Tweet For The Week, An Experiment In Social Media

For my Public Relations Writing class we were instructed to create — if not already in possession of – a twitter account that we were to use for an entire week. While I myself am an avid user of social media and already had a Twitter account, I decided my personal account was not the appropriate tool for this assignment. I therefore had to create another “professional” account for the assignment. Already being very familiar with the social media outlet, I knew that accomplishing this task would be much simpler for me than potentially for others. The challenge I faced however was a struggle with what I dubbed as “gatekeeping.” What kind of information should I tweet for a class assignment that was to be viewed by my professor and even professionals in the industry. For my personal account, I typically have no filter and dissimenate whatever my brain is thinking at the time. At my age, this was probably not the best material to be viewed by all.

An interesting, and VERY unexpected, benefit I gained from this assignment was what I learned from having to determine what was appropriate to tweet from a professional stance as opposed to my usual audience of college co-eds. For some reason, I found this to be more of a hassle than most. I’m an extremely open person who does not mind sharing anything at all, so you can imagine the time I had trying to tone down my liberal speech to better suit my new audience.

I think twitter is an amazing utility for all markets, social and professional, to use for persuasion, information, and even entertainment. I would definitely, and very much so do, advise people of all demographics to join the Twitter movement and reap it’s many benefits. I certainly plan to keep tweeting from both professional and personal accounts. I learned quickly just how helpful it can be in increasing your network and discovering openings in the workforce of my industry. I also found out how informative it can be, and even beneficial, to the work I do while still in school. I do not perceive this site to be a fad that will soon die out at all! I hope to be an advocate of Twitter for many years to come!

Blog Comments

I commented on:

http://collinbryant.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/millenials-and-social-media/#comment-83

http://ramborodd.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/millennials-take-over/#comment-26

Tweeting Across The Ages

As simple as a quick tweet, status update, or wiki post may take you as a millennial to construct, may take someone from an older generation a lot longer to do. We take for granted every day how technologically affluent we are and how well versed in social media we have become. People from the earlier years are not so fortunate. Technology is a lot newer to them than us, because they know what it was like to live so long without it. To tell someone from an earlier generation that social media could be beneficial to their business would probably be quite the task. Depending on how long they’ve been in their business they probably remember getting by just fine before social media took such a large part in e-commerce. But the sad truth is, you simply cannot compete effectively without employing some sort of social media. Many forms can help boost your message/good/service to more potential clients than you had ever imagined.You can also use social media to help your business grow  as whole and expand into new markets that were before considered out of your reach, like international markets. Any way you look at it, if used the right way, social media is a win-win addition to your businesses’ arsenal. Hopefully older generations will start to see the benefits more clearly sooner than later.

The Funny That Was Doug Funny

If I could bring back any TV show from my childhood, I would definitely bring back the Nickelodeon cartoon comedy Doug. I remember watching that show every single day after school and always laughing at the goofy situational comedy. Doug was a dorky elementary school kid and his show chronicled his struggles and woes in a slapstick humor format. I still to this day will catch myself humming the theme song. And any person who I hear singing the song is immediately cool in my book. I’m sure with technology today I could find the old episodes online somewhere on the internet. In fact, after this blog I will most likely go and do just that!

We Were Merely Freshman…

Ironically enough I blogged about freshman year for my “if you could time travel…” post and I hate to be redundant, but I stick with what I said before: I wouldn’t change a thing. I think a lot of people can agree that freshman year was one of the craziest and happiest times of a college kids career. Of course there are always things you wish you would not have done, but what if not doing those things would have affected how the rest of everything else turned out? And what if the things that you had not done didn’t allow the greatest things you did to happen? Mind blowing to think about so I typically just don’t and act grateful for the things that have happened. I loved every single thing about my freshman year and I would give anything to be able to do it all over again!

Back To The Future, or the Past?

Most people I think would do something interesting with time travel, like go back to the 1800′s and watch the automobile get invented. Or maybe even travel back to when dinosaurs still walked the earth. Myself however, would do something a little more unheard of, yet rational. I have ALWAYS said, that if possible, I would even pay large sums of money to be able to relive my freshman year of college. While alot of people may not understand this desire, some of you may also remember. That year was one of the happiest years of my life. I was making hundreds of awesome new friends, having some of the BEST times I can’t even remember. Everything is so new and exciting, and your cares and responsibilities are only few and far between. Everyone was happier then, in my opinion. Everyone was more adventurous and willing to try new things and experience life. The world was at our fingertips once, and to be back there again, well… that would be nirvana, I’d say.

In regards to the ripple effect, my actions in the past changing my future: I think I would be ok. When it comes to that mind bottling theory I seem to believe that it takes greater actions of louder consequences to actually have ramifications in changing the future. But then again, I guess we won’t know until we do it, right?

If It’s Not Like the Movies…

Being a fairly avid reader of books for pleasure myself, I have a pretty strong opinion on novels turned into film. This transient practice is not one of just the modern age. Screenplays have been made from novels since the big screen started buzzing. While most people when asked will probably have the forethought of films such as Harry Potter  and that blasted Twilight series, you can’t forget the epic classics like Treasure Island, Sense and Sensibility, and To Kill A Mockingbird. Personally, I enjoy reading the novel, then seeing the film adaptation post haste. It is always very exciting to see a world you create in your mind with the help of an author’s vivid instructions, and then see it remade in front of your eyes courtesy of Hollywood’s finest. However, in my experience of viewing film adaptations, I unfortunately tend to prefer the novels best. That is to say, no one can paint the picture of a world quite like you can yourself. And most of the time the magic of the story and the world it is told in gets lost in the fray of budgeting and the ever present “reality” limitations that not even movie magic can meet. Regardless, both forms of entertainment are always enjoyable, wether they cut out half the plot line or not.

New Semester, New Blog

Seemingly a little late on this, but such is life. As a new semester has started, so has a new course in PR that requires me to blog. With that being said, I will now be blogging weekly (on my wordpress) for my PR Writing class. For my classmates, I hope I am doing this right; and to everyone else, Enjoy!

Blogs I’ve Commented on This Semester…

The following are the blogs that I have commented on this semester:

1.) http://caitlinmcintosh.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/why-pr/#comment-8

2.) http://timsvoboda74.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/propaganda/#comment-6

3.) http://jennayarbrough.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/the-last-5-conc/#comment-8

Blogging For Public Relations

During the course of my Public Relations class, we were instructed to continuously blog throughout the semester, as assigned. While there were several beneficial factors that came from blogging for a class, at the end of the day it is not something I would choose to continue to do. Blogging is a large and important part of the Public Relations world and many practitioners use it daily. However, the field of Public Relations I hope to enter into will most likely not involve frequent blogging. Even though blogs have the potential to be a large part of my career, and even though I highly enjoy writing, I still do not plan on having to blog more than the usual business professional.

Blogging for this class allowed me to share my opinions and knowledge in a safe, judgment free, environment. Writing frequently is also a factor of the blogging assignment that I often enjoyed. I can honestly say I am glad I was given the task of blogging for a class, however I hope to not have to continue to do it more frequently in the future.