Janie Mitchell

I think that there are many challenges any client could face when implementing recommendations. As said in the video, members or higher ups of an organization allow communities to fulfill their purposes. I think that my client may struggle with this particularly as new people are in charge of the social media accounts of the organization each semester. There are different opinions or levels of confidence by each person, so aligning with their goals will be extremely important for them to be successful.

I also think that my client may struggle with spreading their wings and opening up to other social media platforms. They have always only used one social media platform, Instagram, but the majority of their target audience is on LinkedIn. I hope that they take the risk and expand to this platform.

After completing modules 3 & 4 in Hootsuite, I learned how effective content can be created and shared. Content is extremely important because social media users can perceive it in different types of ways.

Creating a content strategy is important to reach your organization’s goals. For example, creating a content calendar will hold structure around reaching the organization’s goals. This has to be consistent and specific with one person in charge. In addition, it should be easily accessible for whoever needs to use it.

The overall goal of a content calendar is for it to be easy to access, specific, and cover all of the social media used by the company. If there is a blog post that the organization has made, use that to take specific quotes from the post to share more content. The content should also be meaningful. There is a difference between having content and having meaningful content. More content is not always best, so ensure it is intentional.

There are many effective principles on online community building with social media. As a social media consultant, expert, or someone trying to effectively promote on social media, there needs to be collaboration with the target market and steps taken to successfully complete realistic goals.

After reading Chapter 4 of The Social Organization, the “Six F” Model of Attitudes Toward Social Media stood out to me. These include, rolly, fearful, flippant, formulating, forging and fusing (Bradely). More specifically, fearful and formulating. The fearful aspect is where people see social media as a “threat to productivity, intellectual capital, privacy, management authority, or regulatory compliance” (Bradley). I see this fearful aspect becoming more apparent as we learn more about big data. An organization needs to be intentional with their promotions on social media in order to reach these customers. The formulating aspect combines “both the value of community collaboration and the need to be more organized and strategic in its use” (Bradely). I think this stands out because we see so many brands/organizations every day through social media, so the organization and meaning behind the post has to be well thought out to reach the customers.

After reading Chapter 5 of The Social Organization, the beginning of the chapter stood out to me the most with “The Importance of Purpose.” The way that posts are worded and how they look can send a certain message to customers that you may not want. The importance of a well thought out post and a better understanding of how different people perceive it differently is extremely important to online community building with social media.

After completing the Hootsuite module, I better understand how important it is to be organized. Social media is a fast moving industry, and if you are not organized as a consultant. If you can’t keep up it is going to be really hard to stay on top of everything for your clients. Creating a strategy in how you will do this will help you stay organized along with a content calendar.

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After watching “The Legal Side of Big Data,” I believe that businesses should be aware and constantly working towards the security of their customers’ data. For example, in the lecture, the speaker talked about a few times where there was a security breach of a company’s data. I remember specifically when Target had a security breach and thousands of customers’ credit card information was stolen. Customers may be hesitant to shop at places if they are unsure of their personal information (address, credit card, etc.) being stolen. Businesses should be transparent and proactive in protecting their customers as this is becoming more and more common.

Consumers should be aware of the risks in using their credit cards and/or sharing their personal information when they shop at places. Doing research and being proactive themselves, they can possibly avoid being caught up in a data breach. They also need to be aware of what information they are giving away while shopping with a business. Consumers also need to be proactive in checking their credit card statements daily and seeing if their identity has been stolen. Although it is hard to balance the threats and opportunities of big data, being educated and aware of the consequences, good or bad, is the most important thing.

After reading “The Internet’s Original Sin” and watching “The Legal Side of Big Data,” I learned about how the internet business models influence surveillance and data gathering on the internet. For businesses to reach customers and make more money, they need to gather information on you to sell to other data companies and learn how to better market to you. Big data has been an unknown and a learning experience for everyone, so creating regulations will help protect consumers. It is going to continue to be a learning experience, but without regulations, the threats will just continue to grow.

References: 

https://chipcast.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=4fe95594-73e5-4b1a-8a3c-83896b88b6d9

https://vimeo.com/102717446

I believe that algorithms may be the biggest impact in why fake news gets spread around. I think this was very relevant in the past two presidential elections. My social media feed was blowing up with “news” about the candidates and it is quite difficult to identify if it is real or not. The popularity of the posts being made cause the algorithm to share that with others due to so much traction on the posts. It is clear in this article, https://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/facebook-fake-news-misinformation-more-clicks-read-user-2020-us-elections-twitter-google-2529546 , that the algorithms are a catalyst for the spread of misinformation, especially in late when it has to come to elections.

Advertising, to me, is the most noticeable outcome of using social media. As said in the article, https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/three-reasons-junk-news-spreads-so-quickly-across-social-media/ , “This is why social media accounts are “free” to use; individuals who sign up for their services pay with their personal information” (Howard & Bradshaw 2). I have become a lot more aware of the consequences of using social media and the whole concept of understanding why it is not actually “free.” I experience this daily by scrolling through my feeds and seeing advertisements. Occasionally, I will have to wait to watch an advertisement in order to keep scrolling. The majority of the time these advertisements are geared towards my recent search history.

I also relate to the explanation of exposure in the article. I am pretty one sided on my political beliefs, and with the example in the article of, “The partisanship explanation suggests that people pay attention to political content that fits an ideological package that they already subscribe to. If they’ve already expressed a preference for a particular candidate, they will select messages that strengthen, not weaken, that preference” (Howard & Bradshaw 2). I pay attention to what I would like to see on social media, especially when it comes to politics, and I ignore it and don’t read the post or watch the video, if it doesn’t match my views most often. Overall, I think that this sometimes is negative, because it limits the diversity of what I am seeing on my newsfeed.  

I believe that a social media consultant should be driven & motivated, and should strive to make each client's vision and goals come to life through their social media pages. Being a social media consultant is time consuming and no easy task, but they need to be available to aid their client’s needs. A social media consultant should also have a strong willingness to learn. They need to understand their clients' market and target market, so they have to strive to research and learn about each customer.

For me personally, if I was a social media consultant to myself, I would need to start with posting more on social media. If I want to have a strong presence, I need to actually post to get people’s attention. My focus would be with my experience on LinkedIn to create a stronger professional presence on a professional social media platform. I think that along with making my own posts about my professional experience and involvements, I would also focus on sharing posts/articles that I believe are intentional and educational.

Although I have potential to increase my professional social media presence, I have made posts on LinkedIn before. After each of my internships, I have made a post about my experience and learnings through both of those experiences. I have also shared posts with several events I have participated in like a case competition that contributes to my professional experience and development.

Big data and algorithms are such powerful tools because they have the ability to understand you as a person, further than just what your bio information says. Each click that you make on social media or the internet may seem harmless to you, but those clicks are being stored as “big data.” This big data is stored and used while you are on the internet.

This is dangerous because, what happens if this data gets into the hands of the wrong person? From your health information, finances, and other personal information. If it does get in the hands of the wrong people, your small window of privacy is shattered. This could prevent you from getting certain jobs based on your actions, or your data being used in a malicious way.

The social media platform that scares me the most with its algorithm is TikTok. More specifically the “for you page.” I have been using the app for a little over 3 years and as I change, so does my for you page. It is so specific to my personality and likes, and I find the majority of the videos extremely relatable to my life that it is sometimes concercing with how spot on it is.

I decided to shape my experiment of altering my social media use to not using social media for three eight-hour periods. I did this over the span of three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). My ultimate goal during this experiment was to be in the moment of what I was doing through minimal distractions. Social media and the general use of my phone is often the most distracting for me and shifts my attention away from what I am doing.

My first day of refraining from social media was not too difficult. I competed in a case competition, so I did not have much of a choice of whether I went on my phone or not. During our breaks throughout the day, instead of going straight to my phone to check the latest status update, I took that time to network with other individuals. If I was not doing this experiment, I still think I would have taken time to network with people, but in moments like going to the bathroom or during lunch, I am sure I would have been checking my social media accounts.

My second day of refraining from social media was a lot harder than the first day. I had a lot more downtime today, so it was hard to not go straight to TikTok for hours on end. Since I didn’t have much of a choice on what to do, I was a lot more productive than I would have been had I decided to go on social media. I ended up running some errands, cleaning my room and apartment, as well as going for a walk. In my previous social media log, I had gone on a walk and had spent some of the walk taking pictures. This time around I really enjoyed being present on the walk with my roommate. Today was a hard day to not be lazy and turn to social media as my activities for the day, but I realized how productive I could be without it.

My last day of refraining from social media for eight hours was easier than yesterday, but harder than the first day again because I also had some downtime. I was able to get a lot of homework done in a shorter amount of time than I usually do. It is pretty obvious this is because I wasn’t constantly checking my phone. I was able to take another walk and not be distracted.

I have always known my social media use has consumed most of my days, especially when I get the notification on my iPhone of my “daily screen time,” which is quite disturbing. I have been on social media since I was 12 years old, and I have never looked back. I can’t say that I enjoy reflecting on my social media use, but it’s because I truly don’t want to admit that I am on it so often and in a “social media chokehold.”

The first thing I do in the morning when I wake up is open up TikTok. I usually check my other social media apps as well (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) prior to getting out of bed. I enjoy being updated on what’s going on with other people, whether that’s friends or family daily. I would say daily, social media positively influences my life, but long term, I think there are a lot more negative impacts. The biggest negative impact for myself is constantly comparing myself to others on social media. I am completely aware that a lot of what is posted on social media is deceiving and often not as great as it seems, but it still consumes me.

Having access to the Internet constantly has its benefits and negative impacts. As far as being a college student, having access to the Internet is definitely a benefit. There are endless resources and tools to aid my studies that add value to being a student. There are moments where I wish I didn’t have access to the Internet. This feeling is mostly present when I am with a group of people. Having constant availability to the Internet has an output of usually using it often. I wish I didn’t have access to the Internet in moments where I am trying to disconnect.

Two instances that I have not had constant access to the Internet was when I went on a mission trip in the Dominican Republic and when I studied abroad in Thailand. When I went to the Dominican Republic I was with a group of people that I did not know, so having very limited access to the Internet allowed me to fully connect with them. I felt present with the group I was with and fully involved myself in the trip. I had a similar feeling when I studied abroad. I could fully take in the new culture I was in without having to worry about what the latest trend was on social media.

Hello everyone, 

I am currently studying Marketing and Logistics Management with a minor in Information Systems. I am from the Detroit area and have always been involved in all things CMU. I have always been interested in Supply Chain and have had the opportunity to work for Kimberly Clark and Ford Motor Company during my college career. As soon as I knew I wanted to go into Logistics, my ultimate goal was to secure an internship and full-time position with Ford Motor Company. I have successfully completed these goals that I had for when I graduate. 

Personal goals that I have after graduation include pursuing my MBA in Supply Chain by the time that I am 25 years old. I think this will help me on the path of my never ending goals of expanding my business acumen, better understanding Supply Chain and continuous learning. 

A company that I believe does well with its use of social media is American Eagle. I am constantly drawn to their social media posts and advertisements due to their ability to bring inclusivity into their products. From Chapter 3, Becoming a Social Organization, American Eagle has exemplified developing an organizational vision for community collaboration through applying an understanding of their organization’s goals and culture (Bradley). Their ability to bring different races, body sizes, and ages together to buy their products is shown through this. 

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