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.

24 Hour Media Log

My 24 hour media log consisted of a lot of different types of digital and social medias. I found myself using these medias a lot more than I thought I actually did, as there is always a TV on in our living room and I am constantly on my phone and computer. I woke up at around 11 on last Thursday before going to BIS 315, when I woke up I went to take a shower and my media use began. I opened up twitter to see what I had missed during sleep and then put on pandora through my JBL speaker while I showered and got ready for the day. I listened to music until about 12:00 p.m. before I went to class. Then, put my phone away for most of class as it was my day for my individual project. After class I got home and watched a movie from 2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. , during the movie I was on and off my phone because I had seen the movie several times. At 5:00 p.m. I went to the SAC to play basketball, so wasn't on my phone or using media much from then until about 7:30 p.m. Then when I got home I took another shower, and played some more Pandora while I did this, this ended around 8:00 p.m. Then I went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Thursday night football game with some friends, this had me watching TV and on Twitter because I like to use Twitter to talk sports. Id say this ended around 11:00 p.m. After that I came back home and called my girlfriend talking to her on the phone until about 12:30 p.m. Checked my twitter one last time and it was off to bed, and I was finished with my media log as I slept til about noon since I have no class on Fridays. All in all, I'd say I used twitter the most out of my day, I always find myself constantly refreshing the feed. Id say about 4 hours of twitter use, 5 hours of TV due to a movie and a football game, an hour and a half of music listening, and an hour and a half on the phone. So in conclusion, about 12 hours of my 24 were spent using some type of media in some way or another.

Deleting Social Media for A Day

A few weeks ago we were asked to stop using social media for a day, to see what it would be like. This assignment was very eye opening to me as it showed me how much I actually use social media and how dependent on my smart phone I actually am. Although we may not realize it, all the social medias we have nowadays do take away from human interaction and genuine communication. These social medias have us constantly checking our phones for updates, and constantly looking to see if we have anything new to tweet or write a status about. We are forgetting as a society what is important in the world, and although social media can be a helpful tool, too much of anything is always harmful. I believe our society is too dependent on our smart phones and social media, and it was cool to live for a day without it, and learn how much time I actually have for communication.

Linked In for CMMA

LinkedIn is another form of social media that could be helpful for the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association, this social media would allow the CMMA to post job postings, and have a growing community with their workers. LinkedIn would be very helpful for the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association, as long as many of the workers for each company were to buy into the idea. I believe that the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association should offer some sort of incentive to the workers in order to make them create a linked in account, and then this form of social media could really take off for them. The more connections made on LinkedIn, allows for more and more views and exposure on LinkedIn. All in all, this LinkedIn tool could be very useful for the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association, and allow them to make connections with their employees, and employees of the future.

Creating My Very Own Sports Podcast

Although it may seem complicated, creating a sports podcast for fans and followers to view is actually fairly simple. All that I would need would be a microphone, computer, internet, and recording software.  I have decided to use this idea for my final project, seeing as I'm going into sports broadcasting, and it seems like a good idea since it combines social media and sports, both things I am passionate about. To have a successful podcast especially with sports I believe a strong use of social media is essential. Although it may not seem all that important, I know that a strong social media backing of a sports podcast would help to gain followers and subscribers of that podcast. The social media I would most likely use the most would be twitter. Twitter seems to be the place where most athletes and sports personalities are using for their top form of social media. There is always a sports debate on Twitter, and these debates are essential for a solid sports podcasts. All in all, these debates started on a podcast could continue on Twitter and vice versa, making twitter essential for a good sports podcast.

Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association and bettering their website

The Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association's website is very bland and boring as of now, our group has set out to make this website more appealing, more accessible and more findable on google searches. My counterparts in my group for bettering the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association's social media strategy have focused on bettering their website. They have focused on making their website more accessible, by using search engine optimization, and have also focused on spicing up the look of the website as a whole. The Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association needs to also incorporate their LinkedIn page, and their Facebook page on their website, as it will make for more connections between sites, and people seeing more information on their company, or association rather. All in all, I believe my counterparts have made a fine effort in making the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association's website a better, more accessible, and less boring website.

Videos for The CMMA

Another helpful medium for the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association would be spotlight videos, or viral videos. The Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association would benefit heavily with these videos because they would allow for free advertisement on a large spectrum of the world, without much work at all. Also, these videos would be free for the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association, and would allow them to get a form of free advertising for their company. Another reason these videos would be helpful for the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association, is because they could post these videos to their Facebook, or their website, which we are trying to improve with our social media plan for them. Although they might not have the most interesting topic matter, I believe spotlight videos are essential for any website, and the use of them could direct more traffic to the Central Michigan Manufacturer's Association's website, which is their ultimate goal in my opinion.

Facebook Use for CMMA

I believe the CMMA would benefit heavily from the use of Facebook, among other social medias. Although they are not technically a company selling anything, so a company page wouldn't do them any good, I believe that a group page would be awesome for their association. The different companies associated with the CMMA would benefit heavily from having a central space where they could collaborate and speak on ideas easily. A Facebook private group page would allow them to do this in an easier way than just emailing one and other like they already do. A private Facebook group page would also allow for collaboration, on products, and ideas for the CMMA to use as a whole, and as individual companies. All in all, I believe that the CMMA would highly benefit from a privatized group page in Facebook, and the members would enjoy this much easier means of communication for their companies throughout the organization.

The Social Organization Chp. 8

Chapter 8 focuses on Electronic Arts, a gaming company otherwise known as EA. EA launched internal collaborative communities in 2008 a crossed its globally distributed workforce, and their goal was to allow mass collaboration without compromising its smaller groups or teams. They ended up launching too many communities too fast, allowing for confusion and in general just too much going on. They launched 15 online communities but soon realized to make a community effective you need 30-50 participants. Most communities did not have enough participants and were looked at as ineffective. The managers of the communities did not take the best approach as they sort of just set them up and watched, did not give incentive for employees to participate and did not participate themselves. The perfect example is for a manager to get the community going, and give incentive for their peers to join and participate, and then let their peers run it from there, but they have to get the communities going first. All in all, EA was able to solve the issue allowing for these communities to promote global collaboration, and allow their widespread employees to work together across the globe. Even though EA solved their issue, it shows how a global community set up the wrong way can be a disaster.

Chapter 7 The Social Organization

Chapter 7 shows how the executive vice president of marketing services at Acosta, realizes how social media has changed the way that marketing works forever. He shows how consumers get much of the information that they know from social media, and how they won't buy a product unless it has been talked about on social media. Also, he used the example of his daughter buying a new outfit, and how she would post a picture of her in the outfit before she actually bought it. The comments she got on the outfit would help her to decide whether to buy it or not. All in all, social media gives the consumer information towards their purchase, or whether they should buy it or not. The social media research is what now gives a product its success or decline, not the traditional marketing schemes that we all know.  If a product gets a bad review on social media then a customer is most likely not going to buy the product, even if it is one bad review. But a good review will help the products chances of selling to that particular consumer.

Who Owns The Future 2

Chapter Two of Who Owns The Future focuses on the digital world and the populations ability to make it useful, or not so much. Digital technology can change the way everything is used, and the way that everything we know as it is, is done. This means, with our ever changing digital world we need to be careful and notice what we post or what we say. Furthermore, think of something you use everyday online, like an online banking app, this app deleted the jobs of someone who used to handle only bank statements for all banking members. Soon enough, it seems the digital world will be able to do more and more jobs, taking more and more people away from from compensation for the day to day jobs that they make a living doing. This is scary to me as one day maybe there won't be a need for certain jobs, and that jobs can be done with the use of an app or a computer. (I know kind of Y2K but none-the-less true.) This shows how the digital world can effect every person, either good or bad, because it can take away jobs and compensation for one group of individuals, but make money for another group of individuals. So, the digital world allows for growth and decline in the working man's/ woman's sense as jobs may be taken away just as easily as jobs can be created.

The Social Organization 5 & 6

Community Collaboration Strategy identifies the communities that a company will support or not support, and how, why, and when they will support or not support them. This includes companies using social medias and the ways they use social medias, along with their employees and their use of social medias. It all starts with purpose, a company gives employees or its consumers a chance to work faster or more efficiently, and with consumers can allow them to collaborate with other consumers so that the companies products will serve them better. Many of companies use both these approaches and do either a good job with it, or a not so good job with it. It all depends on the initiative the company gives its employees or consumers to use social media to better use their products or better work for the company. The company needs to use its target participants and give them some sort of insight to collaborate with the company or their products. The community cultivation cycle shows how companies launch, then guide, and then refine purpose, over and over again in their social media use. Also, a purpose roadmap shows specific and meaningful reason for collaboration that is needed for employees and/or consumers to participate in collaboration. All in all, to me it all depends on what companies give their consumers and employees in return for collaborating on products and other things within their business.

Chapter 2 Of The New Digital Age

Chapter 2 of The New Digital Age focuses on the future of our virtual world, and how rapidly the virtual world is growing compared to even Earth's population. It also speaks of a more policed internet system, one which governments will want to know who is posting what and what they are saying. It only makes sense as the virtual world is growing so fast, and it is getting more and more scary what people can do on the internet. Also, chapter 2 speaks of the data revolution, and how beneficial the internet and virtual world will be to us as citizens. If used the right way the virtual world has unlimited amounts of potential to bring to citizens because you can get tons of information for free. Unlimited amounts of information, at the touch of a button, that is what we have and will continue to have as the virtual world continues to grow. It also speaks of our online identity and how the world will be able to see most things going on in our lives do to the virtual world, and how periods of our lives will be frozen in time online for all to see for a long period of time, if not forever. The virtual world holds nothing but opportunity to grow, and that can be either a scary or a great thing.

The Social Organization 3 and 4

Chapter 3 and 4 of the Social Organization show how companies become a social organization, and how they can easily succeed or fail with this approach. Chapter 3 shows nightmare stories of how companies get a bad rep on social media or how they are harmed by using social media. They also show an approach that enables repeatable success and how social media can be used very effectively to make money and succeed in business. Social media is a different type of advertising medium that allows consumers to interact and make points to each other about a specific company. Chapter 4 speaks of forming a vision for community collaboration, and how this vision allows a companies community to use social media the right way. There is a right and wrong way to using social media as a business. It basically relies on knowing when community collaboration is appropriate and when it is more likely to deliver value to its consumers and to the individual company.

Who Owns The Future?

The prelude and chapter one of Who Owns the Future have been my favorite reading assignment thus far, I especially enjoy the author and the way he shows how billion dollar social networking sites would be nothing without the users who use the sites for free. This shows how social networking is so very interconnected and allows a new type of many-to-many marketing. In which, many of users all over the world use a free app or website to network with other users all over the world. What one person posts could change the ideas or mentalities of millions of other human beings. Also, I liked how the author showed how instagram (a 13 billion dollar company) was not made from its extraordinary employees, but instead is made what it is by the millions of people on instagram. Without all of the people using the social networking, the social network would be nothing but empty framework and that is what makes social networking so special, we as people are responsible for the individual network's success and us being users of the specific social network makes it work better and better. The more and more people being connected, the better a social networking site works.

The Use Of Mass Collaboration Today

All organizations make use of mass collaboration when using social media, the key is using the mass collaboration well. Nike uses mass collaboration with their use of youtube, Facebook, twitter, and instagram to promote and make notice of their products. The more people talk about their products, the more recognition their products get. If a pro athlete with a million or so followers on twitter posts a picture of their new nike cleats that they will be wearing on game day, that product is going to sell. For example, if Robert Griffin the third were to post a picture of his new cleats or new gloves etc. that product will most definitely see better sales in the near future. Nearly 1 million people will see what one of the most popular pro athletes is wearing on game day and want to wear the same things. Nike uses mass collaboration as a type of free advertising, and it works very well, especially in their field. Mass collaboration is made up of 6 characteristics that are used to enable the success of the use of social media.
1. Participation- "The user is the application", There must be participation in the social networking used to advertise, without the users participating, there would be an empty shell of social networking. With more and more connections or followers and pro and college athletes and/or teams showing off their new and improved Nike gear it makes for a giant advertising campaign to sell more gear and equipment. Users comment on their take on the gear and Nike takes their input and pro and college athletes participating allows for a free advertisement that will be seen by millions of followers.
2. Collective- Nike uses mostly twitter to show their collective of Nike athletes and consumers that talk to one and other about their products and sports gear. The more people talk about their products the more they sell, and the more input they get on making other products. Millions of people own something with the Nike swoosh on it and if they are on twitter they are most likely following/ collectively giving input as a whole towards the products they own or want to own.
3. Transparency- This allows users to critique and come to a consensus on the way they might feel about a product they own or want to own. This shows in Nike's twitter account and instagram account as well as their consumers communicate on the way they feel about the products they see. If RG3 were to post a picture of his cleats today many of twitter responses would be seen by other twitter users allowing the transparency to exist.
4. Independence-Anytime, any place, any member, this shows in Nike because they use publicized social media in which anyone can comment, follow, or give input on something that they post. Every person has a different take on a product shown, and it shows in comments or tweets. It allows for argument and critiques on a product from any individual in the world.
5. Persistence- Participants in the social networking used by Nike all make contributions towards products or advertisements and others can always view and share these contributions, if a person comments on a picture on instagram or tweets back at a photo of a new pair of nike shoes, these contributions or opinions are always there for others to see and read. It is almost like reviewing products without making an actual review.
6. Emergence- Social networking cannot be controlled, any person can say anything they want! If Nike consumers think badly of a product, or for example think a shoe is ugly, they can say that, and vice versa. It allows for realistic reviews and an opinion based advertising campaign. This allows other users to see what other people around the world think and also give their input as well.

Prompt 2

The New Digital Age by Schmidt and Cohen shows how we have just started our relationship with social media and the internet, and that the digital world is just now growing to what it will be in the future. They speak of how the virtual world will allow all people with an internet connection to connect and grow together, allowing connections between people all over the world. It shows how mobile phones are growing and how most smartphones used today allow individuals to connect through the internet and make these connections in the virtual world. Lanier's views in You Are Not A Gadget are slightly different because he shows how the connections are not interpersonal, and instead are impersonal. By this he means that the anonymous things that happen on the worldwide web take away from the personal connections that could be made using the same interface. Lanier also believes the past technology is better than the new technology as the new technology has taken away our ability to connect person to person and instead allows to connect one to many or many to many. All in all, these authors' books have very different views and they have different takes on how the internet will effect our environment for years to come.

Prompt 1

I chose to use the corporation Nike, due to their social dominance in the field of athletics, and also due to my own personal interests. Nike faces challenges of being the best of the best when it comes to athletic apparel and equipment, along with making new ideas for continuing to generate revenue. Nike uses social media such as Twitter, and Facebook to promote pro and college athletes who wear their apparel or use their equipment on the field. Nike compares with the organizations in chapter one of The Social Organization because of its use of social media to connect its consumers and to help promote their products. It directly relates to Xilinx because Nike also uses their social media to link their products with their consumers. Also, Nike relates to Ford because they use social networking to connect their customers, it helps them get a hold on their demographics and what the consumer wants to use or wear.