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TikTok has been the up-and-coming social media platform for quite a while now. It has been by far the most successful short-form video service since the death of vine, and many teen users have been flocking like seagulls to the new platform. Just like we were talking about in a previous class, people tend to move on from platform to platform for many reasons. This move might be because of the integration with Facebook and Instagram, or it might be because Snapchat isn't holding up as well as it once was. Either way, I am sure that adults will soon flock to the platform as well, causing kids to cringe at that friend request from mom like always.

LinkedIn had a massive win recently over user privacy. Ubenonse to us, there has been a company (hiQ Labs) that has been gathering or "scraping" user data from LinkedIn users in order to use it for their own app. Although this is a big win for LinkedIn, that might not mean the same for us. Linkedin did not have a clause in their user agreement for third-party companies like hiQ to take our information without our permission. This is why LinkedIn was able to sue and win. Other companies might not have these same protections for us. Just another reason to be sure that you are aware that any information that you put out on the internet can be found and collected whether you like it or not.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of months, Twitter has been the talk of the town since the deal between Twitter and Elon Musk has been made public. It was almost impossible to avoid headlines about the intricacies and drama that came with this deal. Now, as of October 27th, Elon Musk owns Twitter, and it has not stopped the headlines. From cutting around half of the workforce to starting a paid subscription, Twitter has already started changing, some say for the better, and others for the worse. A paid subscription to Twitter might give us some added benefits, like promises to not collect data on us however, details like this have not been shared publicly, to my knowledge.

I wish that I had read these chapters before I decided to do my client project step 4. The information provided in these chapters would have helped me flesh out some of the things that I was recommending to my client. However, now that I have a more complete understanding of the relationship between a business and its customer base online, I will be sure to implement the things that I have learned in these chapters in future assignments. Overall the chapters would have been a really big help with the client project but I will still attempt to use the information to the best of my abilities in the future.

Step 4 of the client project was a lot of fun. I was able to get a lot more information on the topic of growing a community compared to the previous step. I was able to make better recommendations to my client because I was able to get more information about this topic. This step was also a lot easier to do because my client had already done a lot of the things that were talked about in Hootsuite. Things like brand influencers and ambassadors were easy to find because of the nature of the business. Contests were also easy because my client already has contests, just not on social media. It was easier for me to find creative solutions to move some of these contests online and to find a way to compensate the people that participated.

After watching the lecture on Big Data, I was surprised at just how new some of these hacking issues are. I currently work for Target, and during my orientation, we were told about the "hack" that happened to Target's system. I believe that under that specific circumstance, I wouldn't call it a hack and more of a scam. The usernames and passwords used to get the data were given away willingly by Target employees because they were tricked. We now have the training to stop these things from happening like most companies like Walmart. But to call the data breach a hack is completely untrue. As a business, measures need to be put in place to make sure that big data is not being breached by vendors, employees, or even customers. As a consumer, you must be aware that, at any point, your data can be compromised if you give it to any business, no matter how big or how small. The best way to balance opportunities and threats presented by the development of big data is to protect the data at all costs and make sure there is a plan if the data were to be breached.

I thoroughly enjoyed client project 3. It got me completely invested in my client's business. It was enjoyable thinking about the steps they can take in order to expand their social media outreach. I noticed that my client did not have much information when it came to the data that I needed to collect for the assignment, so I had to instead recommend ways to get that information. My client is a Band, so their target demographic is students and parents, so it was not hard to recommend certain practices in order to get to their target audience efficiently. Overall I learned a lot about my client, and I hope that they use the advice that I gave them to become more successful on social media in the future.

At first, I was like the bank robbers. I had no idea what BeReal was. I knew that my cousin had one, but I didn't know anything else about it. I had a feeling that I was getting older and social media was growing in front of my eyes without me. I felt like the parents and grandparents of my generation, getting left behind on Facebook. This skit was pretty funny, but it was also informative about what this new social media app was. I find it weird that everyone just stopped what they were doing to take a two-way picture, but I'm sure the app is cool. I believe that this app preys on people's fear of missing out. Since you can only post once a day, people are impatiently waiting for that BeReal notification to pop up. I also find it weird that the app notifies others when you miss the scheduled time but still post anyways. This is just another way that the app preys on people's fear of missing out. This skit also pokes fun at the fact that people post things without thinking about the repercussions of their actions. Just as the bank robber posed about how he was robbing a bank, I am sure that many people have posted things on the app that they now regret.

This is a big step for both social media privacy and protecting the right to abortion in California. I am very proud that states are still doing everything in their power to protect the right to abortion after Roe V. Wade and this is just icing on the cake for California. Many people seeking abortions in America have to leave their states in order to perform an abortion legally. However, this is not stopping some states from making sure that doesn't happen. This law will stop one of the avenues these states are using in order to prosecute people that travel to a different state for a legal abortion. Although this news is great to hear for some of us, we still need to be careful about what information we put out on the internet. The article also states "Even if consumers are careful, however, tech companies can in many cases be ordered by a court to hand over user information, even if they don’t want to." So keep this in mind when doing anything over the internet. Stay safe out there.

Throughout the course of this class so far, I have noticed how little I use social media professionally. Other than this class, I have never used social media for any class projects, let alone for any business purpose. I have accounts on all of the popular social media apps and haven't posted on any of them in over a year. I think an excellent first step for me will be making a professional LinkedIn profile. As of the time of posting this, I do not have a LinkedIn profile, and I believe it will be very important to get a job in the future.

I believe that one of the most essential qualities for a Social Media consultant to have is a good sense of communication. Both in business and in social media. Having good communication is essential to almost any job. However, I believe that communicating effectively through social media with business partners and potential clients helps businesses grow on social media. Communicating through social media can be incredibly different from communicating person to person; in most cases, you will not know the person you are communicating with personally. An example of good communication using social media is Wendy's. They have become very successful on Twitter, with almost 4 million followers, and it is easy to see why. They know their audience and how to get their attention. They know what posts to respond to and how to respond to them.

I found a lot of interesting information in the reading The Internet's Original Sin. One of the most interesting points that I read was that Ethan Zuckerman, one of the people that made some of the internet's first ads, had good intentions. These ads did not start out the way that they are today. Ethan wanted to make money on the internet, and most other avenues were not working, so his website went to selling ads. At first, there were very innocent forms of collecting information like just analyzing the person's home page and getting ads that fit their style. However, as the internet and technology advanced the avenues that people were able to get information advanced. They are now able to know almost anything about you. If you doubt this just go to your ad settings on google and there will be a massive amount of information about yourself. After watching Maciej's talk I went and checked out my ad settings as well, and I was very surprised at both the accuracy and inaccuracy of some of the things that I found. I found things like boating, motorcycles, parenting, and potty training. All of these things are inaccurate, but it is also weird how much stuff they got right. They know both my major and minor without me giving them that information willingly, and they know that I had taken a trip to Ohio recently based on my google maps. All of this information true or not was taken without my express knowledge other than accepting the terms of service. If that doesn't seem shady to you I don't know what is.

Big data is a very powerful tool that can be used for many different purposes. Some of the uses for this tool can be very toxic to our personal lives and to the communities around us. As the 60 minutes segment went into, big data can be used to gather information on us that we might not want other people to know. Things like addictions, STDs, and mental illnesses, all of this information tracking is done without our knowledge or with our minimal understanding of how the data collection works. I think that personally collecting this data would not be as bad if we were told upfront that it was happening. Many social media users, like myself, do not really care if these companies have our information. It helps them know what ads might pique my interest so I can look at Nike shoes that fit my tastes. However, without that knowledge of what these companies are selling, we could be giving very sensitive information unknowingly that might pull us back towards things like gambling or addiction. I think there should be some realistic limits regarding data tracking. It should be based on giving consumers a chance to know what information is being collected before we indulge in their form of social media.

I believe that both views on social media and phones are good in the context of the time in which the interview and video were taken. However, with the evolution of social media and the recent Covid pandemic, these views are a bit outdated. I will start with the Louis C.K. video. I fully agree with what he is getting at with the point of loneliness. But with the pandemic, I believe that our society would be incredibly different without social media. So many people developed symptoms of depression during the pandemic, myself included. Social media was a place where we could get meaningful connections in a time when you couldn't go out to a restaurant with a group of friends, go to a park with your parents, or meet new people. Social media bridged the gap between family and friends that the pandemic made. Heck, my grandmother, brother, and many other family members wouldn't have been able to watch me graduate from high school without my mother being like those parents at the school dance with their phones out. I think that Sherry Turkle's ideas were also suitable for 2013. However, I am sure that her views on the importance of social media and online schooling have changed because of the pandemic.

For my social media experiment, I decided to eliminate my time on social media both before work and during breaks at work. I noticed that before work, I was more productive. I spent more time working on school assignments instead of watching Youtube or scrolling through TikTok and Instagram. However, this led me to spend more time after work getting caught up on all of the things that I had missed during the day. I ended up staying up later than I usually do and sleeping in for longer the next day. The biggest change came at work during breaks. I would normally go out to my car and scroll through TikTok while on break. Instead, I went to the break room and had a great conversation with one of my co-workers. Although I will not be keeping this change to my social media use, I will be using the break room more often at work. It feels good to be more connected to my co-workers instead of scrolling on my phone.

With the massive expanses of social media in the 20th century, it is hard to deny that it has had and will have an impact on many generations both in the past and through the future. Clay had shown many great examples of how social media has changed the way we communicate both with other people and with our government officials and the governments themselves. I would like to outline his example of Barack Obama's website and how Obama did the right thing by not censoring his own supporters. It was almost the exact opposite of what China did to its opposition. Obama was able to respond to the feedback that he received without censorship or silencing the people that he had disagreed with without changing his own point of view. Although I was not one of the people that he disagreed with I am sure that they respected him for allowing them to voice their opinions without fear of being silenced let alone arrested like Clay's example of the Chinese. I think that in today's culture it is too easy to silence the people that you disagree with. Almost every form of social media has a block button. However, I also believe that it is necessary for certain content to be restricted that may cause people harm or even cause people to harm others. A balance is needed in order to have a safe space for people to express their ideas without that power going into the hands of people that will abuse it.

Hello, my name is Alex Grice. I am a psychology major at CMU. I live in Midland and commute to campus every Tuesday and Thursday. I hope to one day create my own business to help people with their illnesses both mental and physical. I hope that with this blog I will get the courage to continue to write and grow.