Understanding the differences in Social Media strategies of Non-profits, businesses and government

In order to understand the difference in social media strategies adapted by government, businesses and non-profits, I first presented the most general purposes of their presence in social media that in consequence resulted in various social media strategies.

As we can see in the inforgraph here that different purposes resulted in different strategies.

I differentiated the three sectors in the group of two, so that differences become more apparent in nature.

After that I gave the most-used platforms by them in order to achieve their target most effectively. If we go deeper in this, we can analyze few things about on why these three sectors chose particular type of social media platform. What was the characteristic of those platforms that lead them to choose it? When these aspects are realized, then it becomes easier to understand the differences in social media strategies.

For example, Facebook (as I thought) is most sought after by Non-profit organizations. The reason can be as simple as that because it has more wide appeal. It is more open to discussions, more interactive, and more engaging. Since, these organizations are not scared to keep their intentions clear and open, thus it strikes in accord with the more engaging audiences of Facebook.

Similarly, other social media platform serves other kind of purposes in unique way depending upon the industry.

Work Cited:

Laird, Sam. “How Non-Profits Relied on Social Media in 2012.” Mashable. N.p., 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.

Tabita, John. “13 Social Media Stats You Need to Know.” SitePoint. N.p., 24 Sept. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.

Social Media Stats FY 2012-09. Social Media Statistics Dashboard: September FY 2012 Summary 34 U.S. National Archives, Digital Strategies and Services Staff, Social Media Team, 5 Oct. 2012. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.archives.gov/social-media/reports/social-media-stats-fy-2012-09.pdf&gt;.

Xbox Live takes their gaming console ahead of PlayStation’s console

The world’s leading gaming consoles have been in lock horn against each other over dominance for over a decade now. But never one corporation has out-smarted the other one in dominance. With the world now that revolves around social media platforms, it is important for both corporations to widen their social influence.

According to the Alexa ratings, Xbox (918) has better global ranking in web dominance over PlayStation (1318), especially in United States. The problem for PlayStation is not that they have less dominance only, but the visitors to their website are less interested to navigate further in the website as bounce rate inches to 50%. It means half of the visitors probably were not interested to check out anything other than the look of home page! Half a visitor well wasted. Whereas Xbox, it is less bad as the bounce rate hovers around 38%.

Relevant information on Alexa is as follows:

• Daily page per views and daily time spent is directly proportional to bounce rate. Xbox has slight advantage over PlayStation.
• Xbox is able to capitalize well on the existence of live.com (run by Microsoft) and is the prime source of visitors to their website.
• In fast-paced and less patient world, every microsecond counts. Despite both websites being slow in loading, Xbox win by microseconds. For few young visitors it is not funny to be slow.

According to the SimilarWeb ratings, Xbox (612) has even better ranking than on Alexa and dominate over PlayStation by higher margin (1253). For Xbox, more than 50% directly reached to the website whereas for PlayStation, more than 50% at first did organic research before reaching to the website. When it comes to the reign over Social Media, Xbox again was able to out-do PlayStation, though by small margin. The reason behind Xbox’s online dominance over PlayStation can be of better online gaming options. As, most of the visitors on Xbox.com utilize the online services.

Other relevant information on SimilarWeb is of similar nature, thus I intend not to bore my limited readers with unimportant data.

Few more strengths and weakness that can be analyzed from the information on Alexa and SimilarWeb are as follows:

1. With the increasing usage of young generation utilizing various social media platforms, PlayStation larger presence over social media gives them higher chance to succeed in future than Xbox. (SimilarWeb:- Playstation:7.16%, Xbox: 2.4%)
2. Visitors stay longer at Xbox.com with better online gaming experience; this gives Xbox better option to market their new products with less marketing effort and better conversion rate into purchasing the service or product. (SimilarWeb:- Playstation: 3min 23 secs, Xbox: 5 min 10 secs)
3. The competition between these two companies shall remain fierce since if the element of online community for gaming purposes is discarded, they will probably have same online presence. (Xbox online community is strong, according to SimilarWeb)

–          Clearly, with 30.3 million visitors to Xbox.com in last three months and 16.9 million visitors to PlayStation, Xbox has upper hand by huge margin.

Generally the information gathered from Alexa and SimilarWeb is similar but few numbers are more different to be not skeptical about it, such that Global Ranking. In order to understand on why the data can be different in few aspects I found an interesting article on how Alexa works, since it is only blog post, too without reliable source, I would Like to warn the readers to know that it may be untrue (see citation at the end of this paragraph). So according to the blog, Alexa extract the information who use Alexa toolbar or few other add-ons or plug-ins. How many of people generally use these toolbars? Generally tech-savvy and marketers use it, thus the information provided cannot be accurate and will depend upon how Alexa and SimilarWeb strategize to reach to the information. (Website:http://paulstamatiou.com/why-you-should-completely-ignore-alexa-stats)

With the strong Xbox Live online community, Xbox may appear to be clearly holding the tope edge but with poor economic stability in United States, people may shift to buy a cheaper option, and cheaper option is PlayStation. Only time will decide which factor outweighs the other one.

Image 1. “PS4 vs Xbox One: Which Is Better?” TechRadar. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

Image 2.”PS4 vs. Xbox One: Who Will Win The Living Room?” ReadWrite. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

“Xbox.com.” SimilarWeb. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

“Playstation.com.” SimilarWeb. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

“Xbox.com.” Alexa. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

“Playstation.com.” Alexa. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

“PS4 vs Xbox One: Which Is Better?” TechRadar. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

Gephi grah and Social Influence

I have created the simplest Gephi graph of the Facebook Group “Seneca SoMe 13-14” created by Irfan Siddique. The group consist of 14 members (nodes) (Avoided labeling).

This Gephi graph consist of few nodes (members), thus it can not reflect the true essence of network effect but simple enough to understand the basic effect of “Network Effect” or “Metcalfe’s Law” that states that if all the members (nodes) are interconnected then the total number of edges would be define by ∑n=n(n-1)/2. In this scenario total edges are 52. But if all the connections would have been interconnected than 91 edges would have been developed. It has not happened. So, does it fail the social effect. No. Here, we can see that two members are being left out, and are connected through only Irfan. This fulfills the true definition of “Social Capital” that indirectly states that it is not neccessary to be connected to every individual out there in order to be part of the social world. Though, it also reflects prefential treatment towards few members and the formation of more distinguished groups. It also reflects the true personality of every member. It can help researchers to understand the tastes, preferences, psychological impacts and various other human conditions to develop better marketing stratgies and thus reach-out. (Metcalfe’s Law)

Here the example I have used consist of only 14 members, and still lot of information can be derived on every individual. Now, I would like you guys to feel when the network is as big as on Facebook, and the type of information that can be derived using it. In future, Supercomputers can break it into such enormous information that right now we can not even comprehend the change it can bring to our society through its utilization.

Long live our privacy and equality. It seems that such marketing will widen the differences in the future.

-Nimish Maheshwari

Work Cited:

“Metcalfe’s Law.” Metcalfe’s Law. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Sept. 2013.

Strategy is a big picture, whereas Tactics is the kind of strokes required to complete that picture, quickly.

Sun Tzu had realized the basic difference between the Strategy and Tactics, and was able to clearly define these two terms with clear differentiation and a connectivity required to complete the combined requirement in order to achieve anything in life.

Strategy is formed as soon as goal is defined or realized. The defined goal allows to see a person, organization and even a nation to form the route to reach to the destination. The word “route” here is the strategy. It does not say anything about on what will happen on the “route”? That “route” maybe highly treacherous to walk onto, and in order to save ourselves, various parameters would be needed to be developed as when required. These parameters will help us to reach the destination without succumbing in the midst of our “route”. The word “parameters” here are the Tactics.

How these parameters are developed? It is developed through experience, intelligence, and other resources available. These “parameters” shall be used at the time of need, only, in order to walk steadily on the “route” to achieve the goal. Even bad experiences lead to develop parameters, if we are able to survive.

Without Tactics (“parameters”)  , strategy (“route”) will be slow since we would lack the required resources. The chances of giving up before achieving the goal will increase. But without Strategy (“route”), Tactics (“parameters”) would not be of any use and we would be stranded nowhere and that will lead to chaos and confusion.

Hence, Strategy is the most important consideration that has be taken into consideration as Tactics will follow by itself if the required resources are utilized properly.

Now, how this can relate to social media?

Every person, organization, nation require a goal to achieve something. Social Media is no exception.

For social media marketers, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram can serve as few of social media platforms (“parameters”) that allows achieving the goal of marketing (“route”).

– Thanks Sun Tzu for guiding us, logically.

Synopsis on the readings (Week 2) – Social Altruism

Professor Boyd Neil assigned three readings for the students of Social Media Program at Seneca College on our second week. I was particularly interested on the third reading that focused on Nonprofits.

The article was interesting read and gave general insight into on how strategic use of social media can generate humane consciousness in the users of Facebook. I found an interesting observation on why Facebook is better source to make use of in Non-profit objectives. Social effect develops quicker consciousness among the people than individual effect. Thus, non-profits would probably derive more benefits from Facebook than Twitter.

With the huge imbalance in the world today, in regard to political prowess, climate conditions, and societal values, it is necessary to develop quicker consciousness than delay it. If the imbalance reaches to the breaking point, it can lead to chaotic environment and may affect human civilization in general. Well, I guess I am not getting carried away. But whatever, it’s true according to my understanding.

With the introduction of “humans are wired for altruism”, I could feel the truth behind what the author meant. Social Media need to focus on this positive advantage in the humans in general.

In short, if through social media, nonprofit organizations bring the society together and focus on their altruistic streak, nonprofit organizations will succeed without a doubt.

– Nimish Maheshwari