Excercise 1

I decided to use Target to analyze because I had worked for the company for a year while I was between jobs and was somewhat familiar with the organization. Its been more of interest to me of late because not only is it a place I continue to frequent but because the store model they use has changed greatly of late. When I was there a few years ago they would not allow produce in the store as a result of the fact that they would have to pay their employees a higher union wage. Somehow things have changed drastically recently, and I am certain that they are not paying their employees higher wages. Both Walmart and Target have taken to adding large produce and food sections in their stores and have not raised the wages of their staff. I was very curious to see what people were saying.
Primarily Target has used its own website to keep in contact with the people who are using the store. I started to do further research on the store to see if I could find their presence in other places. I did find a few blogs for people who were highly appreciative of Target though blogspot and other blogging sites. One was slavetotarget and yet another was target-addict. Their blogs were designed with not only giving Target a boost as they love the store but for avid shoppers who were interested in learning what a great weekly special might be. And as any good Target shopper knows, their best deals are not in the ad, but found on the back of the aisles in the clearance areas. Target stores release items for clearance simulataneously so if you cannot find an item on a clearance aisle at your local store there might be one farther away that has an incredible deal.
Target does maintain a facebook presence where they publish all of the in store sales that they have each week. They also have other various tabs set up in facebook including a facebook discussion tab for Target stores. What I did find in the tabs were a lot of people who were discussing topics back and forth with very little input from a Target representative. They did, however, discuss emails that they did receive back from Target to queries that they had.
One such complaint found on the discussion board had to do with Target's support of some Republican candidate for the Minnesota governor's race. While being largely diplomatic throughout the email response that this one person received, Target defended its decision to support a candidate by saying that they give equal money to both Democrats and Republicans. I found the answer fascinating as it was likely to please absolutely no one. If someone is displeased that you gave money or support to one side, saying that you gave money to their side too is unlikely to assuage their disappointment in your company.
I believe ultimately that while Target is on the social media sites of note, that their presence is more of a way to increase their advertising of their poduct and has very little to do with actually communicating with the people who use their products.