Topic Ideas for Social Media

Here are some more topic ideas the girls have come up with under the umbrella of 'social media' for our research project:

• Can't take the heat? Hire a blogger. http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/cant-stand-the-heat-hire-a-blogger-20120302-1u8go.html

This is about how a food blogger was hired by a restaurant after a scathing review to help get the restaurant back on track. The trend of how restaurants are hiring bloggers to get a social media strategy, have a presence online. Because, these bloggers bring with them a love for food AND social media, experience, and an already established online community. Win. Not sure how this would really form a topic, but it is an example of a social media strategy companies are using to market online. It also allows the consumer to actively engage with the brand online.

Caitlyn's ideas:

• Participatory place branding

I think this means...how you can brand a place and get people to start engaging with that brand? Maybe how they wanted to give the restaurant a brand and presence online? Hmmm...

• Online identities for marketing

I'm not sure if she's referring here to the consumer's online identity, or the company's online identity. Both are related and relevant, as the company builds an identity (brand) online and tries to market that to the consumer's online identity. I like this idea, it's very relevant to marketing.

• Online media distribution strategies

Online media distribution would refer to the different channels that can be used to share media...so email, websites, blogs, facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Instragram etc etc...this is very relevant to what I was talking about in my earlier blog post, connecting user-generated participatory media and marketing strategies. As is online identities for marketing.

• Potential curation & convergence of social medias

The different social medias coming together and being organised, perhaps in a social media marketing strategy. Relevant. A successful strategy will be cohesive and have a consistent branding message, image and experience across a number of different media platforms. This could refer to how they would all be connected and come together.

• The way new social media influences the content of "old" media.
  

By this I think she means...how something might break first on the web social media landscape, and then later break on the TV news? OR she could mean how phenomenons ON the social media landscape are now actually making news too? Eg. Kony. I think she means any issue, but how it hits and blows up social media up first..and then a day or 2 later it will hit mainstream heritage media - TV news, radio etc. It's delayed, social media is much more instant.

And other topics we agreed to research over this weekend to pull a topic from on Monday include:

• Corporations' social media personas (branding)

So basically how companies are using social media to build their own personas and interact with consumes (branding). This would include social media strategies.

• Social online experiements or campaigns (integrating with the physical space)

I really REALLY like this one. Social online experiements or campaigns integrating with the physical space. These could be marketing campaigns, or stand alone to express something creative. It's very broad though...it could refer to the Post It phenomenon video that spread. But that's not really social media, that might just be a video...hmmm...

• Social media distribution strategies for independent (static) media
  

I don't really know what they mean by INDEPENDENT media. Maybe smaller media companies, or things like films. How do they use social media as a distribution strategy?

The main themes that keep arising here are:

• Companies wanting to create a social media presence online for branding purposes, and how they do that, what distribution channels they use, how they create an identity, and then interact with the online identities of their consumers...and how sometimes the strategies integrate the physical space.
  

Hmmm. So basically I still don't know exactly what I'm researching. I think I might just start reading, get a feel for the topic with my own interests in mind and go from there. Questions and issues will arise from within this.