How Amazing it is to have Communities and Twitter?

    I have been using Microsoft Windows System since I had a computer. I'm already used to it. I just started to use Mac System a couple days ago. I never imagined I could have so much trouble using my computer. I asked one of my friends who has been using Mac System for a long time for help. It turned out all the major software for Microsoft System have Mac System versions. I cannot stop thinking about how Dell saved 1 million dollars on its customer phone service by answering questions on the Internet. What I did is going online and look for answers. It was amazing that I found a big website for all Mac users. It is soft.macx.cn. You can just input keywords of your questions and search within the website. You can find an answer. I used online chatting service on Lexmark's official website to help me find a printer driver for my Mac. 

    That is what we called “Community”. I cannot stop think how rich the sources are, and how the community was built. In the Groundswell, the author mentioned several tips for create a community. “Start small, but plan for a larger presence. Reach out to your most active customers. Plan to drive traffic to your community. Build in a reputation system.” Once the community got started, we need participators to contribute information. “Supporting communities need activities.” People are playing an important role in groundswell because they are the host of Internet. Some people take information and some give. “Activity creates content, which creates traffic and links, which boosts search engine placement, which drives more traffic, and so on.” Some of the creators can be really popular in communities, and they feel good about helping people even though they don’t make money from that. 

    

    When I read about tapping the groundswell with twitter, I got so excited about it. One good thing about twitter is you can. I started to check out twitter everyday when I followed DulceCandy1987. She is a fashion blogger. I check twitter everyday to see if she uploaded any interesting things. Then I found out you can put links of pictures from Instagram, videos from Youtube and other websites. Just because it is so easy to link to anywhere you like, and the sources are so rich, twitter has been a push for the Groundswell. After I followed DulceCandy1987, I found and followed a lot of brands’ twitter, such as H&M and Forever 21. These twitter sites communicate with customers and post new-arrival products. Twitter has been a good tool to bring customers and merchants closer.

Did you shop Valentine's Day gift online?Original #2

    Did everyone have a lovely Valentine's Day? I wonder how many people actually shopped gifts for him or her online just because they didn't have time to go to the mall. I sure didn't have time to go to the malls. Plus it takes a long time to drive to different malls and you don't even know if you are gonna find the things he or she likes. So finally I went to Amazon.com and pick a home gym equipment for my boyfriend. How easy was that? I just sat at home, clicked several times, and it's all set. The gift came a day before Valentine's Day, so I made it right on time.

    Amazon.com was advertising Kindle Fire for Valentine's Day.

Amazon.com

     I love shopping personally, but there is no malls in Worcester. So I turned my interests to online shopping. Because online shipping is becoming more and more popular, online shopping websites give as many sales as possible for every holidays as well.

                                                                              Macy's

                                                                             Target

                                                                          T-mobile


    We don't realize how much our lives have changed because the Internet. We shop for groceries and food online just because it is convenient  and time-saving. We shop for clothes because we don't have time to go to the mall and walk from store to store. We shop everything online, and even more when the sales come up.

    I checked out the Ebags.com when I read about it in Groundswell. Their website is simple and well devided into catalogs. Customers can easily find the bags they want.

Plus, online shopping is easier for customers to compare prices from one website to another. We don't have to spend more time and money unnecessarily. Thanks for new technology and online shopping.

How to Use the Groundswell Better? Reading#1

Let me ask you a question first. Are you a creator or a visitor on the internet? According to the statistics of Chapter3 in Groundswell, only 20%-30% of internet users are creators. In that case, we can say more than 60% of users are visitors. They check and share information, videos and blogs every day. That is not enough. The more active creators are, the more audiences they can get. The more you involve with Groundswell, the better you can use it.

    Why do we need to participate in the groundswell? In the book the author mentioned people join the groundswell because “they can keep up friendships, make new friends, succumb to social pressure from existing friends and pay it forward.” Some people also have “altruistic impulse, prurient impulse, creative impulse, validation impulse and affinity impulse” which encourage them to create.

    It is not enough if you only have the enthusiasm about creating on the internet. You have to know your customers, make friends with your customers. Customers will open their hearts to you, and tell you what they really want. What you have to do first is to listen. Listening is a two-way strategy. Customers can monitor the brands they are interested in, and organizations can know their customers by checking their social technographics profile. One of the benefits that internet give us is openness. Absorbing information is the first step of listening. You can only win customers’ trust when you know them well. “In the groundswell, relationships are everything. The way people connect with each other—the community that is created—determines how the power shifts. (Groundswell, p18)” People become to the host instead of creators in the groundswell. It is all about satisfy the audience.

    What should we do after we know our customers and audiences? Let’s talk to them. There are so many ways that can make you heard. You can post a viral video. You can engage in social networks and user-generated content sites. And you may join the blogosphere and create a community. The author of the book “Groundswell” gave ten tips for successful blogging. They suggest you “start by listening, determine a goal for the blog, estimate the ROI, develop a plan, rehearse, develop an editorial process, design the blog and its connection to your site, develop a marketing plan so people can find the blog, remember blogging is more than writing, and be honest.”(p.117) I believe that the more you give to the groundswell, the more you can get from it. Let’s start to talk to the groundswell instead of just listening.

    Source: Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Week3o: Social media and Travelling

Hello, everybody! I would like to start this by two simple questions for you guys. How do you prepare vacation trips (exclude business trips) in the recent 3 years? And can you prepare your trip without internet in recent a few year? I bet the answer is no.

The first step of preparing a trip is to decide transportation and hotel. There are so many flight tickets and hotel booking website giving out all kinds of deals to the customers. When they sell cheap tickets, rental cars and hotels, they are expanding their markets. The examples are Hotwire.com, Priceline.com, Groupon, Gilt, Cheapticket.com, and Bookit.com. Those are websites selling hotel deals, flight deals and car rental deals or maybe the whole packages. It is maybe the first time for some people to buy deals online. So before they do it, they might go to some bloggers’ websites to check out which website has the best deals and the best reputations. Social media is playing an important role in the step.

After you take care of your hotels and tickets, you will start to think what you should do in the new place you know nothing about. I am going to tell you how to use social media to travel according to my own experience. I went to Miami with my two other friends half a month ago. Miami could be considered as a whole new country for us because we had never been there before. However, we had the most amazing four days there. Thanks to the social media. We did our homework before we went there. We checked out all kinds of blogs and sources online and made a plan. We looked for some places those are the most recommended going. There are Miami downtown, Miami Beach, Key West, and Everglades National Park. There are some famous restaurants as well.

People who have been to Miami wrote about their trips on their blogs, and somehow they followed other people’s steps because they did research too. Social media affects the audiences in an extremely fast speed. It is unlike books, newspapers or magazines. It allows more people to get access because it is free to everybody. We can imagine that if one person wrote a blog about a place he went, and ten people read it and shared it. A hundred people will see those ten people shared the blog and goes on and on. That is how social media works in any field. The more people read about you, the bigger your market can get. Travelling cannot be accomplished without internet or social media. People need information from social media, and merchants can use social media to expand their market as well.