Week 10

                The group wiki was an interesting way to collaborate on a project. Most online group projects suffer from the same issue – the schedules and availability of the different members have a substantial impact on the ability of the group to interact. In an online course setting, it is almost impossible to suggest or require that people participate during certain time frames beyond the standard due dates per the course instructor.

                I feel our group was no exception to this rule. Though everyone participated and contributed their part, there was little group back-and-forth type interaction. The nature of the assignment meant that a complete assignment was possible without real-time or near real-time interaction.

                Due to schedule and communication concerns, our group fell back on the old standard of sending emails to the group members. It is difficult to discern whether the emails were effective. In the case where certain details about availability and special circumstances, it was a helpful tool to have available, even if it defeated the purpose of using the group discussion boards, wiki and other tools.

              In a perfect world, where everyone in the group has the time and availability to log in and interact with the board once or more per day, these tools have a lot of potential.

Week 2 - POST

For my side business, I may have what Li & Bernoff call "groundswell approach avoidance syndrome (2011)." I have had the business for about five years and considered posting a blog since the beginning. I have not gotten very far, but it has been in the back of my mind the entire time. For the T in post, I will consider writing a blog for my wedding makeup business. I have a small number of customers and an even smaller amount of data, but I think this exercise will still be useful.

P - People. My customers are primarily finding me through a search engine such as Google. I have data that shows that there is hardly any traffic directed to my site through sites like Yelp. From getting to know my customers on a personal basis, I know that they are Joiners. Nearly all of my customers have Facebook profiles and I have interacted with several of them through Facebook after working with them, but almost never before. Though I have been contacted through social media by prospective customers, they are rarely my target market and almost never end up being a client.

During the majority of my first meetings with my customer, Pinterest comes up and becomes part of the conversation. My demographic overwhelmingly uses Pinterest to gather ideas, store them in one location and share them. They share their wedding boards with their family, wedding party members and, in my case, vendors.

This would lead me to believe that my customers are Joiners and Collectors. They join and participate in Facebook and Pinterest. I have had a few reviews posted here and there, but my clients do not fit the profile of critics nor have I known them to be creators. From personal observation of my clients and how they interact with social media, they do not tend to fit the profile of conversationalists, either.

O - Objectives. By far and large, my best clients are referrals. Most of these referrals are someone who has been in a wedding where the bride was a client of mine. A large portion of these utilized my services as a member of the wedding party while others simply observed. In all cases, motivated my past clients would be an excellent blog objective. It would be great to motivate not just brides, but the wedding party members, mothers and other people that I work with during a typical job. Not all of the bridesmaids will go on to be brides (some are already married, live out of state, etc.) but all the people I come into contact with will know a bride or wedding party at some point in the future.

S - Strategy. This pivots directly from my objective. More word of mouth from my clients will pay dividends in recurring business over time. I already get a good amount of referrals from brides, but the mothers and other members of the bridal party who do not interact with me as much do not have the same incentive to talk about my business or refer to me to new brides or wedding parties. Engaging them with a blog may be a way to grow what is typically a passing relationship into a lasting source of referrals.

Image by Sara Salkeld.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies (Expanded and rev. ed.). Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.

Introduction

My name is Sara and this is the blog I created for my 21st Century Communication Technologies. I am excited for this class. I have often considered blogging - for both personal and professional reasons - however, I have never sat down and actually got one started. This will be an interesting element to a course I am already finding incredibly relevant to today's society.

You will have to forgive the absence of personal details. I am more comfortable keeping my personal life off-line.