Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Kristine Paulsrud Brenna

Analysis of M&M´s page on Facebook

In this assignment I am going to the Facebook page for M&M´s. I do think this commercial page is doing a really effective job of social media marketing. The reason why I have this opinion is first of all that I get a really good first impression when I visit the page. There are a lot of strong colors that hit my face at once I go in there and the M&M´s mascot is everywhere. The second thing I noticed was the 15% off coupon. If you like their page, you get a 15% off coupon which you can either use in-store or online. They are not giving away any free things, but they do a good job to promote their coupons and it is easy available. They also have different events going on. They had for instance a deal that for every fifth «check-in» (on Facebook) on Foursquare, you could unlock their “Loyalty Special” for a sweet 15% off your next purchase. By doing this, they are using their customers to do commercial for them, and they are also involving their costumers. They have also been  They do not have any surveys or games as far as I can see.

In addition to this, they are posting a lot of pictures regularly. They are «on-time», for instance they have posted a «Happy Halloween» picture, a «We are providing your Monday night entertainment» picture, and a «Happy Father´s day» picture. This get the users to feel like the is caring about the people out there and they do not just directly focus on selling us their materials. I also found that the M&M'S World NYC team have been in hard work with Habitat for Humanity of Westchester helping to 'M'Prove America' in Breezy Point. In other words, they are also taking part in humanity work, which shows a really good picture of the company to the rest of the world. Posting this kind of pictures and events/participation works in an indirect way because users will have good thaugts about M&M´s and think that they really care about their costumers. They are also posting pictures when there are new tastes on the market, new product designs and new stores around the world. By posting pictures from different stores worldwide, they involve cosutumers from all over, not just in the United States (where their main office is located). When I am scrolling down on the page, there are pictures of M&M´s things everywhere, and you can find almost everything you need. There is also a dialog environment on the page. They are asking questions when they are posting things, and they are also answering the costumers when they have questions.

This facebook page is awesome! I want to got to the shop and by their products, I really respect M&M´s as a company and I am actually «liking» their page now. 

Kristine Paulsrud Brenna

Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Oda Herseth Noppi

Analysis of Snapple´s page on Facebook 

I am going to write an analysis/evaluation of Snapple’s social media page on Facebook.

In relation to premiums, I can’t see anything that Snapple gives away to their customers/followers unless they participate in a competition. They have a lot of statuses, like; “Kick of your shoes and pop open a Snapple.” And “Everyday I’m Snapplin’” to get people to drink more Snapple. A lot of people like this statuses and comment. They have an application you can download to get a free Snapple-game on your smart-phone. They also have a competition where people can send in real facts about Snapple and get it printed on a t-shirt. To involve more users they also have a couple of surveys.

Snapple post a lot of stuff on the Facebook-site, like pictures and movies. The design is very nice, and at the first sight, it looks like a professional site. Many people ask about things, and tell about their participation in competitions and their experiences with the suggestions from Snapple. For example how they felt when they drunk the first frozen Snapple. They have a good dialogue environment where they can communicate with the users. When they do, they encourage people to get tell their family and friends about their Facebook-site and they ask about their experiences with new products. Snapple provides new materials regularly. They have at least one new publication a day. I don’t think anything is engaging, but sometimes they have stuff that could be interesting.

I think this commercial page doing an ok job. They could have more events and premiums to involve more users. Except from that, I think they are very active with posting things, and they are also concerned about having dialogue with their customers.

Oda Herseth Noppi

Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Renate Torgersen

Analysis of Panda Express´ page on Facebook

Panda Express was establishes in California in 1983 and is a food chain who delivers “gourmet Chinese”. I have been visiting panda express a couple of times and I think their food is great. I thought it would be great to look at their Facebook page, and see what impression this page gives me.

Their Facebook page have today about 3.2 million followers, which are quite a lot. My first impression is that their Facebook page is great and entertaining. They post a lot of funny picture, and makes people comment and participate on the page. Further, I am going to look at some different features to evaluate their Facebook page further.

It is not a lot of premiums on their Facebook site, but I have seen some examples. Often when they got new products, and want people to taste it, they are giving away free coupons that gives you the opportunity to taste this dish free. They also give away discount coupons.

The Facebook page are on the other hand very participatory. They makes different surveys where people can vote on which kind of food they like the best. The most recent survey that they provided was if people like brown fried rice or original fried rice better, and participation was enormous. They often post different pictures as well, and are always asking about your opinion.

If we look at user generated content, they have a few contents were people share their own images, but in general, it is not much of this.

Panda Express writes on their Facebook site: “We love how passionate our fans are about sharing. To have a healthy environment for engaging conversations, we ask that comments remain on topic within our posts. We may delete negative comments about Panda Express and those that are not relevant, spam, solicitation, and may remove any identical posts by the same or multiple users”. Meaning that they do not want people to comments on their site, without commenting on their post. However, it is a lot off comments from different people, both negative and positive. It seems like Panda express is quite good when it comes to feedback. Most of the post, without the recent and some unserious, have been comment and those who are negative are receiving apologize.

This is something Panda Express are good at because they updates their status all the times with new things and funny pictures. Their page is up-to-date and often write about important thing that are happening around the world, not just about their new products. They never posts the same picture twice, and are making funny pictures of the panda doing different things.

In general, I think panda express are doing an okay job with marketing on social media. Maybe they are writing too much about their new products, but they are always, at least trying, to make it funny. They are doing a good job on making people active and too entertain people. After studying their Facebook page, they made at least one more “like”.

Renate Torgersen

Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Ingrid Rossnes

Analysis of H&M´s Page on Facebook

Using Facebook as a marketing channel is a smart move and a growing trend among companies. Clothing line H&M has also entered the trend and created a Facebook page. When companies choose to use Facebook as a marketing channel, they are combining mass media channels with interpersonal channels. Mass media channels are channels that communicate to a large audience and that is effective for spreading knowledge. Interpersonal channels have two-ways communication and it is more effective than mass media channels regarding getting people to buy products. Using Facebook will therefore give them opportunities to share their content to a large audience and also communicate with them. Even though this gives them these advantages, there is important to remember that it is not only about the medium but the message.

H&M have over 16 million likes on their page. Factors that relate to social media marketing on Facebook can be premiums, participation, user-generated content, costumer service “portal”, and content flow. I will use all of these factors when I evaluate H&M´s Facebook page as social media marketing.

Premiums are used for attracting customers or to entertain them, and often they use this tool when they give away free stuff. H&M do not give out free products, but they use partly exclusive premiums. These are premiums that benefits the members on Facebook. H&M invites their members to shopping days where there are discounts on their products. The reason why I said it is partly exclusive is that the members get more information about these days, but other people can also attend the actual shopping and get the discount. If they had used premiums as a tool, there may be a chance that more people would pay attention to their news and products, thus they may get more costumers.

Participation is a way the company can include the consumers in their business process and make sure that there is a demand for their product. On Facebook they can do this by creating events or creating surveys to involve users. As I have mentioned H&M creates events where they invites members to go shopping with discounts. These events are spread in countries and cities all over the world. In addition to events they also creates surveys. An example of a survey is the Facebook Fan Faves, where the members get alternatives of different clothing and they choose their favorite. The most favorite clothing will be distributed in their stores.

User-generated content is a way to showcase users-submitted content by creating galleries or venues. H&M exploits the opportunity to share content on Facebook, and encourages their members to share the stores conten. When members share there are more people who see their news and products, and can lead to more costumers. They also had a Fashion Against AIDS campaign, where they encouraged people to upload a picture where they were kissing. For every picture, the clothing line donated $1 to HIV/AIDS prevention.

When companies create environment on their Fagebook page that allows communication between members and the company is called a costumer service “portal”. On H&M´s page they have a wall where members can write about almost anything, and the store answers them if they have questions. When I look through the wall, there are mostly complaints or people who wants answers to specific questions.

The last factor in the analysis is content flow. It is important to post new material on a weekly basis at least, thus there are regular new content. Content flow maintains the relationship to the consumer and they want to come back. H&M post new things several times a day about their clothing and other news.

On the basis of these factors I think that H&M´s Facebook page are is doing an effecting job as social media marketing. It has attracted the right targeting group, and encourages them to return to the page. 

Ingrid Rossnes

Assignment #3 - Social Media Marketing Analysis by Mia Helen Roos

Analysis of Urban Outfitters´ page on Facebook

Urban Outfitters is a line of stores that actively uses both their webpage and social media pages such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to market their products to consumers. I´ll take a closer look at their Facebook page in this analysis; I´ll evaluate the social media page with regards to some features: premiums, participation, user-generated-content, customer service “portal” and content flow.

Urban Outfitters don´t directly offer premiums (free “stuff”) on their Facebook page, but scrolling down to October 22nd one can find a post about their new “UO App”. Downloading and using this app one can “Shop. Complete challenges. Get exclusive stuff.” Under this header one can press a link to see the YouTube video they made to explain all the things one can do using their app - shop, play games, complete challenges, earn rewards, get free tickets and stream new music. So even though they don´t offer free stuff on their Facebook page, they offer a variety of services for those that are willing to use their app. This is definitely something they´ve done to attract customers and make people more interested and it´s directly targeted towards their main costumers, namely young people that are familiar with smartphones and the use of apps.

On Urban Outfitters’ Facebook page one can click on “events” and a list appears with events directed by stores around the US thus creating the opportunity for customers to participate and at the same time they get to market themselves. One of the events occurring in several cities is “Ghouls night out” where they offers tarot card readings, DIY nail and beauty demos and an extra discount on sale merchandise. Another event is “Fright Night”, also happening in stores in several cities. This is a superb way of involving customers of the stores, because while being in the stores for these events people will also notice their other products.

With regards to User-Generated Content they regularly, at least once a day, update their Facebook page. Their updates is mostly pictures of their clothes and other products and usually they have only a short sentence or a few words to describe what they posted, e.g. “Autumn accessories” with a picture of hands holding a pumpkin and the hands being full of rings available in their stores. What one can also notice is that their updates and pictures are all in the same “style”; they show off a kind of urban lifestyle and directly aim their posts towards young people living, or wanting to live, this kind of urban life. They offer a wide range of products within this style both clothes, accessories for people, furnishings and “accessories” for your home, to complete this urban look.

Urban Outfitters are offering users a communication-friendly environment since people can both “like” and post comments on their posts. When people have posted complaints about service, products etc. they have someone answering respectfully and solving the problem before it´s become “too big of a deal”. As long as they make sure they have someone continuously checking the page and responding to complaints with not too big a time lag people will appreciate it and feel they have an easy way to communicate and get hold of the company. If they on the other hand were to not answer relatively quickly and in a respectful manner the chances are high that more people would support the unsatisfied customer and create some kind of a “mob” towards the company and giving them a bad reputation.

Urban Outfitters are most definitely concerned with the feature of giving customers and followers a content flow of news and materials on all their social media pages. They at least once a day, usually more often update their Facebook page with different posts. I do believe their updates are also perfect for their target group with a lot of pictures and few words – it´s easy to keep updated that way. And even though they have updates so often they usually get a relatively high number of “likes” and comments on their posts which also shows they have made a good job creating a dialogue with their customers.

Over all I do get the impression that Urban Outfitters makes a good job marketing themselves on Facebook; they make sure customers are always updated on their latest news and have an exiting page for people that are into the kind of style on clothes and furnishings they offer, namely the urban look. They have understood that it´s not just about having a social media page, it´s all about the content they offer on their page. Another important point is that they have understood that they have to shape their content a certain way to reach their target customers; which they have accomplished in a high degree in my opinion!

Mia Helen Roos

Assignment #2: Analysis of an online crime

Case:
Second member of a hacking group sentenced to over a year in prison for stealing customer information from Sony Pictures Computers.

Summary:
The case is about a man named Raynaldo Riviera, who’s known by the online moniker ”neuron”. He’s a member of the LulzSec hacking group, and was sentenced to one year in federal prison for participating in an extensive computer attack that compromised the computer systems of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The result was that information about 138,00 people was being posted on the Internet.

John Suler describes how people act differently online then they would in the real world. He calls it the online disinhibition effect. Six factors that interact with each other in creating this effect are dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority.

According to a court document, Riviera’s goal in the attacks on Sony Pictures and other corporate and government entities was to see the “raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy, and to provide stolen personal information so that equally evil people can entertain us with what they do with it”. It’s very clear that this is what Suler describes as “toxic disinhibition”, because Riviera is out to hurt people by steal their identities. When it comes to the six factors described above, we can say that the crime probably was motivated by dissociative anonymity and invisibility. Riviera and his hacking group LulzSec has previously been connected to the loose collective of computer hackers “Anonymous”, who’s known for cyber attacks and disseminating of confidential information stolen from victims’ computers. Both for Anonymous and LulzSec invisibility and anonymity are important factors for how they act. It’s also a probability that Riviera did what he did for his own thrill and entertainment, and maybe even out of boredom. 

http://www.justice.gov/usao/cac/Pressroom/2013/102.html" http://www.justice.gov/usao/cac/Pressroom/2013/102.html

Written by:
Anine Jorstad Paulsen

Assignment #2: Analysis of an online crime

  Everyone knows it is illegal to download and watch porns online. Regulation on illegal porns totally makes sense. But imagine you, or anyone getting busted by the police while watching porns… horrible. Then imagine a worse scenario - what if the police had taken photos of you watching porn!! This is what exactly happened in Australia, a couple of months ago. A group of hackers posed themselves as the federal police, activated the victim's webcams using a ransomware and took photos of them. They didn't stop at the point and went even further to extort money from them. Never did they forget to use the logo of Austalian Federal Police to make the fee look more 'legitimate'!!

http://www.dailydot.com/crime/cybercriminals-australia-porn-malware-extortion/

As Suler says, the online environment shows one's hidden constellation withinself-structure (321). Then exactly what element of disinhibition effect triggered the con-artists to disguise themselves as the police and made the victim to fork over quite a lot of money? In the case described above, two main factors created disinhibition effect. First one is the dissociative anonymity and theother one is minimization of status and authority.

 The first factor to be discussed is quite obvious, but still it was an essential part of this cybercrime. The criminals could alter their identity because, obviously,they were anonymous and were not afraid of ‘acting out’ (322).Not only were they anonymous, but they had the technology and know-how to access and activate their victims’ webcam and to disguise themselves as police in a convincing way. Plus, we need to talk about the threatening and extortion part of this cybercrime. Could they (the criminals) have committed crime the same way if their identity had not been concealed? Invading into someone’s embarrassingly personal life and shamelessly taking webcam shots of others watching porns? Would they have done the same stuff in real life as if they were some sort of animals without conscience? Another Interesting thing about dissociative anonymity in this case was that it worked on the victims' part as well as the criminals’ part. Remember, the scapegoats were watching porns, which is an illegal behavior that breaches federal laws regarding copyright and privacy, etc. According to Suler, dissociative anonymity helps people to avert responsibility for [their] behaviors (322). Still loads of people miss the fact that aversion from responsibility is just temporary and not everyone can just walk away from what they have done. In many cases, what follow the behavior are real-life consequences. Ironically, the savvy hackers took advantage of the fact that people are responsible for what they have done, that people should be fined!

 Dissociative anonymity was empowered by the second factor - minimization of status and authority. Suler explains that on the internet everyone starts off on a level playing field (324) and what mostly determines the influence on other is one’s skiil in communicating… and technical know-how (324). Since everyone was equal on the internet, since there was no strong, apparent (legitimate) police authority being exercised, it was much easier for them to pose as and act like federal police with just a couple of savvy know-hows, ransomware and police-like administrative skills.  Literally they could’ve been anyone, anything they wanted to be because no practical authority worked nor kept an eye on their process until they committed crime.

  People do weird, unethical, disgusting stuff online. The most interesting part of this case was that the criminals knew that people do weird, unethical disgusting stuff online and took advantage of it in a weird, unethical and disgusting way.

- Juyoung Gemma Jeon