Mastery Journal Journey: Social Media and Online Community Engagement
Another class completed means one more step closer to finishing my Masters’ program in New Media Journalism. These last four weeks in Social Media and Online Community Engagement has been tough and intense. That is to be expected when pursuing a fast pace degree online. All the courses are condensed to the point of receiving all of this information with little time to adjust before we are moving onto the next thing. I can honestly say that this class and this program has prepared me for what to expect in a journalism career. There will always be deadlines that need to be met and not meeting them means more than a reprimand, but your job.
When I first started this course, I didn’t really know what to expect. From the course title, I knew the focus would be our social media and how we utilize our platform to build our audience. I thought this would be an excellent class to learn more on building my social media platform since that is all new to me. According to the course syllabus, the class is an examination of how information is shared outside of professional journalism, how we as journalists interact with communities and how social technology shapes cultures, governments, and communications. My conclusion based on the title of the course was pretty accurate to the objectives of the course. And upon starting and finishing this class, I can say that my expectations were met and exceeded.
Social media is my weak link. I am not fluent in building an audience or even sharing important information or engaging with the community. And I realized with this course that it is more than making a post or Tweet and sharing it publicly. The goal is to have readers/viewers coming back for more. Asking a question in the post that viewers will answer, starting dialogue is a definite way. Non-responsive is a sure way to lose your audience. We have to know how get their attention, get it and keep it and build on it. To do this, we need to know what they want to know and go from there. Another important detail is to know your target audience. The goal is not to write for everyone but to write for that specific group. Trying to reach everyone is nearly impossible and unsuccessful.
I can say that these last four weeks helped me become better acquainted with other social media outlets and how to get my story out to the public. As I stated earlier, the way that Full Sail University goes about education is more real world with real world expectations and consequences. One thing that our instructors stress in our classes is the importance of making deadlines because in the world of journalism, missing a deadline can mean losing your job. I believe that is probably the most important piece of information I learned that would help me in my future profession.