COMM 470 Week 5

COMM 470 Week 5
Learning Team Social Media Tools in E-Commerce
Your presentation in Week Four was a success, and the executive wants more. Your team now has the task of helping him launch a new e-commerce unit.
Write a 2,100- to 2,800-word paper that accomplishes the following:
·         Explain how new social media tools may be used to distribute messages to consumers and clients.
·         Explain how to determine the best tools to use in specific situations.
·         Analyze the ethical issues involved in social media use and how to address them. The analysis should include the following:
o    Security concerns, such as identity theft
o    Credibility, maintaining trust and honestly in marketing and advertising, product reviews, and comments
o    Privacy and sharing private information without consent
o    Maintaining reputation
·         Outline the formal documents needed to launch the new e-commerce unit: the executive summary, business description, operations plan, financial plan, marketing plan, and competitor analysis. Outlines should consist of the following:
o    Thorough lists of the document contents
o    Brief descriptions of each part of the document
Support each step with research, such as examples and case studies.
Format your paper according to APA standards.
COMM 470 Discussion Questions
In general, what ethical challenges exist in e-commerce that do not exist in traditional business? If the ethical challenges are the same, which challenges require more or different attention in e-commerce?
When Electronic Commerce 2008 discusses starting a new online business, the authors indicate that an e-commerce start-up is, fundamentally, a start-up. In other words, it shares the same challenges as a traditional business. Is this true? To be more specific, how does the e-commerce component change the challenges in starting a new business?
Put yourself into the role of an e-marketer. What new communications techniques or capabilities would you like to have available in the next 5 years and why
The online market changes quickly. What role should a business plan play in such a volatile environment?
Among other social media tools, Chapter 18 of Electronic Commerce 2008 discusses wikis. Changing someone's words in a traditional book, for example, might range from being rude to legally actionable. You would not do so without asking the author, but this is not the case in a wiki.  How do wikis complicate issues of intellectual property, or of manners and ethics?
The advent of the Internet and, more specifically, the World Wide Web, has changed the concept of the value of information. Much information that used to cost the consumer (such as product catalogs and technical papers) is now free at the click of a mouse.
Other information that was normally free (such as magazine and newspaper articles that could be copied for personal use) now has a fee attached. In addition, we now have significant ongoing litigation regarding consumers’ rights to authored works, such as songs, pictures, and books. What do you believe should be your rights as a consumer to information on the Internet? Discuss this question from the point of view of an e-business and of a producer of an authored work.