Senior Thesis Proposal Draft 2

Introduction

This is an insight on how the conversation about music has changed with new music sharing applications, such as Spotify. Analyzing Reddit conversations shows how the conversations have changed, how self-promotion has changed, and how Spotify has changed music sharing through playlists.

Literature Review

Abstract

The world of music sharing has changed drastically within the past decade. While music sharing was heavily based off of emotional feelings and caring, it has now shifted to something much more complex. This complexity has not just come out of the blue, but rather has been a changing process throughout the years. With the development of social media, music sharing apps, iPhones, and easier forms of communication music sharing has lost its emotional connection and has taken on a new form of meaning. This meaning is much more complex and varies. Journeying through sources, Spotify has increasingly been influencing the modern day of music sharing through emotion and meaning. This continues on to Spotify’s unique sharing and promotional features that help create hits and easy-to-make playlists for its users. 

How music sharing apps like Spotify fit into the world of social media

A bigger issue is how do music sharing apps fit into the world of social media and what defines those requirements? “Internet-based applications and websites that promote the sharing of user-generated content, communication, and participation on a large scale,” (Cooper 1). This is exactly what Spotify does. The user generates playlists and is able to share them across large scale areas of other users. These users can now interact with the content by saving the playlist, listening to the playlist, and being able to save/listen to individual songs within the playlist as a whole. Now looking at how Spotify compares to other popular social platforms like Facebook.  “Facebook allows users to build a personal profile that includes pictures and cultural interests, to exchange messages, and to share thoughts, pictures, and videos. Facebook allows for mpore customization and requires users to give their true identity, which platforms like MySpace did not,” (Cooper 2). The customization aspect is important for users, Spotify allows profile images and allows customization to a certain point. However, people that are using music applications are more focused on the music. Which in this case, it’s safe to argue that the customizable content that Cooper mentions is the users playlists on Spotify. The users content is stuff that they are creating for others to view and share, which is exactly what the playlists are doing.

How Spotify can simplify the music sharing process

People have no switched to music sharing applications such as Spotify because the process is much easier and user friendly. The amount of time it takes to create a digital playlist and have it posted on the users profile for anyone to see is minimal. “Last month, Spotify reported that is has 60 million subsribers—a 100 percent jump from last year, Apple music has 27 million. More than half od Spotify users listen to the service’s constantly updated playlists, like Today’s Top Hits, which has more than 16 million subscribers,” (Knopper 1). These playlists aren’t just set in stone, but they are easily updateable and are changed instantly. Spotify has created music advertising like no other. Artist can now make their own playlists and share them with their listeners, listeners can create their own playlists, and Spotify can release their own playlists. “Spotify playlists can broaden audiences in a big way,” (Knopper 2). Because of the share ability that Spotify provides, as an artist it is much easier to gain new influencers from around the world.

Collaboration in Spotify

            “Demonstrating the ability to collaborate effectively is essential for students moving into the 21^st century workplaces. Employers are expecting new hires to already possess group-work skills and will seek evidence of their ability to cooperate, collaborate, and complete projects with colleagues, including remotely or at a distance,” (Stephens & Roberts 1). The key still of collaboration is become more relevant in the world today. As technology continues to adapt and change so does the way people communicate. Music sharing is one of those things that has changed a long with it. Instead of having a physical hard copy of the music, it has now become completely digital. It is this sense of I now own this music and I can gift it to you through playlists. Spotify is made of collaboration. Playlists being made and people listening and sharing them, the playlist has started somewhere and has its owner but it can be changed or recreated by someone else. Collaboration creates positive impacts by engagement with peers, according to Stephens & Roberts. When a person creates a playlist on Spotify, they now become a personal D.J. for the user. The user is listening to something that the creator put together to serve a certain emotional purpose. This follows under the Facilitating Collaboration in Online Groups (FCOG) according to Stephen & Roberts which states four phases. Phase 1 entails creating a group set and themed groups using self-enrollment, phase 2 provides instructors with suggestions on how to detail the operational and performance expectations for groups and individual members within the groups, phase 3 instructors are provided with web-based communication tools and pedagogical suggestions to help students use them more effectively. Finally phase 4 provides more examples and illustrations of assignments and activities that use the FCOG strategy.

“The first phase of the FCOG strategy is for the online instructor to create formal groups of students,” (Stephens & Roberts 2). This first phase needs to be pictured as Spotify being the online instructor. Spotify has created musical categories/genres to help people fit their playlists into categories of people with same musical taste. “In addition to guiding students through how to self-enroll in one of the themed groups, providing them with information related to the importance and benefits of working in groups to achieve collective goals,” (Stephens & Roberts 3). This phase goes with experience and how much creditability a playlist has. If the playlist has more followers it then becomes more credible. If the playlist has a low amount of followers the playlist becomes less credible. These set expectations for users that are browsing through a certain genre, if the playlist has credibility it is more likely to be listened to, plus it appears before those that do not have followers. Phase 3 now provides users with choices in communication tools, it is critical for collaboration (Stephens & Roberts 4). This is then the decision that is made upon the user. Is this user going to now follow the playlist maker, is the user just going to follow the playlist, or is the user just going to browse through the playlist and save individuals songs that are of interest. Lastly, phase 4 which is focused on development. This is done through Spotify on the user now being aware of new music and therefore, the user is now able to create new content using that song or playlist. This allows something completely new to birth and turn into a playlist or a combination of certain songs that no one has heard before.

Why the Pirates haven’t found Spotify

            The Pirates Bay was a popular music downloading site that allowed users to upload their own content into their own categories. This music sharing site did not abide by any legal copyrights. This allowed anyone to upload anything and anyone to download anything that was uploaded. While the collaboration aspect is quite similar to Spotify, it couldn’t be more different. “Due to its mobilization of millions of users and the hosting of about 5 million torrent files, The Pirates Bay can speak with a disdainful or irreverent voice against the established power structures of the music industry. In this way it questions the view of consumers as passive content recipients and the business logic of paying for the carrier,” (Wikhamn & Knights 46). Being an “active” user means paying for content and making sure no copyright issues are violated. This is people purchasing CDs and Spotify can fall under this category. A “passive: user is getting free content, potentially violating copyright issues such as The Pirates Bay. “Spotify is a new way to listen to music. Any track you like, any time you like. Just search for it on Spotify, then play it. Any artist, any album, any genre-all available instantly. With Spotify, there are no limits to the amount of music you can listen to. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it,” (Wikhamn & Knights 44). Spotify has changed the realm of the music sharing industry, as people can now pay a monthly fee to listen to unlimited amounts of music while still giving the artists their share of profits.

How Spotify creates hits

“To content providers, the focus is put on being a new distribution channel to a large customer base through a service safe from illegal use and with a business model in place to protect the income streams of intellectual property owners. In this way, Spotify rather acts as a savior to the music industry, supporting the big corporations in the war against pirates,” (Wikhamn & Knights 46). A lot of the music is stuff that wouldn’t normally seem as if it would be popular. However, a majority of the music listened to is Peaceful Piano and Deep Focus. These have songs that are on the more chill side of things, which a lot of people prefer to listen to when studying or working. The more they rack up, as far as listeners, the big paydays comes quick for the copyright owners. “Music, like other imaginary or creative works, is particularly subitle for content or socially based recommendation tools for two reasons: firstly, with creative works like music, what is sought after is the emotive experience it evokes, which is more difficult to express than topical knowledge in traditional information retrieval system. Secondly, unlinked in the problem solving information retrieval context where search behaviors are driven by pre-existing information need, in creative works like music, the desire to consume a product often takes place after, rather than before users’ first encounter with the information,” (Tang & Yang 1).

Conclusion     

“Empirical research on music-induced emotions provides convincing evidence that music does indeed elict certain emotions and moods in listeners,” (Rentfrow 406). While emotion is still key in music sharing, there is now a heavier weight placed on sharing something much deeper, identity. When the sharing of music CDs or mixtapes was still the popular form of music sharing this was mainly for your crush. As media has portrayed this best, with a guy creating a mixtape to show how in love he is with his crush. It is also showed as a guy holding a stereo outside of his crushes window, emphasizing how much he wants to be with her. Making playlists has now served as a temporary identity for someone to share how they are feeling in a certain moment, creating a feeling of learning who someone is in their different moods. Not a lot of research has been done in the changing of how music sharing has adapted in the past few years, but it is a huge part of American culture. Continuing the research in this direction, will potentially identify some of the key parts of how music sharing has changed.

Method

Choosing these sources was not easy, as it is hard to identify the parts of much music sharing, as it has changed so much over the past century. With updates to the social media, music sharing, marketing, and online music collaboration, there has been a shift in music sharing and its meaning. By analyzing how Spotify creates hits, this ultimately leads to how people are hearing about the music. Once people have heard the music, they are wanting to share their music taste with others. This creates a kind of identity with the music, defining themselves as the listeners personal D.J. that is sharing this new music. This can also go to include the social psychology of music sharing and how it affects the mind of both the user and the listener. This also in a sort of way creating a way of listeners feeling like they are listening to new content, but every time they are hearing the new content they are relating it back to the person that created it.

Collecting data was actually quite an easy task. Looking through different conversations was the original goal, but where to find those conversations was a challenge. Browsing through on Spotify’s music conversations through the application there was more of sharing playlists and self-promotion, but it was missing the conversational element. Turning to Reddit it was much easier to find these conversations, while keeping the self-promotion and music sharing in the conversations. These conversations are what keeps these trending topics alive on Reddit, with people all over the world able to contribute, the personalities are varied. Searching “Spotify conversations” a lot of data popped up on my screen. There are so many individual threads to analyze, it was hard to find one to choose. I will in the future analyze multiple threads hoping to find more of the different areas I am looking at. However, in this one particular one that I chose, titled “I made a Spotify playlist from the Reddit discussion about the most beautiful songs.” This conversation is about a collaboration of the most beautiful pieces of music and some of the topics within this thread are interesting and show a lot about self-promotion, music sharing, and music opinions. These conversations have changed drastically from previous time periods because they were not capable of creating playlists through applications, like Spotify. I think choosing to go with this data is something that will give me a lot of areas to generate discussion and analysis about how Spotify has changed the musical conversation, playlist sharing, and self-promotion of sharing music.

Data 

Thread 1 part 1

—SCAN IN DATA PAGES HERE—

Word count: 129

Likes/ dislikes: 40

Artist mentions: 6

Personal comments: 83

This conversation is important to me because it start off simple. This conversation starts off by just simply defining some of the basics in musical conversation. The people also start to give off hints of what defines beauty in music, there are also quite a few new artist mentions that spark interest in the term beauty. Comments like “they liked”, “love both versions”, “so much”, “simply beautiful”, “another one of my favorites”, these types of comments are general likings for these individuals. These comments play an important role in the conversation because it helps direct the more in depth conversations of what, to these people, define as beautiful. During times before music sharing applications, like Spotify, is was hard to generate examples because there was no physical presence of text and or music. It was all by conversation. This forum allows people to share physical music files and makes specific references giving individuals a different conversational medium.

Through these simple terms a much more intense conversation is slowly developed throughout this thread. “I dig the acoustic version more”, “stranger and or more powerful”, “makes an incredible song so much more personal for me”, these types of comments is where the defining of beauty becomes almost undefinable. New terms, like stranger and powerful, come into the conversation adding a new layer to the conversation. I think this conversation would not have happened without sharing applications like Spotify, this has allowed for people to have access to new music that they normally wouldn’t have access to. Not only do they have access to a more broad range of music, but they also are able to converse with people from all over the world, especially, through an forum like Reddit, people have joined from all over the world. This brings in a new culture, a new understanding, new ideas, and most of all new music to the conversations. While at the same time a playlist is being generated from all of the new culture, the new understandings, and the new ideas. This playlist has become something special. This has not only created a new piece of music, but not this can be shared with others to spark more conversation and to take this playlist and make it something even bigger. This, I think , has taken on a much deeper level of music conversation.

Thread 1 part 2

—SCAN IN DATA PAGES HERE—

Word count: 288

Likes/ dislikes: 99

Artist mentions: 19

Personal comments: 170

This part of the conversation is much more deep, it is further along in the thread once all of the general analysis of  “I like this” to “I don’t like this” has already been said and established. The conversation begins to turn and go more in depth. “One of the most beautiful and original pieces of music I’ve ever listened to”, “I find your lack of taste disturbing”, the conversations change. They become much more specific. They begin to generate new ideas of what defines beauty through these conversations. Artist not having a flowing, smooth voice can change whether a song is beautiful or not. They call out Alt-J’s lead singer for having a harsh voice. This conversation about Alt-J goes into talking about individual songs such as Tessellate and Warm Foothills, talking about if they had a different vocalist their music could be considered beautiful, as their composition of instruments is luscious, they could do without the lead singer.

This then takes on an even larger conversation later on taking about beauty in traditional voices and unusual voices. “It’s the reason people love artists like Tom Waites, or Janis Joplin, or Conor Oberst. It’s the reason Picasso and Dali and Jackson Pollock are famous. Beauty is subjective- no one agrees what it is and isn’t, but everyone knows when they see it.” This response or even the ideas in this response would not have been shared with others if it weren’t for Spotify existing. This Spotify playlist has create a buzz of these types of conversations and will continue to create them. There just isn’t that high of a probability of finding people like this that these people can engage in this level of conversation. While this wasn’t done on Spotify, Spotify is what initially started the conversations and allowed the music to be listened to in the first place.

Conclusion

I will continue to analyze a few more Reddit threads to find more conversations and aspects of what I am looking for. In the future, I hope to come up with a larger more detailed argument to defend my thesis. Looking at Reddit threads will help make it easier to find deeper conversation topics that discuss how music sharing has changed. 

Literature Review

Abstract

The world of music sharing has changed drastically within the past decade. While music sharing was heavily based off of emotional feelings and caring, it has now shifted to something much more complex. This complexity has not just come out of the blue, but rather has been a changing process throughout the years. With the development of social media, music sharing apps, iPhones, and easier forms of communication music sharing has lost its emotional connection and has taken on a new form of meaning. This meaning is much more complex and varies. Journeying through sources, Spotify has increasingly been influencing the modern day of music sharing through emotion and meaning. This continues on to Spotify’s unique sharing and promotional features that help create hits and easy-to-make playlists for its users.  

How music sharing apps like Spotify fit into the world of social media

A bigger issue is how do music sharing apps fit into the world of social media and what defines those requirements? “Internet-based applications and websites that promote the sharing of user-generated content, communication, and participation on a large scale,” (Cooper 1). This is exactly what Spotify does. The user generates playlists and is able to share them across large scale areas of other users. These users can now interact with the content by saving the playlist, listening to the playlist, and being able to save/listen to individual songs within the playlist as a whole. Now looking at how Spotify compares to other popular social platforms like Facebook.  “Facebook allows users to build a personal profile that includes pictures and cultural interests, to exchange messages, and to share thoughts, pictures, and videos. Facebook allows for mpore customization and requires users to give their true identity, which platforms like MySpace did not,” (Cooper 2). The customization aspect is important for users, Spotify allows profile images and allows customization to a certain point. However, people that are using music applications are more focused on the music. Which in this case, it’s safe to argue that the customizable content that Cooper mentions is the users playlists on Spotify. The users content is stuff that they are creating for others to view and share, which is exactly what the playlists are doing.

How Spotify can simplify the music sharing process

People have no switched to music sharing applications such as Spotify because the process is much easier and user friendly. The amount of time it takes to create a digital playlist and have it posted on the users profile for anyone to see is minimal. “Last month, Spotify reported that is has 60 million subscribers—a 100 percent jump from last year, Apple music has 27 million. More than half od Spotify users listen to the service’s constantly updated playlists, like Today’s Top Hits, which has more than 16 million subscribers,” (Knopper 1). These playlists aren’t just set in stone, but they are easily update-able and are changed instantly. Spotify has created music advertising like no other. Artist can now make their own playlists and share them with their listeners, listeners can create their own playlists, and Spotify can release their own playlists. “Spotify playlists can broaden audiences in a big way,” (Knopper 2). Because of the share ability that Spotify provides, as an artist it is much easier to gain new influencers from around the world.

Collaboration in Spotify

            “Demonstrating the ability to collaborate effectively is essential for students moving into the 21^st century workplaces. Employers are expecting new hires to already possess group-work skills and will seek evidence of their ability to cooperate, collaborate, and complete projects with colleagues, including remotely or at a distance,” (Stephens & Roberts 1). The key still of collaboration is become more relevant in the world today. As technology continues to adapt and change so does the way people communicate. Music sharing is one of those things that has changed a long with it. Instead of having a physical hard copy of the music, it has now become completely digital. It is this sense of I now own this music and I can gift it to you through playlists. Spotify is made of collaboration. Playlists being made and people listening and sharing them, the playlist has started somewhere and has its owner but it can be changed or recreated by someone else. Collaboration creates positive impacts by engagement with peers, according to Stephens & Roberts. When a person creates a playlist on Spotify, they now become a personal D.J. for the user. The user is listening to something that the creator put together to serve a certain emotional purpose. This follows under the Facilitating Collaboration in Online Groups (FCOG) according to Stephen & Roberts which states four phases. Phase 1 entails creating a group set and themed groups using self-enrollment, phase 2 provides instructors with suggestions on how to detail the operational and performance expectations for groups and individual members within the groups, phase 3 instructors are provided with web-based communication tools and pedagogical suggestions to help students use them more effectively. Finally phase 4 provides more examples and illustrations of assignments and activities that use the FCOG strategy.

“The first phase of the FCOG strategy is for the online instructor to create formal groups of students,” (Stephens & Roberts 2). This first phase needs to be pictured as Spotify being the online instructor. Spotify has created musical categories/genres to help people fit their playlists into categories of people with same musical taste. “In addition to guiding students through how to self-enroll in one of the themed groups, providing them with information related to the importance and benefits of working in groups to achieve collective goals,” (Stephens & Roberts 3). This phase goes with experience and how much creditability a playlist has. If the playlist has more followers it then becomes more credible. If the playlist has a low amount of followers the playlist becomes less credible. These set expectations for users that are browsing through a certain genre, if the playlist has credibility it is more likely to be listened to, plus it appears before those that do not have followers. Phase 3 now provides users with choices in communication tools, it is critical for collaboration (Stephens & Roberts 4). This is then the decision that is made upon the user. Is this user going to now follow the playlist maker, is the user just going to follow the playlist, or is the user just going to browse through the playlist and save individuals songs that are of interest. Lastly, phase 4 which is focused on development. This is done through Spotify on the user now being aware of new music and therefore, the user is now able to create new content using that song or playlist. This allows something completely new to birth and turn into a playlist or a combination of certain songs that no one has heard before.

Why the Pirates haven’t found Spotify

            The Pirates Bay was a popular music downloading site that allowed users to upload their own content into their own categories. This music sharing site did not abide by any legal copyrights. This allowed anyone to upload anything and anyone to download anything that was uploaded. While the collaboration aspect is quite similar to Spotify, it couldn’t be more different. “Due to its mobilization of millions of users and the hosting of about 5 million torrent files, The Pirates Bay can speak with a disdainful or irreverent voice against the established power structures of the music industry. In this way it questions the view of consumers as passive content recipients and the business logic of paying for the carrier,” (Wikhamn & Knights 46). Being an “active” user means paying for content and making sure no copyright issues are violated. This is people purchasing CDs and Spotify can fall under this category. A “passive: user is getting free content, potentially violating copyright issues such as The Pirates Bay. “Spotify is a new way to listen to music. Any track you like, any time you like. Just search for it on Spotify, then play it. Any artist, any album, any genre-all available instantly. With Spotify, there are no limits to the amount of music you can listen to. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it,” (Wikhamn & Knights 44). Spotify has changed the realm of the music sharing industry, as people can now pay a monthly fee to listen to unlimited amounts of music while still giving the artists their share of profits.

How Spotify creates hits

“To content providers, the focus is put on being a new distribution channel to a large customer base through a service safe from illegal use and with a business model in place to protect the income streams of intellectual property owners. In this way, Spotify rather acts as a savior to the music industry, supporting the big corporations in the war against pirates,” (Wikhamn & Knights 46). A lot of the music is stuff that wouldn’t normally seem as if it would be popular. However, a majority of the music listened to is Peaceful Piano and Deep Focus. These have songs that are on the more chill side of things, which a lot of people prefer to listen to when studying or working. The more they rack up, as far as listeners, the big paydays comes quick for the copyright owners. “Music, like other imaginary or creative works, is particularly subitle for content or socially based recommendation tools for two reasons: firstly, with creative works like music, what is sought after is the emotive experience it evokes, which is more difficult to express than topical knowledge in traditional information retrieval system. Secondly, unlinked in the problem solving information retrieval context where search behaviors are driven by pre-existing information need, in creative works like music, the desire to consume a product often takes place after, rather than before users’ first encounter with the information,” (Tang & Yang 1).

Conclusion    

“Empirical research on music-induced emotions provides convincing evidence that music does indeed elict certain emotions and moods in listeners,” (Rentfrow 406). While emotion is still key in music sharing, there is now a heavier weight placed on sharing something much deeper, identity. When the sharing of music CDs or mixtapes was still the popular form of music sharing this was mainly for your crush. As media has portrayed this best, with a guy creating a mixtape to show how in love he is with his crush. It is also showed as a guy holding a stereo outside of his crushes window, emphasizing how much he wants to be with her. Making playlists has now served as a temporary identity for someone to share how they are feeling in a certain moment, creating a feeling of learning who someone is in their different moods. Not a lot of research has been done in the changing of how music sharing has adapted in the past few years, but it is a huge part of American culture. Continuing the research in this direction, will potentially identify some of the key parts of how music sharing has changed.

Method

Choosing these sources was not easy, as it is hard to identify the parts of much music sharing, as it has changed so much over the past century. With updates to the social media, music sharing, marketing, and online music collaboration, there has been a shift in music sharing and its meaning. By analyzing how Spotify creates hits, this ultimately leads to how people are hearing about the music. Once people have heard the music, they are wanting to share their music taste with others. This creates a kind of identity with the music, defining themselves as the listeners personal D.J. that is sharing this new music. This can also go to include the social psychology of music sharing and how it affects the mind of both the user and the listener. This also in a sort of way creating a way of listeners feeling like they are listening to new content, but every time they are hearing the new content they are relating it back to the person that created it. 

An analysis of Guy Kawasaki's social media blog

Guy Kawasaki's popularity has rooted from his knowledge and expertise in the art of social media. As it may come to a surprise to you, he has his own website with a functioning blog that he seems to not update as much anymore as his last post were in 2016. The blog is linked to his website, giving people the option to easily look at what influences him. I think that he uses his blog not to brag about his expertise, but rather to give insight on what kind of things influence him or that have influenced him to become the successful man he is now.

I would sum up Guy's blog posts in to a few categories, business, personal interests/hobbies, and influences. While he has a few published books and a whole lot of stuff written about/by him on the internet, I don't think that his main goal was to share out his beliefs or strategies on this blog. This blog does something that is much more effective, he is able to show another side to him. This side conveys who Guy is as a person, which makes sense because it is a personal blog.

There is indeed stuff business related like:

How to Prepare for the Next Wave of Entrepreneurship

How to Be a Demo God

How to Manage Your Board

But this is something that could benefit anyone who is reading the blog, not just people that have similar interests. This opens the pool for new influencers and new followers, which believe me, he knows a lot about. This definitely attracts one crowd of people but also keeps the doors open for new ones. 

While he doesn't just share business related topics, other things keep people hooked on the opinions of Guy because he shares personal interests and hobbies like:

Photos from my first trip to Yosemite

Pictures from my trip to @Mercedes

Pictures from my trip to Berlin

These types of posts keep people interested in his personal life. Humans are nosey and enjoy reading about how successful people live their lives. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think these kinds of post are the most interesting because people are most interested in the personal side of blogs, thats what keeps me going back to blogs. When blogs have a personal touch I believe that they excel much more than just a content driven blog. This is why large companies have multiple categories to their blogs to keep consumers and businesses interested in other things that companies have interests in or are affiliated with. 

Lastly, Guy has what influences him. I think that this is also an important category, especially because people are curious as to what inspires successful people. I think, when this blog was running, it was a well organized blog. There is a mix of content that is all aimed to keep followers interested and to potentially keep the door open for new influencers. 

In N Out Burger vs. Whataburger

What Do You Have The Taste For?

An analysis of fast-food restaurant's Instagram accounts

Food is something that everyone in the world enjoys. If someone is not eating food they sure do enjoy looking at it. Restaurants and fast food restaurants all over the world have been using social media accounts to their advantage, especially heavily visual platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. They use these for advertisement and to create a unity and relationship with their customers. By following a restaurant account on Instagram someone is now able to be in the loop of what is constantly going on at their establishment. It also gives the follower a way to show their support for the restaurant and what they stand for. Because Texans are always claiming that Whataburger has the best burger and Californians are always saying that In N Out Burger has the best burger, I decided it would be appropriate to compare the two restaurants to see which company is more successful on their social media accounts. In this case, I just analyzed their Instagram accounts. The main purposes for these accounts are to inform, connect and interact with their followers. Whichever account utilizes all three of these things the most is what I would define to be a successful platform.

There is a lot to look at and analyze, even just looking at Instagram, and had to decide what things to look at to give me the best data. All of the things I've looked at have covered one of the three areas to make a successful page (inform, connect & interact). I first analyzed the basics, this includes everything in the "about" area of the Instagram page. The logo, number of posts, number of followers, number following and the actual written about section. Continuing more into detail I then looked at the posts, to be more specific I looked at the most recent 20 posts of both In N Out and Whataburger. I looked at posts, post types, likes, comments and the top posts in the 20 that I looked at.

The "What", "A", "In", "Out" and About

What is going to make someone follow a restaurants account? This is on some connection that is made from the follower to the company. This is probably a majority of why people would follow In N Out and Whataburger. Connections can sometimes be built through logos and colors. In this case, both of these companies worked extremely hard to get their logo well known and establish their "colors" to represent their company. Whataburger establishes a layering white "W" with a gradient of orange behind it. Their colors are obviously white and orange and the "W" can be recognized from anyone who is familiar with it. In N Out uses a classic red hyphened "in-n-out burger". There is also a yellow arrow that intersects the "n" pointing to the right. Both of these logos do an excellent job at what they were designed to do.

Both pages contain a high follower amount but Whataburger takes the win in followers topping at 196k and In N Out trailing behind at 181k. Another interesting thing is that In N Out Burger is following 0 people, while Whataburger is following 72 people. The 72 people consists of their sponsors, a few random people and a few animal accounts (weird but funny and I guess effective). In "The Social Media Reader", Mandiberg talks about the importance of audience. It is not only important to have one but is just as equally important to keep them. This has a lot to do with interaction and when Whataburger follows some of their most important sponsors it shows care and support. This is what works best when developing a continuous and supportive audience. This gives them a more "real" feeling, less like a massive company and more like people. In N Out now feels like one of those un-real companies that doesn't establish a sense of realness.

In "Spreadable Media", the authors explain the importance of spreadability and some of the tools that are needed for medias to have in order to be successful. One of their main points is to constantly share content, just as Guy Kawasaki supports as he explains the importance of continuously getting and sharing new content. This is something that is not only important to rack up followers but it also show constant activity and that is usually what a majority of people are looking to follow. Whataburger posts almost daily counting in at 1,258 posts. While In N Out has 59 posts. This means that Whataburger is creating and posting more content for their followers to interact with. In N Out posts sometimes monthly, giving minimal content for its followers to share and interact with.

 Whataburger gives a brief description of what someone would expect and briefly advertises its social media app. There is nothing really special about their about until you compare it to In N Out's.

In In N Outs they give their brief description and include a catch phrase "Serving the highest quality burgers, fries and shakes since 1948. Followed by a copyright symbol. This to me once again creates the feeling of a massive company, not really giving its audience an attached feeling. It then of course advertises its website just as Whataburger advertised it's app.

Posts, posts and more posts

The importance of Instagram is simple, it's to post, get a lot of likes and hope its shared. This is the main goal of why these accounts exist. I analyzed the posts of both of these accounts by creating three categories for which I thought would be the most prevalent in a restaurants social media account. These three categories are food, no food and people and food. I then looked at the most recent 20 posts from both the accounts. Separating the posts into their corresponding categories I was then able to get some data:

	FOOD	NO FOOD	PEOPLE AND FOOD
WHATABURGER	12	3	5
IN-N-OUT	5	15	0

In N Out has had 5 posts dedicated to advertising their food, while this is only out of 20, the account only has 59 posts. Browsing over their account they hardly have any posts containing their food. This is strange to me because this is what I would think would be most prevalent in both In N Out's account and Whataburger's account. Whataburger has 12 posts out of the 20 containing their food. This is more of what I was expecting. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it is just not what I was expecting. However, I do believe that by posting content of their food can make their followers more in the mood to eat. If the account isn't posting mouth-watering and juicy pictures it is a lot less likely for the follower to crave the food. Here are the top FOOD post based on likes:

Friends who Whataburger together stay together. 📷 by: @chicagofoodpharaoh

A photo posted by Whataburger (@whataburger) on Dec 4, 2016 at 3:38pm PST

Freshness you can taste.® #quality #burger

A photo posted by In-N-Out Burger (@innout) on Jan 16, 2015 at 10:31am PST

Back to the data table:

	FOOD	NO FOOD	PEOPLE AND FOOD
WHATABURGER	12	3	5
IN-N-OUT	5	15	0

The next category that I looked at was NO FOOD. This category is any posts, within the 20, that did not contain any direct food advertisement. This was what I was expecting to have the lest amount in both the restaurants, but once again I was proven wrong. In N Out had 13 posts within the 20 that were not of their food. While Whataburger only had a minimal amount of 3. Here are the top NO FOOD posts based on likes:

Introducing our new 2017 tshirt!

A photo posted by In-N-Out Burger (@innout) on Nov 25, 2016 at 9:01am PST

You know you’re with the right person when you love them as much as you love Whataburger. 📷 by: @caitlinthurman

A photo posted by Whataburger (@whataburger) on Dec 2, 2016 at 3:38pm PST

In the top embedded photo In N Out is using this to promote their new 2017 t-shirt design. This is strictly a merchandise and advertising post and it struck their followers in a really good way. With 12.7k likes there is no arguing with that. The picture itself is a professional picture, casting a silhouette of palms against the orange dusk sky. It also contains a realistic In N Out Burger logo in the bottom left corner. Its followers are excited with the news of the new t-shirt coming. This proves that their followers want the connection and want to be affiliated with In N Out. The connection is one of the things that makes an account successful and here in this post for In N Out, it definitely succeeds. In both of these categories In N Out destroys the amount of likes these posts get. The first post "Freshness you can taste" it is simply a well thought out picture. It is very obvious that it is highly edited and it was taken by a professional but this really struck the audience that follows In N Out. 
The Whataburger picture creates a completely different vibe. Most of the photos that Whataburger posts are taken from their followers. This checks off the box for connection and interaction. Both of these things can work really well together on Instagram, as Whataburger proves. The amount of likes on this picture are significantly lower but is it more effective? The picture shows a newly wed couple kissing in front of a Whataburger location. "You know you're with the right person when you love them as much as you love Whataburger (with assigned photocreds). This is sharing someone else's experiences, which as we learned in Dr. Vrooman's class, people love to watch other peoples experiences and get the insight on other peoples lives as much as possible. This picture does exactly that, it also is obviously not a professional photo and it has photocreds. As a follower it makes you more inclined to think "hey I want them to share my photo" creating more interaction between Whataburger and its followers, especially in the aspect of sharing. This is because more of Whataburger followers are more likely to take pictures of their food and share it with the tag. This photo also has a fairly low amount of likes compared to the In N Out top photo. Whataburger gets a significantly lower amount of likes. This is weird because Whataburger has a larger number of followers than In N Out. It also kind of makes sense at the same time because In N Out doesn't post as frequently, making whatever they do post seem more significant.
In the last category of FOOD AND PEOPLE:

	FOOD	NO FOOD	PEOPLE AND FOOD
WHATABURGER	12	3	5
IN-N-OUT	5	15	0

Whataburger has more (5) than In N Out (0). This is something that I was expecting more from both companies. People with their food, I would think, would be their biggest connections and interactions. Whataburger still has more than In N Out which makes complete sense based on how In N Out uses their account. Here is the top Whataburger PEOPLE AND FOOD post based on likes:

Sharing your Whataburger is how you show true love! 📷 by: @steelamy

A photo posted by Whataburger (@whataburger) on Nov 20, 2016 at 10:35am PST

Are we going to eat yet, 'cause I'm hungry?

While looking and discussing the data it is clear that both of these accounts serve a different purpose than the other. Whataburger places an emphasis on making a strong connection with its followers and its users. They do this by sharing almost all of their followers photos and giving them credit for posting. It is kind of like a rewards system, you tag us in a photo we will post it. While not every photo gets re-posted by Whataburger it keeps people constantly sharing to hope they are one of the chosen ones. Whataburger builds a strong connection and also builds a strong interaction while doing this they are also informing through the advertisement of their food. Not only are they sharing the coolest pictures but they are choosing ones that are in the current promotion. Not only do these posts serve the purposes of what the company of Whataburger wants but they are also delivering content to Instagram. People are seeing these posts as soon as they are posted. On Instagram not a lot of things can be shared easily, it is becoming easier now but a lot of the time tagging someone in the comments is one of the easiest forms of sharing something on Instagram. Whataburger comments are almost 90% tagging. I think that this counts as sharing media and it most certainly would to the authors of "Spreadable Media".
In N Out places a higher emphasis on less quantity and more quality. This is obvious from their lack of postings and from their few posts they have a higher hit of likes. In N Out relies on the connection that their followers have made for them, they do not reciprocate. Also, no connection is made between the followers (customers) and their food. That is something that is alarming to me is they aren't making a physical connection on their Instagram page to their customers.  This can become problematic, especially when a its page has minimal amount of the food that they serve. They do create a well informed page, by announcing new merchandise and wishing everyone a holiday season. In N Out's content is a lot less relatable and a lot less sharable. While they do get a higher number of likes there aren't as many comments. There is still a high number of tags but not nearly as much as Whataburger. This is because there stuff just simply is not sharable and is not relatable. Does this make In N Out less successful? Probably not and this may just not be In N Out's main social media platform. They are still going to be successful regardless, could they be more successful in social media? I definitely think so.
Whataburger definitely takes the win as far as informing their audience, making a connection and being interactive. So this makes it a successful social media platform. In N Out lacks connection and interaction by creating minimal sharable content but creating a great deal of informative posts making it not as successful as it could be.

We are not miracle-workers, so how can this be fixed?

In N Out its not the end of the world, there is still time to change! If I were to run this Instagram account I would do a number of things differently making their page more interactive and more connecting.
First, I would start posting a whole lot more. A post every month is not going to do any justice. More content the better chances that the information is going to be shared. I would be posting almost daily, even weekly. It needs to be available when the audience wants it. In "Spreadable Media" the authors state, "available when and where audiences want it...if you build it, they will come". This proving my point exactly the more content, the more interaction.
Second, I would create a less official page. The page seems like it is too robotic, with all of the copyrights, the official checkmark and their lack of following other people. This way it makes an equal level and doesn't create a feeling of hierarchy.
Third, would definitely have to be the connection factor. This would consist of me reposting other pictures that their loyal customers have been taking and letting them know how much we appreciate them. By doing this it creates a connection with their followers and customers. It also increases the amount of interaction the page gets by people now tagging more and more to try and become featured on their page. In chapter 5 in "Spreadable Media", it states "Content that appeals to more than on target audience, both intended and surplus audiences, has greater meaning as spreadable media". This is what making a connection is all about, it benefits the audience tagged and it also benefits the rest of the followers and recreates moments that others may have experienced as well.
Lastly, I would want to create more media that advertised the promotion of their food. Less graphics more food! This is why people come to your establishment, this is why people follow the account! It's more important than one might think.
By taking these steps, they aren't too hard, and applying them I think that In N Out burger could potentially have a higher follower base and create a ton more of shareable media.

Even though Whataburger won in my analysis, it doesn't mean In N Out can't "flip" the results.

Facebook Posts: On The Grind vs. Emily's Coffee Shoppe

Social media is always causing a battle between businesses in the world today, especially smaller businesses where most of their popularity is from social media. In todays society it makes it much easier to follow the processes of what's going on around us without actually having to put out any effort. This is what we tend to do on social media, is we follow something that we are interested in so we can have access to it at all times. Following a small business can allow you to not only show support but it can keep you updated on certain promotions, new products and events they are taking apart in around the community.

Smaller businesses that usually thrive on social media a lot of the times are the least popular. This is often because they only get attention when something beneficial is being posted by them that other people want to take advantage of. In this case I examined On The Grind, an uprising business in the small community of New Braunfels, TX and I also examined Emily's Coffee Shoppe, an even smaller coffee shop in the heart of Cibolo, TX. Both of these businesses use their Facebook accounts for the exact reason of wanting to get their business seen to get people to come try their coffee. Conducting a small analysis of a small sampling of likes, comments, and shares on their Facebook pages, I have come across some interesting results for each individual business I examined. I have found that if the company is making a connection with the audience and the audience is getting something out of it, it can than become a successful post.

Going through the Facebook page of OTG I found that they have definitely created a mass audience for themselves, well at least more of an audience than Emily's Place. I found that most of the posts that got the most activity were for specials that the company was giving such as 4 drinks for $10, or 9 stamps on a stamp card for 1 drink, or 1$ smalls, $2 mediums and $3 large drinks. These types of things benefit people because they can not only save money, but they can also enjoy their favorite drink with benefitting towards the next purchase. This not only gives a reason for the customers to come back but it also gives them a chance to engage with the company and share the great news with their followers to help them save some money.

 

This was an example of a post that was shared over 50 times. This is because someone had the opportunity to win free coffee for an entire month. This has something beneficial not only for the customer but to the business as well. People are going to share this because its an opportunity to win free coffee, who wouldn't want free coffee for an entire month. So the company is aware that this is going to get shared. Now the company not only made this a high shared post, but they also integrated a contest into the post. Now people are having to go to the stand, order a drink, decorate the cup, post a picture of it online and cross their fingers in hopes to win. This is now promoting OTG and getting interaction with their customers in a positive way. This totally works in every aspect of a successful post. 

 

Here is another example of one of their high posts. This one is buying 4 drinks for only $10. This post is connecting with the audience because they are posting it out and they know its going to be shared, and its also giving the audience something in return, which is the promotion. These types of posts seem to be the ones that work best for OTG and are the ones with the highest activity of likes, shares and comments.

 

However Emily's Place has an entire different agenda, this company doesn't have as great of an audiences as OTG has. This coffee shop is located in an even smaller town Cibolo. Here is mainly local people and less traffic comes through the area, but it is interesting as to how the same style posts as OTG also work for Emily's Place.

Here is the graph showing results for likes, comments and shares for Emily's Place.

 

 

 

This post has one of the highest counts of social media activity on their page. This post invites the customers to come out and take a picture in this fall theme booth and advertises their wonderful coffee. This makes a connection with the audience and it also gives them something, a great picture spot. Emily's place also fails in some other ways:

This post is one that didn't get all that much interaction whatsoever. This is just inviting their customers to come to their coffee shop. However, as someone on social media there is no reason to share this. It does not establish a connection with the audience and it doesn't give them anything. Not only this, but they don't even use a graphic that helps share who they are. A picture of their coffee shop would be much more effective, but this generic picture kind of makes them seem un-legit. These are the types of posts are almost irrelevant to the social media world and will not hold up. If someone saw a post like this versus a post from OTG people in Cibolo are probably more likely to drive to New Braunfels to save some money and get a great coffee.

Social media posts are more likely to be effective with proper imaging, making a connection with the audience they are targeting and giving the audience something they want. When all or some of these connections are made, the post gets higher numbers. Everyone loves coffee but which shop would you be more likely to go to based on these posts?

Is it Worth Sharing?

Sharing has become a huge part of social media, in fact that is what social media can be defined as. Sharing peoples ideas and information has become apart of everyday life and can be accessed through our smart phones at all times throughout a day. Just because there is a ton of media at our finger tips doesn't mean that its worthy of being shared. How does one know what is sharable and what isn't.

Humor is a huge part of why people share in social media. Not just any humor though, the humor has to be a trending in what is funny in social medias. "Recognizing a joke involves exchanging judgments about the world and defining oneself either with or against others", says Mary Douglas. "Humor is not simply a matter of taste: it is a vehicle by which people articulate and validate their relationships with those whom they share the joke", she adds. This is a common tradition of why people share things, the humoristic side emphasizes those relationships with humor. If someone is able to identify something important or not important through a joke, it is more easily able to catch someone's attention.

Memes are always evolving to form with whatever events are trending and can be transform any sort of social issue into a joke.

 

In this meme it brings together the community that is anti-Donald Trump and connects them with an Orange is the New Black message. Not only is this meme going to appeal to those that are anti Trump but it also will be sharable for those who favor OITNB. If something has a greater message it is more likely to be shared especially through humor because everyone is willing to listen or see humoristic things. This clearly has a defined message but by adding in OITNB it serves as a gap as is shared in chapter 5 of Spreadable Media. 

The second thing that I think really promotes something to be sharable is its importance. However, this idea of importance must also be intertwined with my followers for it to be sharable. This not only makes the sharer feel more knowledgeable, in the case of being the first one to hear about it but it also helps get interactions and connections from your followers.

In this case I would share this sort of thing with my followers. Not only does it affect me but the people that follow me. It will promote some kind of interaction with the people that I am friends with on social media. This is going to save the city more money and it could end up helping us TLU students in the long run. Like maybe they can fix the on campus roads with this extra money. In this case it would be important to all my fellow students and peers that I follow. It would also create a sort of boundary for helping them out and sharing something that is relevant to them.

If the message isn't relative to most of the followers a lot of people will share directly. It is still functioning as the same purpose, just not to a mass amount of people. Inside jokes are a common one, or relatable things between you and a small number of people. It also can depend on what kind of social media platform that you are sharing on. This has a lot to do with different audiences and how they will respond different on something like Facebook vs. Twitter. These are two different levels of how something and why something should be shared.

Thirdly I believe that some things will always be sharable and those types of things function under what Lotz suggests in chapter 5:
-available when audiences want it
-portable
-easily reusable
-relevant to multiple audiences
-part of a stream
In these cases something is always going to be shared for at least one of these reasons. It doesn't necessarily matter what the topic is, but it will always matter on one of Lotz's stipulations. Sharing is easy and actually quite simple but for the individual reasons of why certain things are shared and why certain things are not is a complicated concept.

The fourth thing that posts must include to be sharable is something relevant to a particular audience that is on the social media channel you are interacting on. In this case it would be important for you to share something about Texas Lutheran University if you attend the university and have followers that are also in your community of TLU. This will make it more likeable and sharable because it is relevant to those around you. However, if you were to share something about TLU to a community of people who aren't in college the share ability of that post has decreased significantly, not because the post isn't good but its just not relevant to that particular audience.

Lastly a post is more likely to be shared if it can irritate or up-rise a particular audience by standing out. This can relate to some of the political posts that are all over Facebook and these posts are high profile for people to comment and share their opinion on them. This has to do with the connections of people to what they believe their timelines to be full of. If a person sees something on their timeline that isn't in their beliefs they are more likely to share content on it because it stands out. Standing out doesn't always have to be with political views, it can also be done with photographs and stories.

Humans like to be entertained but its sometimes one of the hardest things to do is to get someone to pay attention, this is why the post must stand out like a sore thumb to the audience. This is how news posts get shared at such a high rate, they have an aspect that stands out, usually by a terrifying headline. As economist Richard Caves explains that uncertainty principle is not knowing what our audience really wants, but its important to make content available in forms that the audience will find useful. There will never be an answer for what makes our audience more likely to share something but there are tactics we can use to make the odds high for sharing content.