Mizrahi: Social Media and Text Messages

 In this chapter, Mizrahi explains the careful and meticulous process behind writing companies' social media outreach programs and other types of social media. This expansion in the usage of social media by large companies and corporations stems from a desire from most online users to have their opinions acknowledged. Gone are the days of passively accepting a companies message or product, the audiences on social media wish to engage with corporations and vice versa. As such, many corporations use the techniques Mizrahi elaborates upon in this chapter to "build brand loyalty" with entire sections of a company devoted to PR and social media management. As far as the typical consumer, a social media division may create several "personas", or consumer archetypes in which they wish to craft their targeted messages and media around. Companies also use an internal social media method to share information amongst employees, such as company events or simply just to connect with different company locations. Pandering to the traditional media (i.e. news, etc.) will often legitimize a product or service from a company by sheer virtue of having that social media buzz and following behind it. Blogs or microblogs are one social media outlet which companies use to spread their message or brand; often the language used is optimized for SEO (search engine optimization), balancing sharing information and promotion, with a casual tone and geared towards communicating the brand with as little hurdles for the reader as possible. Microblogs are essentially condensed blogs, such as a Twitter or Tumblr page. Social media sites used include FaceBook and LinkedIn; the criteria for managing all of these as a company, Mizrahi states, is to strictly track and make regular postings and updates by employees, delete inflammatory comments, and to craft each post with a concise and clear message that includes the organization/company's core values and interests.

I found this blog to be very interesting, as it outlines the serious usages and criteria for a company to use such a mundane/somewhat inflammatory site like Twitter for brand outreach.

Content question: Would the persona creation process also apply to traditional media (i.e., news, television, etc.)?

How often do people follow a company or brand simply because of their core values, and if so, is it because they stick to those values or because they are just very good at this kind of technical writing?

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