Pandora Radio

Pandora radio is an online website that offers music. You have the luxury of choosing what song or artist you want to listen to. Individuals have to make an account before Pandora will let you listen to the music. Pandora is not only accessible on your computer but also on Netflix’s, apple devices and android phones. After you have listened to

I listen to Pandora a lot during the day at work. I always assumed it was a free unlimited website for music but i recently learned that wasn't the case. Pandora offers two options, one being that you can listen for free each month for 40 hours, after that you must start paying. If you decide to continue listening you must pay 0.99$. This is great for Pandora to keep the trend of being a free and cheap site for users to listen to music. They can also make a small amount of money on top of their advertisement sales. Pandora radio offers advertisement commercials after you have listened to a couple of songs. These commercials last anywhere from 30 second to a minute. Pandora also offers a like button; this can help them determine what kind of music to play for you. They use the button as a focus group to help provide better customer service to their users.

Start-up kit to Social Media

I found an interesting article that helps companies and users start-up their social media sites. It maps out steps and a plan for using the sites to the best of your ability. It gives three steps you must follow in order to be successful.

Step 1: Set up your own media outlet
In the first step wants you to create a web base place to publish your thoughts for others to see. It must be easily visible for individuals to access. This includes blogging sites such as the one we are using now.

Step 2: Create Social Identities
Social Identity sites are things such as LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. These need to be used to for brand recognition. Allow others to be aware of brands and what they stand for. It is very important to stay consistent with these sites so that users don't become confuse or stray.

Step 3: Create a Proactive Editorial Plan
This is where you create a strategy for users to visit your web based sites and be aware of what you offer. This is where you want to become viral so that people are talking about your brand. Your company will want to create advertisements, videos, how to's and other attention grabbers.

Following these three simple steps can help you and your company skims the surface of social media. Once you become familiar with the sites, the easier it will come. Staying involved with social media is something that will reward companies in the long run. Those who refuse to use it will be left in the dust.

http://www.socialmedia.biz/

"Check- In"

After discussing Four Square and other "check-in" applications today in class, I wanted to go over the positive and negatives of the new social trend.

Positive: Of course the most positive aspect of the new trend is that it allows businesses to track the traffic in the stores and around the area. It helps zero in on your target market and reward your routine customers. It can also be another way for businesses to help drawl more customers to the area with deals and incentives. Checking-in has become so popular that it has its own applications called Four-Square plus a setting on the Facebook applications for smart phones.

Negative: I recently heard a story on the news that a women's home was broken into and the person charged with the crime admitted that he knew she wasn't home because she had recently checked-in somewhere on Facebook.
Checking-in applications is another way of keeping tabs on people, knowing their every move. This can be dangerous if put into the wrong hands. I don't usually check-in places on a daily basis because it freaks me out to know that hundreds of users are aware of what I’m doing.

This website gave some insight on the new social trend:

http://thereasoner.com/articles/are-online-check-ins-dangerous

LinkedIn

I had a LinkedIn profile before the class required it. My Current job at Northwestern Mutual requires it's employees to have an account. I think requiring an account when starting a job is great idea to get connect to other in your career and previous jobs. I’m not sure how I feel about the social site. I haven't received any leads on jobs or had anyone posting positions. Not a lot of my peers have a profile on the site, so I’m having a hard time on ways to use the website to the best of my ability. I wish the site had different option to get to know other professionals in the field desired. Hopefully I can learn more about the site in this course. If anyone has any suggestion on what I can do to better connect with business professionals on the site, would be great.