SANDY'S RJ2

1a) Social media campaigns are generally long-term marketing campaigns that require both time and effort to maintain.

One key factor that can make or break such a campaign is the regular updates on the various social media channels employed, as this fulfils the goal-seeking needs and never-ending quest for knowledge of our target audiences. The provision of regular, fresh, innovative, exclusive and thought-provoking materials on the various social media platforms chosen also gives added incentives for consumers to make repeat visits back to the sites. This goes towards evaluating the success of a social media campaign as the total number of visits or the equivalent is a commonly employed factor in doing so.

In addition, a steady flow of updates on the various sites help keep the company’s or business’ clients informed of the latest happenings. This is especially useful in communicating information pertaining to temporary events or breakthrough news such as ongoing promotions or the development of an interesting product respectively.

However, it should also be noted that the messages published on all social networking sites should work cohesively to bring across a uniformed message and brand presence. Aside from publishing regular content, personnel managing the various social networking sites should also take care in maintaining a benchmark of quality of information published.

Gap can be said to have one of the most successful social media campaigns. Through tying up with popular group-buying site Groupon, Gap offered a nation-wide deal in the United States of America: $50 worth of apparel for $25. By the end of the day, 441 000 groupons were sold, bringing in a little more than $11 million. This clearly shows that the use of social media campaigns helped inform the company’s audiences of the latest promotion.

Another key factor that could potentially influence the success of a social media marketing campaign is the adoption of an authentic and unique personality. This is so, as a strong and inimitable personality helps create a distinctive profile for the company, allowing consumers to differentiate between the company or business from its competitors.

Being authentic ensures that the company or business is in line with how people generally conduct themselves on social media. Pretending to be something or someone else other than what your brand stands for is obvious and puts offs most consumers. It is vital to be transparent about who your brand really is and redirect audiences to where they can get accurate and complete information if it is not within the organisation’s expertise.

Personalities can also help build positive rapport with the audiences by engaging them through online conversations. As those tasked to manage the various social networking channels are acting behind the screen of a computer, they are able to adopt a ‘model’ personality, allowing for a high chance of likability.

This is vital, as consumers react positively and strongly towards people whom they want to follow. A personality would give potential visitors an incentive to visit while retaining the interest of current visitors on the various social networking sites, increasing total number of visitors, which goes towards evaluating the success of a social media campaign.

1b) My group and I were tasked with the managing of the Diploma in Media & Communication (DMC) Twitter account. The provision of regular and fresh and fresh updates allowed our followers to be updated with the latest happenings in our course. This gave them added incentive to keep coming back, as well as to attract new followers to our Twitter page.

This can evidently seen on the occasion where we tweeted about the SP Media & Communication Conference 2011 and asked those interested to retweet, reply or direct message us. A handful of our followers signed up for the conference. Subsequently, some of the same students who signed up retweeted a message about the conference as well. This shows that students are eager to be updated about the latest happenings our course.

The adoption of a personality also helped contributed to the interactivity of our twitter page. Our fun, hip and vibrant personality helped build rapport and likability among our followers as well as attract new users to follow us.

This can evidently be seen in the case where our upbeat personality inspired our followers to adopt the same attitude and create excitement amongst them. For example, our followers tweet back to our tweets with exclamations, showing their excitement and enthusiasm for the course.

2) I feel that I am a focused person. This helps in chairing group meetings as there is a objectives and goals are clearly defined and my group members and I are aware of our individual responsibilities and the deadlines to complete tasks by. For example, during CA1, I assumed the role of a leader and delegated work to my team members. I was clear on what needed to be achieved and would assist my group members wherever possible.

I also feel that my strength lies in researching. For example, I am able to search using specific keywords. I felt that the background research portion of the report was rather solid and I drew insightful conclusions from that.

However, assuming a leadership role, my weakness lies in being impatient. As demonstrated in CA1, I had little patience for my group member Wye Kuin when he did not understand his portion to be completed or did it incorrectly, and I apologise for that.

Looking back, I also realised that some of my expectations were set too high or unrealistic. This resulted in me subconsciously imposing stress on my team members. For example, I set tight deadlines and expected everyone to accomplish their assigned task by the stipulated date.