Summary:
Throughout this article Lenna Garibian discusses the different ways a company measures, reviews, and constructs their various social media platforms, and illustrates which pieces of each platform hold more value to companies. Lenna begins by talking about why consumers follow certain brands, and lists each of their particular percentages of usage. For example, Facebook has;
- 56% of users tend “like” brands to learn about product or services.
- 52% keep up with brand related activities
- 48% for sweepstakes and promos
- 32% interact with brands to provide feedback
Not only did she discuss how each site was used, and the percentages people go them for; Lena, brought in an aspect of how companies measure their success and what they place their preferences on. An example would be twitter, companies measure Twitters success mostly on their amount of followers (48%). Thus, it shows where companies will spend their money, and focus their efforts to generate maximum success in their eyes.
Lastly, Lenna discussed how companies divide their platforms, and what their sole purposes on each are. In the article she used Pinterest’s 3% “Digital Breakdown Budget” as an example showing how particular companies do not put as much emphasis on Pinterest as they would with YouTube, or Facebook.
To my Surprise
Now, throughout this article the main thing that stood out to me was the fact that so many companies use these platforms to help their brands; however, many user actually use blog postings to find what they are looking for. In the beginning of the article she stated that blog postings were 3rd on usage at around 31.1% while many of the major social platforms were below that standing. Obviously I understand that social media is an incredibly key tool amongst the digital marketing world, and companies must focus on their particular platforms. But, what shocked me the most is the fact that many to not use the blogs to their full advantage all the while using platforms such as Pinterest which is not particularly useful. Therefore, this article did give me information I did not expect as many people seemingly discard blog postings all while knowing they can be very valuable to them.
Conclusion
With this article I completely understand what Lenna is trying to discuss, and how she lays out the discussion allows the reader (me) to full grasp her points. Now, most of the article did make sense from what we have learned throughout the semester and did not come as a great surprise to me. However, the point about blog postings be so high in usage compared too how many companies actually use them effectively was shocking. Lastly, I felt that this article was informing; however, I did feel as it was stating what we already learned in the semester with one minor detail that was new information.
