Reflective Blog Post

This semester allowed me to learn much about social media and the way to use it correctly. Although I was always an advocate of social media, as well as a big user of the tool, I now know the right way to use it. I've learned how to advocate, promote, and advertise for free using social media when starting my business one day. In the future I plan on going into sports broadcasting, maybe radio or TV. Being on-air has been a dream of mine since I was young, and I firmly believe a good social media strategy will help me be better at this dream. If I do one day make it on the radio I plan to use my Twitter to keep discussion and argument going after my show. All in all, I know that social media is essential to my success in business and the broadcasting field, and learning to use it the positive way and not the negative way will forever help me in life.

Final Individual Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOTEyPIAv7E   


This is my final individual project, on how to create an effective sports podcast using social media to help promote it.

My Opinion of Social Media

I believe that social media can be bad or good, horrific or awesome, to me it depends at the way you look at it, and who you follow. For example, this week we had two deaths in pop-culture, Paul Walker, actor from the Fast & Furious series, and Nelson Mandela, promoter of equality and freedom. Now, an educated individual would most likely agree that Nelson Mandela was a little more important to the world seeing as his story, and what he did for South Africa will be remembered forever. BUT, would you believe there were more tweets about Paul Walker on Twitter than there were for Nelson Mandela, this is sickening to me. People care more about an actors death, than they do a revolutionary who fought for equality. My last post showed the good of social networking, so I figured it was time to touch on what I think is the bad. This bothers me to an extreme point, I think it shows that our country is going into the wrong direction, our people are becoming less educated and dependent on social medias and smart phones. Im not saying I'm not part of the problem, but I am saying I do notice the problem and want it to change. I believe that this world is headed down a fine line of too much technology, and I do not know the consequences of it. I think it is making our population less educated, and more ignorant though, stuck on pop culture instead of focusing on what's more important. I just do not know about our future, and in the next 5-10 years of my life what kind of changes will I see due to this technology dependence. Hopefully they are good changes, I hope very much that our society is headed in the right direction, and not the wrong direction.

Use of Instagram to Promote Anti-Violence

Instagram is widely recognized for selfies, and pictures of meals before people eat them. Although, this is not all this new social media is good for. Popular hip-hop artist "The Game" is now proving that point with his new #SeizeFire campaign. Unfortunately, many cities in America are a part of gang violence, and just flat out violence, resulting in deaths of innocent people. This #seizefire campaign has been exploding onto the Instagram scene, with many reposts of the same picture. The picture is cartoon children holding hands in front of a christmas tree, and hash tagged with #seizefire then a city... For example #SeizefireDET or #SeizeFireLA. This just goes to show that some social networking can be used for good if used the right way, and this campaign is something that should be talked about instead of selflies and pictures of food. All in all, this campaign shows the good in social media, and more people in the world should take this sort of action, especially with the holiday season coming up.

Use of Social Media for television shows

I am a huge fan of the television show, Sons of Anarchy, last night there was an insane finale to season seven that left many SOA fans shocked and on the edge of their seats. What really interested me was the use of twitter by Sons Of Anarchy, they used twitter to react with the fans as we saw this jaw dropping episode. #SOAFX was trending last night (symbolizing sons of anarchy on FX) I think this is a clever use of twitter to promote an already widely popular television show. The account tweeted things like, "its not over yet, brace yourselves", after the climax of the final episode. I think the use of twitter to promote TV shows is becoming more and more popular. Another show that participates in this is Duck Dynasty on A&E. They're twitter is DuckDynastyAE... and they also tweet during the show as if they're watching it for the first time with viewers. I imagine it's to get more and more people talking about their TV shows and hopefully more and more people to watch. Its a genius plan if you ask me.

Interning for The CMMA

The Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association expressed their interest in an intern to Dr. Melton via email after our presentation. Although this could be a great opportunity to intern at a real association, and already having so much work done for them, we were all hesitant to accept this internship. I wonder why nobody in our grow wanted to do it, I feel it would've been a good opportunity for me as well, but I believe that an internship in the wrong field might change my mind on what I want to do with my life, or make me take a job in the future with the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association or Morbark. Although the opportunity seems great, I don't want to give up my dream of graduating with a broadcasting degree, and being a sports personality either on the radio or television. I feel if I did the internship I might miss out on interning for another company, one that I am extremely interested in, unlike my slight interest in the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association. All in all, I am very flattered with the offer, but want to keep my options open for something that I will most definitely enjoy doing for the rest of my life.

Our Meeting With The CMMA

Our final meeting with the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association went great in my opinion, we had another well done powerpoint, along with a well written paper outlining our strategy for their social media use. The Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association seemed very excited with our presentation and even talked about offering one of us an internship as their social media consultant. We focused on LinkedIn, Facebook, Spotlight Videos, and their Website, as we described and outlined a social media strategy that would be very beneficial for the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association. Each member of the board that attended was very pleased with our presentation, and I am proud to say that it went very well, Im happy with my group and the way we performed in front of the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association.