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Fish Where the Fish Are!

9/29/2010

9 Comments

 
Just finished listening to a Philip Nowak, a guest speaker for three Marquette classes – including our Emerging Media class – in a large lecture hall at Marquette Hall. Nowak is a social media analyst at Delver.com, a new social shopping experience powered by Sears, and someone who is helping to discover how to monetize social media.

Nowak was quite impressive. Especially liked that he offered good pieces of advice – for example, focusing on finding out what you're good at and not worrying as much about not knowing what to do with your life – and that he shared how he had failed at four different business ventures and what he learned through those experiences. He found that he had a passion for the Internet and that he could earn a great living by monetizing social media.

His presentation focused on key questions, including what is social media, why do big brands use social media and what is social commerce? He explained how media and other companies are now using "open graphs" to allow Facebook "likes" on their websites, great for merchandising and research and spreading word-of-mouth. He also showed us how Delver.com is Sears' way of using Facebook integration to help customers and their friends discover and explore products together. In short, Sears is testing how to have customers engage more with its websites.

Finally, in what Nowak described as "fishing where the fish are," we heard how big brands are using social media to draw huge audiences, make and save money, increase customer interaction, solicit instant feedback and monitor online activity associated with their brands. Also, good emerging media-ists understand that social media is both good and bad for brands. Be very wary of "brand-jacking" and how it can create customer confusion – Nowak showed a great example of how some angry folks used Twitter to vent about BP's poor handling of the horrendous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this summer – and be ever ready to respond to viral explosions (YouTube!).

Control your reputation. Fish where the fish are!
9 Comments
Colleen Herrmann
1/20/2011 03:10:32 am

Philip Nowak seems to be a truly inspirational entrepreneur offering hope for the future journalists of the world that will have a harder time breaking into the world of writing. The fact that my generation grew up utilizing facebook, twitter, youtube and other social network sites gives me hope that there will be a future for journalism and it will be digital.

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Mark Strotman
1/20/2011 10:41:32 am

I found the last paragraph interesting and it brought up a point I always wondered about? Who runs the social networking pages for huge companies? I assume it has to be someone in Public Relations, but that's a pretty big job for someone to have access to, at times, millions of customers.

As for the whole article, Philip Nowak seems extremely determined to accomplish his goals.

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Joshua Arter
1/23/2011 10:02:34 am

To be completely honest, I follow the fake BP Twitter account. It definitely hurt BP, and was easy and quick to do so via Twitter.

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Jodi Denk
1/24/2011 01:50:09 am

I think this addresses a huge issue--who does control these accounts and how do we know what we are reading to be true? I understand Nowak's argument of "fishing where the fishes are" but as a member of the audience, I find it frustrating and concerning to not know if what I am reading is true or not.

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Ashley De La Torre
1/24/2011 05:36:58 am

Social Media is giving way to new styles of journalism and giving hope to up and coming journalist, but at what cost to the forms that already exist?

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Becca French
8/31/2011 06:38:18 am

I appreciate what companies are trying to do by incorporating themselves in social media to gain attention from customers, but to some extent I find it simply obnoxious. Especially on Facebook and Twitter, the ads in the sidebar, the various pages you can "like" and the trending topics just detour my interest from the company because I feel bombarded.
I feel like when it comes to companies and advertising I would much rather enjoy visiting the site or "following" them if I want to, not because there is a bright flashing advertisement yelling at me.

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Andrea Anderson
8/31/2011 06:41:14 am

Social Media is making journalists rethink the way they work and interact with people or future employers. The only worry I have is, what about the people who rely on the newspaper or TV news that don't have Internet access?

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Tessa Fox
8/31/2011 11:45:39 am

It is clever and effective how businesses and companies use the popularity of social networking sites to promote their companies and products. Not only is the Internet revolution changing the way journalists must write, it is also changing how advertisers and consumers promote or criticize products.

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Liz McGovern
9/1/2011 05:05:28 am

Online communities can really make or break a corporation. Trending topics on Twitter can either really endorse a corporation, event, idea, or person or it can absolutely destroy them. While having a lot of followers is usually a good thing, the sheer magnitude of people watching, and by word of mouth, can create a bad reputations faster than ever.

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    My journalism DNA remains strong as I learn and teach new ways to tell and present stories, especially via digital and social media. This blog is where I share what happens in my classroom and my life and, from time to time, offer my views on current events. I appreciate your feedback – either as comments herein or in an email to herbert.lowe [at] marquette [dot] edu.

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