Businesses Promoting Their Brand on Social Networking Sites

Over Thanksgiving break I tried to get a head start on planning my sister's baby shower. Since the nursery will be decorated in baby animals and camouflage, I thought this would be a good way to decorate the shower. This is when Pinterest came into the picture. My sister encouraged me get a Pinterest account a few months ago, but I haven't put it to much use. Since this site is mainly used for sharing ideas, I thought it would help me think of creative ways to decorate. What I found was a Pinterest account for Huggies, a baby diaper brand. On this account, there were boards for various baby shower themes. I was in luck because they had a woodland creatures baby shower board.

During class this week, we approached the topic the topic of businesses using social media to promote themselves. The Huggies Pinterest account shows that this name brand is promoting themselves not through annoying advertisements, but by sharing ideas for baby shower themes. This is a discrete way build up a target audience on Pinterest of expectant mothers or relatives/friends of expectant mothers. Even though Huggies does not have advertisements on its Pinterest account, it is still able to promote the brand by sharing ideas and helpful tips that relate to the product, which creates a positive feeling for the viewer. I think this is a good tactic for Huggies to get the brand name out there in a fun and different way.

Here is the link:
http://pinterest.com/huggies/

Twitter and Hurricane Sandy

During the two days I had off from classes being canceled in preparation for Hurricane Sandy, I used my media literacy skills to sift through twitter and gather current factual information about this natural disaster. Yes, I watched the weather channel, mostly CNN to keep updated, but I found it much faster to information gather by checking twitter. Of course, one must be aware of the dangers in information gathering on this social networking site. Many tweets contained photo-shopped pictures and false information. These are the steps I took to find information and verify it. 1) I searched the #sandy to bring up all recent tweets that included this hash-tag. 2) I checked the profile that tweeted to see if it was a respected figure, a news organization, or a government organization. 3) If it was not one these and the tweet was re-tweeted, I checked to see who the person re-tweeted from. If I could not follow the tweet back to a reliable source, I did not consider the information or picture to be true or real. Twitter proved to be a good source to find pictures of New York City and New Jersey even before I saw them on television.  However, Twitter also required more effort on my part to make sure the information was true, whereas CNN Live did not require me to participate in verifying the facts. The media, television and twitter, both achieved the goal of keeping me informed and creating the feeling that I was right there by the Hudson. I respect the reporters that put themselves in danger to give us live coverage of this natural disaster.

Solvetheissues.com

After visiting Solve the Issues, I searched around to see how much content was on the site. I was disappointed to see there was not much. The purpose of the site is basically the creators wanted to involve the general public in a discussion about current issues and problems. The creators post questions relating to current issues and have comment box available for anyone to write their input, opinions, and solutions. I understand that the creators of this site want to form an online community, and I am not sure they chose the right tool. For a discussion forum, maybe an online group or networking site would work better than just a regular website.

There are only seven questions for people to respond to on this site and of these questions only three have likes and/or comments. It looks as if the site hasn’t had visitors since the beginning of August, this is when comments were posted. Questions that were posted during the middle/end of August have no responses in the comments section. Along with the comments section, the site also has Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter buttons to connect to people. These are all good ideas to reach a bigger audience, however I am not sure about the Pinterest button, is the audience on pinterest going to be interested in these types of questions?

I checked them out on Twitter and saw that they are only following 25 people. I am not well informed about Twitter, but I have the general idea that if someone wants more followers they (1) need to follow a good amount of other accounts and (2) tweet informative interesting things. The Solve twitter only had 30-some tweets. Also, I noticed that they stopped tweeting in the beginning of September.

To me, it does not look like the creators of this site tried very hard to reach many people and create an online community. I think they have a good idea to start with, I like that they want anyone and everyone to give their opinions, get involved, and try to create some solutions to our current problems. I am just not sure they went about it the right way.

Multitasking in the Modern World

This past weekend the PASSHE Collegiate Media Summit was held at Bloomsburg University. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the first day because I had to work. I was able to attend three sessions on Sunday, one was with speaker Sree Sreenivasan. Sreenivasan discussed the social media that is currently used the most including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. He gave several tips on how to manage Facebook friends (setting friends in lists as 'family', 'close friends', or 'acquaintances') and privacy settings (making use of the subscribe button) that I will definitely take advantage of. While he was talking about twitter, he mentioned a previous speaker that he had listened to. He said the speaker called out his audience for using cell phones, not as a negative thing, but as a good one. Sreenivasan explained that this speaker encouraged his audience to 'participate' by tweeting what he was talking about while he was presenting. This really caught me off guard. Someone actually asked for their audience to be distracted with phone use?? Can people in an audience multitask so well that they are able to listen to a speaker, understand what they are saying, and tweet in reply all at the same time? It's difficult for me to text and walk at the same time. It's difficult for me to text and talk at the same time! Also, what happened to the common courtesy, the respect of putting our cell phones away and giving a speaker or professor our undivided attention? I decided to be 'old school' and put my 'distractions' into my purse during Sreenivasan's presentation. Afterwards, I checked twitter, and sure enough there were several @sree tweets from students in the audience that commented on parts in the beginning, middle, and end of his presentation.

Social Networking Identities

This past weekend, my cousin and I were talking about Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Since I'm new to twitter, I was basically bombarding her with questions, who does she follow? What is 'tweet worthy'? Does she have personal information on her twitter? These question led into a fairly long discussion about the social networking sites we are a part of and how they differ. We agreed that Facebook is the site we have the most privacy on, we did this because we both felt Facebook has the alot personal information about ourselves. On Facebook I am aware of who has access to my page, my friends are mainly family members and friends I met in person beforehand. I feel comfortable sharing where I am and who I am with in pictures on Facebook, because I know and trust my 'facebook friends'. However, I also censor my Facebook to a certain extent, I know what my family members approve and disapprove, so I keep that into consideration when I post statuses.

Surprisingly, my cousin felt that she had a lot of freedom on twitter. This got me thinking, do we feel like we have more freedom on twitter because we are basically anonymous? Should I stay anonymous on twitter? Or should I connect my twitter to my instagram and my other social networking sites?

Social Media and Tragedies

After reading this article I started to think about the many tragedies that have happened in the past. What would have been different if they had the social media and social networking we have now? Twitter and Facebook are both ways to reach multiple friends and family all at once. One tweet can give that reassurance that you are okay during time of distress. Over the summer, during the Colorado shooting, people in the theater were tweeting before, during, and after. This amazed me. I found myself thinking, would I have been tweeting if I was in their place? At first I said no way. But
then I realized, tweeting about the mass shooting as it happened would make people aware of the emergency situation. Also, it could would show that I was okay, I was all right. I still don't know though, if I would be able to mentally extract myself from the situation to tweet or Facebook. Would I be able to think that far ahead?





http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/dean-praetorius/social-media-9-11-new-york_b_1872764.html

If I was half as amazing as Taylor Swift...

This blog post is dedicated to how amazing Taylor Swift is.

Taylor Swift performed for the first time ever a song this past Friday on the Stand Up 2 Cancer Telethon. This song was written about a four year old boy who died from cancer. And this song, all started with a blog. The mother of the boy, Ronan, created a blog as she was dealing with the diagnosis of her son. What I have read of this blog has been extremely real and extremely personal. Which is why it caught the attention of many, including Taylor Swift. The song Ronan is now top in the charts and all profits from the song are being donated to cancer charities.

The fact that one blog is make such big changes is incredible and amazing. From one mother, to one singer, to all those who bought the song, it's a circle that all began with a blog.

http://rockstarronan.com/

Instagram

This week I'm at Ox Hill Fair in western Pa. I made the 3 1/2 hour drive in my Dad's truck with my roommate in the passenger seat. My grandparents (Denny and Pearl) started this concession business over 40 years ago, and my father had his own summer fair route for 21 years. I've been a 'carnie' since I was a baby and started working in the stand when I was 9.

I recently downloaded instagram and immediately I was hooked, asking everyone if they had it to follow me! (audra_cheyenne, follow me :) At first I wasn't sure how I felt about the social networking application because many of my friends called it out as not 'real' photography. And after I used instagram, I can say I definitely get more satisfaction out of developing my own film and spending hours in the darkroom to get that one print that finally works. Instagram, is just simple fun.

IRL In Real Life

Tonight I read Rheingold's "A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community" and Turner's "Where the counterculture met the new economy". Both described how virtual communities thrive and how they are easily adapted into people's everyday lives. In virtual communities, it is not uncommon to never see a 'friend' in person. One can share interests, have discussions, and bond with people online they've never met or seen. The lack of face to face communication does not stop people from socializing and connecting with each other emotionally. Which to me sounds.. a little creepy. Bonding with stranger, that you might not even know their gender or age?? Maybe I was creeped out because I take much precaution with online communities, such as Facebook. I am one of those people that will not accept a friend request unless I have actually met the person in real life and have had significant interaction with them.

However, this got me thinking about another 'virtual community' of which I consider myself a member. The "Nerdfighting" community, which was started up by two brothers' YouTube Channel. The Vlogbrothers channel is made up of Hank and John Green posting videos back and forth about life, work, books, news, basically anything and everything. These brothers have a large following of viewers who wait for new videos to be posted every week. I found myself realizing that I would be perfectly comfortable with accepting a friend request from either of the brothers, yet I have never actually met them or talked to them! Which conflicts with my rule of don't-add-unless-met-in-real-life. Maybe I feel this way because the videos not only show the brothers' opinions and interests, but also their body language, their facial expressions, their sarcasm, and their compassion.

Check out these links!

http://dftbanews.tumblr.com/post/28567044130/dftba-sports-olympic-nerd-fighter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_N7MAr98CI&list=UUGaVdbSav8xWuFWTadK6loA&index=6&feature=plcp

First Week of Classes

So far, so good. I am excited to start my fifth semester here at Bloomsburg University. Hopefully I'll build up my resume with lots of good stuff. I have alot of goals I hope to reach that involve Bloomsburg's Chapter of the National Broadcasting Society, the Bloomsburg University Honors program, and in my major, Telecommunications.  Also, I feel so much like Jenna from Awkward right now.