Is Reddit Worth It?

General Information

Reddit refers to itself as "the front page of the internet". According to Wikipedia Reddit is “an entertainment, social news networking service, and news website” The Daily Beast describes Reddit as “a bulletin of user-submitted text, links, photos, and videos.”

According to Reddit, “Anyone can create a community on nearly any topic imaginable. Each community is independently moderated by volunteer users.” Registered users can submit content, such as, text posts, direct links, GIFs, videos, or almost any other type of content. Content submissions are organized into common categories called “subreddits”. The subreddit topics include news, gaming, movies, music, books, fitness, food, and photosharing, and numerous others. According to Reddit’s website, there are over 10,000 active subreddits and 50 default subreddits.

Once content has been posted users can post comments and respond to other user’s comments. Users can vote on the most important stories and comments by casting an “upvote” (positive vote) or “downvote” (negative vote). Rankings of content are determined by the age of the submission, upvoted to downvoted, feedback ratio, and the total vote-count.  Submissions with the most positive votes appear on the main page or the top of a category. Users will typically customize what is shown on their personal front page by subscribing to individual subreddits. The site's general front page is also accessible at the top of the individual user's customized front page.

Reddit describes the platform’s features this way:

• ·      Discuss- “Redditors (term to describe a registered Reddit user) can comment on any post on Reddit. Comments are often the best part about Reddit content—they provide additional information, vigorous discussion, context, and often humor.”
• ·      Vote- “The global Reddit community votes on which stories and discussions are important by casting upvotes or downvotes. The most interesting, funniest, impactful, or simply amazing stories rise to the top.”
• ·      Share- “Anyone can create a community on nearly any topic imaginable. Each community is independently moderated by volunteer users. Community members can share content including stories, links, and images.”

Purpose

The platform’s management states “Reddit bridges communities and individuals with ideas, the latest digital trends, and breaking news (...okay, and maybe cats). Our mission is to help people discover places where they can be their true selves, and empower our community to flourish.” In my opinion the purpose of the platform is to provide users a tool to filter the internet’s content based on the user’s preferences to eliminate the time wasted searching through everything the internet offers to identify what they want to read about.

Use in Business

According to the Pew Research Center six percent of online adults are Reddit users. “Men are twice as likely as women to be Reddit users, those under 50 are significantly more likely to use Reddit than those 50 or older.” Of all male internet users ages 18-29 15% use Reddit, compared to 5% of women in the same age range and 8% of men aged 30-49. “The site is much more common among urban and suburban residents than among those living in rural areas.” Reddit’s website states it is the 9th largest site in the US, has 234 million users that produce 8 billion monthly page views and cast 25 million votes a day, with an average visit length of 13+ minutes.

Given the volume of traffic to this platform there is the potential for Reddit to become a positive component of a social media marketing campaign. Gospaces.com recommends firms use Reddit to get content ideas, drive traffic to your website, create a community, and create a valuable backlink. Firms can accomplish these recommendations by sponsoring a headline on Reddit, which is posting an ad in the Reddit format and/or joining or creating a community from scratch.

Assessment

Marketing through Reddit can be effective if the firm’s target demographic is young males, but it would not be effective for any other demographic. Targeting the young male demographic via Reddit as a user is difficult due to the appropriate etiquette for posting on the site. If that etiquette is not followed posts are quickly labeled as spam and deleted. The direct criticism proved via Reddit can be used ultimately improve a product or marketing strategy positively if managed correctly.

Overall, my assessment of Reddit’s use in business is similar to most other social media platforms I have assessed in prior blog posts. Its effectiveness cannot be quantifiably measured, to my knowledge, therefore firms should be cautious when expecting significant results. It can, presumably, be useful as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy using all forms of advertising including other social media platforms, but only for the young male demographic segment.

My Experience

Prior to this class I had never used Reddit. Given my limited use of the platform my experience was not positive. Navigating the site was confusing, a lot of content was packed into a small area, the layout was distracting with my attention was pulled in multiple directions, and it was aesthetically boring. I did like the content of the news page. After I became a user and made a couple comments on news topics that interested me my home page did start accurately selecting stories of interest to me.

References

https://about.reddit.com

The Daily Beast

Pew Research Center

Social Media Examiner

Go Spaces

Prezi vs. PowerPoint! Who Wins!?!?! You Decide!

General Information

Wikipedia describes Prezi as “a cloud-based presentation software based on a software as a service model. The product employs a zooming user interface, which allows users to zoom in and out of their presentation media, and allows users to display and navigate through information within a 2.5D or parallax 3D space on the Z-axis.” I would describe Prezi as a dynamic presentation template that is very similar to PowerPoint.

Prezi allows the user to zoom in and out in a 3D space or image. The 3D space or image is comprised of sections similar to the slides that comprise a PowerPoint presentation. The sections of a Prezi can be combined to form a larger image on the the “canvas”. Prezi differs from power point in that an entire Prezi presentation is displayed on a large “canvas” and instead of scrolling through PowerPoint slides in a linear order Prezi does not have a linear order. The presenter can zoom in on whatever section of the canvas they want without scrolling through other sections to get there.

Purpose

The purpose of Prezi is to offer an alternative and better way to present information to a group than through a power point presentation. Prezi states it “makes you a better presenter” because

“No other presentation platform gives you as much visual storytelling power as Prezi Business, combining spatial dimension and motion to keep your audience engaged as you guide them through your message.” Prezi also lists the following features it has to “make you a better presenter”:

1. Analyze results
• Optimize your efforts
• Know who views your prezi, which parts of it, and for how long. Then target your message to the right people at the right time.
2. Visual storytelling
• People are more likely to understand and remember your message when it’s accompanied by strong visuals. A picture’s worth a thousand bullet points, especially when it zooms and pans to show context.
3. Conversational presenting
• Prezi’s open canvas lets you read the room and adapt on the fly to fit your audience. Fast-forward straight to the bottom line, or spend more time zooming in on the details.
4. Training and webinars
• Offering virtual training and webinar sessions for basic tips and advanced tricks.
• Provides a community of experts
• Our global network of independent experts can help you nail your next presentation.
5. Infinite canvas
• Unlike slides, Prezi uses an open canvas, allowing you to freely move in and out of ideas.
6. Image editing
• Make your images even more stunning with advanced image editing. 
7. Reuse
• Explore our huge library of reusable prezis and templates.
8. Privacy control
• Our premium programs give you a range of privacy control options.
9. File types
• Prezi works with the popular file types you already use, saving you tons of time and effort.

Use in Business

Prezi’s use in business is to offer a tool that will allow employees to create high quality presentations that will effectively accomplish the goal of that presentation. Determining if Prezi is selected over PowerPoint to create a presentation is a choice made by the individual employee. Adam Noar efficiently describes the pros and cons to both Prezi and power point in his article “PowerPoint vs. Prezi | What’s The Difference?” I believe the provide a reasonable overview of the Pros and Cons with both software options.

PowerPoint Advantages 1)    User friendly – technically PowerPoint is very simple to use. Microsoft office programs (PowerPoint, Word, and Excel) are taught in school, so most people have at least some familiarity of how the software works. 2)    Control – PowerPoint provides seemingly endless possibilities when it comes to slide design. You can choose from an endless amount of colors, fonts, graphics, and backgrounds. 3)    Builds, transitions, and animations – you can use these visual enhancements to add to the explanatory power of the presentation and also enhance your visuals. 4)    Hyperlinks – allows you to click on a link and be taken directly to the links location on the web or somewhere else in the presentation. 5)    Syncs with SlideShare – lets you upload your presentation to the web so anyone can view your presentation online. 6)    Can print handouts of the slides – allows people to follow along without having to focus on writing notes on the presentation. 7)    Charts and Tables – helps you present various sets of data.

PowerPoint Disadvantages 1)    Linear format – some people complain how PowerPoint follows a script (linear) format, and is not easily adaptable to an audience when needed. Getting to a specific slide, once the presentation has begun, can sometimes be difficult. 2)    Large file size – PowerPoint can create really large files, especially when images, audio, and video are added. This can sometimes make emailing a pain. However, users can easily use cloud storage websites such as Dropbox to share larger file sizes.

Prezi Advantages 1)    Zoom – Prezi’s unique differentiation is it’s zoom function. This allows the presenter to simply click the background with the mouse and the presentation zooms out to an overview, then the presenter can zoom into the area they please. This allows you to explore ideas smoothly and naturally. In other words, if you want to “zoom in” for emphasis you can. If you want more detail you can zoom in again and then once you’re in a specific area you can “pan” to expand on that idea or gain more detail. 2)    Non-linear – allows the presenter to choose his/her own paths. In other words, users can jump in and out ideas and are given more flexibility when presenting ideas. 3)    Sharing – can share presentations online with up to 10 audience members which make collaborating on projects easy.

Prezi Disadvantages 1)    Limited design options – limited backgrounds to choose from and each has pre-chosen fonts and colors that can’t be changed. 2)    Cost – for an offline version to use on a desktop, one would have to pay $159/year! While there is a student discount version provided online, it still offers limited file space and storage. 3)    Dizziness – often times Prezi users can over use the zoom function which can ultimately take away from the message of the presentation. Too much zooming and too much panning can ultimately make users feel sick. 4)    Learning curve – while Prezi is fairly simple in nature, it does take some time getting used to. Many people like to stay within their comfort zone, and Prezi is outside that zone for many non-designers. However, the software is fairly easy to learn if you’re willing to put in the practice.

Assessment

Prezi does have a place in business operations generally and should be used before PowerPoint in creative industries. With all things being equal, Prezi can create a more visually appealing presentation that PowerPoint is able to. Prezi can create a WOW factor PowerPoint is not able to duplicate. This advantage creates better comprehension of the information presented and an increased likelihood the goal of the presentation will be accomplished.

However, there is an opportunity cost with using Prezi. The software takes time and practice to understand its features and efficiently create a presentation. Presenting on Prezi also takes practice to adjust to and take advantage of the freedom of movement through ideas it allows. Employees are typically far more practiced in creating, presenting, and are more comfortable using PowerPoint. PowerPoint is also software that will not be overtaken by a technologically superior Prezi software. PowerPoint has regular upgrades by Microsoft to keep the it current.

My Experience

I have used Prezi 3 to 5 times previously and have enjoyed using it and discovering the features it has that are different from PowerPoint. The most significant difficulty I had was keeping track of where information was placed on the canvas. I also did not like the transcript feature. The transcript of what text I had written was impossible to follow and nonsensical. I would certainly use Prezi again if I had time to play with it.

However, I am far more practiced and efficient using PowerPoint and will continue to use it to create all of my presentations. While Prezi was more fun to use, creating any presentation is still work, and I typically want to complete it quickly. I also believe it is easier, given my experience, to present using a PowerPoint. I also think PowerPoint has an undeserved reputation as being boring, but that is because people do not take full advantage of the features it can provide. If I had equal training on Prezi and PowerPoint I am sure I would select Prezi.

References 
Presentation Panda
Prezi
Wikipedia-Prezi