A Few Broad Questions

Our posts have largely been about specific topics, but I would like to address three assumptions or questions that are part of the thread of many articles I have read about social media and ethics.

1) Is the abundance of blogs and free, user-generated content like Wikipedia threatening information, education and the role of 'professional' media and experts? Is this an age of  'copy and paste' instead of research and learn?

2) How far should companies and governments go to protect user data on the Internet, or is up to the individual?

3) Does piracy or even legal purchasing of art on the Internet threaten copyrights, artists, talent or industries?

Discuss.

Here are my thoughts.

1) No, most people understand that you cannot believe everything you hear on the web, and most people who read blogs or Wikipedia use it for entertainment, to get a handle on what ordinary people are saying, or to lead them in the direction of more reliable research sites. In my experience very few students at uni plagiarize, because it is easy to tell if a work is not yours, especially with Turnitin, and you won't really learn anything by cheating. Also, morals are not completely absent from people nowadays, nor is pride in one's work. There are places on the net where you can find reliable or academic articles you just have to be careful, and many people still use books and traditioanal media for information.

2) This is very important, especially when it comes to protecting children's rights. The govt has to establish regulations regarding online information gathering and security standards, especially for sites that store massive amounts of personal data. Social media sites should not be shut down however, as there are people wise enough to know how to use it.

3) No. While I am against piracy, I think figures about how much money piracy costs the economy assume that every item pirated equals to dollars lost. I think the reason why pirates rip off so many goods is that they CAN do it for FREE. They would not be willing to pay money for art. Even if you stopped piracy, all the former pirates would not suddenly start paying money for goods, they would find another scam. They were never potential customers. Legal purchasing of music, games or movies is a wholly positive thing in my opinion. It is cheaper than retail because we don't have to purchase the pre-packaged over-priced sets forced on us at retail, we can choose which individual music, games or movies to download at our convenience. Copyright is still protected, and artists make money. Artists can subvert the traditional talent scouts and producers, who in my opinion probably overlook a lot of talent. If traditional retail companies suffer, that is too bad, there are new companies making money and if a quality product is offered people may come back to retail somewhat.

Now let's hear your opinions.

Power of social media vs Search engine

The Middle Way Meditation retreat starts the business in 2003 and the major advertising is on its own web site. It also advertises by giving out brochure. Web site is a lot more cost effective. It is because the target audience of the meditation retreat is very rare. So this would right for pulling marketing to make it available for people who need to search. Since it starts it only rely on web site and with the help of search engine. “Mediation” is too common to make as key word, so it focus on “Meditation Retreat” and it is successful. The web link of the retreat is always on the first page when search in Australia. That brings the applicants to the retreat.

Recently, the social media like facebook and twitter are becoming popular. The meditation retreat has tried to advertise on facebook. Since facebook can filter the target to specific audience. There are about 4000 people who are interested in meditation and Buddhism in Sydney alone on facebook. The retreat limited budget to $5 a day on trial advertise on facebook.. The result of advertising on facebook has increased in number of visit from 705 (on period 24/01/10-23/02/10) to 917 (on period 24/03/10-23/04/10) which is about 30% increasing

Number of visits (on period 24/01/10-23/02/10) before using facebook advertise

Number of visits (on period 24/03/10-23/04/10) when using facebook advertise

From the statistic it seems that facebook advertising can add up the number of visit. However, the cost for facebook advertising is comparatively high about $150/month which is not good in return on investment. The Middle Way Meditation retreat may consider terminating the trial soon later. The other choice that the retreat can do is forming a group of the past participants on social network to help in spreading the word around to their network friends which will cost nothing.

Take this result as example, the marketer who use online shop or web site still have in mind that the powerful search engine like google still bring a lot of customers to their site. While social media may give more chance to reach the target audience by the filtering facility which is good for the narrow target audience.

Reference

http://www.dhammakaya.org.au/retreat

The statistic provide by Google tools.

“Don’t Know” and “Don’t Care”

Online marketing programs especially via the social networking channels involve with majority of people who “don’t know” and “don’t care” about the benefits and detriments through their active participation with it. For the audience, their main concern is to engage with the products and services besides connecting with more and more people while for the marketers, they just want to sell their products and services as well as to gain continuous return on investment (ROI).

Coughlin, Anderson, Stern and El-Ansary (2001:447-448) stated that Electronic channels function in generating sales to consumers and in business-to-business selling as the market potential for electronic customer channel is dependable on the number of customer who involve with the online services. Therefore, if the marketers have decided to remain seated on the “don’t care” seat, it might be very difficult for them to get the attention from the consumers as their rise and expansion within the social networking channels is totally dependable on customers active participation with their online marketing promotional programs. In understanding the audience, online marketers must be able to develop a mutual understanding of how the audience define meaning of a particular product and service (Reynolds & Olson, 2001: 119).

Sheth and Mittal (2004: 430) stated “The internet has eased the time and place constraints that are imposed by traditional retailing … Internet is also increasing revenues for marketers by allowing them to personalize their products or services and marketing communications for customers”. Therefore, marketers should be striving to come out with more marketing initiatives in making the purchase process more attractive (437).

On the other hand, the audience must be aware that the internet especially the social networking channels has most profound impact on their purchasing behaviour as well as business transaction (Webb,2010: 43). Therefore, they also must be able to move away from their “don’t know” and “don’t care” seat when engaging with any online products and services as somehow or rather, it will affect their purchasing behaviour. Some of the impacts are as follows:

• Adding to the ‘evils’ in the society.

Kotler, Adam, Brown and Armstrong (2001:439-440) believe that “the marketing system has been accused of adding to several ‘evils’ in society at large … social commentators have charged that the marketing system urges too much interest in material possessions”.

It is more a cultural interpretation on how an audience judges another with regard to his or her possessions within the society that will result in differentiation to the level of social status as a whole. The marketing system exists to provide the information but the purchasing power is within an individual’s hand.

• Less face-to-face interaction.

Severin and Tankard (2001:384) mentioned that “the internet could take time away from face-to-face social contacts with human beings …”. This can be read to mean that when the audience spends most of their time by engaging with online advertising, they have separated themselves from personally engaging with their society. For example, previously they will go to the shop to purchase their products but by engaging with online marketing promotions, they will just have to wait for the product to be delivered to their front doors based on the purchasing contract. At the end of the day, this will lead to poor social relationships between them and their surrounding community. They should be neutral in engaging with both online and offline marketing especially in building and strengthening relationship within the social media context.

Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Therefore, both marketers and consumers must try to avoid the “don’t know” and “don’t care” attitude in engaging with any online marketing promotions.

Coughlan, Anne T., Anderson, Erin, Stern, Louis W. & El-Ansary, Adel L. (2001). Marketing Channels. (6th edn). United States of America: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Kotler, P., Adam, S., Brown, L., & Armstrong, G. (2001). Principles of Marketing. Australia:

Pearson Education Australia Pty Ltd.

Reynolds, Thomas J. & Olson, Jerry C. (2001). Understanding Consumer Decision Making. United States of America: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Severin, W. J., & Tankard, J.W. (2001). Communication Theories. 5th edn. United States of

America: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Sheth, Jagdish N. & Mittal, Banwari. (2004). Customer Behavior: A Managerial Perspective. United States of America: Thomson South-Western.

Webb, Karen. (2010). Consumer Behaviour. (2nd edn). Australia: McGraw-Hill Asutralia Pty Limited.

2008 Republican Convention

I would like to bring up an incident from 2008 in the Unites States when Amy Goodman, a reporter, was arrested with a high amount of force and handcuffed along with other reporters, some of whom were, according to Goodman, bleeding as a result of the force behind their arrests by the police. This happened during the Republican National Convention in 2008.

The police claimed most of the 10 000 democratic protesters were peaceful, but a group of 200 or so were becoming violent and many were arrested, including Amy and her fellow reporters. She claimed a whole force of riot officers surrounded the area and were using extreme force to arrest people who were not neccesarily involved in the trouble-making. She claimed when she asked police if she could see her colleagues, she was roughly pushed to the ground and handcuffed, suffering a bleeding nose. She claims she was brought to cages that had been set up to hold all the arrested protesters, and that one of her reporter friends was bloodied. They all were wearing reporter tags around their necks, and allegedly secret service personnel ripped off their tags.

Here is the only clip I could find of her being arrested, it is incomplete:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ&feature=related

Here is a clip of her press report about the incident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLgetO_BL70

Here is a newspaper report about the incident:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/rnc-protests.html

The issues as I see it is whether police were too heavy-handed and whether they were trying to squash dissent and political activity, and whether social media aided our understanding of the issue and helped society learn from it.

The police in riots like these arrest everyone who tries to cross riot lines, and once people start causing trouble, everyone in the near area will normally be arrested. Is this fair? If someone has a genuine problem and needs to talk to police or leave the area via another route than the allowed one, if someone lost a friend or whatever in the crowd, should the police listen to their issue and think about it; or is it justified to arrest anyone who does not stay behind the lines to maintain peace?. As we can see in the incomplete arrest video, Amy was resisting instructions to leave but she was approaching peacefully and asking to see her friends, and the officers were not listening.

Some people may believe the police were justified in using the tactics to maintain order, others believe police were heavy-handed during this incident and used excessive force amongst many people, many young, trying to voice their opinion. Social media like Youtube was used to get out information and videos about Amy's arrests and other's arrests within an hour of the RNC (Republican National Convention), and a deluge of posts via facebook and twitter, and phonecalls and letters inspired by social media, were believed to have played  a part in Amy's release.

Please dicuss this situation or about police handling of protests in general, and how social media relates.

In my opinion, the police were heavy-handed, they even stormed the houses of known activists before the rally to try and pre-emptively stop rioting, this seems like arresting people without them having done anything first. If someone approaches police peacefully and slowly I think they should not use so much force, as during a protest people can get hurt or seperated from loved ones , and may need police help. It is a bit too much to arrest so many people at a whim because some were causing trouble. There definitely some protesters who were being idiots and causing trouble, and definitely the police were right in some of the arrests.

Is it worthwhile discussing this in this blog since none of us were there? If only the people present at an incident speak up about it, will it be hard to receive answers about an incident? Did social media play a positive or negative role during this incident? There are pro-Amy videos posted on Youtube from liberal crowds, and anti-Amy videos posted by Republican figureheads blaming the incident entirely on her. Did social media help this situation be explored in an objective way?

“Know” but “Don’t Care”

Everybody is concern about their privacy information shared on the social networking channels such as on Facebook. But the thing is before they are able to have a login ID, they need to read and understand the terms and conditions (T&C) stated on the site. Most of my friends back home they don’t even bother to read it and just approve it. But once something happen, they will put the blame on the site and the organization. It is where they “know” that they have to read and understand the T&C but they just “don’t care” as long as they are able to register and be connected with their friends.

Terms and Conditions:

• YouTube.com (http://www.youtube.com/t/terms)

(Item 5: Your Use of Content on the Site point G)

“You understand that when using the YouTube Website, you will be exposed to User Submissions from a variety of sources, and that YouTube is not responsible for the accuracy, usefulness, safety, or intellectual property rights of or relating to such User Submissions. You further understand and acknowledge that you may be exposed to User Submissions that are inaccurate, offensive, indecent, or objectionable, and you agree to waive, and hereby do waive, any legal or equitable rights or remedies you have or may have against YouTube with respect thereto, and agree to indemnify and hold YouTube, its Owners/Operators, affiliates, and/or licensors, harmless to the fullest extent allowed by law regarding all matters related to your use of the site”.

 

• Facebook.com (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/terms.php?ref=pf)

(Item 2: Sharing Your Content and Information point 4&5)

4. When you publish content or information using the "everyone" setting, it means that everyone, including people off of Facebook, will have access to that information and we may not have control over what they do with it.

5. We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use them without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them).

(Item 10: About Advertisements on Facebook point 2)

2. We do not give your content or information to advertisers without your consent.

The T&C have clearly stated on things that we should know prior engaging with these sites…therefore, should we put the marketers at fault for our own carelessness in reading and understanding the T&C? The marketers on the other hand, do “know” that some of the users have agreed to subscribe to their social networking channel without fully understanding the T&C. But they “don’t care” to make/write the T&C in a simpler words so that users can actually understand it well. At the end of the day, regardless whether the users are aware or not, the marketers might be using the information in generating profits in selling their advertisements. Nevertheless, I would say that both users and marketers must be able to “know” and “care” about their roles and responsibilities in the social networking “fever”.

This video provides some safety measures that online users should look into consideration.

US President Obama warns children on Facebook postings

I came across this clip on YouTube a moment ago and just want to share with everyone of you as we should be accountable on anything that we said now as it might get back to us later in the future…

“Don’t Know” but “Care”

The rise and expansion of social marketers within the industry are all dependable on their capabilities to continuously generate profit and revenues for the organizations. They will be fully utilizing all available resources in order to achieve their marketing objectives. They have come out will all sorts of marketing initiatives in obtaining the trust and attention from their target audience by providing continuous speed and convenience through online social networking channels.

McCoy, Frieder, Larry and Hedges (1994: 241) stated “Once customer define what convenience means to them, managers then need to establish how much they value each form of convenience”. Ability to conduct a customer satisfaction survey and research on frequent basis will enable marketers to determine their audience purchasing behavior at all time. This will enable them to provide more value added-services for the customers.

On the other hand, marketers must be able to realize that consumers can be considered as problem solvers as they will involve in any decision making process and come out with solutions in satisfying their purchasing behavior (Webb, 2010: 28). Webb also mentioned that customers will make use of all available alternatives that can potentially solve the problem as it different “between a consumer’s actual current state and their desired state”.

It proves that marketers “don’t know” about their customer’s decision making process but they are willing to determine it by obtaining useful information either directly from the customer through interview or by conducting market research and survey. It is because in generating growth and revenues, marketers do “care” about their customers purchasing needs and also in achieving the organization’s sales target at all time.

McCoy, John B., Frieder, Larry A. & Hedges, Jr. Robert B. (1994). Bottomline Banking Meeting the Challenges for Survival & Success. United States of America: Probus Publishing Company.

Webb, Karen. (2010). Consumer Behaviour. (2nd edn). Australia: McGraw-Hill Asutralia Pty Limited.