Social Media, A wonderful thing if used correctly

Hello fellow classmates and anyone else interested in Strategic Communications, I am back with my post for this week and it's a doozy. Today I will be talking about social media. So, what do you think when you hear the word social media? Does Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, MySpace (although I don't know who still uses MySpace lol) and other social media sites come to mind? Well, you are correct. These are all social media websites and they are websites that I myself use very frequently, except for MySpace of course. I haven't used that in years. The definition of social media is the interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media has taken over how we communicate with people. I started using Facebook back in its early days when it was regulated to colleges only. I could see the potential back then and now I can stay in contact with friends I had back when I was 6 years old to high school, college, family members etc. I also have an artist page where I promote my music. Social media has so much potential and businesses have caught on and have created their own pages to advertise their products.

Leadership

One of the articles we read this week talks about social media and how it has changed being a leader. It talks about how today's leader tend to shy away from social media and that companies today need new types of leaders that aren't afraid of social media and that can not only use social media, but make others better at using them. With leaders going on to social media it gives them direct access to the people. With that type of access you can find out directly from the people their concerns, issues, and what they think about how you are conducting business. Today's leaders should not be afraid of this but take this as a challenge to better themselves and better whichever company they represent. If we had more strong social media literate leaders, maybe businesses would go bankrupt, or the leaders would better understand the people and what they want. This was a good article, a short article but a good article. 

Posting confessions to personal blog?

Okay everyone this I don't understand. One of the articles we read this week talks about a reporter and how she was fired after posting a list of confessions to her personal blog. Now, everyone in the world can go your blog and read it, so why do something like this? This is where social media can get dangerous. When you are in a position like this such as a news reporter, you are always being looked at. I know that alot of people in communications keep a personal blog but that blog should be talking about stuff related to communications, and things going on in the world. She basically told all about stealing mail, taking naps on the job, stopping the recordings on people she is interviewing if she thinks you unnecessary for a story. Just very unprofessional if you ask me. She has committed career suicide. Who would want to hire her after this? Would you?

Brand Ambassadors

This is really interesting to me and it's something I wish other companies would incorporate. Now, I had no idea about this before reading the article but it is a great idea. This "social suite" that the Cleveland Indians in Major League Baseball incorporated in the spring of 2011. With this idea, the Cleveland Indians broke away from traditional media access and invited the public into their media sphere by having anyone with a social media account apply for single-day credentials to gain access into the suite on the media level and game-day information that was traditionally reserved for news outlets. Wow! I absolutely hate baseball but I would  apply to get a chance to be in that suite and see what its like. Just imagine if more teams, more companies, everybody started doing this? Do you all realize how far social media has come? I hope that we see many more companies incorporating this. Think about what this would mean for a college student majoring in communications, to get an up close and personal look at the world they want to get into. I struggled to find internships to complete my undergraduate degree because of my lack of networking at the time. (Also I love my school but they were not very helpful in me finding internships.) I struggled for two years to find a decent job after graduation. Internships would be much easier to get with the help of social and being able to talk directly to the people you want to intern with.

Are you Facebook, Twitter or both?

Now, I don't know about you guys about like I said earlier I was an early adopter of Facebook having created my first account in 2005. Over the years I've gotten very comfortable with how to use Facebook though they do updates every now and then that annoys me. I was late to the Twitter party simply because I just didn't understand it and why I should have a Twitter account. I eventually created an account in July of 2011 and it took me awhile to figure what to do with it. Finally I got the idea that I could use it to promote my music which I still do now. Though I still don't have as many followers as I would like, I have gotten some pretty good connections to other musically inclined people. Now when of the articles we read this week calls twitter a combination of blogging, text messaging and broadcasting. They call it micro-blogging. That makes sense. Your Twitter account is essentially a short 140 word blog about what you think about certain things, certain people, current events, etc. In the world of communications, and the millions of people on twitter today, it is simple to post something like current news, with a link that directs you to their website for the full story. You are getting more traffic directed to your website and it doesn't cost you a thing.

In conclusion, what has been learned this week is that social media can be so beneficial to people, companies, etc. if used correctly. Look at the reporter that lost her job because she posted confessions on her blog as an example of what not to do with social media. Be smart everybody and tune in next week for my next blog. Until next time.