The way that some multinational companies behave, leads us to
think that they are not acting very democratic and in this chase for bigger
profits, they are willing to do anything just to be sure that they will win the
war. However, in this process, there are many strange aspects that are meant to
reconsider the opinion that we had about one of the most important companies in
the United States and among the biggest in the world, Facebook. Facebook has
been accused that they have been ordered their employees to dump their iPhone
and to change them for Android devices, giving all kind of false pretexts .
This is without a doubt a war against Apple, even though the company state different
reasons, such as the fact that the application works better on Android devices
than iOS devices. The fact that they are referring exclusively to iPhones and
not all the products of Apple, and not any other operation system leads us to
think that Facebook has a problem with the iPhone specifically and not with
Apple entirely, or at least at this particular moment. It is very clear however
that no company, no matter how powerful it is cannot force their employers to
buy anything against their will or to use a particular brand of device or
switching to other that they like. It is very clear that this process, even if it would go through,
will not help Facebook as much as it
will affect their image, an image that was already affected through different rumors
but especially with the poster in the Facebook headquarters that was encouraging
the employees to switch from iPhone to Android. Facebook has already many
problems and this will only lead to more negative rumors that will affect the
already existing financial problems that Facebook is going through at this
moment. No matter what their true motivation would be, this kind of behavior is
affecting the relation between the company and the employees even more.
The next two photos were taken at the
Facebook headquarters:
Today small or big companies are not asking about whether or not they should own a social media fan page or twitter anymore, because it is a simple decision: if you can, you should.
The big issue today is rather how do we manage the social media we have in order to use them as well as the resources we spend effectively and efficiently.
Coming back to the goal of social media for companies is to be able to interact and engage with customers. Breaking the traditional one-way communication, social media help companies attract customers to open discussion, testimonials, or help gather ideas for the company in a two-way communication model. Through social media, company can talk to customers and customers can talk to another customers. After investing some capital on maintaining a good social media and contents and hiring some staff to take care of company's Facebook, Twitter, and blogs for example, now the challenge is how do we manage the conversation or cases opened in these medias? Who? What conversation? and How should company respond to these posts/tweets?
Social CRM, which is basically an additional features within CRM softwares, helps solve this issue by providing features that allow staff or users in general to not only respond to customers through traditional phone lines or email, but also social medias: Facebook Twitter, and other forms of social media platforms. Social CRM application recognizes new posts/tweets from customers to company's page and usually notify and assign a representative to the conversation. Besides this feature, some applications allow representative to look for the most popular mention or topics that customer talk about regarding their products and respond to their tweets based on how many followers the customer has; the more followers, the more influential this customer is. Some other applications may allow users to respond to customer's posts according to their satisfaction level; if customers are not very happy and satisfied about current service, they will get served first.
Through these capabilities, customers' conversations in company's social media are answered and responded effectively and efficiently, so customers will not think that company's page is not functional, solely a dead page.
Besides this capability, some applications software also allows users to save customer's information based on their information in the social media. This helps company expand their customer database even more, which means help their marketing effort to grow profit and market base. Other features such as knowledge library/sources within the company or customer blogs, and livechat capability with customers are additional features to social CRM application that help representative respond to customers faster and in a more reliable manner. An example that I found really great is customer posting a question regarding his camera (company's product) on company' Facebook. As soon as the representative got notified, the representative who might not be familiar with the company can open the chat features and include his/her colleagues who knows better about this product to answer the question. Besides this option, representative can also go to the blogs/discussion sites that was created as a knowledge silo containing questions and answers from customers about products. After representative found the answer, he/she can reply to the customer through social media, which might be seen by other people in the social media page and bring a positive image about the company in a big picture.
Some companies today that are leaders in the market are Salesforce.com, Jive, and Lithium. While others such as Oracle and Bazaarvoice are growing and currently classified as challengers within the industry (Gartner Magic Quadrant, 2012).
So what should companies adopt Social CRM?
Because company should care about their customer to sell their product and build their brands, and by investing in social CRM company can cut costs in inefficient (plus stressful) traditional CRM that uses conventional email and telephone lines. Now customers can share their knowledge through discussions in blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other medias, rather than waiting to talk to representatives in the phone lines. This is significant especially for those companies who got heavy traffic on their customer service. Investing in technology will be less costly in the long run compared to adding more customer service representatives.
Another additional benefits is the ability for company to obtain more customer information through social media, analytics, and reports on social media interaction between company and customer.
Although social CRM is a relatively new technology, industry has seen a growing improvement and new competitors entering the product market. This is a sign that Social CRM will still be growing within the near future.
If you have some unwanted pictures or statuses on your Facebook you might want to delete it as employers are coming closer to you. According to an article in cnet.com, Facebook is adding a job search capability on Facebook which now allow Facebook to not only be a social hub, but also become a 'professional' networking hub. In this application, Facebook collaborate with monster.com, U.S. Department of Labor, and three other non-profit organization.
So what is the impact of this application?Users/ Applicants - It is good or it is bad. Users can get more access to jobs which means reducing unemployment level in the country. As Facebook is one of the largest social media and almost everyone has Facebook, this enlarge job coverage especially over the nation. Opportunities, however does not come without threat. Opening Facebook onto jobs or social partnership means that now potential employers can gain greater access towards applicant's Facebook content. This can be great for those who utilize social media well, but this is not a very great news for those who do not. Not to be worry, if users are not expecting such access, users can always apply for a job from different websites/medium.
Company/ Potential Employers - This is good for potential employers, because now they can really take a deeper look of who is the real person behind each of their potential employee. This, however, come with a risk. There is a potential that employer judge their applicants too early without considering other factors outside the social media. This can be dangerous as they eliminate a potentially great employee too early.
So now that we know this application exist, what should we do?
Applicants, be wise! Even before this application exist the rule of thumb of using Facebook appropriately has been well-known. Now there is an urge to really be aware of what you post or get tagged on Facebook. Utilize your Facebook well enough to represent you as a person and how would you act in a social environment.
As much as it might be uncomfortable or difficult, it is very important to prioritize building your career and positive image.
This application urges users to use Facebook wisely, open career opportunities for users and broaden Company's search for partnership or jobs. It is time to make your decision now!
With Superstorm Sandy over with, it is now recovery time for
the East Coast. Especially those in the
business of technology. Websites who are
mainly located on the East Coast have temporarily shut down and some cell phone
service has been lost in many areas.
There are still some service in many areas, but for how long?
For the time being, most cell towers that are still
operational are only able to be because of generators. These generators running on gas are likely to
run out at any time and with all of the flooding, there is no telling how soon
they will be refueled. It is very
possible that many more areas will lose cell service due to lack of power.
Speaking of power, how are people charging their phones
anyway? Well, it is something wonderful
to witness when there are people who actually have some kind of power providing
power strips for people to use to charge their phones. This just goes to show that there is hope for
humanity.
Cell phone companies are working around the clock to assess
and fix the situation, not that it will help without any power in certain
flooded areas. They are required to
report any outage information to the FCC, but they have not been as vocal to
the public. Public statements have been
made that have given less than helpful information. For example, Verizon has said that 94% of
cell sites were up and running in storm affected areas (again, for how long
because of the generators?).
As for other forms of communication, including television
and internet, they are in the same boat.
Again, Verizon gives an example of how they are doing with their lower
Manhattan facility saying that the situation is looking "bleak". However, one company has thrived during this
outage. All along the east coast,
Netflix subscribers have been streaming more and more. I guess you have to find some form of
entertainment without any channels available.
iPad
mini was launched and even though there were many expectations, the most
important thing that we might say about it is that it is nothing more than a
bigger iPhone that you can’t talk about. There are so many similarities between
this iPad and an iPhone that it feels like it misses something. Some might say
that it is no use to have this iPad at all, as long as you have the latest
version of the iPhone, iPhone 5.
Jimmy
Kimmel talked about the iPad and they even made a very interesting promo, where
they showed, in a very humorous way, how most of the products from Apple are bigger
or smaller versions of the initial iPod and people are so just so happy to purchase
them. The fact that after the Superstorm Sandy that affected millions of
Americans, there are hundreds of people that are staying in line in New York
to buy this product; They have this kind of time, which instead of volunteering
they choose to do this instead. It
is just a matter of solidity. The
capabilities of iPad mini are very clear
and very obvious. But probably Apple made a very big mistake by launching this
product. The first and most important aspect is that Steve Jobs was very clear
that he does not want this kind of product launched by Apple. He used to mock
the same tablets of 7 inches that was released by Samsung and later by other
producers. The fact that Apple has chosen to neglect this aspect and launch it anyway, shows disrespect towards Steve Jobs' stance. And it becomes clear
why he was very specific about this aspect: there will not be a very clear
delimitation between the products, which will make their consumers become confused
and begin to choose between their own products. Not to mention that the difference is even smaller than in the past, because the iPhone 5 becomes bigger while the iPad product becomes significantly smaller.
This means for the first time in Apple's history, since the release
of the first iPod, Apple fans are no longer interested to have all of the new Apple products
because it is useless. They can either purchase iPhone 5 or iPad mini, or iPhone 5
and iPad, but there is no use to have all iPad, iPad mini and iPhone 5 because they are all essentially the same. Source: Cnet.com MO
