Fresh Perspectives @garrettdiola-blog - Tumblr Blog

Posts

Throughout the last 15 weeks, I have been making big progress towards making my social media accounts more professional. In the first couple weeks of the class, I decided to go through all of my accounts and delete any old posts that could make me look bad to potential employers. This took some work but I definitely felt better about my internet presence after deleting all the dumb tweets from my middle and high school days when I was immature. Next, I went through and updated my profile pictures for all of my accounts. For the more professional accounts like LinkedIn and Facebook, I chose a professional headshot. The professional headshot will show employers I care about social appearance. For my more personal accounts, I chose pictures like the one above that are respectful but show some of my more personal interests like the outdoors.

This class has helped me grow as a social media manager. Learning to use Hootsuite really made it much easier to manage all my social media accounts. Having them all on one site makes it much easier to manage and view notifications, interactions, and posts. I personally like being able to plan and schedule my posts out ahead of time. This is great when I have some free time and wish to post something later at a time when I am busy doing something else.

I have also learned how to grow and engage with my followers. Being selective and creative about the content I post helps gain interest from current and potential followers. Choosing striking posts that catch the eye have been my main point of focus.

The class also taught me to be more prepared. I really liked and utilized the content calendar. This allowed me to plan ahead when I was going to post certain content and how to schedule multiple posts in advance. I thought it was a really cool feature to schedule all these posts in advance and then see them automatically post on their own.

Going forward, I wish to continue to grow as a social media manager. I wish to learn more new strategies and ideas that will increase my social media presence and success.

Future Plans

I recently just received an opportunity for a summer internship and I’m pretty excited about it. I went through two interviews and even met with the director of Human Resources and the President of the Company. The company that I will be interning with is called Wimsatt. They are an exterior building materials supplier. The company is located throughout the Midwest mostly in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. They have territories that are managed by branches spread out across those states. I will be interning at the branch closest to my hometown, in Williamsburg, Michigan. Its about 15 minutes from my home. I will be learning much about Sales and learning how the company operates in all aspects. It should be a fun and fast paced experience.

They are going to start me out in the lumber yard pulling together different products for customers orders. Then I will transition into deliveries and help transfer the products directly to the customer’s site. After that I will transition into the office where I will be learning how to make orders for customers on the computer side of things. Then I will gain information on how to handle different aspects of sales and how they get and receive customers. This will be more of warm leads and existing customer management. After that I will learn from the actual traveling salesmen which engage in colder leads, and attempt to get new customers to the company.

I think this experience will provide me with the knowledge necessary to gain a good foothold in the sales aspect of businesses and allow me to pursue other opportunities in that department going forward into my career.

Taking A Cruise

I am going to be honest with you, I used to think that going on a cruise was not the best use of your money if you wanted to go on a vacation. I figured that the cost was too high considering you would spend over half of your time on the same boat. I figured it would be very cramped, and an almost guarantee of sea sickness. However, my first cruise definitely taught me not to knock it until you try it.

This past summer I went on a Royal Caribbean cruise from Miami, Florida to Haiti, Jamaica and Cozumel. It was a 6 day cruise and was very exciting. The ship we sailed on was massive, estimated at the second biggest cruise ship in the world. The rooms were of decent size and the ship almost made you feel as if you were on solid ground.

The food was absolutely terrific. Honestly the main dining rooms each night were the equivalent of eating at a 4 or 5 star restaurant. There were an incredible amount of cool things to do considering you were on a boat. From hot tubs, pools, surfing, zip lines, waterslides all the way to ice skating, gambling at the casino and water shows, there was a ton of attractions. The locations we visited were beautiful, and very relaxing.

I continue to look forward to my next cruise, whenever that may be. I highly suggest going on a cruise with friends or family if you have the chance.

#crusin

For those of you that do not know, I am a big car enthusiast. I enjoy motorsports and it is a dream of mine to someday become a car collector. My hobby started when I was very young. I was always intrigued by cool cars and collectables. When I turned 15 I started searching for my first car. I ended up buying an older pickup truck for a few thousand dollars. Before I even turned 16, I sold that truck for a profit and began searching for another. I love looking at cars and I eventually bought another vehicle and sold it right after I turned 16. This cycle continued for years to come and still continues now. I have bought and sold over 30 vehicles since then, and it has provided me with some income to get me through college. I am very grateful for being able to make this my hobby.

Pictured above is my favorite car that I have ever owned. At a time it was my dream car. It is a 2006 Subaru WRX STI, painted World Rally Blue with gold BBS rims. It is somewhat regarded as a collector car and one of the most sought after of all the Subaru’s ever made. This car gave me chills every time I drove it and was wicked fast. Unfortunately, this story has a sad ending since the head gaskets ended up failing which took the entire motor with it. Since it was a performance car, I was quoted by several shops at $10,000 to replace or rebuild an engine for the car. That amount of money would have put me well over what the car was worth, and I would not have been able to sell it at a price which would have covered most of the repair cost. The most financially smart choice was to sell the car without a motor since I would be losing the least amount of money that way. That’s just how the math worked out and it was a bitter ending to a dream.

I will buy another one down the road, but it is unfortunate that I wasn't able to have that car during the time and place that I most desired it.

#pedaldown

My Social Media Growth

Throughout the last 10 weeks, I have been making big progress towards making my social media accounts more professional. In the first couple weeks of the class, I decided to go through all of my accounts and delete any old posts that could make me look bad to potential employers. This took some work but I definitely felt better about my internet presence after deleting all the dumb tweets from my middle and high school days when I was immature. Next, I went through and updated my profile pictures for all of my accounts. For the more professional accounts like LinkedIn and Facebook, I chose the picture above for my profile picture. This picture is a professional headshot that will show employers I care about social appearance. For my more personal accounts, I chose pictures that were respectful but showed some of my more personal interests like the outdoors.

Going forward, I wish to continue to grow as a social media manager. I wish to learn more new strategies and ideas that will increase my social media presence and success.

#Growth SocialNetworking

Hootsuite Module 4

Hootsuite Module 4 was a very informative module that focused on building your social media community and your brand. I found that going through the module and writing the client project step 4 memo was a great learning experience. I was able to give advice to my client that was different than in previous memos.

I recommended to my client that they increased their engagement with their followers. To do this, I recommended that they highlight different individuals within their community in order to get followers to interact and engage with each other and well as my client. I also recommended that my client highlight different achievements of the smaller organizations which my client oversees, in order to further increase engagement and interaction with followers.

Further recommendations I made included individual ideas for each social media account. For Twitter, I recommended increased use of hashtags and gifs. For Instagram, I recommended more engagement through commenting and highlighting. For Facebook, I recommended progressing towards a professional and promotional Facebook page tailored towards individuals outside of their community.

Overall, it was a great learning experience and great practice toward building a social media community and building brand awareness.

#hootsuite

Dangers of Big Data

Big Data is generating a lot of buzz in the news recently. In the past it was hailed for being able to see trends and identify things you could not before. Sure there are benefits to it. The dangers of Big Data are very big. We are seeing many businesses that use big data being hacked or compromised resulting in others getting some personal information. Businesses could be asking for it essentially by having a large data bank because hackers will want that information and will attack for it. This can upset customers and bring possible lawsuits.

Consumers need to be aware that everything they do is being tracked by someone somewhere. All of their customer buying preferences are being tracked and stored along with tons of personal information. This information is being stored and sometimes sold to other companies. Your data is out there and can be in almost anyones hands.

The best way to balance the opportunities and threats is by being careful. Businesses should invest an adequate amount of money to protect private information from those who seek to use it. Safeguarding the information you collect should be an upmost priority. Using big data and collecting it in a way which does not inflict upon the privacy of consumers/customers should also be in the forefront of businesses minds.

Client Project

Client project step three was much longer in depth than the first two client project steps. I spent a lot more time analyzing my client and putting together a solid social media strategy. I advised my client to increase their posting frequency on all of their social media accounts. This will help with getting more content to followers and potential followers. My client is struggling to gain more followers on its underdeveloped accounts. With this being said, I believe promoting posts on instagram and facebook would be a great idea for the organization. Additionally, I recommended that the organization only have one full time person directed to social media management of the different platforms. Overall this module and project was very informative. It taught me a lot about the different strategies and how to write a social media strategy report.

ERP Simulation Competition

My experience at the ERP Simulation Competition was very fun. I enjoyed being around all of the professionals and students who were so eager to win the competition. It made me realize that everyone has a little competitive nature in them.

Watching the event take place made me very jealous of the kids who were given the opportunity to compete. I am a very competitive person, a trait which runs in my family very deeply. Sitting on the sidelines was very tough, but I know the students who were competing were better skilled than I at the time. Although I dont have to take an SAP class or compete in the event, watching made me really interested to a point where I am considering gaining knowledge of SAP and then further competing in the competition next year.

From just watching the event I was amazed at how versatile and beneficial SAP can be for businesses and managers everywhere. I believe the system should be implemented everywhere, and all business students should be required to take the SAP class.

Overall, it was a fun experience and a great learning experience as well.

#ERPsim

My social media experience

Lately I have been trying to expand the social media presence of the organization I am consulting. It has been an interesting experience, and I have learned that good things take time. I have been helping them with increasing their following on their social media accounts. Helping them with this has taught me a lot. The content you post does matter, so we have been strategizing new ideas to create unique content that their followers would like to see. With such a small following to begin with, it is hard to grow from the start. I believe it is easier to grow your following once you have a good base, because some social media sites recommend your accounts to others if they see similar people follow your account. Not having many people follow your account makes the site deem you are not as relevant and probably won’t suggest your account to others. I also have learned that paying for the sites to promote your post may help you grow your account faster than compared to growing it naturally without ads. It has been a tough experience so far, but I believe I am making progress. I have created a new logo for the organization, and have set up a good foundation on which I plan to build and grow.

Qualities Of A Consultant

There are several qualities a social media consultant should have. First, they should be a good listener. You must listen to what your firm wants and what the wish to achieve. They may have a certain message or theme they want to get across to potential customers and it is your job to understand that. Second, you must know the target market your employer wishes to reach and strategize the best way to reach them. You must work efficiently and effectively. You are helping a firm represent themselves to thousands of potential customers. Any failures or accidents can be catastrophic for the company and your career. Knowing the best way to market a product on social media is a basic and most important quality one must have if they wish to have a career in marketing and social media consultant.

#my thoughts

My Presence

I am becoming better at social media. I plan to improve my social media presence in a few different ways. First, I will plan out my posts in advance. This will help me with creating better content to post on important dates, instead of creating content last minute which results in less quality. Second, I will increase the frequency of my posts, making me a more active account to follow. I believe there is a sweet spot, posting often but not too much. I plan to find it. Third, I will engage and interact with my followers more, to create a more personable relationship. From this I will tailor my content towards their liking. So far, I have set up a Hootsuite account to manage all my social media accounts in one place. This allows me to have a better overlook of what's going on as well as not forgetting about any single account. I am able to give each account the same amount of attention. In the future, I plan to execute the plans I listed above.

#Social Media Presence

The internet is used by billions of people everyday. The longer its been around, the more people have figured out how to take advantage of it. People have found out how to make money with the internet. Early internet business models had good intentions and hopeful outcomes. However, many of these business models failed. One model that has continued to work time and time again is advertising.

Some companies found out that by simply surveying users and keeping track of what they do, marketers will pay big money for that information, which evolved and became big data. These big companies are so willing to pay for that information, that it has influenced many people to develop these internet surveillance business models. Even companies like Facebook adopted these strategies to help themselves generate more revenue. While they do not share this information with other companies and instead keep it for their own use, they are still gathering tons of information. The internet is now being used to watch people’s actions and record that information for potential profit. Almost anything you do on the internet, someone is watching.

Big data has become the name of the game, and there is no indication of that changing anytime soon.

#surveillance #BigData Facebook

Big Data and Its Implications

Big Data is a statistical analysis of consumer trends, habits, demographics and much more. Most consumers know little about it, and have no clue that they are contributing to it everyday. Big Data consists of many things you might not want other people to know, therefore infringing on your information privacy. Companies track everything you do on the internet and electronically, and compile that information to sell it to others.

It is a very powerful tool that can allow companies to better advertise and market to you personally. It is dangerous because it is sensitive information, and if it falls into the wrong hands as it sometimes does, people have a much better chance of targeting you. They can find out all sorts of things that you dont want them to know, such as where you live, how many kids you have, what kind of car you drive, what your daily routine is like, and much more. This information, as you can imagine, can be very beneficial for someone who wishes to do harm to you or your house. Sometimes, your location is being broadcast to others as well.

Much of the damage is already done, but more information is still being gathered everyday on almost everyone. In my opinion, the only way to limit harm from big data is to regulate it by government intervention. This could be done with new legislation that protects citizen’s private information. This industry is almost completely unregulated and has little to no government oversight. There must be oversight in some way shape or form.

#privacy BigData

Screen Time Experiment

I recently designed an experiment where I would limit my use of my phone and other screens. This experiment was designed to give me greater insight of how much my phone and social media impacts my life.

The experiment consisted of 6, 4 hour periods of alternating screen use. Meaning, for the first period I did not use any screens or technology, for the second I did, for the third I did not, and so on. This experiment was very hard for me but I managed to do it.

I found that during times when I was not able to use my phone, I had a serious urge to cheat and look at my phone or message someone. I felt very disconnected to the world. However, I noticed that I was able to get more work done and had less distractions. I was more productive and focused. My head felt more clear and not as hazy.

During times where I was able to use a screen, I spent at least half of that time on my phone or laptop trying to catch up from everything I thought I had missed. I was very unproductive and felt like I was multitasking the entire time. I got a few headaches too.

This made me realize that technology and social media has a negative hold on my life. It decreases my productivity and gives me a feeling of unsatisfaction that I can never really ever conquer. It disconnects me from the setting I am in and overall has a negative impact. I plan to use social media and my phone less, to be more productive. I will not stop using it all together because I feel that it is still important to keep communication with those who are not in the present setting with you.

#experiment socialmedia impacts

Social Media And Its Impacts

I recently watched an interview with Sherry Turkle and another with Louis C.K. These two videos were enlightening to watch. Both of these notable people made solid points about the detrimental effects social media has on human interaction.

They pointed out that we use social media and our phones to make us feel better when we are doing something that isn’t as enjoyable. We become addicted to the feeling we get of being on our phone and being connected. This addiction is even harder for children who have developed it. It made me realize that we should keep social media and phones away from children until they are more mature and have much more developed brains. I personally now plan to keep my future children away from this technology until an age I deem them mature.

While Louis C.K. was very funny with his interview, he made me realize that I use my phone to either keep me occupied in times of boredom or to make me feel less alone. Instead of enduring these feelings of boredom or loneliness, I push them off for later by distracting myself. This keeps me from ever being able to work through these feelings and actually conquer them.

On top of that, both of them made me realize how distracted this technology makes me and how many moments I miss. I relate this mostly to family gatherings. During family Christmas there are many times when we are just sitting around watching the television and I get bored and go on my phone to occupy myself. Instead I should be having conversation with family members who I don’t get to see that often.

#socialmedia #impacts #boredom #distractions #impacts

garrettdiola-blog

Here’s a Ted Talk that I think you all would find interesting to watch:

https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history?language=en

My reaction to it:

This Ted Talk is about 10 years old now, and it is interesting to think about how true the speaker’s points came to be. We are living in a world more connected than ever before. Each day more and more people become connected, it’s crazy to think about. The Ted Talk pointed out that as social media became more popular anyone could create news and share it with almost anyone. This was a problem for administrators in China, which led them to filter China’s Internet. Realizing my true freedom of speech and information here in America makes me very grateful.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Fresh Perspectives