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.

Trust in Media: Alive or Dying?

With new programs emerging in the social space, the question of who we can trust has gained much popularity lately. If you type social media and trust into a search engine, many different articles will appear about advertising and trust in the online community to the relationship between trust and reputation. Reputation is easily influenced by what others are saying about us in their blog posts or reviews.

Users used to rely on traditional media to seek reviews, recommendations and advice whereas today trust has shifted toward to individual blogs and suggestions. Consider restaurant reviews on zagat.com as opposed to urbanspoon.com. Both sites offer reviews of a restaurant but urbanspoon.com is frequented more because real bloggers are providing insight. But why would individuals trust peers as opposed to a more reputable source? Reputable sources may know the statistics but they are not always honest.

The explanation may be lack of trust. Many individuals feel that social gurus in media tend to be biased and shaped by a certain way of thinking. Advertisers face a similar problem when trying to gain trust. If marketers began to emphasize honesty and transparency in selling products as opposed to just telling the consumer what they they they want to hear, the consumer will deem the brand more credible. Peers are being trusted over commercialized sources because we can identify more with the average human being as opposed to a multi-million dollar company trying to make a profit.

Building Trust

In trusting someone, an individual is securing a bond between another party, which creates a safeguard between the groups. Even if a weakness is exposed and that person may seem vulnerable, the individual will not be condemned due to his trust invested in that other group. Trust can be compared to an unspoken committment, stemming out of confidence and assurance, in which a relationship is formed. The problem with trust it is violated or we are taken advantage of, we have issues trusting again. As human beings we tend to base decisions on past experience. If we have endured a significant amount of emotional neglect or were betrayed multiple times in the passed, chances are we will be reluctant to trust someone. Sometimes we do not want to risk investing time in another and letting our guard down if we have been hurt before, especially if we were taken advantage of without any provocation (victim of circumstance).Through trust we are able to exchange non material possessions; a child entrusts their parent in exchange for safety and nourishment. Although we do not know specifically what we are receiving from the trusted party, a relationship is a barter and both ends must be providing something. This concept of reciprocity is not always immediate and often we grow impatient when our friends do not contribute something to the relationship. Beliefs among people who have been violated in situations are that noone can be trusted, they are alone or the world is out to get them. But their are ways to overcome these perceptions.

Our behavioral traits and attitudes affect how we trust. If we are positive and have faith in other people to be honest and fair, we will develop balanced relationships. Without hope in new beginnings, we would all become socially isolated. To truly believe that others will treat us as equals (faith in the fairness of life) is an essential belief in expression. If we think that we will be treated poorly by an individual, chances are our friendship would not flourish with that person because we have ulterior motives in the back of our mind and are reluctant to trust him/her. We must believe in ourselves and not fear other people’s opinions because fear stunts our emotional growth. The whole purpose of a relationship is to be able to express each other freely and not worry about being ostracized for a stupid comment. Blaming and accusing are actions that should not exist in any environment where trust is evident; principles such forgiveness and acceptance should be emphasized. Reducing competition amongst peers will lower any type of barriers and lead to mutual trust in the long run.

All of these traits could lead to better relationships and are steps on the path to building trust. Our experiences affect our ability to trust yet if we try to change our behavioral traits, we may be able to suppress any negative feelings we associate with trusting and look toward positive relationship building.

Social Networking in the Elderly Community

Networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace are not the only sites that are being visited by senior citizens. Twitter and an Australian based site known as Letters, are popular with the older crowd, reasons being that these are simple ways to keep those that they know updated and connected without having to write long diatribes and send it through the mail or having to call them. This element of trying to remain connected is a general part of human nature; we all have a desire to feel like we fit in somewhere and have people that care about us. Once old age sets in, we may lose our significant others or fall out of love with them and remain unhappy and displeased with the way that we are living and these different social networks are a way to keep connected with the outside world. This desire to be connected with the outside world is now easily obtained as long as internet access is available to these older gentlemen and ladies.

The need to have human contact is prevalent in all societies. This is a distinct human characteristic in which we want to have someone else for company. This person can exist physically with us, be in our imagination (as little children tend to do), or now they can be halfway across the world and we may keep in contact with them through electronic means. We desire to have contact with human beings so that we are not lonely and do not drive ourselves to insanity. This is needed because without human contact with one another the entire population of our seniors would be shut-in their homes, not talking to one another, and presumably rotting away both physically and mentally. In order to keep our seniors entertained we must get them integrated into the world of online communication as this can help them make new friends, connect with old ones and possibly even find new romantic partners that they otherwise would not have known existed.

The number of seniors using social networking sites has increased in the last few years with “2009 has been a tremendous year for the proliferation of Facebook among the elderly. The numbers have been so good that their numbers (55+ age group) has surpassed the number or high school students that saw a decline in demographic share” (techcrunchies.com). The seniors number has grown along with the total growth of users of the site as a national whole; the nation’s use of the site growing by 70.8% as of July 4, 2009. (istrategylabs.com) However the number of seniors on the site has skyrocketed with a growth percentage of 513.7% with the closest growth of an age group behind them only being 190.2% for those that are between the ages of 35 and 54.

The growing number of seniors on the web is happening for a numerous amount of reasons. As those that were previously not in this group but in the business world, before retiring or obtaining social security recipient age, were using computers are more familiar with the mechanics and how to go about on the internet. This new group of seniors is a force to be reckoned with on the web as they are growing in number, giving their opinions on different products more through online shopping sites and blogs, and reconnecting with family, friends and old acquaintances. Another reason that there is a growing number seniors on the web is that the number of seniors is constantly growing as it has no age limit. This makes it that there is an entire year of births added to the population of seniors every year, and with the medical advancements of today the life expectancy is much longer and therefore there are people that are getting quite up there in numbers that are using the web and social networking sites. Seniors tend to have a lot of leisure-time on their hands and during this time, for one reason or another, a lot of seniors spend this time indoors. While indoors they may read, watch television, or they could use their computer and go onto the internet. This amount of leisure time that seniors have available to them makes it so the growing amount of them on these social networking sites is not that hard to believe.

There is a specific need of the elderly community to stay in contact with the world. We need their insights into our social and personal problems. This need is one that is made easier with social networking websites. The desire for the younger generations to listen to their elders is one that appears to be going by the wayside; however the need is still prevalent. The use of social networking sites by the seniors on a global scale is helping to rekindle the passing on of wisdom from our older generations to our younger ones. Since the main objective of these sites is to network people to one another, the main point is that people will remain in contact and can go to one another to share information, ideas, opinions, and business propositions.

Green Alternatives and Social Media

The concept of going "green" is becoming increasingly popular nowadays as resources are diminishing and waste saturation is increasing Whether earthly efficiency is emphasized through fashion practices, politics, or even technology going green is beneficial for the environment. Resources such as water and energy are consumed by the masses on a daily basis, hence it is our responsibility to make sure these resources do not run out. With Earth day coming up and the popularity of social media, five ways have been suggested as to how media users can promote green alternatives using the space. Social media acts as one of the leading communication tools in 2010, allowing users to exchange ideas to millions with the click of a mouse. Hence what better way to contribute to the "green" cause then through the virtual community. Over the next few weeks, users have access to many green tools and initiatives to contribute to the cause.

The Earth Day Network is promoting the "Billions Act of Green" campaign that allows members of the virtual community to make a commitment to doing something more Eco-friendly; one step closer to becoming an environmental leader. The network hopes to log a billion acts of green in total so people can exchange ideas on how to behave more environmentally friendly, if not gain knowledge as to what activities are environmentally damaging.

Underwrite laboratories has developed the "Save Your Water" consumption calculator that allows user to calculate their water consumption based on the U.S. EPA’s daily household water consumption statistics. This tool allows individuals to become aware of how much water is actually wasted on a daily basis; individuals can pledge to cut down their water consumption and the first 15,000 pledges will result in a dollar donation to Water for People ( an organization that promotes water sustainability).

Twitter is hosting a "Go Green Sweepstakes" that sends the winners to Washington D.C. for the Earth Day celebration. Contestants must tweet about people who are making changes that are positive for the environment or suggestions on how to go green in 5 minutes, 5 hours or 5 days. These tweets will help spread tips on how we can work as a community to promote green practices.

Live Earth is hosting a "Run for Water" on April 18th. The six kilometer run represents the distance some people walk just to obtain water in their country. One in eight people does not have access to clean drinking water; often people don't realize this.

“Using IP address geo-location, we’re able to get specific with our
audience immediately; when you visit our event landing page, the event
map zooms in to your location and you’ll see a listing of events in
the region,” said Andy Sternberg, interactive director, Live Earth.

In addition, Live Earth is active on many social networking sites where they have created a community page so users can learn more about this event. The purpose is to help educate the community about the water crisis so individuals will have better water consumption practices.

350.org has focused on educating the virtual community about carbon dioxide pollution.The organization is hosting their a "Get-to-work" cleanup for organizers to meet and come up with a plan during April 22 - 29 on how their community can take measures to become more green. Ultimately, the organization's goal is to lower concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 350 parts per million (hence the name 350). Hopefully the meet up will result in some type of plan that could be enacted in working toward greater environmental efficiency.

These are just a few ways the virtual community can have an active role in going green. The movement needs to be viewed as a world responsibility and social media definitely has the world's attention. Hopefully increasing awareness of going green will result in better business practices and a healthier lifestyle.

Controlling Your Online Reputation

"Trying to control, or even manage, your online reputation is becoming increasingly difficult. And much like the fight by big labels against the illegal sharing of music, it will soon become pointless to even try."

- Mike Arrington

Reputation in the online community is becoming increasingly harder to manage. Through the use of the web, individuals can express themselves freely with very little accountability. What we do on the Internet is exposed to a large audience made up of bloggers, consumers, professionals and other types of individuals Consider social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace where pictures are often uploaded by others to portray an individual(s) in a bad light. If that same individual was looking for a job and the head of the company happened to come across tagged photos, the candidates chances would diminish significantly.In the up-incoming week, a startup is launching with which individuals can anonymously post their feelings on someone/something with minimal legal consequences. Imagine going to a site where you are being reviewed anonymously and see negative feedback from an outsider being exposed to the whole online community. This is not a good feeling, especially if trying to obtain a position or network. Aside from people, brand names can gain a negative reputation through bad customer feedback. But what are users doing to safeguard their reputation in the virtual community? Sites such as Reputationdefender.com allow individuals to manage their reputation to a certain degree in the premature stages; if someones name has been blackened through other publications such newspaper, television, etc, chances are its too late to fix.

Rather than try to reject any negative feedback that could blacken a reputation, individuals are starting to accept the theory that reputation is dead and indiscreet remarks should be accepted. Maybe if imperfections are virtually exposed, employers will be more lenient when hiring employees considering how many people are not perfect; one bad photo does not stand out in relation to hundreds of bad photos of different people. Society will start to accept that not everyone is going to have a 10/10 rating and the bar will be lowered. Individuals wont have to work so hard in masquing their daily activities for fear of someone in their network seeing them with their guard down.