Andy Flores

[aflo1991]

For those looking to keep themselves busy found a concert on Marstellar Street. St. Thomas Aquinas hosted the band Day 40 to play a concert for anyone that wanted to stop by. Day 40 is made up of four members who played songs from an upcoming CD and other classic Christian hits that people knew. Some people stayed for awhile and others stopped by to see what was going on and then went on their way. People took up seats on the sidewalk, on the front steps of the church or stood in the middle of the street right in front of the stage. This soundslide will give you an idea of the atmosphere and a couple commentaries from people who attended the concert.

[aflo1991]

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Haley Checkley discusses her weekend.

[aflo1991]

The importance of a suit bag.

[aflo1991]

Reaction to Manti Te'o and the Purdue Exponent incident

When Manti Te'o's supposed girlfriend was found out to be a hoax it was a really big deal in the sports world.  I remember the biggest issue with the whole ordeal was that some thought Te'o knew the girl was fake and played up to it for more publicity throughout the football season. 

I think it was fair for the media to expose the hoax, but what they could have done better was not jump to conclusions. The media should have waited to hear both sides of the story. It seemed that before Te'o ever got to tell his story he was already guilty in public opinion of knowing that his online girlfriend was a hoax.

Te'o hurt himself by trusting someone over the internet, but I do think he should have been given the benefit of the doubt about not knowing the person is fake. The next time something like this happens, I believe the media should report it, but don't jump to quick conclusions and report something that could be false.

The Exponent did a good job in reporting the events of what happened when their photographer was apprehended in the EE building. They simply stated what happened and why they believe the photographer did nothing wrong. 

I like how they found an expert to comment on the situation and give another opinion on the incident that occurred. The one thing I would have included in the article would be to attempt to get a comment from Purdue police. 

Although Purdue police might not have a comment at least you show your readers that you are balanced and willing to let the other side give their account of what happened.

[aflo1991]

Washington Post's Facebook page uses a video to gain attention

Over the course of a week, I followed The Washington Post's Facebook page. There were a lot of engaging posts on there. I think their strength is that the photos are so well done that I want to click the post before I know what it's about.

The post that I found particularly interesting was a post from March 5. The post had a screenshot of a pelican's first flying lesson. If you clicked on the link it would then take you to the video to see the pelican fly.

The post was very creative because at first I didn't know what I was looking at which intrigued me, so I read the text and then realized what I was seeing. This is a very neat story because not many stories will have a first-person view from a camera of an animal flying.

Also, I thought the picture served its purpose because it was a clear shot and the screenshot they took was one where the pelican is flying. I think if they would have just used a picture of the pelican standing still, it wouldn't have been so interesting.

The video generated over 800 likes and over 200 shares. Also, over 30 people commented on the post, so it definitely created some buzz.

There's nothing I would do to improve on this post because it engages the reader and it's an interesting topic that most people would click on if they saw it.

[aflo1991]

[aflo1991]

[aflo1991]

The efficiency of CareerBuilder's twitter handle

I chose to analyze CareerBuilder’s twitter handle to see how effective it was in helping people looking for jobs. 

In the process, I found some really good things they did and some things they could improve on. The twitter account is run by Tony V., who writes for the website’s blog, theworkbuzz.com. In all, I looked through 111 tweets in the course of a week and each tweet had a link that connected the reader to a post on its website. I thought that the twitter account was very efficient in that it tweeted several times a day and was always posting a link to the website.

I also liked the variation in tweets. The tweets never got stale as it linked to posts on a wide variety of topics. Some topics would be about how to make a resume or how to do well in an interview. Other tweets included topics for people who already had careers and how to continue improving in the workplace. 

CareerBuilder didn’t use as many hashtags as I thought it would. It did use the hashtag “how to” on several occasions highlight that the article that was linked, would be helping people accomplish something such as fine tuning a resume. All the tweets were professional as they teased a topic that would be discussed in the article linked to the tweet. 

The account which has over 100,000 followers didn’t get as many replies and retweets as I would have expected. There were never more than a little over 10 retweets or favorites per tweet. The replies that the tweets got were general in that most people would just tell them they had a good article post about a given topic. 

This brings me to my next point, in that I think the company could do more reader engagement. For example I only noticed around four tweets where CareerBuilder responded to questions asked by people. It was very hit or miss if they responded to something. However, as I mentioned earlier there were not a lot of replies where people asked for advice. 

There was one tweet where CareerBuilder asked people to send in humorous job stories and I think they should do those more often. Also, I think they could have reached out more to followers for stories or ask followers what they want to get advice on the most.

Another area the account could work on, is not leaving enough room for a reply.  A great way to get followers in engaged is to leave room for them to reply to tweets. Almost all of the current tweets have to much writing and long links that take up too many characters. 

I think the biggest benefit of this twitter account is that if you’re looking for advice on a given subject, there is a good chance they’ve tweeted something about it. However, If you tweet at them you might not get a response which is one area where the account seems to lack.

CareerBuilder is definitely a good resource for people who are currently trying to find a job or looking for ways to move up in their company.

[aflo1991]

Joe Secat enjoys a corn dog for lunch in between classes.

[aflo1991]

A warm day on the Purdue mall.

[aflo1991]

Live Twitter assignment : Twitter is the new \ social newspaper

Yesterday, I live tweeted, Reddit founder, Alexis Ohanian's talk he gave in Loeb Playhouse.

I was a difficult challenge, but one that I enjoyed. I liked trying to craft a good tweet that would entice my followers and make them feel like they were there. The biggest difficulty was keeping up with everything Ohanian was saying.

Ohanian was a really engaging speaker, so it was hard not to want to just listen and take in his message. He had a lot of interesting things to say including his anecdotes about getting Reddit started and stories of how the site has helped others.

Another difficulty I had was being able to get a good picture. My phone has a good zoom function on it, but the lighting in Loeb Playhouse made it hard to get a shot that wasn't too bright. I did however post some pictures during my live tweet.

One of the benefits from live tweeting this even was being given a hashtag  to use for the event. Since the event gave me the hashtag it made it easier to attach a hashtag to my tweets and not have to come up with one on my own. 

Another benefit of the live tweeting was that it gave people a story that they could follow as they check their timelines. With live tweeting, I could pick out the essential information that Ohanian said and tweet it. Also, I could just tweet quotes and then say what Ohanian meant by a certain quote.

For me personally, I'm beginning to lean towards reading about an even through social media. By reading an event using twitter, you get up-to-the-minute updates and and you don't have to wait until after the event is over to read about. As I mentioned earlier, live tweeting allows followers to get the essential information and so there is better scan-ability. 

I always like to follow sports events with live tweeting because not only do you get the score, but you get a little information on how the game is going. I think this is comparable to talks or speeches because followers can keep up with what people are talking about and what exactly they are saying about each subject.