals are driven to positive promotions and companies that are transparent, they acknowledge they are not the market leader and do not knock competitions. Lastly, companies that use false advertisements and make promises they are unable to fulfill are less likely to be trusted.

Transparency and trust are complements in social media. As more and more people look towards the Internet over television, it is our job in the virtual community to ensure that we are maintaining honest relationships with those around us.

The Influence of the Virtual Community on Business

Businesses are effectively using the Internet as a tool to advertise their product, cut expenses and increase revenue. The Internet is a unique marketplace because of its ability to target the masses within the click of a mouse. Communities are the foundation of the virtual community and can be used to powerfully impact businesses. In order for a business to be able to take advantage of the social space, the different types of virtual community's must be understood.

Many different types of virtual communities exist such as direct, managed and participating. A direct community, such as the National Breast Cancer foundation community site, is owned and managed by a company with a specific purpose or internal target. Managed communities are managed by an organization and have platforms on different networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. For example, Dell has a Twitter page which is managed by corporate to maintain Dell's reputation is the social space. The participating community is usual managed by groups of user, those who are already on social networking sites and sometimes with proprietary software. An example of this type of community would be a specialty interest group where the product being discussed is related to the organization. Everyone is free to participate but has does not create any real statistical data within the community.

How can businesses leverage these different communities? Businesses must define a strategy which aligns with their marketing campaign. Someone who is marketing a handbag would not want to project the same strategy as someone who is focusing on support solutions. Those are two entirely different markets and need to be addressed separately. Setting a clear objective is important and will direct a marketer on which community to target. Depending on the audience the community choice varies. If you are creating a network strategy, direct and managed communities may be the most influential. These communities often provide direct linkage with the organization. Specific foundations have Facebook pages which allow for direct communication with the charity


These communities each allow for data sharing between influential users. Business' can benefit a great deal from having access to such a qualified pool with such ease. In addition, products can be analyzed before they hit the market to prevent future downfalls.

Reputation Management

Online reputations are becoming controversial due to how easily reputations can be slighted by negative feedback. What we have on our Facebook and Twitter pages may no necessarily depict who we are yet this information often defines us in the eyes of an outsider or potential employer. Reputation is not only what we ourselves do, but takes into consideration what others say about us. How we are perceived to other people is often shaped by other people's opinions formed on what they see on our social networking page. Fortunately we can take measures to retaliate against these negative associations with our reputation.

We must consider who is in our network. Often we post things in the moment and don't realize that our whole community of 500+ friends is able to see what we are doing. A grandmother may not interpret actions in the same way a college student would hence it is important to realize who has access to what we are doing. We do not take into consideration the impact of what we are saying on our status' or photo comments until someone within our community actually calls it to our attention. Yes we can all remove our posts if its really necessary but sometimes the damage is already done. Just because you delete a comment doesn't mean that noone else already saw it for its 2 minute lifespan. If we cannot delete, we must compete. Rather than try to revoke what was said we must make a counter post to glorify the situation. On Facebook people delete posts that they find offensive; as if everyone who was online did not just see that post in their mini-feed 2 minutes ago.

Obviously reputation is affected by our actions and we need to be aware of how many people are monitoring us and who is monitoring us. We express things and think of only its momentary impact yet our online reputation can go from positive to negative in that same moment.