MS-Digital Innovation in Marketing

Hi Morgan!

I loved reading your post because I think home improvements are such a big thing right now! My dad and my older sister are constantly working together to build anything and everything they can think of and add it to our house! Also, I keep seeing all over Tiktok videos of people who are flipping houses, renovating their own houses, etc and those kinds of videos always blow up and gain a lot of traction. I think home renovations are a big thing right now and will continue to be for the time being. In that case, I see spending staying on all the different tools needed to renovate a home (i.e. supplies from Home Depot, Lowes, ACE Hardware, etc.) and all the different decorations and furnishings needed to finish the spaces (i.e. stores like Target, HomeGoods, Marshalls, Mealy’s, Ashley Home Furniture, etc.)!

Also, I feel like it is inevitable that the housing market might crash, so yes I see that happening in the future.

Hi Morgan, I can definitely relate to this post. I was living with my father during the height of the pandemic and it felt like each month, he had a different project going. Our home was completely different as vaccines started to come out. My father added a private deck, a fence, a home gym, a sauna, and so much more. There was pretty much nothing to else to do. But it was nice to be home and enjoy all of these amenities that we may not have had the opportunity to if we were at work all day. He eventually sold our home, above asking price of course. I think the market will level out as it’s starting to.

I know that this was a huge driver behind Instagram taking down the like numbers for people to view. I agree though that social media can really become a problem to mental health. Too many people feel like they aren’t “living their best life” or try to keep up with the Joneses. I hope that we can find a way to balance social media, without it becoming overwelming.

Great post, Jen. I made a blog post about this a few semesters ago. Here is a quote from this article that talks about the same thing regarding Facebook which I thought was interesting.

“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,”

That quote was shown in a 2018 presentation. I have definitely seen proof of that within my own circles and experiences on Facebook. I agree with Amanda’s and your last sentiment about if it’s not adding value or putting good out, then walk away. As we talked about in class, we don’t always have control over the messages we are putting out as employees, but I think finding a company with similar values as you is a good place to start.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-algorithm-bias-right-wing-feed-a9536396.html

This is super interesting Jen! I completely agree with social media causing an impact to mental health, which is why I try not to use it often. The only thing I can think of is, what should we do? We can try to limit social media usage, but you’ll probably get a lot of people protesting that it’s unconstitutional. I feel like social media is so ingrained now, that it’s somewhat impossible to stop it. I feel really bad for kids nowadays. What’s going to happen to Facebook? Is the government going to step in and force it to separate Instagram into whole new entity? And what about mental health? If social media doesn’t get regulated, how should we approach mental health?

Great post Jen! I definitely find myself falling into a trap on Instagram sometimes – especially during the pandemic. Regular people don’t look like Instagram models and when I wasn’t actually seeing normal people in real life it was easy to feel like I wasn’t good enough since those were who I was looking at so much more often. I can imagine how much more difficult that would be for young girls.

As for the political side of Facebook – leaks like this scare me. It’s easy to forget that these days everyone is truly consuming information made for them and almost no news on social media is objective. It’s scary how Facebook feeds into this knowingly. I wish the government had stepped in earlier – I am honestly deeply concerned with where society will go at this rate.

Jen, couldn’t agree more. This report confirms what many of us intuitively know already. It also validates what sociologists and psychologists have been studying for years: Things like confirmation biases, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (belonging, anyone?) and more.

In many ways, humans are predictable creatures. And, let’s not forget that humans write the algorithms.

One could argue, sadly, that we should have seen this coming.

I completely agree with this Andrea. In general misinformation about Covid-19 and the vaccine has been circulating and continues to circulate around Twitter. I do know that Facebook has ‘flagged’ and deleted misinformation that was posted and I do believe Twitter has done the same. I do believe AI technology can help sort, filter and flag the misinformation that is put on these different platforms, especially when it comes to important information that can help save lives.

To your other question, I do think we should teach children at a younger age about media literacy. Children spend a lot of time on the Internet and are easily susceptible to learning new information. As we are older in High School, we learn how to find and use credible sources for our research, I hope that they start to do this at a younger age so that the children are aware about which sources are credible and which are not.

I’m a big fan of The Athletic as well. They’ve really filled the void created as newspapers cut beats to make their budgets work. The Athletic really is a stripped down amalgamation of local newspaper sports beats, but it works.

That decision does limit their use of video, but in their case does it matter? As a subscription service, they are naturally going to attract a more well-heeled, likely older audience. Is part of the privilege here having the “time” to invest in longer form content? Does ESPN or YouTube fill the void for short-form clips and other video content? Could you see The Athletic being “more” successful pairing their content with long-form video productions, a la ESPN’s 30 for 30s?

You mentioned the NYT in your opening. What’s been your take on their “immersive” storytelling?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/15/nyregion/empire-state-building-reopening-new-york.html?searchResultPosition=1

Is this sustainable for most content? Or best used in limited doses?

Great point Steve! I do have to say that everyone likes something different. A good percentage of people want to read their content on their mobile device or tablet, but another percentage still likes to browse news sites on their computer/laptop everyday. I believe its really a preference thing, but I know I like reading on mobile applications now! I also have 2 sports applications on my phone where I read articles on.

https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/mobile-desktop-internet-usage-statistics

This page above shows many data points and charts of Mobile vs Desktop Usage. You can see that Mobile has really increased over the years!

Ever since Apple launched their “News” automatic application I believe more and more people have been using that to receive their quick daily morning news or even other news sites through mobile reading.

Great points, and thanks for sharing Mohamad. The Athletic you would definitely enjoy, what makes it unique is the journalistic qualities you find in the articles, and the unique stories in addition to just keeping up with your teams. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but alot of sports news cites the Athletic when a story breaks. The high quality content is definitely worth the $7 a month. My friends have said the same thing to me about preferring the free stuff, but I know the Athletic is primo. How you describe the Bleacher Report is something you see too often in my opinion, there’s too much noise distracting from the actual content you want. That’s interesting how you know where you like specific content. It makes a ton of sense. Great input.

One – this dog is freaking ADOREABLE. I volunteer to watch when you need a pup sitter.

This is a very interesting concept though Philip. Have you considering finding a niche in the dog entertainment space? I know there are plenty of dog insta’s out there, I wonder if you cant find your kennel in that space (yes pun intended). I think people would be very drawn to something slightly different than just a cute puppy.

Love this post Philip! I was so glad Jaclin came on this past week to speak with us about her journey. Recently, I started posting about my videography on social media, even though I’m just getting started, it still intrigued me.
(https://www.instagram.com/mishmediaplus/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=c7f145ef-9da5-463e-96c8-952ac2f25a4d)

I want to grow mine through sharing more content and I was inspired to officially plan out my content strategy. Love your table you started there! I started creating content clusters and using subtopics to plan it out. I am trying to gain clients and it is starting to get exciting.

I recommend maybe you create a reel because they gain attraction or do a IG Live with you and the puppy – that would be so cute! The most important thing to do in the beginning is connected with other accounts for sure! I did some looking for you and here are some accounts to try to interact/connect with or try to get featured on:

@dogs.lovers
@insta_dog
@dogsofinstagram
@small.dogs.fans
@puppystagrams

DOG. CUTE. HEART. HURTS!

Happy new pawrenting!!!

LOVE! I’m sure Jacklin would appreciate knowing how she’s inspired you, Philip. As for your Shiba Inu – with such expressive little faces, they’re absolutely insta-ready doggos. Dan and Misha offer great advice for expanding Louis’ social presence. Lean into those social media audience strategies we discussed a few weeks ago… by listening to your fellow Shiba community, you might discover what niches are saturated and where you have opportunities to stand out. Good luck with training!

PHILIP!!! Louey V is SOOO adorable (yes I just have your doggy my own nickname)!!!!!! Its tough pimping your doggy on social media. I have a colleague is does this, and IT IS WORK!!! From the taking the write pictures, using the right hashtags, making sure the dog looks good in their clothing!!! I think a game changer would be instead of having JUST a social media account for Lou, maybe he can be a doggie vlogger. Vlogging is so popular these days, and you can vlog him and be his voice over!!! YouTube pays you when you have over 1000 subscribers and over 100 views per video, and this could lead to some doggy brand deals, and no one would ever know who or what you look like (my opinion is that it would be very hard to vlog in a major city then if you leaved in a rural place)…. You already have a great name for an instagram handle… make the name for the youtube channel so we can watch Louey V in action!!!!