Adam Aldred @adamaldredblogs-blog - Tumblr Blog

Personal Reflection

I have enjoyed this class as a whole. I really enjoy the freedom and creative possibilities that come with writing the weekly blogs, compared to discussion boards. Discussion boards, to me, are usually very formal and bland. I also think that discussion boards typically require right or wrong answers accompanied by opinion, and this leads to people copying or re-submitting similar posts as people earlier than them. The blogs allow for a more free forming post in my opinion, especially when they pertain to the specific company we are all doing our projects on.

Speaking of the project, I found it to be very beneficial and relatable to the real world. Most projects in classes seem boring, and I have to force myself to complete them. Having weekly memos and interactions with our companies in this class has allowed me to not only really dive into the project, but I find myself retaining and learning stuff from the Hootsuite modules that I know I will use in my future business career.

All in all, I thought this was an interesting class and I definitely learned a lot of information that I actually deem beneficial for my future success.

Principles of Effective Content Development and Sharing

In order to understand how becoming a social organization coincides with the principles of effective content development and sharing, we must first understand what it means to have “effective” content. A social organization is a business/company that desires community collaboration through social media in order to improve the popularity, reputation, social and financial aspects of the company. A social organization must incorporate the 6 principles of mass collaboration: participation, collective, transparency, independence, persistence, and emergence. In order to achieve effective content it is important to first develop a content strategy in order to create and produce effective content. According to Hootsuite, to create the content strategy, a company should first study their audience and make goals on what the company wants their content to achieve with the audience. The company must define their brand voice and analyze their platform options as to where the content should be posted. And third for creating a content strategy, the company should audit their strategies regularly and make adjustments to the plan based on what does and does not work. It would also be useful to develop a content calendar and organize and schedule the uploading of posts and content. Content should incorporate a mix of created and curated content. Created material shows leadership, curated content can be leveraged when resources are scarce and can help develop relationships within your industry.

In order for a company to be a social organization and involve community collaboration, the business must have content that generates value to not only to the company but also to the audience in order for participation from the audience to occur. Both concepts go hand-in-hand; one would not be useful without the other. A company needs its audience to engage and interact with its content, and to respond with either constructive criticism for improvement, or ideas for collaborations, and to build relationships with the company brand. A company has to develop and share content that is useful in promoting the company’s product/service and the company’s brand voice, as well as be social on its pages. The company must also engage with its participants, whether it’s to answer questions, respond to positive and negative feedback or comments, and/or strengthen the business relationships with current customers and clients. I do not know how to stress the concept anymore. Without the effective content the social organization would not be a social organization, it would just be a business with bland and empty social media platforms.

Effective Content Development and Sharing

Content marketing is comprised of the creation/sharing of media, and the publication of other content in the hopes of appealing to customers. A company’s inability to inefficiently market their content cannot only bring harm to their reputation, but also their relevance and authoritativeness in their respected market place/industry. Creating content that users want to share is marketing to those that are directly interested in your brand.

Through the Hootsuite modules and research of my own, I was able to concur a couple of key factors that directly affect success when it comes to a company’s content marketing strategy. The first factor is documentation. This documentation is not only important for the marketing team to maintain a consistent hold over what is going on, but the documentation can help with employee training, PR, and recruiting as well.

The next factor piggybacks off of the documentation, and that is streamlining the content. In the early stages of your content strategy work you may be full of ideas, but obviously not every idea or piece of content should be released at once. Creating a content calendar to space out and thoughtfully plan the usage of the content can help guarantee the continued success of your content strategy efforts.

Another important factor of success is understand what your content metrics say about your company, and being able to use them for things like measuring your key performance indicators. Whether quantitative or qualitative, tracking metrics can help your company adjust any setbacks and make improvements.

According to kapost.com, LinkedIn is ranked #1 out of their top 50 for companies with the best content marketing. After reading the research on their website it is hard to disagree. LinkedIn is a platform that basically everyone in the workforce is familiar with, and a member of. According to kapost.com’s research, “LinkedIn leads the social media industry in content, and has successfully established themselves as the most important publishing platform for professionals. By allowing all members to publish long-form, original content, LinkedIn fuels both learning and promotional opportunities for users. And they’re banking on—and winning with—relevance. “The Pulse” curates posts, so users don’t have to sift through thousands of articles to find useful insights”. Also, LinkedIn’s library of targeted content, which includes webcasts, eBooks, and presentations, provides invaluable information to their global network of professionals and companies looking to leverage the platform.

Online Community Building

Community collaboration is a huge importance when it comes to having a successful social media presence. Finding customers and followers that can truly be connected and helpful to your brand, and amongst themselves, is what a strong community is all about. While it is a never-ending process, the connections made with your followers can prove to be beneficial to everyone involved.

Making sure that your company has a clearly stated vision statement not only creates a concrete brand image, it also allows for followers to find commonality with your company, which can lead to a collaborative community atmosphere. Understanding the road map for your social media accounts works hand-in-hand with that clear vision statement.

One company that has clearly done a great job when it comes to creating a great community atmosphere is PlayStation. They have a unique way of connecting PlayStation users to one another, maybe more than connecting the users to the actual company. Nonetheless, the community atmosphere is clearly apparent. The PlayStation Community has done an exceptional job at providing an online space for gamers to connect. Users are able to zone in on their specific interests, whether it be by game, interests, or the type of support they need, and it’s clear to see how the network caters for the pillars of feedback, advocacy, and support.

Natural Pawz Online Community

I learned a lot from the Hootsuite modules this week. One of the key things that stuck with me is the importance in finding the right people to engage with. It is important for a company or brand to find followers that will derive value for that brand or company. While it is good to have as many followers as possible, this does not necessarily mean that those followers will actually bring true value. Finding these valued followers is especially important for a small local company such as Natural Pawz. Utilizing the pre-existing accounts of the different partners and vendors that sell merchandise at Natural Pawz can prove to be a giant help. Having partners and vendors that would push the Natural Pawz brand will not only increase followers, but the followers that come from the vendor brands will already be people who clearly value the products that Natural Pawz is selling. One thing that Natural Pawz has had to work on was their fostering and creation of an environment that makes their customers/followers communicate amongst each other. Having an environment like this for social media can truly facilitate an interesting and engaging community. There are four groups that fall under engagement. Those four groups are classified as shared content, customer support queries, negative sentiment, and proactive engagement. Regardless of the group of engagement, it is important to be timely. This is one of the largest fixes that Natural Pawz has been making. They have taken advice and began to respond to interactions within a 20 minute window, which is much faster than they had been. The main goal of Natural Pawz through this project is to truly expand and grow a community on Instagram. This proves to be a great option since they are a pet store and they are apple to showcase their merchandise as well as the cute dogs that come into their store. Finding hashtags that correlate with the brands, vendors, and partners that already have a pre-established community allows for many new followers and customers on their intstagram. I have attached a couple of their different instagram posts below that either showcase some of their merchandise (as well as acompanying hashtags), or various promotions they promote each month:

GoPro & UGC

GoPro, in my opinion, has one of the most interesting and eye-catching social media strategies out there. The strategy that GoPro uses better than anyone else is known as user-generated content (UGC). GoPro looks externally for amazing social media posts by harnessing the power of this user-generated content. GoPro openly encourages those using their products to send in some of their best shots. This not only makes for great content to share on social media, but it also shows off the products in action.

This makes GoPro’s job a whole lot easier when it comes to generating content. Their audience enthusiastically has taken over the promotion for the brand. This has lead to insane rates of engagement and customer retention/loyalty. From GoPro’s YouTube channel alone they receive over 6,000 tagged videos every single day. 388 of those videos have come from GoPro’s sponsored athletes, and those videos have received more than 50 million combined views on YouTube. The GoPro channel has over 4.5 million subscribers, and that number continues to grow.

Not only do users of GoPro post videos from their own experiences, but GoPro also goes out and buys the rights to some of those self-shot videos. Videos or photos that prove to be unique and inspiring are polished up by GoPro, and then posted to their various social media channels for additional distribution. By doing this GoPro is inspiring users to believe that they, too, can “be the hero” by using a GoPro camera to record their experiences.

GoPro has partnerships with over 130 professional athletes, as well as musicians. They use these celebrities to provide glimpses into what the experience might be like to be a professional snowboarder, rock star, skateboarder or even an NHL hockey player.

GoPro has also formed partnerships with various locations around the globe that have proved to be popular travel destinations. Some of these partnerships include Marriott hotels in the Caribbean and Latin America. These partnerships allow the hotels to offer complimentary cameras to guests during their stays and encourage those guests to upload their own, personal GoPro pictures and videos to share their adventures.

Capitalizing on user-generating content (UGC) has made GoPro a marketing and social media juggernaut. With this amount of engagement from their users they will not only continue to grow and retain their customers, but they will also never seemingly run out of content to showcase their product’s capabilities. Not many companies even have the product offerings that can yield user-generated content in this manner, so GoPro is very smart for capitalizing on these UGC opportunities.

Below I have attached some screenshots of different posts and videos from the various GoPro social media accounts:

#http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/09/brand-learn-from-gopro/

Legal Side of Big Data

This week’s lecture was about the legal side of big data. Doug LaLone, who is a patent attorney, hosted the lecture. Throughout the lecture he described the different legal ramifications, problems, and things to be aware of when it comes to big data. Legally there is no definition of big data yet. For the sake of LaLone’s lecture he defined big data as volumes of data being collected through algorithms that collect and read data. This data is used to predict future customers, or outcomes, depending on what you are looking for.

Big data can be used through predictive modeling that reduces operating costs and enhances safety. With reduced costs and enhanced safety a business can be lead to better products that will last longer, which bodes well for your business and its profitability. With that being said, businesses have to make sure that the data they capture, model, and report is protected from the many people across different platforms that have access to all of this information. When it comes to what a business should be aware of when using big data, there are a number of things to consider and be legally aware of. You first must determine how likely it is that your business will be hacked. From there you must determine how expensive that hack could potentially be. You must decide how detrimental a hack could be if your information was sold on the black market. You must also figure out how less competitive your business would become once your private information becomes public knowledge for your competitors. Most businesses that are hacked nowadays are hacked from a lack of will to prepare. It is extremely important to get ahead of the problem by ensuring that your business is spending money in the right places to protect the business, and using C-suite managers to make tough decisions.

When it comes to what consumers should be aware with big data there are other laws and regulations that should be known and understood. When companies go bankrupt or up for liquidation, all of their transaction and purchase history could potentially be up for sale. This means that if you have ever shopped with that company, unwanted people could be privy to your personal information through the purchase of the data. We, as consumers, must be aware of what happens in the event of sale, merger, and bankruptcy of a company where we have done business. Luckily, in recent years there has been the creation of strong privacy policies will be honored by courts.

Balancing the opportunities and threats presented by the development of big data can be a tricky puzzle to solve. LaLone shared some ideas of where to start, along with a checklist of items for protection from a legal standpoint. Companies that wish to disclose their inventions or procedures should always protect those as a trade secret. It is also important to assure contracts are in place that confirm confidentiality, ownership and use restriction. You should also confirm that confidentiality agreements are up to date with vendors, along with making sure that those vendors have limited access. Employee agreements must be confirmed as up to date too, along with making sure that your employees also have limited access. All of these things should be policed internally, with a policy in place ensuring your business/personal protection.

https://chipcast.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=4fe95594-73e5-4b1a-8a3c-83896b88b6d9

My Social Media Presence

Overall I think I have a pretty professional social media presence throughout all of my social media accounts. I especially pay attention to my Twitter and LinkedIn. These, in my opinion, are the best outlets for growing my personal brand. Personal branding is a huge thing that many people my age has not taken advantage of yet.

I believe my Twitter to be especially professional because I use this social media platform to follow a lot of great business people on social media, and follow marketing bloggers, or marketing accounts. A lot of those accounts follow me back because of my posts, and the blogs that I wrote last summer at my internship.

While I have received views from LinkedIn and Facebook, I would say Twitter is where a lot of my readers would come from when I was writing my professional blog. Having my blogs synced to LinkedIn allowed for an instant example of my professionalism and social media awareness if anyone were to look at my account. Looking professional and diverse at my age is important for future employers so they can tell that I am serious about the business world.

On LinkedIn I have about 800 connections. Attaining that 500+ connections was a milestone that I set for myself going into May of 2016. I really wanted to hit that number, but I also made sure that I actually knew every single one of my connections.

Unfortunately my blog has slipped away from me over the past couple of months and that is something I realize that I need to fix. I had grown it enough to where I was getting about 300 reads every week off of my posts, but life kind of got in the way (like it tends to do).

I have always had everything public on all of my social media accounts, and only posted things that I would be comfortable showing future employers. My mother is an HR executive at a children’s hospital so I thank her for instilling my maturity when it comes to social media usage.

I think that I need to increase my re-tweets of marketing blogs/tweets to about two a week. The last couple of months I have tried to only do that about once every two weeks. Increased re-tweets to grow followers, and re-introducing my blog posts are what I aim to focus on. As my followers grow it is important to have professional blogs again so they have content to read so they continue to follow me.

Consulting’s Crucial Qualities

Consulting in its purest form means to help. Consulting is the creative application of knowledge to a specific problem or opportunity. For most people seeking a consultant they understand that a problem does exist, but they are unaware of how to truly solve this problem. That is where the consultant comes into play. There are some qualities that I believe to be of the upmost importance when it comes to being a social media consultant, and/or hiring a social media consultant.

The first quality would be overall knowledge and experience. Knowledge can fall into a couple of different categories. One of those categories would be the understanding of the industry that the consultant is being hired into. The consultant must understand how the industry works, and know how to adapt the company’s marketing strategy to the networks where the audience is most active.

Another category of knowledge is a willingness to learn new things. Social media is an ever-changing field, with new networks and apps being created almost every day. A social media consultant must have a desire to learn about the newest networks. Having a social media consultant that can prove to be an early adopter of new things in social media can give your company a giant advantage.

Along with these aspects of knowledge, I believe it is crucial for a consultant to have the ability to align with the company’s business goals. While it is important to get more followers and post different content in the realm of social media marketing, that is not the only thing that a company should seek in a social media consultant. Social media consultants must also be able to tie into a company’s business goals and objectives.

A social media consultant must also be very passionate for their work. That passion will most definitely show through when it comes time to examine the results of their work. Passion can allow the consultant to stick with it and fix the problem that you, yourself, could not fix before hiring them.

A willingness to adapt quickly in this day and age is another necessity for social media consulting. With the Internet changing seemingly every day there are countless updates, changes, and new features on social media channels for a social media consultant to be aware of.

Lastly, and probably most obvious of all the qualities, is a proven ability to get results. A good social media consultant should be easily researched and learned about with a quick Google search. Their online presence should speak for itself, and make you trust in their ability. While this is the last quality that I listed, this is definitely the first thing that you should research before deciding on hiring a particular social media consultant.

Big Data Knows the Skeletons In Your Closet

From a fundamental level there are three branches of privacy. Those particular branches are ethical, legal, and social. It is important for a company to abide and honor these privacies. Businesses depend on their employees, customers, and clients trusting in them. Without trust profits can take a drastic hit in the short run, and distrust can hurt the company’s viability in the long run.

One of the hottest topics of privacy invasion lately has been in regard to big data. Big Data is defined as the storage and analysis of large and or complex data sets. The great thing about big data is the ability to connect seemingly unrelated pieces in order to build out a larger picture. All of this data is coming from the users and the consumers. We are creating this data without even intentionally doing so. This creation of data from us is the main reason we are not expected to pay for most of our apps and social media platforms. Instead we are trading our services as users, creating content for the owners of those platforms.

With every passing day people are giving up more and more of their private information online. They are doing so without knowing that this information is being harvested by companies and even being sold to other companies. The scariest part is that we are being individually identified or linked to an individual from the things we answer or do online. Then a profile is created of us without our knowledge. The company Acxiom claims they have at least 1,500 bits of information on over 200 million Americans at any given time. Acxiom refused to meet with 60 Minutes for this interview and remains extremely vague as to how they collect all of this information. To me, personally, this raises a GIANT red flag. How can they flaunt the information they have without the public understanding how they got that information?

The various companies that were “exposed” on this episode for releasing things like sexual orientation, alcoholism, and gambling addictions seems unethical. While I am sure that procuring this information is legally accomplished by these companies, it seems rather inappropriate without consent. I couldn’t imagine working for a company like this, and it makes me wonder about the kind of people that are employed by them.

The company Disconnect was really shocking too. Allowing people into your web browsers or cell phones seemingly unknowingly is creepy. Seeing the third party companies that pull information answered in questions on dating sites or other web pages is genius, but still a little too invasive for me. Of course they have this disclaimer located deep in the depths of their terms and conditions page in order to cover their behinds, legally.

In my opinion I think that the various apps and social media platforms we use should have a more prominent disclaimer for users. I think that it is sneaky to hide these statements in the terms and conditions. While I understand this is laziness on our part, I think that being forthcoming and upfront is always best. We learned throughout this week of class that people are aware of privacy invasion, and while maybe not to the true depths of that invasion, people are willing to live with the fact that companies are collecting data on them.

One of the craziest things I have heard recently in regard to big data comes from the company FitBit. FitBit has become a very popular way for people to stay active, track their calories burned, steps walked, and their sleep throughout any given day. The crazy part is through the last couple of years FitBit has amassed the largest collection of sleep tracking information in the history of the world. FitBit withholds the rights to use this information as they please, and even sell the information to third parties.

https://chipcast.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=d59b80cb-70ca-44ee-a3c1-1a4ab67d6f18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAT_ina93NY

The Sins of the Internet With the Human Face

In business, and life in general, money seems to be a major driving force. When the Internet was first created this proved to be no different. The default business model, and economic foundation, was advertising. The reason that advertising was so heavily favored was the fact that it was the easiest model for a web startup to implement, and the easiest to market to investors. Revenue growth would be contracted to ad networks through the startup companies, and then the focus would shift towards building an audience. The only thing that mattered was audience growth.

One thing that I learned about various business models on the Internet was investor storytime. Investor storytime is when someone pays you to tell them how rich they’ll get when you finally put ads on your site. While it is not necessarily advertising, it is advertising for the future. You are trying to persuade one or two listeners to hand over millions of dollars for your “story”.

When I think of personalized ads and surveillance I immediately think of Facebook. While it was apparent in the article that they are doing extremely well ($2.91 billion in revenue), the profit per user is just under $0.60. Those are astounding numbers, and it truly makes the apparent growth in “big data” that much more understandable.

Not only is big data effective now, but also it allows for quantitative evidence and proof when it comes to telling better stories to investors and ad agencies who could potential buy your ads. This sudden trend in big data has led to promises made to investors and advertisers that advertising will be more invasive, ubiquitous, and targeted.

The scary thing is how aware most of the population is on these advertising agendas, along with many different types of agendas from varying groups/people. Why do people have a certain understanding and acceptance of online surveillance? The article and video suggest, and I completely agree, that people have been taught that this is simply how the Internet works. We understand that certain people or groups may be privy to our surveillance, but we also understand that the deeper and “truer” the surveillance, the more accurate and useful our online experience will be.

This surveillance of online advertising grants the advertisers the ability to see who’s looking at an ad. This creates incentives to produce and share content that generates pageviews and mouse clicks. Unfortunately over the course of time, clicks and pageviews have lead to “clickbaiting” but little thoughtful engagement. The article talked about how we are moving from helpful news, to designed ads that get us to click the “next page” button. I find this very true, and especially on Facebook. You can’t simply read an article anymore; you have to click through 16 different slides. It is terrible.

I really liked how Ceglowski demands that we be given a right to review and delete the data that companies hold over us. His idea of having a time limit on how long the data can be held is genius!

I was unaware of Pinboad.in before this class. Pinboard.in is a bookmarking service where each user of the service pays a one-time fee, which rises a fraction of a cent with each new user. Cegłowski promises no ads and no third parties will get access to our data, which I think is great. The scary truth that Ceglowski made apart is that “If you’re not paying for your bookmarking, then someone else is, and their interests may not be aligned with yours.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/

https://vimeo.com/102717446

Social Media Experiment: The Technological Blackhole

For the sake of the experiment, and this assignment, I thought that it would be really cool to see what it would be like to stay off all social media and screens for an entire 24 hour period. Usually I do not have days like that other than when I am on vacation out of the country and have no choice but to not use my phone. The problem with this experiment is that I am not currently out of the country on a fun vacation and I have certain obligations throughout the day that call for the use of electronics, but not necessarily social media.

I decided that from yesterday afternoon until now, as I am writing this blog, I would stay away from all electronic screens and social media usage. The main reason why I decided to not make it a full 24-hour period is due to the fact that I am a Doordash driver and an Uber driver. Lunchtime and dinnertime are huge for Doordash driving, and I was already scheduled to work a couple of hours today. Also Friday afternoons/evenings prove to be very lucrative for Uber drivers as well. So I understand the importance of seeing both sides of the spectrum when it comes to screen and social media usage, I am financially obligated to use particular apps along with my phone. That being said, I did find a huge difference when it came to staying off of things like Twitter, Instagram, and Netflix.

Every night before bed I spend about 30-45 minutes going through Twitter and Instagram to check on new posts, keep up with news/sports, and unwind from the day. I also always watch Netflix as I am falling asleep. Last night I did not do any of those things, and I felt very strange. I have trouble simply laying in bed and falling asleep in the dark. I found myself searching for things to do that could replace my “down” time before I ended my day. I actually decided to start a book that I received for Christmas that I had been meaning to read, but never got around to because I usually choose Netflix or video games over reading a book.

While replacing TV and social media with a book did not seem like a huge deal before bed, when I woke up in the morning I felt a giant urge to check all of my social media accounts before I started the day. Typically I check posts and updates that were made after I went to sleep or before I woke up, but today was much different. I knew that I would seemingly crave even to check my phone to see if I had any notifications, so I left my phone downstairs all night until I knew I needed to write this blog and get to work.

All in all this experiment was eye opening. I didn’t realize that I was so dependent on wanting to keep up with the outside world through my social media accounts. I suppose Turkle was spot on when describing the craving to see notifications over what is happening in real life. The 15 hours that I spent off of electronics and social media felt strange and when I got back on I felt like I was way behind on what other people were either talking about or posting about. I feel like this sense of being behind was magnified with today being the inauguration. I am not huge into politics, but I do think that current cultural literacy is dependent on the knowledge gained through social media accounts.

Social Media Log

I definitely consider myself as someone who is very tech savvy, and involved in the various platforms that are available in different social media applications. I constantly use Twitter and Instagram to keep up with news and sports. I am also an Uber driver, and a delivery driver for the food service application, Door Dash. From the moment I wake in the morning, to the moment I go to sleep at night, my phone is no more than an arm’s length away from me. With that being said, I do not text message that often throughout the day (at least not in comparison to some of my classmates that I saw on Tumblr). I would say I average about 50 text messages a day, and I typically check my social media apps when I wake up, and before I go to bed. Besides those times, I never find myself getting on and looking at things. When I am on however, I spend around 30-45 minutes “catching up” on the things that I missed.

Alone Together With Toxic Devices

It is sad to truly grasp the realizations that are blatantly evident in our everyday lives when it comes to technology. I think Turkle hit the nail on the head when she expressed how people expect more and more from technology and less and less from their peers. Listening to how Turkle originally perceived how technology would be used/applied, and how it ended up working out to this point in history, is another saddening truth. She originally thought that people would mold and shape their identities online, and then upon logging off, they would go apply these new “identity features” in the real world. What she did not equate was the fact that there is no true breaking point between an online identity and your real one anymore. Instead of dividing time and working on one’s self in different facets, in this case digitally and in real life, our identities are now split at all times.

Society as a whole is moving towards a space where we feel free to respond to three promises technology can make us. Those promises are:

1. The promise to always be heard

2. The promise to be wherever we want at any given time

3. The promise to never be alone

The last promise proved to be compatible with the message Louis C.K. had in his video. He described this always-looming feeling of loneliness that is drowned out by the use of technology, mainly cell phones. People fill all types of voids in their lives with the use of their cell phones. Whether it is to kill time while waiting on particular things throughout everyday life, or to divert their attention away from feelings they are trying to suppress.

I can say that I am someone who is not necessarily addicted to the “new” alerts or messages that I receive on my phone, but I definitely feel an urge to check and see what is going on every time my phone lights up. However, this does not mean I feel the need to respond or let it take away from what is happening in the real world currently. I find myself using Netflix as filler for silent time. I use it not as a way to suppress sad feelings, like Louis C.K. stated, but just as a personal preference. I am so used to having sound on or screens to look at, that when it comes time to go to bed I will grow very restless if I just lay there in the dark and try to fall asleep.

Link to YouTube videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c

http://billmoyers.com/segment/sherry-turkle-on-being-alone-together/

TED Talks

From an immediate glance I was a little bummed out to see that this video was from 2009. 8 years is a long time in general, but it is a lifetime when it comes to social media. While many observations and statements that were made in this video remain true, it immediately seemed outdated in my opinion.

However, I really found it profound when Clay Shirkly opened up the TED talks video depicting our generation as the largest increase in expressive capability in human history. I think that he is absolutely right, and we are lucky to have these privileges at our fingertips. The funny part is this statement is even more true than it was in 2009 when this video was made.

The picture I attached above is a great image to illustrate how the media is no longer just done by professionals, and only received by the consumer. Now the consumers become their own producers as well, free to share any opinion they deem worthy. Not only have the consumers become producers, they are no longer disconnected when receiving their messages and media. Social media has connected these people together along with the professionals, or governments, etc.

Clay Shirkly also talked about how the BBC found out about the Chinese earthquake via Twitter, and how wild that sounded. Not only does this not sound wild to me, but twitter (along with news apps themselves) prove to be much more timely than people sitting around their TV waiting to catch news anchors report these events that already took place. The ability to band together and provide relief, or share a common goal, like many people did in raising money for the Chinese after this earthquake is something that by 2017 we have grown very accustomed to.

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history?language=en#t-699778

Who is Adam Aldred?

My name is Adam Aldred, and I am currently in my 5th year at Central Michigan University. I was born and raised in The Woodlands, TX ( a city just north of Houston). I found my way up to CMU through sports, I played 4 years on the baseball team and loved every minute of it. I am a marketing major and will be graduating in May of 2017. I have some experience writing blogs from last summer when I did so as an intern at Kinetix, which is a recruiting firm in Atlanta, GA. I am really interested to see what I can learn from this class as far as how social media can help promote brands, companies, and people. I realize that the world is constantly evolving, especially social media, so it will be interesting to see how cutting edge and on the ball we can all be in this class!

Below is a picture of me with my parents and sister:

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