When I was in high school , yes I know that was more years ago than most of you in this class, I remember my college search very well. I remember most of the people in my class thought I was crazy because I was collecting information from colleges all across the country and I wanted as many opportunities as possible. This was an important decision for me and I wanted as many possible choices as I could find.

Now, I have a son who is a junior in high school and he is facing this same decision. He is lucky enough however that the colleges have been coming to him. During his sophomore year, he took the ACT Plan test. At the beginning of this test, he gave them his name, address, phone number, and email address. I am sure he had no idea how much mail and email would end up coming his way. He is a smart kid and did very well on the test.

Around the end of January, he just happened to check his email and he had nearly 50 emails from colleges all over the country. Big schools, small schools, some very prestigious universities and a few I will admit even I had never heard of. As all of his information has started flowing in, he has been overwhelmed at times at the amount of paperwork that is coming his way. He had to use a way to keep track of everything and start narrowing down his list.

To my surprise, he created an excel spreadsheet to track all of the schools he had received information from already. He has a second tab of the sheet in which he is tracking his top choices and what they offer for majors that he is interested in studying. Even more amazing, is that he has started following these schools on Facebook and Twitter. That has really helped for him to keep up to date with the athletic teams that he hopes to play for in the near future.

Technology has taken a tough slow process and made it easier and faster. When I requested information, I had to look up the address in a guide book, send it snail mail, and wait for something to finally come back. Thanks to the internet and today’s technology, a college or university can send out more information to more people than they ever dreamed of in my day.

I want my burger!

Can a promotion be too successful? TGIFriday’s may know soon enough. The restaurant chain has decided to use social networking to find out just how big of a promotion a free burger or chicken sandwich can be.
TGIFriday’s is using Facebook to reach out to its customers. Their offer is that the first 500,000 fans to become a fan of Woody will receive a free Jack Daniel’s grill burger or chicken sandwich. All you have to do is give them a valid email address and be over 21 years of age and you will receive your coupon by email. Woody, the self-proclaimed biggest fan of TGIFriday’s is more than willing to help out and is now at over 700,000 fans. Their new goal is to give away 1,000,000 sandwiches. Yes, I did already register. I was more than happy to become a fan and get a free meal.
Woody
I think this was a great idea for TGIFriday’s. The marketing has been fantastic. Sure they may have spent quite a bit of money on the commercials but this is money they would have spent on advertising anyway. They also have a special at this time where you can buy a burger for chicken sandwich for five dollars. If they give away 1 million coupons, that will equal $5 million. That seems like a very large amount to give away. Most people though would not go there to get only the free burger. I know that when I go, I will also get fries and a drink. I will have others with me and they will be having meals and drinks, and probably an appetizer. The fact that I will have to drive 75 miles just to get there, I will make this a special trip.
I know that is how most people will be, and that will make this a very successful program for TGIFriday’s. I am guessing the average person will spend at least $25 dollars on their trip to the restaurant. Most of these people will be like me, and would not have made this trip in the first place had it not been for the coupon. It would be very interesting to see how much they make as a profit on this promotion. I am guessing that if it is as successful as it should be, you will soon be seeing more companies doing the same thing.

It's Everywhere!

While working on a recent assignment for an Introduction to Anthropology class, I ran across an interesting article. The American Anthropological Association is now using Twitter. I found this interesting because here is a society that’s purpose is to study and explore humans. This same society is now using a modern tool to spread their finding. At the same time, they can be using this tool to study humans.
Archaeologists of the future will be using Twitter to explore human society and interaction. The days of digging in the remains of an ancient city will still exist but digging through thousands of internet sites will replace cave drawings and manuscripts.
Until I began researching this a little more, I had no clue that Anthropology would have so many followers on Twitter and found that it has moved on to other blogs as well. Blogs such as this one are normally very against Twitter but are promoting using it to meet and have conversations with other people interested in Anthropology.
The author of this blog also brings up an interesting point. Who isn’t on Twitter? Organizations that you would never expect to be on Twitter or Facebook are joining the Social Networking phenomenon. The local baseball team here in town is on both but I am disappointed in how they are updated. I am sure the time is coming soon that my employer will be using social networking sites to connect with trucking companies and drivers.
The City of Sioux City is on Twitter. The Tyson Events Center here in Sioux City has a Facebook page and uses that to provide updates on what is coming to town. People also have an opportunity to post messages such as reviews and their opinions on what they would like to see in town. Everywhere you go, social networking is there.
So many times, you reach a point where a hot new item reaches a point where it no longer grows. People have had as much of it as they want. Demand starts to drop. In this case, new content will drop. I am not sure this will ever happen with social networking. For one thing, it is becoming easier to update. The percentage of people updating their Facebook status on the go, or Tweeting while being mobile continues to grow. We had better get used to it. All of this is upon us, and it isn’t going anywhere.