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.