Kaitlin Gustave

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This semester went by extremely quick, so it seems. I attended some great courses that all together benefitted my knowledge for marketing and journalism. As the semester comes to an end and I am another year closer to graduation, I feel that I gained a lot more knowledge from my New Media course than I had expected.

In this course, I was fortunate enough to learn about, and use, two new media platforms, Sysomos and Hootsuite as well as become certified to use Hootsuite. These tools are extremely beneficial for anyone managing any social media page. It is very interesting to see all of the buzz and graphs that you can use through Sysomos. Also, using Hootsuite helps with your posting times and managing multiple posts in one simple site. Many agencies and professionals use these tools to help them with their business. Both these tools help to keep you organized and on a timely manner.

Along with the beneficial new media platforms, there are also many new media concepts that I am able to take with me after this course. One concept that really stuck with me is acting professional on and offline. It is so important that you portray yourself in a professional manner because, it is true, you never know who is watching. Potential business associates have access to online social media accounts and can easily access your page. If you have party photos or anything that may be miss leading, it may hinder you from receive a job that you have been waiting for. It is so important that you act the way you want people to treat you. Even if it is one minor slip, it can cost you a huge opportunity.

The next item that I would like to share is the new media tools that I personally found beneficial and interesting. The main tool that I enjoy is Canva. I had never heard of Canva before taking this course and now, I use Canva daily. Whether if its for making a personal post or using this app for a school project, it’s being used. I also like that you can take a pre-made Canva and edit it to your own liking. It makes creations a whole lot easier because sometimes, let’s face it, we don’t have that creative eye all the time.

Also, I have always used Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter but I never really used it to do anything live or extremely professional. With Twitter, I found that using certain hashtags and covering topics helps engage many followers. Also the impact it has when you live tweet an event. It was very interesting to see the engagement that went on during these times. Also, during live tweeting, you could also be posting to your other social media sites to engage more followers and gain more insights.

New Media is shaping our society daily. Just about every person, brand, or company has some type of social media account. Now people are relying on social media to stay connected with one another instead of writing letters or making phone calls. Brands and companies are selling products on their social media accounts. People share their “big news” on their accounts. Everyone is so engaged in the “likes” they receive and followers. People are finding new ways to share items and post things. Also, there are many tools that people can use to edit and update their posts or photos. It is amazing to see what new media has done over that last couple years and what it continues to do.

All-in-all, I enjoyed taking this new media course at West Texas A&M University. I believe that it was beneficial to me as a upcoming journalist and marketer.

[karrowbrand-blog]

Crisis Online

“News sites, blogs, media, they are a reality of crisis today”

There are crisis everywhere. As Kathryn Kuttis said, “Social media, in a matter of hours can change a companies views." This statement is very true. 

After listening to Kathryn Kuttis, we found a better understanding for a crisis.

Starbucks went through a crisis when they held the #racetogether campaign. People took a simple campaign that was meant to change the way people think into a complete opposite direction. They found ways to make Starbucks look bad while doing this campaign. 

Other online crisis’ are found when people that run a companies social media pages and run their own, sometimes forget to check which site they are on before they share a post. 

People really need to pay closer attention to what they are doing and posting online. People get offended and cause an uproar. It is important to double check what you are posting and if you do not want to cause a fight or drama with others, you should probably think twice before you click send. 

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Crowdsourcing... to be honest, I had no idea what it even was.

I then searched the internet and to my surprise, crowdsourcing is multiple people working together to complete one task. 

I think this is very interesting because you wouldn't think of having a whole lot of people working on one project but after you think about it, it seems like the best idea.

I think that having multiple brains work together is very beneficial because everyone has different ideas and if you can get multiple ideas on one page, you couldn't even imagine the outcome. It also helps speed up a project process by having multiple people work on one thing. 

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In this era, video and pictures are changing every single day. People are finding new ways to record what they see and what they do. As well as editing, which is changing every day as well. It is so easy for people to edit their media with a few taps on their phones. 

What is really interesting that has become of topic a lot recently is 360° video and photos. I personally haven’t done an entire 360° post before but I have done a panorama which is pretty close to it. 

It is so interesting to see something as a whole. It gives a person a new perspective on what is being viewed. 

It is so interesting to see all of the 360° cameras that are being developed. There are many different types that you can purchase to use, depending on which style you like better. There are also some apps that you can download on a smart phone that allows you do work on 360° video and picture. 

Being able to tell a story with 360 video and photo is interesting to all. It allows you to share a wide scene rather than your normal picture. It makes a person feel like they are in the moment or the scene.

I personally cannot wait to get my hands on one of these fancy cameras and try the 360° out for myself. 

http://www.adweek.com/digital/after-experimenting-360-degree-storytelling-publishers-are-going-all-vr-171068/

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Video, what an open category. 

Every day people are using some type of video app or tool. There are so many different ways to upload videos, edit videos, even film videos. People are now finding it easier to do all of these things through their smart phones.

Smart phones now allow you to capture footage, download specific editing apps, and upload the videos to your media of choice. 

Personally, with being involved with rodeo, I love having people video my roping runs. I can then crop things out of they video as well as enhance the footage. I do all of this through my IPhone. I have multiple apps that allow me to do various things within my own video. 

For me, I personally don’t upload videos to YouTube or any other site like that. I simply upload my videos to Facebook or Instagram to have my followers see what I have been doing. 

I do use YouTube to watch music videos and tutorials daily. It is a simple site that allows you to search anything you want. I think that it is beneficial to have these sites because not only do the people uploading these videos receive a lot of feedback but they also receive more followers and viewers that help boost their posts. 

Video has been evolving over time and I think that even though the smart phones make it very easy to use and edit videos, the video production is only going to advance in years to come.

[karrowbrand-blog]

War Room Experience

When you think of “war room” you probably think of people fighting or arguing but in media, the war room is so much more.

After working with Dr. Brooks for the Communications Week Project Runway, I left with a whole new understanding for the war room. What we did in our war room was have two people actually go to the project runway and two people stayed behind closed doors. I was personally one to be behind closed doors. It was crazy to think that we had our other group members sending us photos and details of what was going on at the project runway while myself and another member were in a room receiving all this information and trying to make quick, attention getter posts for all social media outlets. We had to follow along on the stats and analytics of other peoples posts in hopes to see what they were doing and how we could have our posts be reached more. 

I think it is insane, because you are trying to top another persons post while trying to communicate with them and keep an interaction going. Plus having every social media outlet open along with the analytics page and any type of photo or post editor. It’s a face paced thing and it really keeps you on your toes. 

I believe that I really gained a lot out of this war room experience and hope that some day I will gain the opportunity to be in the war room for brands that are really out there and know to the world.

[karrowbrand-blog]

Social Media Management & Measurement

Everyone uses social media management and measurement whether they think they do or not. 

Many people have either their own personal social media sites or sites for their businesses. When managing a page, people want to make sure that it is in a professional manner or portray their page in a way that will get people involved. When we post on our own personal sites, we usually post to get people involved in what was on our minds or a simple photo that we decided to post. With business pages, they make sure that they post items that will get their viewers or followers involved and engaged in their site. It’s all about making sure that the pages stay in a professional manner and keep the followers that they currently have as well as adding new followers. They decide what goes on the pages and what comes off. They can also pick and choose who they want viewing their pages. If people keep a well managed page, they are more likely to keep their followers and continue to build more. 

Along with management come measurement. In social media, measurement is often found in the amount of likes a photo receives or how many followers a page might get. There are many ways that people and business owners can keep track of their insights and measure out their daily insights. They can measure their Facebook pages all the way down to the simplest social media platform that may be out there. It helps people to see how their are being received and benefits them if they didn’t receive as many likes one day they can up their likes the next. They can see how engaged their audience is and how little. It allows them to see what works for themselves and what doesn’t. 

Management and Measurement are huge factors in the social media atmosphere whether people understand that or not. 

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Curation

Every day we use curation whether we realize it or not. 

Curation is pulling stuff together to under one topic. One media that uses this outline is Pinterest. You can make boards that you pin pictures under and label them. It all is what you find interesting and what you think makes sense for you.

I think that we use curation in our day to day lives as well. Personally, I am highly involved in the rodeo world and I feel that even though it is one topic, we have so much that falls under that. We create our runs from starting out with two people, a steer, ropes, and two horses. 

With roping, we gather so much information. We have to train our minds to be able to win. We learn different ways to help us succeed. We find different tack that might help in certain situations. 

I honestly believe that even though it might not seem like, we use curation in our everyday lives. 

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Being Professional Online

After reading through Erik Qualman’s book, “What Happens on Campus Stays on YouTube, I have found a better understanding on how to promote myself as professional as I can. A quote that has really stuck with me from Qualman’s book is, “ Being ‘FLAWsome’ is admitting that you aren’t perfect.” I really enjoy this phrase because it is true, you don’t have to have everything going right to be doing well in your field. Everyone is going to have flaws. I do think that it is important that we don’t post or share items that we will regret. In this day-in-age, so many companies actually search through your Facebook or instagram to see how you act and how professional you are. Also, for me, I rodeo, so it is very important that I don’t let my sponsors or any potential sponsors down buy posting something that will hinder my relationship with them. You don’t want to post any thing embarrassing. “Social media has become such a natural part of people’s lives that you may not appreciate that you’re not just sharing with friends and family – potential employers can check you out too.”

https://www.weareaspire.com/blogs/the-importance-of-being-professional-online-blog-13139851912