Social Media Case

I would like to begin my analysis of the “Twin Towers Mattress Sale” by directly quoting CNN when they said, “9/11 is NOT a holiday. You can't have 9/11 sales.” I want to make this clear from the very beginning, I do not think it is appropriate for any company, large or small to have a sale based on a devastating personal, national or world event. We do not remember the attack on Pearl Harbor by having a swimsuit sale for many reasons, but simply said these things are just NOT appropriate. With that being said, Miracle Mattress of San Antonio clearly made a massive mistake in releasing a video promoting a “Twin Towers Sale” on their Facebook page. They immediately received backlash from people and there are stories on just about every news station explaining this awful situation. For my personal analysis I would like to focus on the outcomes for Miracle Mattress and compare it to a situation I found while researching this topic. Unknown to most of us, on September 11, 2016 in the local Panama City Beach Walmart, a display was created out of Coke products depicting the Twin Towers and an American Flag. The towers were actually formed from Coke Zero cans, as to make a connection to ground zero. The full article can be found here, but I was in complete shock this had not made larger news. There was immediate backlash from customers and the display was quickly taken down, but I could only find one source that had reported this incident. Yes, this situation was probably far less severe of an offense than the video produced by Miracle Mattress, but I think it was too quickly swept under the rug. Walmart issued a statement saying, “They didn’t mean any harm,” and they continued on to blame the creative for this depiction on Coke. Coke did not make any statements in response. I recognize Coke and Walmart are much larger corporations, but it was very apparent to me they clearly are held to a different standard.

            The response to this video was devastating to Miracle Mattress as the owner did all he could in his power to save face for his company. He released a statement apologizing for the video clip, claiming they would simply stay quite throughout the rest of 9/11 and make an additional statement in the week to come. Unfortunately, just because Miracle Mattress stayed quite, it did not mean social media and the public did.  The hashtag #MiracleMattress began trending and still shows evidence of the harassment towards this organization. One thing which seems very strange to me was the woman who is the main spokes person in the video, and the owner, share the same last name. I am not positive on their relationship, but I would assume there is a high chance they are actually husband and wife. If this is the case, why is this the first time the owner is hearing of this marketing campaign as he claims? I understand the owner of this company and the other executives did not know exactly how to respond in a situation like this, but I do not believe remaining silent for as many days as they did, was for the best. However, they did release another statement, nine days after their original statement expressing how Miracle Mattress executives had decided to handle this situation. They came to the conclusion they would be “indefinitely closing their doors.” I do feel this was an appropriate approach, but what a devastating decision. I also found the letter to be written, much less professionally than I would have expected. I felt it was missing several key components we had discussed in class. To be specific the owner used many contractions and a few other grammatical mistakes. I am sure his focus was not on his punctuation or grammar at a time like this, but I did find this interesting. I also did found some evidence of the store reopening its doors more recently, but I was not able to find as much affirmative information on this.

            With the decision to close their doors, I do not feel this company has a chance to regain success even if they do reopen. I went to their Facebook page to see what others had been saying directly to the organization and found they were ranked a 1.2-Star company. I work in social media marketing and I know first hand a ranking like this is very hard to recover from. I scrolled through hundreds, maybe even thousands of reviews left on this organization’s page. There were a few who claimed there should be mercy shown to Miracle Mattress, but most were of complete contempt.  

I am torn on how exactly I feel about this situation. I believe Miracle Mattress was completely wrong in their release of this video, and really they were wrong for ever scheming up such a horrific marketing plan. This being said, it is so sad to see how this store and franchise has been completely diminished to nothing. They have lost basically all credibility and respect in the national view. They have been publicly shamed to the point of no return. After  a situation like this I do not feel Miracle Mattress will ever be able to make a full recovery and return to be a profitable organization. Social media can be a beautiful thing as it brings the world together and allows us to share information in an instance. However, for the Miracle Mattress store in San Antonio, they saw a much uglier side to the power of social media.

Online Reputation: Kaelyn Loveless

To: Kaelyn Loveless, Fellow Classmate

From: Ashton Henderson, Member of Technical and Professional Writing

Subject: Online Personal Information Analysis

Date: September 27, 2016

Kaelyn I have been very surprised by the investigation I performed this last week. I began by searching for you on Google and started with your first and last name, as well as Utah. The first hit that came up was a site with information on whom I am assuming is your father. This article can be found here, and it actually lists you as one of his dependents. From this site I noticed you are from South Jordan, Utah. This was exciting to me, because I am also from South Jordan. My search then took me to Facebook where I easily found you, because of all of the friends we have in common. From your Facebook profile I learned you are one of four children, with two sisters and one brother. It looks to me, you are the oldest or the second oldest in your family. I also learned your middle name is Nicole. It is not often you see a person’s full name on Facebook, so it made me think your middle name must have great meaning to you. This information can be seen here and the picture included shows a picture of the whole Loveless family.

On your Facebook page I found some other interesting information. It appears you attended Bingham High School, just like I did. I believe you graduated in 2014, so you are a year younger than I am. It appeared you were very active in high school with dances and other school activities. I concluded my search on Facebook and my third step was then to return to Google where I searched your first and last name as well as Bingham High School. This search pulled several different links all discussing soccer. It seems you played soccer for Bingham High and were on the varsity team at some point. Max Preps provided information from the 2013 season. Kaelyn I discovered you played defense and you were number fourteen. You actually played with one of my really good friends, Madison Loftus. Overall it appears your team had a successful season and finished 28^th overall in the state of Utah. Unfortunately I was only able to find information on your senior season at Bingham, but I enjoyed the information I did find. Congratulations on a successful career of athletics at Bingham, I know there is an extra emphasis put on Bingham athletes and it’s an honor to be one.

As I searched for you again on Google, an interesting link appeared about five headings from the top. I opened it to find it was an event sheet for an LDS mission farewell you said you would be attending. This took my search back to your Facebook page where I discovered you are a member of the LDS church. I thought this was really impressive without being a friend of yours on your social media platforms, I could see your religious affiliations. To me this shows you are a dedicated member and have no problem sharing such things. I could also see this was not the only mission farewell you had attended, and you must be very supportive of your friends and their choices. I was also impressed you shared this on your Twitter and Instagram accounts. In your condensed personal biographies you clearly state your religious group and openly your beliefs. I thought this was very admirable. A tweet about your graduation from the Bingham LDS seminary can be found here. 

From these two other social media platforms I was able to find that you are actually a Utah State Ambassador and a cosmetologist. I was surprised  I could not find more on the fact that you are a Utah State Ambassador, but this may be because you are newer to USU. For the future, I would recommend you make information about your time and work as a Utah State Ambassador more available, because this is such a powerful experience you have taken part in. This opportunity will someday be a great resume addition for you and I am sure you will want to share it with those who will be looking to hire you. Throughout this entire process I have really enjoyed being able to get to know you, Kaelyn, and learn some things about you. It is amazing to me we can be from the same home town and go to the same high school, but know virtually nothing about one another. From all I can see, all of your profiles and links on the internet are clean and well kept. You should have no problems if a future employer of any kind were to search for you on the web. I hope you have found this information to be beneficial to you.

                                                                                            

Ashton Henderson 

Letter to Cousin

Dear Cousin Sarah,

When you asked me what technical and professional writing is I decided that I needed to get my facts in line before I gave you a response. I turned to the internet as I Googled “what is technical and professional writing?” The first link I clicked on was http://www.ncte.org/college/briefs/tpw. Although it did provide a definition, I felt as though they were speaking a different language. This was too technical for me at the time. I next turned to Wikipedia for a more simplified answer to the same question. Wikipedia broke the definitions up into two parts: Technical Writing and Professional Writing. It is segments from these two definitions that I would like to base the rest of my letter from. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_writing, “Professional writing… is writing to a standard and style demanded by a particular profession. It involves the use of clear language to convey information in a way that is easily understood by the intended audience, and may be focused on information, persuasion, or to stimulate debate.” The definition of technical writing was as follows, “…is any written form of writing or drafting technical communication used in a variety of technical and occupational fields.” After reading these two definitions I have formed my own thoughts on how technical and professional writing is defined. I define is as a form of writing that is specific to an occupation or situation where information is portrayed in a clear and clean manner, so that the specific audience may understand the ideas.

In a formal business email one writes completely different than they would a letter to a brother or sister. An email written to a sister would be completely different from a letter written to a lover. In any type of writing there is a specific tone that is used while writing. Owl Purdue gives a great definition as well as some tips on how to decide on the tone. I feel that in technical writing it is very important to ask your self one of the questions from Purdue Owl, “Who am I writing too?” Without a knowledge and understanding of who you are addressing, it will be very difficult to know what is and is not appropriate in your writing. Once you have recognized who you will be addressing and the tone of the paper, it is important to be concise. As mentioned in the earlier definition of professional writing it is important to use “clear language.” Too often our writing, and even our speech can be too “wordy” and distract from the point we are actually trying to make. In technical and professional writing, it is important to minimize the words that are used, and only use language that is necessary.

We have learned about proofreading numerous times throughout our school years, but do we actually know what proofreading is? This week in class my professor presented to us a poem that had been reviewed by Microsoft Spellchecker, but almost all of the words were incorrect. They may have been spelled correctly in some text, but not in the context we were using them. I was blown away. I know that I am guilty of “proofreading,” or in reality pushing the spell check button, before quickly submitting an assignment. In technical and professional writing, it is imperative that you proofread, and actually take the time to reread your writing. This rereading of the paper may have to be done several times to catch all of the mistakes or misspelled words. This might be time consuming, but I cannot express how important it is in this form of writing. A future employee or a professor will completely look over you for a few simple spelling or grammar mistakes. Sarah, believe me, I am not an expert about technical and professional writing. These are the things that I do know, and I can see how they can be very beneficial in both of our professional lives.



Loves,


Ashton

Stand-alone Mobile Apps versus Internet Browser Apps

Have you ever used a QR code? Well they seem to be quickly taking over many industries, and actually simplifying our lives in several different ways. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code, QR code stands for a Quick Response Code and is actually a two dimensional barcode of sorts. It is made up of a variation of different sized black squares that create a unique symbol that is specific to that barcode. An example of a QR Code would look something like this https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Wikipedia_mobile_en.svg/2000px-Wikipedia_mobile_en.svg.png.

For me QR codes became important about 8 months ago. The company I work for sells hair removal products, that require a specific set of instructions. As of right now we have listed these instructions on the jars, cards and on our website. Although, on the first two places there is very limited space to write, and too often people don’t have the time to go to our website and look up the exact directions. Our solution: a QR Code! We have now simply added the code to the outside label of the jar as well as to the card that comes with all of our products. All our customers now have to do is hold a phone camera up to the code to scan the code with an app such QR Code Scanner or Reader, and tahhdahh the instructions are easily accessible. All of these new labels will be applied to our products soon and hopefully we can see our customers have much more success!

http://www.mobile-qr-codes.org/what-are-qr-codes-used-for.html is a great resource for more information on QR codes. According to them, these codes were originally created to track part numbers for large corporations such many big names in the car industry. After years and a few modifications, they can now be used by anyone at anytime. Pretty incredible how technology spreads. Although this new way of quickly accessing information seems perfect, and exactly what we need, there have been several reviews about how frustrating they can be to use(http://www.sentrymarketing.com/2015/03/qr-codes-the-final-wordprobably/). I am sure that there are bumps and it is not quite as user friendly as we would like, but I believe that these QR codes can be so beneficial to us as consumers and for the manufacturers. I hope that there will be more of a focus on perfecting these codes in the near future.

Viral Videos

I have been excited to discuss viral videos for just about the whole semester. I’ll join the obsession and say I’ve secretly always wanted to make or be a part of a viral video. But just like most of us, that dream has yet to occur.

I wanted to know exactly what makes a video a “viral video”, so according to https://www.techopedia.com/definition/26863/viral-video a viral video is “…any clip of animation or film that is spread rapidly through online sharing.” I am sure that most of us have seen a viral video at some point in your life, and if you are like me and my husband probably search for them frequently to get a good laugh. In Techopedia they continued on to discuss how viral videos can be both intentional and unintentional. Recently in our class, our professor told us the story of one of his old students who had posted a funny video of his wife online, and it almost overnight went viral. Needless to say his wife wasn’t overly thrilled. An example Techopedia gave of an unintentional viral video can be found by searching Numa Numa Dance on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmtzQCSh6xk).

The first example that came to mind for me of an unintentional viral video, is the recent commercial for the squatty potty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbYWhdLO43Q. This video has over twenty million views, and took this company from a small start up to a booming powerhouse. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/video-viral-ad-features-unicorn-pooping-ice-cream-article-1.2447819 shares a little more background on this viral commercial and the companies history. The article stated that Squatty Potty was rewarded on the show “Shark Tank” from individuals who invested over $300,000 into the concept. I believe that this is where biggest difference in intentional and unintentional viral videos comes in, the money.

Creating viral videos has become a career for hundreds, probably more like thousands of people across the world. It is mind blowing for me to think that these peoples’ sole responsibility is to create unique and often hilarious videos that people every where want to watch. As I have mentioned throughout this article, most viral videos are pretty hilarious, but they don’t always have to be. There are plenty of videos that have become viral that share far more important messages. Take for example the “Basketball Cop”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6gPp4Ra4_g, video that has been a recent phenomenon. For me personally, I love viral videos and I think they are an ingenious way of sharing information.