Tag Archives: social media

Do you live where you spend?

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Some Bay Ridge small businesses, including privately-owned stores, bakeries and salons are mainstays in the relatively quiet, residential New York neighborhood, but too often, when new stores open, the businesses can’t stay afloat for long.

Since Bay Ridge is on the far south end of Brooklyn, a commute there from Manhattan is relatively long compared with the commute to many other Brooklyn neighborhoods. A long commute, combined with limited store hours and generally more shopping and dining options in Manhattan, may be hurting small Bay Ridge businesses. But it’s unclear whether the same case could be true for many other neighborhoods in the city.

Please take this survey to help me find out whether this is a problem specific to this Brooklyn neighborhood or whether it’s a citywide phenomenon. Thanks!

Charlie Sheen = winning. Me = not so much.

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Two words for this week’s assignment: Epic fail.

I tried. I really did. I put up posts on Facebook and Twitter promoting my question blog post…

…and I got exactly one comment, which can’t be reprinted here. (It was a joke from a friend of mine.) Looking at the posts as they’re laid out here, I wonder if the issue was partially visual. I don’t know how to insert a thumbnail pic into a link posted on Facebook, but I clearly need to figure that out, because the posts look kind of hideous and unappealing without images. I don’t know that I’d click on them, either!

For my survey blog post, I’m focusing on the connection between the crime rate and the economy in Brighton Beach. Most crimes are actually down in the neighborhood, but burglaries have jumped 17% in the last year – which I think makes sense, in a difficult financial time.

I tried to think outside of the box and post on Facebook groups devoted to Brighton Beach. Unfortunately, the only such groups focus mostly on the TV show “Russian Dolls,” or on comparisons to “Jersey Shore.” So the handful of replies I received were irrelevant and spammy. But, for the sake of transparency, here are the original posts, just from my own Facebook and Twitter pages:

So after this assignment, here’s what I know about social media promotion: Just putting the post up – no matter how many times you do it – isn’t gonna get you automatic audience engagement. Like so many of my classmates have commented, much to learn…

Social Media Diary

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  • On September 22nd, I posted my question on Twitter and linked to my blog post in the following tweet:

Tweet

I used the hashtags #USPS, #postoffice, #SouthBronx, #Bronx, and #jobs as they seemed like they were the most relevant that would garner the most amount of hits.  I however failed in attracting any response.

After I didn’t receive any reply to this either, I started to wonder if there were better hashtags for the Bronx and the South Bronx, and found out that people use #bx as a Bronx hashtag.

I tried using some other hashtags, and rephrasing my query in order to attract possibly business owners in the South Bronx.  I still did not unfortunately receive any response. Because so much of the South Bronx’s population is living under the poverty line, I think it is safe to assume that a lot of them have very limited internet access. A lot of the unemployed people of the South Bronx (who are the people who I am most interested in speaking with, in all likely-hood do not peruse Twitter).

  • On October 5th, I posted the following on Flickr to promote my question and blog post:

I posted my question and link in the description of the photo, and added relevant tags (Melrose, South Bronx, Post Office, USPS…).

Social Media Diary: Does Rejection Make You Stronger?

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I used Facebook and Twitter to try and promote my last blog post as well as solicit opinions for my next blog post. It is clear to me after all my attempts, despite the fact that this was already painfully obvious anyway, that the most effective way to get people to respond to questions is to already have a big following.

Question Blog Post Promotion

Below is what I tweeted a couple of weeks ago to promote my question blog post.

Being as I only have 29 followers, I’m not certain how helpful this tweet was in gaining responses. Seeing as the only people who commented on my post were in this class, I’m going to guess that I probably didn’t get anyone to respond to my post because of Twitter.

On Facebook, to promote my post, I tried to use more specific questions to drive people to comment on my post. My tweet didn’t really contain any questions for people to ponder over as they debated clicking on my blog post link, so I thought perhaps it would help to try and get everyone thinking about the topic before they read the post.

In this situation, I realize that most people only click on links that interest them as Facebook tends to be over-saturated with links already. Despite the fact that I have many more Facebook friends than Twitter followers, it would probably be better next time to target the ones who are actually interested in the topic I’m asking questions about, rather than just posting it on my wall and hoping for the best.

Survey Blog Post Research

The topic I’m doing for my survey blog post is the effect youth unemployment has had on the issue of “Stop and Frisk” and arrests in East Harlem. I chose a topic that I felt would get different opinions because it seemed like this would make a good survey. To solicit responses, I posted a public Facebook note with a few statistics and quotes to try and get people thinking about the issue before they answered the questions.

Below are the responses.

This worked a lot better in gaining responses, despite the fact that there were only four. I was also pleased that the comments were clearly very thoughtful and had got at least few people thinking about the topic. I also tagged people I knew who lived in East Harlem in this note, to try and target it to people who might be interested in the topic for personal reasons.

Additionally, I promoted this note in two groups on Facebook (here and here) as well as on Twitter. I also tweeted the question with a hashtag to see if people using that hashtag might respond. Below are the two tweets and one of the Facebook group promotion posts (the other one didn’t get any responses).

Again, on Twitter, I probably didn’t get anyone to read the note and comment for the same reasons as with my previous Twitter promotion campaign that I detailed above. The Facebook group I promoted my note on, however, is the group for people in my building which is in East Harlem (it’s the CUNY GC Housing building). It’s a group of 57, so I wasn’t really expecting many responses, and I was surprised to get a comment, frankly. Not that the one comment the post got was eloquently waxing on about the issue exactly, however he did have an interesting question to ask about the unemployment rate data of the arrested, which is something I can look into for my survey blog post.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that I was mostly rejected in all my various attempts to get people to respond to me on Facebook and Twitter, I did learn from it. Other than targeting the questions appropriately and using hashtags effectively, I honestly believe the one biggest factor that helps the situation is to have a large following. It seems to me that this is probably one of the most important things to work on, by constantly posting insightful and thought-provoking things on these various forms of media.

Dear Social Media Diary,

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I used Facebook more than Twitter for this assignment, since I just created a Twitter account and my audience there isn’t as large as my Facebook one. For my “question blog promotion” posts, instead of promoting my blog, I promoted my latest article. I felt that my question blog post was a bit dated and I’d already promoted it and received significant feedback. This article, which was about long-standing East Harlem small business owners struggling to hold on to their shops amidst higher property values and a changing community, spurred some conversation on Facebook. It was also tweeted by Welcome To Harlem, a wordpress blog, even though I only tweeted it once.

For my survey research, I might have been too vague in the questions I posed, because I didn’t get much feedback. I tried once, hoping that my humor would get some responses but it didn’t really work out that way:

Then tried again, trying to focus more on Harlemites:

…But still, not much feedback.

My survey is going to be on Harlem’s shopping scene, being that the neighborhood has gone through mass changes expected to make it more shopper friendly and boost the area’s economic outlook. I want to see if people are actually beginning to shop here, and figure out what they shop in Harlem for. The first step is to get out there and speak to people, and this survey could help if it’s done right. Judging by my few responses, I have a lot of work to do in order to make this survey interesting enough for people to want to chime in.

 

Jenny Marc’s social media diary…so far

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Part I – Blog Post promotion

When tasked with promoting my question blog post – how public libraries are helping the job hunt – I immediately took to Twitter. Being a social media novice, this “promo” was my very first tweet. Prior to the post, I had two official followers (now I have a whopping five), so my expectations were low, to say the least.

After re-skimming Jessica Hische’s website on how Twitter actually works, I tagged the Queens Library in my tweet. Although the tweet wasn’t reposted or commented on, the library sent me a direct message regarding the post and became my third follower.

My second-ever Twitter interaction

So was the promotion successful? It didn’t solicit any new comments on the blog post itself, but all in all, I was pretty surprised that I got any Twitter responses, and at the end of the day I was pleased.

For the second promotion, I decided to skip Facebook (I was trying to save it for personal use, but that’s becoming increasingly difficult), and instead commented on another news article.

Earlier this week, the New York Daily News published an article about a new children’s area at the same library that my post covered earlier. Having explored the whole library while reporting, I gave my thoughts on the Discovery Children’s Zone (which is pretty impressive, even to a 25-year-old), and then slipped in a link to my blog at the end. As soon as I finalized my comment, I realized mistake number one: I definitely should have shortened the link with bit.ly. Oops. I tried to go back and edit, but apparently those comments are set in stone. Instead of re-posting a shortened link, I decided to cut my losses and promise to do better next time.

Again, how successful was this tactic? Not very. Although 37 people “liked” the Daily News Article so far, as of now, I’m the only person to have commented. And as far as I can tell, that comment didn’t solicit any new traffic to my blog.

Part II – Survey research

I found the second half of our social media homework far more challenging. For starters, I didn’t know where to – well – start.

Although I’m still getting to know Jamaica and the rest of CD 12, my experiences so far tell me that locals aren’t really taking to social media as quickly as other New Yorkers. I’ve found very few blogs, little Facebook activity, and Twitter use which seems to be limited to official organizations that tweet sporadically. For example, although the Jamaica, NY Facebook page has more than 15,000 “likes,” it has no wall to post on, and it hasn’t been tagged in anyone else’s posts since May.

Before turning to social media for preliminary ideas, I combed through notes from recent interviews that I conducted in the area. Of the many issues I’ve been talking about over the past few weeks, everything seems to lead back to public transportation. Given the high density of public transit in Jamaica, I was surprised to hear that many locals feel that the coverage is not extensive enough. Earlier this week, a career coach mentioned to me that the lack of public transportation is a huge impediment to employment. So that’s where I decided to start.

For preliminary research, I posted on both Twitter (twice) and Facebook (throwing my desire to save it for personal use out the window). Because we are supposed to be reporting on our CD, I addressed the questions to people living in the area. I don’t really have any friends or followers, however, in Jamaica on Twitter or Facebook. That’s definitely a problem that I need to work on from here on out. So, as I predicted, I didn’t get any responses on Twitter, and just one “like” on Facebook.

Not sure what “liking” this question even means…

In an attempt to get at least one response, I posed the question again, this time using a hashtag. I also tried to broaden the question a bit, this time addressing it to anyone in Queens. It’s only been up for a few hours, but again, so far nothing has come of it yet.

To be honest, I find it challenging to use social media to do research for this particular assignment. Although I definitely understand its validity and can see how it would be useful in other circumstances, I struggle to find how it is applicable here. And while there is so much more to social media than just Twitter and Facebook, after reviewing my notes, I had a hard time figuring out how any other platforms could help me out. To solicit more insight, I could open up the question to anyone in general, but again, I’m unsure if that would be really valuable in reporting on Jamaica.