Organizations and E-commerce

1.       How does the tool relate to the topic of the week?

This week’s topic was organizations and e-commerce. Buying and selling products on the internet and other computer networks has become increasingly popular and that’s what e-commerce is all about. The social media tool we used this week was Flickr. Flickr is for people and companies to manage photos and videos of their company to advertise themselves and products. This is a great way for people to get out there because it also offers tags for people to have an easier search when searching their product.

2.       What function does the tool serve?

Flickr enables people, organizations and businesses to be able to create a page that allows them to post videos and pictures of what they are trying to market or share with other people on Flickr or other social media sites. Flickr is free, but businesses or organizations that want to put up more pictures to serve their advertising need can pay about ten dollars per quarter which is not that much as it will give feedback about how many visitors have visited your page or searched your criteria.

3.       What did you find most interesting about the tool?

The thing I found most interesting about the tool was the fact that you could tag words or the company name to the photo and when those certain words are searched by customers or other businesses your photos or videos would show up. It reminded me of Twitter with the hash tags as those can be searched on twitter whatever is behind the hash tag.

4.       What did you find most challenging?

The most challenging part for me was that I wanted to just use it as a normal person, not a company. I really like posting pictures on Facebook and I thought it would be unique if they spread it to make it just for users too as I think it could increase customer market for companies that are already using Flickr. I didn’t really like that it was just for companies and organizations.

5.       How does the tool improve or complicate communication?

I thought it mostly improved communication as customers and other businesses can see what you have to offer through photos while also having the option to comment on the picture. I also thought it was an advantage to improve communication with the option of tagging the photo with key words for an easier search option.

6.       What is your critique of your experience?

Overall if I had a business I would definitely get a Flickr as I feel it can really show who a company is by the photos they put up to show their products and workers. It really helps that businesses can tag their photos with their company name along with other words about their company that will stick out to the customer when they search them and find the company and they will remember that word they searched along with the company.