SHELBY - P.R. STUDENT

As I finish my time up in my social media classes this year, I realize that I know what social media looks like now. However, I don't know what that means for my future in social media or for social media in general.

I think social media will continue to be the most dominating aspect in marketing. everyday media seems to change and evolve. something that’s for the better, like tiktok, but it might get worse.

The biggest change, for the worse, that comes to mind is currently what’s happening with twitter. Twitter was one of the most popular and dominating social media ever. To see it change almost overnight was crazy to see. especially as an avid twitter user myself. The platform seemed untouchable. I think this really opened my eyes to just how unpredictable a job in this industry will be.

I've learned to be prepared for literally anything. including the downfall of what we all consider to be an empire in the social media would.

I believe this is the first of many and may be the future of social media. The industry is going to only become more saturated and competitive. something that might ultimately end other well established social media. tiktok is a great example of that. it came out of nowhere and has proactively taken over the social media industry. 

The world of social media can be hard to navigate. It's fast-paced and ever-evolving. If you try to navigate it entirely on your own, you're likely to get lost and fail. That's okay though because there are hundreds upon thousands of social media tools that have been developed to help with this.

Of course, you probably know about the basics already. There's your built-in analytics, Hootsuite, Sprinkle, etc. I have another blog on this if you're curious. However, what about social media tools that are specific to certain social media?

TweetDeck, for example, is a social media tool made specifically to help understand and manipulate twitter. If you didn't know, it is the 10th biggest social media site with roughly 217 million active users. That can be incredibly daunting, which is why TweetDeck is a very helpful tool.

With this tool you can do a wide variety of things. Firstly, it allows you to monitor multiple things all in one spot and at the same time, For instance, when orea made their infamous dunk in the dark tweet, they may have been using this TweetDeck to see exactly what was going on. Why did the power outage happen, is it a dangerous situation, would a humorous joke be appropriate in the moment? Being able to look at multiple timelines on twitter would make this much easier. You can also have set tweetdecks and even multiple ready to go at all times. Even on a day to day basis this is helpful for a brand. You can have your timeline, your notifications and your direct messages all in one spot. Making it easy to monitor daily interactions.

I highly suggest that if you actively use twitter to look up the tool and test it out. Even if it’s only your personal account so you can familiarize yourself with the tool.

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Social Media can be a complicated thing. It's fast-paced and constantly evolving. Whether you're along for the ride or not. That's why it's so important to know your media in and out. One way to achieve this is by using your social media analytics as a tool to get specific data on how your content is doing. It can tell you what’s working well for your company, what isn’t, and how to fix the problem. Without it, you’d be going blind, which is definitely not a good strategy because you’re very likely to miss the mark. 

Your social media analytics can show you almost anything, with a few exceptions of course. Most media sites, like Instagram and Facebook, have built in analytics that you can use. These tools show you pretty basic things such as likes, comments, views and interactions. These are great resources to help you begin your journey to understanding how your content is performing. 

There’s other sites that you can use as well to help see and understand your analytics. Hootsuite, Sprinklr, and Social Searcher to name a few. These platforms are much more advanced than the basic stuff you already have built in. You can look at key-words, hashtags, positive, negative, and neutral interactions, and spikes in activity. These analytics are imperative to making sure your content does well. These give you a much bigger picture for your content. 

While media has been an amazing platform for connection and education, it's also been a breeding ground for unethical opinions. casual misogyny and racism are not odd to see on any platform. There's not much that can be done about this most of the time, though we are seeing platforms such as Twitter and Facebook start to tolerate this less. However, anyone with a position of power should always be aware of what they're saying and how they're saying it. Whether that's on their personal account and especially on their company account. This can be detrimental to your career and life if you don't.

An example of this is the Korean artist's BTS. recently exploding in the west back in 2017 with their song DNA, the group has faced a plethora of racist remakes from everyone but especially from the media. Their fanbase, often referred to as ARMY, did not accept this laying down. Panelists on an Australian tv show named 20 to One caught massive hate back on June 19th, 2019 when the hosts, Erin Molan and Nick Cody, made many racists remarks such as referring to the band as "the South Korean One Direction" and guest host and comedian, Jimmy Carr stating that "When I first heard something Korean had exploded in America, I got worried, so I guess it could have been worse—but not much worse.” ARMY, and many nonfans, were disgusted by the remarks made and trended #Channel9Apologize on Twitter later with over 100K tweets demanding the show hosts apologize.

They finally responded on the 20th with the statement, “As a lighthearted entertainment program, it is our belief that last night’s episode of 20 to One, which highlighted the ‘Greatest Global Crazes,’ did not breach any broadcast regulations and was intended to humorously highlight the popularity of the group,” and that, “We apologize to any who may have been offended by last night’s episode.” This non-apology was not taken well and people demanded a better one. The channel responded with another apology, a little better than the 1st but still not great, with the statement, "we apologize for any disrespect and offense taken."

This half-assed apology was also not received well and social media users expressed their disappointment in the channel for not owning up to its mistakes. Not only are the offensive remarks permanently stained on their record but their awful response to the outcry of anger is as well. If you do happen to mess up on social media, we're not perfect after all, responding by doubling down on your unethical statements is not the way to go. people appreciate authenticity and respect. You and your company are more likely to be forgiven when you do. Meanwhile, 20 to one will now always be known as the racist show that doesn't care about its watchers.