Utilizing Social Media For Lead Generation

Social Media is the most prevalent platform for communication, forming and maintaining professional as well as social relationships. The growth of platforms and the exponential rise in the user base of social media websites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, is evidence of their widespread acceptance. They pose many opportunities for businesses to exploit this facet of digitally mediated relationships, for example spreading awareness about the business and engage with prospective customers. The focus of this research is on the use of social media to identify relevant profiles or ``leads\u27\u27 for a business in sourcing new employees, or collaborators. The paper utilizes data from social networking sites Twitter and LinkedIn and presents an automated approach for the discovery of leads. For the considered business cases, Twitter was found to be irrelevant for lead generation due to its emphasis on personal vs. professional user positioning. The presented final approach utilizes only four attributes from LinkedIn users\u27 profiles to generate high quality leads, and is tested for robustness to variations in input data, different business contexts and vulnerability to noise in the input data. The results show the robustness and consistency of the presented approach to generate leads despite utilizing a small subset of features

Political Relations: Political Identity and Social Media in Elections in Indonesia

This research examines the role of social media in shaping political identity and political participation in contemporary Indonesia. Utilizing document analysis, the study explores how individuals and societal groups use social media as a tool to influence and participate in political discourse. The method employed in this research is qualitative descriptive. The findings reveal that social media facilitates a framework for personal action, enabling widespread participation in various political and social issues, and integrating personal lifestyle values into political dialogue. The study also pays attention to the challenges faced by political parties in Indonesia in attracting voters, especially the younger generation who are highly engaged with social media, in the lead-up to the 2024 simultaneous elections. Lastly, it is found that social media has deepened social interaction and information for the millennial generation, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, affecting their views on politics and religion. The conclusion of this research emphasizes the importance of social media in shaping the political landscape in Indonesia, providing significant insights into how digital technology affects political participation and social identity

Building Social Media Capabilities in B2B Context – A Case Study

Social media has become an integral part of our everyday lives during the past decade. Organizations serving both the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) markets have realized that social media provides an efficient medium to reach their target audiences and have started to adopt social media as part of their marketing toolkit. However, utilizing social media is not a trivial task, especially for B2B organizations who have been the last to take advantage of the opportunities that the phenomenon has to offer. This study explores the process of developing social media and content marketing capabilities in B2B context. Drawing in previous literature around social media and content marketing, it aims to examine the social media capabilities development process from the viewpoint of how B2B companies can build and develop their social media capabilities in the fast-paced marketing environment of today. Capabilities are defined as the pool of expertise and knowhow that an individual or a company possesses of a certain topic. In addition, this study takes a look at what B2B firms are using social media for, i.e. what the goals of social media are for B2B companies, and explores whether any generalizable social media best practices can be identified. In order to study how B2B social media capabilities are formed, a single case study was conducted by examining a medium-sized Finnish company offering financial management software and consulting services. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews were selected as the primary sources of evidence used in the case study, accompanied with supporting documentary evidence. The case study provides a detailed look at the case company and its social media journey, focusing particularly on the process of learning what social media can be used for and how to do so successfully. Based on the case analysis and existing literature, the process of building social media capabilities is one of continuous learning that requires companies to experiment with various ways of doing social media and learning from the results. A framework depicting this cyclical capability building process was developed. The findings also suggest that there are four main goals of B2B social media: 1) lead generation, 2) brand awareness (including thought leadership), 3) employer branding, and 4) recruitment. A second framework showcasing these goals and their interrelations was also developed. Finally, three different best practices of B2B social media were identified: 1) the inclusion of photos will increase the performance of social media posts, 2) maintaining a consistent presence on social media will help stand out from the competition, and 3) continuous learning is essential for the successful use of social media in marketing

The Web 2.0 as Marketing Tool: Opportunities for SMEs

The new generation of Internet applications widely known as Social Media or Web 2.0 offers corporations a whole range of opportunities for improving their marketing efficiency and internal operations. Web 2.0 applications have already become part of the daily life of an increasing number of consumers who regard them as prime channels of communication, information exchange, sharing of expertise, dissemination of individual creativity and entertainment. Web logs, podcasts, online forums and social networks are rapidly becoming major sources of customer information and influence while the effectiveness of traditional mass media is rapidly decreasing. Using the social media as a marketing tool is an issue attracting increasing attention. The hitherto experience is that large public corporations are more likely to make use of such instruments as part of their marketing and internal operations (McKinsey, 2007).The paper defines the Web 2.0 phenomenon and based on the experience of large corporations examines how SMEs could engage the various Web 2.0 instruments in order to efficiently market their products, improve customer relations, increase customer retention and enhance internal operations

Utilizing the Project Method for Teaching Culture and Intercultural Competence

This article presents a detailed methodological outline for teaching culture through project work. It is argued that because project work makes it possible to gain transferrable and applicable knowledge and insight, it is the ideal tool for teaching culture with the aim of achieving real intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Preceding the pedagogical presentation, the term culture is conceptualized as small-c culture/deep culture, that is, as the sociopsychological programming of a given community. This concept is developed with practical examples and conceptualizations for pedagogical implementability. Finally, a project course with American undergraduate students conducted in Germany is briefly presented. This presentation includes project sheets, the methodological rationale of each project, and the observations the participants made during the course. These observations include many aspects of the way German and U.S. American deep culture differ and also shed light on the “truth” behind some German cultural clichés

Social Media Marketing Integration: Agile Project Management

The implementation of digital and social media strategies to currently existing marketing strategies requires extensive knowledge and expertise. Project management techniques and practices can be utilized to implement this change and determine its success. Because of the constantly evolving nature of social media marketing, an agile project management approach should be utilized to enhance chances of success. Social media marketing requires a thorough understanding of the target market and their behaviors on social media to deliver appropriate content utilizing the right mediums of communication. The ability to evaluate the success of a project and make changes as needed to meet the goals of the marketing strategies makes agile project management a suitable technique for implementing social media marketing

Millennials: What They Offer Our Organizations and How Leaders Can Make Sure They Deliver

According to recent Pew research, ten thousand Baby Boomers reach age 65 every day in the United States and the pace will continue for the next 18 years; similar numbers are also reported for Canada and Europe. The effect on the workforce will be dramatic, perhaps even more dramatic than the effect they had when they arrived on the scene six decades ago. Thus, it falls not to Generation-X, as this generational cohort is too small to make a significant impact, rather the task shifts to the Millennials. Much has been said of the youngest generation currently in the workplace. The Millennials have been described as globally aware, socially inept, technologically sophisticated, needy, narcissistic, team-oriented, optimistic, lacking in work ethic, multi-tasking geniuses, ambitious, and curious. With such a wide spectrum of views this paper utilizes the popular and academic literature to provide clarity on these aspects of the Millennial Generation, focusing on their work values, and how their entrance into the workplace will impact organizational culture in the years to come. Finally, leadership approaches that will best align with their values, desires, and development will be addressed, focusing upon developing core competencies for leaders of all generations

Generational Differences in Use of Social Media in Today’s Workplace

This study examined the use of social media at work. Undergraduate students and professors were surveyed to try to find a generational relationship between the younger generation’s view of using sites such as Facebook while working and how some participants from an older generation perceived it. We also examined the effects of Facebook outside of work and whether or not postings made there could jeopardize a position at work. The results from our survey and research conclude that social media is an increasing problem because it serves as a distraction and predict that with increasing individual use of social media it will become more of a problem at work if it is not properly managed by the employer