I took this course not really knowing what to expect. The world is so connected with socially (via social networking, the internet, cell phones) that everybody knows what everybody is doing. It's kind of scary. I recently deleted my facebook because I was just wasting too much time on it. I was disappointed in myself. I still have google+ and twitter though, which I really only follow/are friends with people I actually know. That wasn't the case with Facebook.
Anyways, I'm going to be providing a couple of links, which I think are great, regarding social media and information on the subject.
a big one, right off the bat is mashable
this website sort of like yahoo, but for more tech savvy people (in my opinion) It has all your general news topics and needs.
another good one is off of yahoo news
some people criticize yahoo news. I've used it for years and it tends to have content that's relevant to the moment. Any news website will have this trend though really, I just prefer yahoo.
Some examples of companies using social media for advertising, one that pops in my head right away is Youtube. Adds all the time before you start to actually see your video. Hulu does this too. I remember when Youtube first became a website, it wasn't like that. Just adds on social networking in general are examples, twitter has promoted accounts to follow, Facebook has promoted companies in their add bar. The only social networking site that I haven't seen any corporate promotion on is google+. They will get there soon enough, though.
Obviously, these are very effective tactics. You have some 800 million users on Facebook, seeing these adds, giving add revenue to whomever.
Another tactic that's pretty sneaky and very effective, are the adsense cookies that you get from browsing sites like zappos or tigerdirect or anything. You'll leave that site and start seeing sidebar adds for things that are relevant to your interests. Very, very effective, almost unethical in my opinion.
