Monday, October 22, 2012

The science of Social Timing

The "science of Social timing" is about what is the best time to post on social networks, when will you get the most answers to your post and when will you get the more chances to be read by internet users.

For example, the best time to post on tweeter is at 5 in the afternoon: people get out of work, teens get back to school, and while relaxing they all check their smartphone and comment on others' posts.

The CTR (Click Trough Rate) is a good way to measure the number of replies or comments.
CTR = number of persons that comment on your posts / number of followers you have
For example, to have the best CTR on tweeter, one should post from 12 to 48 tweets per day. The best days to tweet are on wednesdays and on weekends: at the beginning of the week, people are busy with the big amount of works that belong to the week beginnings. After wednesday, people are busy and want to finish their work before Friday night, that is why wednesday is one of the best days to tweet. However, companies like clubs and bars might be interested in posting on Thursdays and Fridays because these are the best nights for events.

Speaking of Facebook, according to the statistics the best day to share is on saturday, especially at noon (the "noon rules" for everyday). The best sharing frequency on facebook is to post one time every 2 days.

On the following research presents the percentage of American Citizens per time zone.

Percentage of American population by Time Zone

The 2 big takeaways are that:
- Nearly 50% of American Citizens are in the Eastern Time Zone
- The Eastern and Central Time Zones combined represent almost 80% of the U.S. population.

This  facts might be relevant for West coast companies because Pacific Time Zone only represent 14% of the American population.
West coast companies might take it into consideration because since the best time to tweet is 5PM, and therefore they would "hit" more people if they tweeted at 5PM for Eastern Time Zone.
These same companies might choose to "ignore" this advice because they might just want to hit the local population and therefore they have no interests into reaching the Eastern and Central Time Zone population.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Today I had to create a twitter account and to follow people that can represent an interest for me.

I chose 5 twitters account, and here are more details about two of them:

- Fubiz, witch is a french blog about new trends: by following this blog you can keep updated to design trends, new technologies outgoings, great videos... I really like surfing on this blog because i'm interested in video production and realisation, and also in new information and communication technologies.

- BNP Paribas: I've been working in this company for one year and i'm considering getting a job in this group. By following BNP Paribas, I can stay up to date with the main happenings, and understand better the strategy of the group!

Online communities

So, for our next class we had to join two online communities and post messages on it.

My aim when applying to UCR really was to discover California: therefore, I joined the online community called "CouchSurfing". This community allow people to organize trips, find great places to go, and welcome other members of the community in your home: they sleep on your "couch", which explains the name of this community.
Then, I joined the group "California", and posted a message asking the things to do near Riverside, the places I should visit, if there are great places to hike or swim... Nobody answered me yet, but since the community is pretty active, I think i'll get some answers soon!

The second community I joined is a Yahoo group called "canukscavalierclub", it is a group to talk about Chevrolet Cavalier. I joined this gorup because I'm actually buying this car, and therefore I wanted to get some advice about it: I put a link of the ad for the car on the forum, and ask the members if they think that it is a good deal or not. I didn't get any answer, but the "weird" thing about this forum is that there are more than 500 members, but the last posts are not really related to the subject of the group...
I hope that someone will answer, even if I already took the decision of buying the car!

Monday, October 8, 2012

About Personal Branding

Why is it important to market myself?
I think that nowadays the job market is very tight, and to be part of the "best values" you really have to market yourself online. All the Human Resources departments of the companies are now searching profiles online, that is why you really need to join serious social networks and to update your profiles with your qualities and what you're searching for. It is important to show your interests, why you would correspond for the job you're searching for, and to write in your profiles the keywords that match you the most.
Personal branding is a trend of the 21th century that we really have to follow.

How can I build my brand online?
To build your brand online, your firstly need to join the social networks from witch you can take an advantage when applying for a position. But subscribing to these networks is not enough. You need to "feed" your profile, and to show you're active on them, that you have connections that also match your interests. All of this contributes to showing you are "present" on the web.
But you also need to attract people to you. You have to publish things that correspond you, you can lauch "campaigns" on social networks and invite your friends to like what you posted.
So, basically, ou not only need to be present, but also to be an "activist".

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

What do I think is Social Media?

I think that a good way to define Social Media could be "a new kind of information and communication technology that works on the internet and allow people to build communities, to share what they have in common or simply what they like, what they discover".
It also is a tool to communicate about your own self, to show the people in your "circles" what are your interests, your passions, where you've been and where you'd like to go.
With Social Media, one can communicate with the persons he knows but also with anyone, he can build links by surfing on pages of his concerns, and last but not least, he can give his advice on product and services withtout any moderation from the brand he his talking about.

Why are Social Networks important with the Marketing Mix?

Social Networks are now totally involved in the Marketing Mix.
Let's talk about the "four Ps": Product, Price, Promotion, Place.
Social Networks can help a company being good in each of them: analyzing the needs and wants of your target customers on Social Media helps defining your product, listening to the consumer's perceived value of one type of product or a similar product to yours serves to set a price.
As to the Promotion, Social Media are a an inexhaustible source of possibilities: you can lauch a viral campaign on facebook, contact potential customers or other companies on linkedIn, broadcast a video of your product on Youtube…
Concerning the “Place” where you will sell your product, you can even sell it on the Social Media (MarketPlace for example) or just find where would be the best location  to sell it.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

My motivations in getting enrolled in this class

 
First, my major in my school is France is "Management", but through my educational path I specialized in Marketing and Communication. Adding to that, I spent the past 12 month doing an internship as a Communication Assistant in BNP Paribas, the France's largest bank.
My job was to update intranet pages, publish actualities, keep in touch with the different parts of the Human Resources department (compensation and benefits, Global Reporting, Diversity...) and ensure the communication between them. 

I also participated actively to the organization of several big events (conferences, seminaries, workshops...).

And, las but not least, a member of my team was in charge of developping the internal Social Netwok of the Human Resources department of BNP Paribas. Thanks to her, I had the opportunity to participate to many conferences about internal social networks of differents companies (Orange, Coca-Cola...), and this gave me the willing of learn more about social medias in general.

My purpose is to increase my knowledge into social medias, to learn how today's new technologies can help build online communities, and how this communities will help building a strong brand.


I am willing to integrate a company in a marketing and communication position, and I know that each of them now ask the appliers to have strong knowledges about social medias to pretend for these positions. Moreover, I am very interested in information and communication technologies, and the social medias appear to be a major and even indispensable tool.

Welcome to my blog!

Hi everyone!
So, basically, this is my first port on my new blog and all in all, my first post on a blog because I didn't own one before. I'm used to blogs by visiting some about different subject, but "6 months in SoCal" will be for me the opportunity to practice my Social Media Marketing skills.

I'll try to update my blog as often as possible!
Please do not hesitate to contact me for more information at Diane.Royer.mkt@gmail.com