Tag Archives: University of Waterloo

IBM has always stayed ahead of the game. As one of the world’s biggest technological companies, they were forecasting the rise of social media and immediately jumped on the opportunity. Back in 2007, they foresaw how much of an impact social media was having on the world. They launched Lotus Connections, a product that combined five social networking applications into one package. Since it was aimed at the corporate social and collaborative environment, the apps focused around tools that allowed workers to communicate with each other via blogs, profiles, and common community areas. This was the start of an enterprise-wide integration and employees would have access for more information to collaborate with. IBM LotusLive has become IBM SmartCloud for Social Business. It’s used for business grade file sharing, social networking, communities, online meetings, instant messaging, email and calendar. There is also a productivity center that employees can edit documents in real time. Keeping employees involved has helped with successful organizational strategy.
Facebook on Suicide Watch
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Data collection and artificial intelligence can be very disconcerting to social media users. Regardless of how consumers feel about the common availability of their personal information, it is often unavoidable when one chooses to participate in online activity. There are many well-know negative impacts of the publication of personal information; however, there is an almost endless list of positives available to consumers when their information is made available to technology. Google’s ability to reroute drivers proactively in the case of an upcoming incident helps drivers get from A to B as quickly as possible. how does it work? It relies on Google’s ability to monitor the location, speed, and direction of travel of almost all drivers, anywhere in North America, by tracking drivers’ cell phones in a passive, undetectable manor. This is a great example of how personal information being made public, and it’s combination with powerful artificial intelligence software networks, can provide major benefits to those who can tolerate the risk.
The Future is Here – How Microsoft Integrated Social Media Company Wide

Microsoft Corporation is one of the biggest technological companies in the world. So, when it comes to future development, they are always ahead of the game. Microsoft has integrated social media through the entire company and has even created social media management software systems. When it comes to their company, future development will only keep advancing because of the social media practices that have already been put in place.
Glossier B2B – Blog to Business

Glossier originally started off as a beauty blog in 2010 by Emily Weiss called “Into the Gloss”. The blog was drawing a huge audience and created a wonderful beauty community that was generally interested in what Weiss was discussing. The launch of this community became the perfect platform for the brand launch of Glossier. The company is currently only available online which allows the brand to only focus on digital and social channels. “This online following would then rave about her products either through their own blogs, or post photos on Instagram to their own followers. This was a perfect example of word of mouth beauty marketing in action on social media (Chong, N. (2017, June)”.
United Way using social media to drive social good

It’s the season of giving. And with more than 85,000 registered charities in Canada, the competition for your discretionary dollar is heating up. For traditional non-profits like the United Way, dealing with dwindling donation dollars is compounded by the rise of online, crowd-sourced and increasinlgy niche charitable initiatives. How does one of Canada’s largest and oldest charities break through the clutter, especially during the prime giving season, to successfully engage local, distracted and digitally savvy donors? While bricks-and-motar organizations like the United Way certainly have their work cut out, the increasing use of social media and the resulting metrics are helping organizations focus their marketing efforts to maximize awareness, engagement and, ultimately, donations.
Anyware, Anytime – Domino’s social metrics always one step ahead

Domino’s is one of the largest pizza delivery chains in North America. After having success with their “tweet-to-eat” campaign, the company has created a way to have pizza anywhere and anytime. Domino’s Anyware ordering system now lets customers order a pizza through any app as quickly as humanly and technologically possible (Perez, S. (2016, April).With the new integrated system, customers can order through Google Home, Amazon Alexa, office chat app Slack, Facebook Messenger, text, in-car systems, smart TVs, smart watch, Tweet, voice, or Domino’s proproetary Zero Click app. And if that weren’t enough already, Domino’s also promises more avenues for ordering in the future (Haar, J. (2017, November). The ordering system is a great innovation system that creates customer engagement and gives the availability for sales at anytime and anyplace.
Trump’s Shocking Win Could Have Been Simply Measured
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Worldwide, many people were shocked by the outcome of the U.S. presidential election of 2016. It’s been just over one full year since Trump’s electoral win and, although the race between Trump and Clinton was close, many of the electoral polls forecasted Clinton as the likely winner of the 2016 election (Perez, 2016). While the outcome of said election left many data scientists confused, many social media analytics firms are claiming that their measurements would have been a much better predictor (Perez, 2016).
Papa John’s – Better Ingredients, Better Pizza, Better Supply Chain Management

Papa John’s Pizza has been using social media channels to help educate customers where products and ingredients are coming from, and creating time effective ordering options available on channels. Aside from social channels, the company has also used a collaborative technology solution to help support the efficiency of the supply chain. The company outsourced the supply chain needs to Manhattan Associates, a supply chain software company, to help create more time effective and cost saving inventory management. Eric Hartman, Senior Director of Logistics said, “Manhattan solutions allow us to manage inventory levels accurately, efficiently and more dynamically based on actual need—and that has resulted in our being able to reduce overall inventory levels (Manhattan, 2013)”. Using the collaborative software has also provided better solutions to inventory transportation. The software can optimize routes, improving on-time store deliveries, and the overall performance of their fleet (Trebilcock, B., 2014, October). Customer service relies on the speed of the supply chain to help get their products to customers in an effective way that will save time and money. “Implementation of Manhattan’s solutions has provided unprecedented visibility along with reduced expenses, improved efficiency and productivity in every part of the supply chain (Manhattan, 2013)”. Papa John’s wants to ensure that its “fast food” moves just as quickly throughout every level of the supply chain.
Taco Bell – Tweet your taco feelings

After being listed as number five on Fast Company’s Most innovated social media company of 2017, Taco Bell is making a way for itself by focusing on the customers for product development and research. To reach customers in a more personal sense, Taco Bell has been using social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram to review customers complaints, ideas, and creativity. “Instead of sitting behind glass and listening to a focus group, we now have access to 20 million consumers and can be inspired by them and connect with them and have real relationships with them (Lacy, L. (2016, November)”.
Sephora – Be your own Beauty Advisor

As one of the biggest international beauty stores, Sephora has managed to surpass retailers by increasing the number of engaged online and instore customers. After winning the 2017 The World Retail Congress’s International Retailer of the Year, the company has been able to enhance the in-store retail experience by letting customers take the in-store experience home with them. “Sephora has more than 20 million customers that shop and interact with the brand with thousands of products and 100 brand partners who bring these products to life (Forte, D. (2017)”. Now all of these customers have the ultimate online shopping experience.
TELUS – New work styles, New engagement

TELUS Corporation, is one of world’s largest telecommunications companies that offer services to individuals, small businesses, and large corporations. As a leader in the telecommunications industry, the company employs around 39,000 people. In 2007, the company was realizing that they were suffering with employee engagement. The results of survey that participated 4,000 employees, only 58% were only engaged with the work environment (So, C., 2013, October). The lack of engagement was starting to show amongst all sectors of the company. Now today in 2017, TELUS was awarded as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers and Achiever’s 50 Most Engaged Workplaces . By modernizing their leadership philosophy, TELUS has increased engagement and remaining high level interest.
Championing Employee Involvement: LifeWorks Practices What It Preaches

Social media gives us the ability to stay connected like never before. From personal relationships to workplace inclusivity, the power and importance of social tools has never been more evident or necessary. For companies life LifeWorks, which works to help employees feel loved by providing businesses with a global employee wellbeing platform, this ideology around social media and connectivity is what the technology company is built on. Research by the McKinsey Global Institute found that using social tools to boost communications can raise productivity by 25%. Social media has the potential to empower employees by helping them collaborate and work effectively together. If used properly, social tools have the potential to completely transform workplace morale, attitudes and overall performance.
Will The Integration Of Social Media Improve Business Performance?

Organizations of all sizes have seen immense success in the use and integration of social media. The tools, data, and many other capabilities that these platforms provide, have shown to deliver significant benefits for any organization’s overall performance. Despite all the known qualities social media platforms have to offer, the true reason these organizations see positive results is because of the proper application, structure, management, overall strategy and its effectiveness when it comes to integrating social media across the whole organization. We have seen how social media can benefit organizations in a variety of areas, but once social media has been integrated across the whole organization and working in unison, we can also see more powerful and substantial results.
How Will The Future Of Social Media Affect Your Business?

It is safe to say that social media is one of the most talked about topics currently in the world and it doesn’t look to be fizzling out anytime soon. Social media platforms have gone from a place to connect with friends and family, to a regular social tool for organizations to utilize and maximize the many properties and capabilities it holds. Technology is advancing at an astonishing rate, and there is no telling what a social media platform will look like or what the functionality of it will be in the future. For an organization like Metroland Media, they are already behind in terms of implementing any kind of social media, so if they do choose to move forward with it, it’s possible for them to enter the social media world at a very different and confusing time. The real question is, will they?
Where is your information going?

Any organization, despite the industry, is tracking metrics day in and day out. These metrics play a significant role in the organizations overall performance, and every organization tracks and monitor some type of performance metric, these areas could include: sales, finance, social media, marketing, lead generation, consumer data, and the list goes on. These metrics are vital for the organization to improve in those areas and their overall performance and can also be used to increase customer satisfaction, customer retention, revenue and employee performance. Without metrics, these organizations would be left without key consumer data, have a challenging time marketing their products or services, understanding their consumers, tracking sales and revenue, and their research and development would slow down tremendously. Metrics support and improve the overall performance of organizations, that is why Metroland Media remains one of the media industry leaders in Canada, due to their strong metric management.
Utilizing and Maximizing Social Media Within Supply Chain Management

Each year we print four billion flyers that are read by 81% of our readers, making them the most used source of local shopping information. For Metroland Media, their competitors and readers, these numbers are astonishing. Supply chain management is now more relevant than ever in terms of any organization succeeding. Products need to be properly designed, developed and distributed, while still being cost effective, easily adaptable to changes in the product or market and remain at a high-quality level for customer satisfaction. Metroland makes it apparent that the products they produce find there way into the customer’s hands with the same quality it left their organization. They know that improving their network of organizations and people involved in these processes enhance a variety of factors within their supply chain. Metroland Media is an excellent example of how an organization should run their supply chain and how it can be managed and improved.
Social Media Metrics: Driving UW Warriors’ Digital Marketing Plans

Social Media and sports are seemingly made to go hand in hand. By just looking at the social media accounts of some of the top sports teams you can see the size of their following and get a feel for the digital conversations they are starting. With millions of sports fans taking to social media to discuss their favourite teams and players, a great deal of analytical data is being created. What organizations do with that data is becoming ever more important in their ability to gain an edge on their competition and becoming a driving force in their digital marketing plans.
Lessons Learned From the Social Media Marketing Practices of Non-Profit Organizations

Organization name: Family & Children’s Services of Waterloo Region Foundation Industry: Non-profit (registered charity) Name of contact: Valerie Beyer, Donor Relations Coordinator Web references: The Globe and Mail: Canada’s Top 100 Non-Profit Organizations (Registered Charities) Bufferapp: Social Media for Non-Profits: High-Impact Tips and the Best Free Tools HubSpot: The “Three A’s” of Nonprofit Social Media Engagement SlideShare: Online Fundraising with Social Media… Read more »
When it Comes to Social Media – Blowes Knows!
Organization name: Blowes Travel and Cruise Centres Inc. Industry: Travel Name of Contact: Robert Blowes, Vice President Web references: www.blowestravel.com, www.lifethink.gr, www.gadventures.com, Facebook.com Book a ticket and just leave. That’s the line of text on the Facebook profile pic of Blowes Travel and Cruise Centres Inc. The Stratford, Ontario-based travel agency has been in the business for 66 years and has… Read more »
GE embraces social media for supply chain management and business process improvement

To optimize your supply chain management, no doubt you have invested heavily in information technologies over the past decades. By now, you probably have an exact picture of your inventory, can track components, can follow your product through each stage of production and are aware of incoming orders. Since in all likelihood your competitors are also running similar programs, what… Read more »
What Social Media Can Do For Supply Chain: Interview with Tony Martins, TEVA Pharmaceuticals
Video interview with Tony Martins, Vice President, Supply Chain for TEVA Pharmaceuticals. The video discusses supply chain management today and the role that supply chain can play in improving supply chain performance. Tony talks about how traditional command and control structures are out of date and why organisations should be process driven. The interview was conducted by Peter Carr, SMBP… Read more »