Summary of our case presentation

Examing Social Media Campaigns - Taco Bell

Our task was it to examing Social Media Campaigns of  Taco Bell. Taco Bell uses three drifferent major social media tools:

1. Facebook
2. Youtube
3. and Twitter.

You can find Taco Bell under the following links:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/tacobell
https://twitter.com/#!/tacobell
http://www.youtube.com/user/tacobell/featured

Last week Taco Bell counted 8,38 million "Likes" and over 127.000 "Talking about this" on Facebook. Within a week these numbers rised up to 8,4 million and 155.000. That is amazing!!! According to my opinion so many likes on a network like Facebook is a very impressive number for a company. This business provides a platform for everyone where they are enabled to talk about the company, share their experiences or just say that they love their food. For Taco Bell, such a high number of likes is very interesting to get a lot of informations about customers. And the more customers a company has,who are sharing their feelings, the better is it to know the customer´s needs. That will increase the brand awareness of Taco Bell.
Additional to internet plattforms Taco Bell has something special for all smartphone user. There is a really effective app available. With this app it is possible to find the nearest location or a general one, playing a game or to allow users to find all items offered by Taco Bell. Furthermore you can give feedback, making complaints, just write a comment or clicking on link to see more on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube or the official homepage.

The strongest online presence of Taco Bell is Facebook by far. There are the most followers and Facebook offers the best potential to create a good designed or informative page.
The weakest one of the three is Youtube. They just have a few videos uploaded, to be exact, they only uploaded commercials and they are not the latest one. A bad design is another reason for the weakness of the page. To improve their youtube account Taco Bell could permit customers to upload videos made by themselves eating tacos.

How could social media improve their acceptance by other cultures? Maybe consider their commercials.

Homework 1

a)      Discuss why is social media an important part of an organization´s marketing strategy?

Like I said on http://ucrxsocialmediawinter12.blogspot.com/2012/03/homework-1-define-social-media.html, I think Social Networks are very important for companies. Tweets, blog posts and such things enable companies to obtain information´s about competitors, prices, trends, and products. As things going faster and faster in our world, it is necessary for businesses to use online platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Almost everyone in the modern society has a computer or access to the World Wide Web, so it is essential for a modern company to display online presence. On networks businesses are in the position to make contacts online, promote their products and services or to provide customers the chance to give feedback about their products. Additional to this I can imagine that it is cheaper to promote online than to do traditional commercials on TV. Remember also, that there is a negative aspect about that topic. For competitors it is much easier to copy your brand and because of that businesses have a lot of work to protect their products.

b) Why it is important to market yourself?

In my mind it is very import to market ourselves via social networks. We often think about it when we are applying for a new job or starting a new business. Nowadays it is current for employees or businesses to make researches about their applicants. According to my opinion it is up to you to create or improve your brand or image. Because you want to make a fair impression it is necessary to keep your profile professional on the internet. But do not stop acting professional after you have pasting that point. You never know what happens in the future. But the question is how you can distinguish from all the others? The very worst thing that could happen is to get lost in the crowd! You have to be conspicuous or different!!! Furthermore marketing yourself gives you a competitive advantage. It is important to stand out from your competitors if you want to be successful in your life.

c) How can you build your brand online?

                                    

First of all you need a professional-looking website, blog or your account on twitter where you can publish things that you want to reveal to others. Draw the line between openness and too much information´s. Keep your comments, posts and tweeting’s serious and just show sovereignty. Another oint is to be consistent. Use the same profile picture and share the same personal information´s about yourself on every platform. To make that point clear, here is an example: If you have a good looking blog with all the important information´s you want to publish on one side and you also have a Facebook account where you are posting pictures about your last weekend drinking alcohol or stuff like that on the other side.If your blog is connected with such social media platforms like Facebook it does not work. An additional point to this is to pay attention in which surroundings you are acting. Bad settings will rub off on you and then others will see you as one of them. Things that go online never go away. So be careful on social networks. If you regard all that point it is very easy to build a successful brand online.

class 1

Why do I take this class?

I needed only one more credit to complete my requirement for studying in America. So I was looking for a course which deals with social media or e-commerce and I found that one. And for me social media marketing sounds really interesting so I took this class.

What do you hope to get out of it?

I hope I will get an good overview and learn more about social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google and how they can influence and manipulate people or companies all over the world.

How do I plan to apply what I learn in this class?

I have not learned so much so far so I do not know how to use it yet. But I hope I will be able to use social media tools right in the future.

Welcome

Hey Ho,

Enjoy it :-)