A Schaefer (2014) says, “The world is expecting your company or department to ‘be social.’ with a blog, Facebook page, and the rest of the social media tsunami” (Introduction). This statement embodies the fact that in a relatively short span of time, social media has embedded itself into mainstream society, at many times taking the place of traditional news sources such as television or the newspaper. This is supported by observations and research completed by Srivats (2016) in which he puts forth that many of the social media platforms have changed the equation of news transference completely. To illustrate this, Srivats gives an example of a new movie being released today verses in the year 2000. In the year 2000 we would have to wait at least a day or more to get a review, no with social media, we are getting the same reviews within 2 hours of the movie’s release.
This way in which human beings communicate has not only changed in the entertainment realm; it has also infiltrated the business world. Social media has allowed for business to not only maintain contact with their traditional customers but also create new connections with prospective customers they may not have reached in the past. As the Social Savior website points out:
The average Internet user in the United States spends about 37 minutes per day using social media sites. Facebook is currently the leader. At the beginning of 2015, Facebook had nearly 1.5 billion active users. That was 71% of the adults who use the Internet.
Other sites might not have as many members, but their numbers are multiplying. About 23% of online adults use Twitter. LinkedIn members account for 28% of online adults. These numbers should compel every business owner and manager to think carefully about how social media marketing can benefit them. (Social Savior, 2018, Introduction)
Trends in Social Media as a Marketing Tool
As companies began to realize the value of the Internet as a primary component of their communications platform around 2012, they began to look at alternative marketing techniques that could be more cost-effective and efficient in engaging consumers on this new platform. Social media allowed for traditional word of mouth (WoM) marketing to become a genuinely viable tool as the premise for marketing campaigns. The advent of the Internet has increased the ability of individuals, and potential future customers, to interpersonally connect with one another, thereby creating a powerful means through which product information can be rapidly disseminated, and products be more cost-effectively adopted by the market (Castronovo & Huang, 2012).
The creation of social media also leads to the development of a new way for businesses to understand and control customer relationships leading to the development of Customer Relationship Management which focuses on the ability of companies to use the information gathered through analytics to build consumer loyalty and customer satisfaction which in turn leads to increased profits. Fournier & Lee (2009) further this concept by putting forth that the social media platforms allowed for companies to create “brand communities” of like-minded customers, further allowing targeted marketing strategies.
Today, social media marketing has achieved the ability to allow for an organization to develop and distribute a complete marketing strategy which maximizes the consumer exposure and has little cost relative to traditional advertising means. This has led to the most current uses of social media across the global market regarding creating customer relations, branding specific products and communities online, optimizing search engines to drive customers to websites, and the everyday use of viral, guerilla, and event-based marketing.
Social Media in the Business Environment
Social media offers some benefits in the business environment. These benefits range from the ability to get quick returns on investment and targeting specific demographics for more appropriate results from advertising to allowing for companies to obtain detailed analytics and near-instant feedback.
When looking at the many marketing strategies that are utilized across the global market for advertising on television, radio, or print, many involve large-scale budgets that are not possible for a small or medium business to compete with. Enter social media. Social media has allowed for the creation of some low and no-cost platforms which allow for a quick and substantial return on investment. For example, a free account on Facebook can connect a business with over a billion potential customers for free! Costs can be incurred if and once you decide to “boost” your posts through paid targeting, but the costs of this targeting or a small portion of traditional means.
The second most significant offering of social media in the business world is it allows organizations to advertise to whom they choose. This allows for each dollar spent on advertising to have a direct impact on the company and gives a more powerful chance of getting a positive return. Depending on which social media platform a business chooses to utilize, advertising can be targeted to a specific geological location, age, gender, level of education, or even relationship statuses. This then allows for businesses to have access to and analyze data in regards to their marketing.
When it comes to marketing and business, detailed analytics are a godsend. Zeng, Chen, Lusch, & Li (2010) state, “Social media analytics is concerned with developing and evaluating informatics tools and frameworks to collect, monitor, analyze, summarize, and visualize social media data, [and is] usually driven by specific requirements from a target application” (p.14). This is done for a couple of purposes. First, online analytics allows for organizations to be the facilitator between any number of different online communities; and second, it allows for companies to have access to real-time patterns of customer behavior.
For example, online social media analytics can offer information to a business such as what percentage of individuals who clicked on an advertisement bought a product or spent money, or are customers sharing the business’ posts and links with others. Through having the answers to these questions, organizations are better able to utilize both their time and money about advertising and marketing.
Creating a Social Media Initiative
The formation of social media initiatives allows for organizations to put forth a culture in which they are open and transparent in their actions. According to Bertot, Jaeger, & Grimes (2010) the concepts of transparency and the right to information are internationally regarded as essential participation, trust, prevention of corruption, informed decision-making, accuracy of information, and providing information to the public, other companies, and consumers, are among the essential functions in society. Along with this, social media initiatives allow for companies to be more efficient in their marketing.
Although for some businesses it can be tempting to jump straight into a social media game plan without a lot of preparation (Oracle.com, 2018), every successful social media initiative must have a plan. Unlike when using social media for personal use, this plan needs to follow the outline as presented above which includes having the ability to get quick returns on investments, target certain demographics for more appropriate results, obtain detailed analytics, and get near instant feedback from consumers.
Social Media Initiatives in Corrections
This brings up the paradox of how to integrate a social media initiative in the educational department of Maine State Corrections. The realm of corrections has traditionally been removed from mainstream society for reasons of safety and security, both of the general public as well as for the incarcerated. As the formerly incarcerated Bozelko (2017) put it, “The years 2008 to 2014 might have been the worst time to live outside of society from a technological perspective. During that time the smartphone became ubiquitous. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all reached critical mass” (paragraph 3).
The social media initiative within the Department of Corrections must begin with education. It already offers those in prison the opportunities to complete high-school, attend college, or pursue a trade; why is it then that social media etiquette cannot be taught as well? The initiative will ultimately need to be approved by the supervisors and wardens of the individual penitentiaries. However, it must start with the Department of Education.
The facts are that on often cited 2013 study from the RAND Corporation found that recidivism drops 43 percent when prison students participate in education programs (Davis, Bozick, Steele, Saunders, & Miles, 2013). A report from the Minnesota Department of Corrections found that prisoners who received regular visitors reoffended 13 percent less than people who did not; and when visits came from a mentor, recidivism rates were reduced by upwards of 29 percent. With the mission of the Department of Corrections being to educate the incarcerated and reduce recidivism, a social media initiative to train inmates on what is available and proper usage is necessary.
The traditional arguments to not allowing for prisoners to have access to the internet and social media has been that this will open an avenue in which the incarcerated will be able to reach out to their victims and harass them. This, quite frankly, is a weak excuse as
prisoners already have access to telephones and other methods of communication with which this line of thinking could be obtained. This is such a fear that currently Georgia, Indiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Texas have all passed laws which have made it illegal for incarcerated to access social media, even through third parties. However, most states do not have laws that explicitly prohibit inmates from using social media (Wiltz, 2017).
What tends to be overlooked is that the use of social media can easily be monitored within the prison system and has a potential to help further the mission of corrections - rehabilitate and reduce recidivism. This potential has been realized in the Arizona prison system in which they have allowed for the incarcerated to have access to tablets and have limited and monitored access to the internet and social media. Over the course of the first year, Suicide attempts decreased 66 percent and completed suicides went down 100 percent. The number of staff assaults dropped 60 percent, and inmate-on-inmate assaults are down 40 percent. (Bozelko, 2017, paragraph 16).
Although these changes could be due to other influences as well, there is no denying that this initiative has positively impacted the prison population of Arizona.
Conclusion
In conclusion, social media is only going to grow and continue on its current path of integration into every aspect of the global market - both personal and in the business realm. Through understanding the positive and negative situations social media can bring to different situations, this technology can be harnessed and utilized in any number of ways. One way will be to incorporate social media into the rehabilitation and release programs within the Department of Corrections. With supervision and evaluation, social media can become a tool to help decrease recidivism and indeed help those who have been incarcerated return and be part of the greater free society.
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