Social media, marketing, and our changing culture

In today's world, utilizing modern technology in your business is more critical than ever. There is a profusion of statistics crawling the web that show how integrating your business with social media positively affects your firm. Like it or not, online social media is part of modern culture. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all have a fast-growing and impressionable user-base. Kevin Jorgensen wrote an article laying out marketing statistics for businesses, pertaining specifically to Facebook (link).

Here's the beginning of the list:

Source: http://www.business2community.com/facebook/facebook-marketing-statistics-you-need-to-know-0289953

Jorgensen employs a strong appeal to logos through the constant usage of percentages, and also because of the broad range of statistics he covers. Though, he appeals to pathos as well, through his use of technical vocabulary.

I found Jorgensen's article especially interesting due the fact that his article and its conclusions apply to every type of business, regardless of culture. It indicates just how universally important social networking has become around the globe. #3 on his list "62% of Marketers Report that Social Media Became More Important to Their Marketing Campaigns in the Last 6 Months" expresses how quickly our culture continues to change. It's amazing that culture can remain constant for hundreds of years, and then almost completely change within a decade. What a fascinating age we live in.

The "Doping" Culture in Sports

"Doping" or "juicing" with performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) has been a hot button issue in the world of sports for over a decade, and has been shoved back into the spotlight again with the recent unwinding of the Lance Armstrong controversy along with the guy who claimed he personally injected PEDs into big-time baseball players such as Alex Rodriguez.

April Ashby, a Marquette Law student, writes about her firm disapproval of steroids in sports. In one of her initial paragraphs, she states how her stance on doping is one of the reasons she went into law at Marquette in the first place (Ashby's blog). By doing this, she makes an immediate connection, and appeal to her own credibility on the issue. Ashby goes on to use strong and emotion-invoking vocabulary and facts, such as scary health issues related to steroid use, to further inspire and persuade her audience to take her side (although, incidentally also the popular side) on the issue.

Assistant Sports Editor, Hayden Goethe, wrote a blog regarding PED use and the implications it has on baseball players' careers in the MLB (Goethe's blog). He doesn't utilize the appeal to pathos as Ashby did, but he carries with him an implied appeal to ethos, in that he is a sports editor. He strictly states facts followed by his analysis. Personally, I find articles strictly appealing to logos, with some inherent ethos appeal there too, the most persuading. I feel I can trust a writer more if they're not trying to manipulate me with my emotions, but both writers gave persuading cases for what they were trying to each get across despite convincing the audience through different methods.

An Intervention: Put away the phones.

People all around the world have developed a relatively new and unfortunate habit. We're addicted to our cell phones. As cell phones get smaller and, seemingly, more necessary, it's hard to resist the allure of retreating to that little gadget when you're stuck in the elevator, on the bus, or waiting for your next class to begin. It's not just cell phones either. It's MP3's and electronic tablets too. Are we afraid to talk to the person next to us? Are we too scared to slow down, sit back, and just enjoy a moment of silence in this face-paced world? Or, is it just because everybody else is doing it? A survey from NY Daily News found that 84% of people around the world can't let go of their phones even for a day. (Read more) In the article, Nancy Gibbs pointed out a shocking observation, "“In many parts of the world, more people have access to a mobile device than to a toilet or running water." Doesn't this indica-- ...scream* that something is wrong? So, the next time you find yourself standing in the elevator with a couple of "strangers" -- put the phone away and ask them how their day is going. (I'll do the same!)

Do we own our cell phones or do they own us?

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