#gcweb17

This summer I am enrolled in a class called Web for Mass Communication in which we are studying a book called Socialnomics by Eric Qualman. Here is the catch...I ACTUALLY ENJOY THE BOOK-the one that was assigned-for a class-crazy right? This book has real life situations pertaining to social media and how much of an impact it has on everyday lives. Social media impacts what products we buy, what food we eat, even dating. It is kinda crazy how much we rely on it. The scary part is that people use social media as an excuse to be very informal and oftentimes rude politically, socially, and gramatically.

Social media can be good however. It connects people who may not otherwise get to connect. It allows companies to advertise and build up a support system for times of crisis.

Qualman builds on things I already knew by making basic connections to allow me to learn more about this powerful tool. People are facinated by social meida-without it we feel lost and disconnected. Qualman helps to explain why this is.

Do you post your political views on social media? How does it make you feel when others disagree in a hostile way (if you do post your views)? This is something that my class has been discussing and I would love to read your views on the subject.

I personally do not mind posting my political views on social media, and I enjoy seeing politicians posts. It is good to know what is going on around me and how other people feel about what is going on.

I am really enjoying this book so far, and am excited to read more. I hope that you all continue reading my blog and leave me comments on your thoughts.

Twitter, everybody knows about it, everyone has a different opinion on it, but have you ever actually thought about what inspired Twitter or how useful of a tool it can become? I’m sure, much like myself, you’ve focused on Twitter for funny memes, keeping up with friends, and subtweeting about exboyfriends, so i’m here to enlighten you on what exactly Twitter is.

Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. These gentleman worked for a podcasting company, Odeo, and spent a day brainstorming for what we now know as Twitter. Twitter is considered a hub for fast, efficient, breaking online news. As most people know, you are alloted only 140 characters, but that typically is a good thing, because no one wants to be reading novels. 

Check out this video for an overview of how exactly Twitter works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvFCBxm-mX

Not only does Twitter give people a platform for communication, it also has many useful features. They offer a “connect” tab, where you are able to find people that you may know or that may fit within your interests that you can follow. 

My personal favorite feature of Twitter is the “trends for you” tab. Its underneath the search bar and it gives you Twitter trending topics that may be interesting to you. That way you can see what breaking news stories are popular, without actually having to search for them. 

Along with this is also Twitter’s “today moments”, which give you an overview of different tweets from a variety of accounts, news sources, videos, etc. about a current breaking story. Its my favorite way to find my news. This tool is also very nifty for companies attempting to gain more social media traction, they can utilize trending topics to see where the conversation is at, then add on to it.

Now, you may be asking, how can Twitter help us in the mass communication industry? I found this super nifty site that states about nine reasons why Twitter is our best friend.

https://www.postplanner.com/blog/9-twitter-features/

Some that I felt were most important were:

1. Pin a Tweet permanantly. Twitter gives a user the ability to pin a tweet to the top of the page. This is a great feature because companies are able to pin a popular tweet or an important tweet to the top of their page, so more people see it. 

Have you ever utilized this feature before? I know I have when I think I’ve said something funny.

2. Twitter’s Advanced Search. This gives a user the ability to track who mentions you, find tweets based on location, phrases used, hashtags, languages that it is written in, and date that it was tweeted. This is definitely a useful tool to see where your key public is and to keep up with conversations.

3. Twitter analytics. This was not from the post planner list, but its a very useful tool. By signing on to Twitter on a desktop, users have the ability to see who views their page, how many views, how many people interacted with a tweet, and where they are located. Companies can utlize this to see how well their Twitter is doing and what changes they can make in order to reach more people.

Overall, Twitter is a very useful tool in the mass communication field for breaking news, keeping up with publics, make personal connections with consumers/fans, and guiding the conversation.

Here is some parting advice for the mass communication student living in the Twittersphere: https://www.poynter.org/2012/what-every-young-journalist-should-know-about-using-twitter/188408/

Today, I am blogging to you about some great advice give in the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. This brilliant man gives some really great points on what works and what does not. So...you guessed it! I’m gonna share some of my favorite parts with you (just to hold you over until your book comes in the mail, because I know you are dying to read it after you’ve heard how amazing it is... Let your Mass Comm self head to Amazon and nerd out.). I won’t lie to you; this is only my third blog post ever. However, I have fallen in love with it, and with great advice from Qualman, can I really go wrong?

Qualman makes some great points about blogging and lists out exactly what you need to know and do to have a successful blog.

One of the points he mentions is commitment. There must be a commitment from the blogger to the audience to write on things that the audience cares about, and to write often. They must commit to providing quality content, or else the readers may feel that the blogger no longer cares.

Another important point that Qualman lists is consistency.  Your audience will stick around if you cater to them. It is important to know who you are speaking to. To be successful, you must have an audience in the blogging world. You must be consistent with what you are talking about. One blog that does a great job with this is Sweet Southern Curls.

Something that always draws me into blogs first is how they look. Are they cute? Next I think about: Is it something that relates to my life? Will I enjoy reading this? (Don’t act like you don’t have little conversations with yourself like this one before watching that eight minute video that you grandma keeps sending you to watch).

One thing I love to see in other blogs are hyperlinks. Sometimes I want to learn more about what I have read about and this is such a great way to do so. My professor also encourages us to include them in our blogs, and I have had friends tell me how much they have enjoyed them without me even mentioning it to them!

Blogging can be hard and time consuming, but I think that it is such a great way to express how you feel and encourage conversations with others who may feel strongly about the same subject matter that you do.

How do you find new blogs to read? Have you ever tried blogging yourself? Will you incorporate some of Qualman’s points next time you blog? Are you more likely to read a blog that you found on Google or on social media?

Let me know how your blogs go, and leave me a link to them in the comments! I would love to read them.

Make sure to order Socialnomics by Erik Qualman so that you can read all about blogging, social media, and viral videos!

I downloaded twitter in high school and never really thought anything of it besides a fun app to see stories about things I am interested in. Advertising, politics and meaningful communication never really occurred to me, but now I clearly see the endless possibilities of Twitter. However, that being said I am still not a big fan of Twitter whatsoever and I can boil it down to 3 personal reasons why. 

1.  Contributors articles are restricted to 140 characters, they can’t edit anything to a tweet after it is published, it is almost impossible for readers to find newsworthy articles and creative gems by mixing them with tens of thousands of cat photos, selfies, and rants.

2.  Musicians cannot share their music on the site, and musicians are a huge reason why I use Twitter. Twitter forces them to send their fans to YouTube or some other place to listen to it. This goes the same for authors writings and politicians campaign speeches.

3.  The fact that users have to sign up as their own content providers and with the idea the their participation on the app is to attract other users to follow them. This make people feel like failures if they don’t find a large audience for their contributions.

WI had never been asked to use Hootsuite before this course. I came into the material not knowing anything and was a little intimidated at first. after a few quick lessons I learned that this tool can be extremely beneficial and has a lot of really cool features to offer. 

The main reason I would recommend Hootsuite to a business would be Hootsuite’s team management facility. Hootsuite allows you to delegate responses to different team members. For example if you receive 20 mentions in one day, the administrator can delegate each one to a different team member. When a team member is logged in, they’ll see which tasks have been allocated to them and not make the mistake of responding to a status that has already been replied to.

Weekly analytical reports are another really cool feature of Hootsuite. If you solely or mainly use Hootsuite to manage your Social networks, then you will find the weekly analytics report very useful. Each week, Hootsuite sends you an email with a pdf attachment of your click summaries. Hootsuite gives you graphs showing: 

1. Number of clicks per day

2.Geographical information on the people clicking through

3.Top referrers

4. Most popular links

Technology has consumed our lives. Is it adding adventure or taking us away from real life adventure.

Here is what I think. With social media people can explore places that they may not have otherwise explored. They can partake in Facebook Live posts, search pictures or hashtags on an adventure they yearn to go on, etc.

Some people think that technology, and specifically social media, takes away from life, but I think it enhanses it.

Technology allows us to share, ask, and explore all from the comfort of our homes, or anywhere really.

Social media allows us to use international calling for free to talk to those whom we would not otherwise be able to.

Social media allows us to watch a Facebook Live of our friend who is traveling in a jungle.

Social media provides us with adventurous games.

Social media helps us to make business connections to start our work adventure.

Stop shaming social media. It helps us so much. It helps those have an adventure who do not have the time or money to actually go out and partake in the experience in person.

Have you ever seen a 360 degree video? This allows us to see completly around the person who is filming. We have seen cities, country, and even underwater with this. Without a scuba certification, many people would have never experienced that adventure.

Social media is adventure. Embrace it.

This semester I used Twitter a lot, something what I had never done before. I never really understood what was so great about a social media that anyone could follow you, that had a very short character limit, and that people posted 24/7 on. After this semester, however, I realized that Twitter is so much more.

It is an effective and efficient form of communication that you can use anywhere that has internet. From your phone, you can connect with thousands of people. On Twitter, I was able to follow what my classmates were saying by simply searching the hashtag “#GCWeb17.” This was such an awesome feature to be able to use, because I was now able to find old Tweets that I may have found interesting with just a quick search.

It was such a great tool to use to just chat with classmates, ask my professor questions, and share my blogs. People would message me and let me know what they thought about my blogs which was super awesome.

Have you ever blogged and posted it on some type of social media? Will you start now that you know people might provide you with helpful feedback? What is your favorite feature of Twitter?

I personally am so in love with Twitter now, and do not see myself stop using it anytime soon. I am so glad that through this class I was able to learn how to efficiently and effectively communicate on Twitter. If you want to learn more on how to communicate through social media platforms such as Twitter, read Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics or Charlene Li’s book Groundswell. You will not be sorry, especially if you are a Mass Communication lover like me.

One of my favorite parts about Twitter is the “lists’ section. You can create a list based on things that you like such as fashion or business and then quickly and easily follow those pages when you are just looking for a quick read. Other people have created lists on interesting people to follow, so you should definitely follow those lists.

All in all, Twitter was a great experience and I am so happy that I learned how to better communicate with it.

As my summer semester comes to an end, I can’t help but to look back on all of the things that I learned. I learned how to better engage with my audience on social media, as well as how to do so in the most efficient manner possible. So it only felt right to do my final project on good and bad uses of social media.

I examined four companies, and used websites like Forbes, Galileo and their social media acounts to rate if they explored good or bad social media.

The four companies I examined were:

Capri Sun

Dominos

Wendy’s

Miracle House Macon

To examine and determine whether these companies had good or bad social media, I answered each of the following questions:

By putting deep thought into the research collected, I was able to evaluate the social media through these questions.

It was quite interesting for me to find that social media is not fully executed by all companies. It is such a popular tool nowadays that I cannot wrap my head around why a company would not use the tool to further their customer base.

Companies like Wendy’s have gotten a much larger following since the introduction of their witty Twitter posts, while Miracle House Macon does not even have one Tweet posted to the Twitter account link to their website.

Wendy’s found a way to engage with their customers and potential customers through quick replies on Twitter, and since has created a buzz throught the social media sphere.

All in all, I learned that social media is much more necessary than I originally thought for companies. If they want to connect with an audience and gain new customers, they must show that tey care through social media and engage.

Make sure to read Groundswell and Socialnomics before doing social media for a company. You will gain so much knowledge on how to simply make your social media better. You will learn how to be efficient and engaging like Wendy’s and Dominos, and learn how to connect unlike Miracle House Macon. Place as much importance on social media as you would your company.