Is Social Media bad for us?

Pretty much every student in the western hemisphere has a Facebook account or uses some form of social media, which they probably access daily. Don’t ask how I know this. It is common fact! So it is safe to say it is very influential within the educational system and has had a huge impact amongst students who were the first to thrive on it. While most institution’s see it as a distraction from studies, others are embracing it as an integral part to their system.

I cant seem to decide for myself so below is a link (sorry it wouldn’t fit otherwise) info-graphic by Online Education which lists the pros and cons…

(http://images.onlineeducation.net.s3.amazonaws.com/Social-Media-and-Students.jpg)

An interesting blog on Soshable (http://soshable.com/why-universities-should-be-leading-the-way-in-social-media/) argues for the use of social media within Universities, speculating that it would make sense to encourage more writing from learners to allow students to make a difference without limiting their potential.

While other arguments against suggest that social media, such as Facebook, has not only created distraction, but has created an emergence of constant self-comparison with other social media users, resulting in psychological trauma and depression from the feeling of being rejected.

The Social Network

A world without Facebook is difficult to imagine, and since the launch in 2004 its growth has been phenomenal with more than 600 million users (Jan 2011). The site has even become intertwined with some of our lives whether it’s for better or worse, it plays a role in our everyday life, especially for local businesses and bloggers in particular, who use pages to connect with fans so they can employ the power of this platform. The social networking messiah that is Mark Zuckerberg realised in 2004 that people were ready to take the big leap into social sharing based on the preparations the digital generations that had given us and thus Facebook was born along with huge appetite for social sharing online. This online sharing has also heavily benefitted professional bloggers too.

Blogger Allison Boyer posted a survival guide (http://www.blogworld.com/2011/04/27/could-your-blog-survive-without-facebook-and-twitter/) and task for Bloggers who were in the worst case scenario- NO FACEBOOK. Allison writes that bloggers have become reliant on people to share their links via Facebook (and not forgetting Twitter) so bloggers are not doing as much of their own promotional work because they don’t have to.

Online Marketing Via YouTube

On Mashable the other day i stumbled onto a blog about YouTube Marketing and thought I’d spread the word so to speak. The blog post concerns the small amount of brands that have had commercial success while using YouTube as a powerful marketing tool. YouTube represents a good opportunity for marketers to reach consumers who are interested or searching for info about related products.

Despite the site becoming hugely popular with user generated content, brands have struggled to reach these heights of popularity.  This is mainly due to the site’s contest driven users constantly producing new videos and channels which brands fail to keep up with and in doing so, let their channels get left behind and unnoticed.

One brand in particular, Nike Football youtube.com/user/nikefootball…don’t know if you’ve heard of them…regardless of their huge revenue, sport endorsement deals and celebrity involvement, have become successful in the online marketing area and maintained the most amount of channels. One of their campaigns is specifically UK urban-targeted, and filmed using the unconventional film equipment of CCTV camera’s and mobile phones to capture the authentic urban image. As well as this, Nike has also created other campaigns which provide for different audiences instead of cramming all their content onto one channel. This overall makes it easier for users to find the videos that are relevant to them without having to spend time going through the unnecessary content.

Media Students Media Usage

Taking inspiration from the Guardians ‘My Media’ section (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/series/my-media), i decided to interview an individual from my PR group to find patterns with my own usage. The individual was questioned on what they read, watched and listened to as well as how often they spent on each media use. This is how it went….

Newspapers

The participant had a larger newspaper consumption than i did, partly due to the fact they were studying journalism so newspapers were an important  factor for progressing in the course. Local Newspaper like the Mercury were read daily, while national papers like the Daily mirror were favoured for celeb and sport gossip. The newspaper’s online sites in particular were also accessed more than buying the paper, an alternative method i commonly do as well to save a trip to the newsagents plus you can read older articles or stories online.

Magazines and Books

Magazine consumption had become rare due to their ever escalating price and high ad content, although if they happened to be lying around from someone else purchasing them then it was likely they would be read. Magazine choice varied from anything but favoured sport and music magazines. As for books, the participant had read a lot of books from the same author, the book genres varied from crime investigation to adolescent lifestyle, but it had been a few years since they had bought another book because of other media uses becoming more dominant. This also applied to me in terms of the fact that we had been brought up in a heavy literary background yet have succumb to the endless amount of television channels and online playback sites.

TV and Online Media

The main stem of media usage was dominated by television viewing as they participant said they used to watch TV a lot until online streaming was available, they also owned DVD boxsets of shows they had watched a lot of and were fans of. Since being at university however this usage has died down. Radio usage was minimal too, with it mainly serving as a back-up alternative for getting news and sport updates.

It was interesting to find the majority of our media usage was through new media, such as networking and online gaming because of our generation being heavily exposed to constantly expanding new media’s available on the internet and it was scary to find how dependent we had become as we used it as a source for all our media uses.

Words, words, words….

Once you’ve established yourself as an accomplished Twit(terer) you are ready for your next challenge…*drum roll*..

BLOGGING!  You are not going to gain an online manifestation overnight and by all means I am no expert on becoming successful blogger. Creating a blog for personal usage is one thing BUT a Blog can be essential for anyone who wants to get involved in the media because it can get you recognised amongst the media horde and can connect you with potential employers and generate greater opportunities. If you haven’t noticed already after reading my blog that you don’t need to be a Wordsworth or an experienced writer to be a blogger. It might give you a good head start but everyone is initially in the same boat.

Here are some pointers i picked up from browsing a spectrum of various bloggers:

• Short and Sweet- you’re not writing a dissertation! Be concise- use lists or bullet points that can help keep a readers interest
• STICK IT OUT! It has taken years for bloggers to find their particular writing style, and you’ll only improve in the same way people do with everything- Practice! Take the risk of getting a slated and even if you do just move on- You will only learn and develop as a blogger by the responses you get or don’t get…
• Blogging is not to be confused with trenches of traditional journalism, you need to adapt to the online format. This means dedicating as much time responding to comments as you would writing your own blog post. Be pro-active! Don’t be shy- Repay the favour and share the love around by commenting back, as long as your points are relevant to your blog interests as you don’t want to be just spamming anyone and everyone. This in turn will help form relations with other bloggers and help you improve .
• WordPress can help enhance your blog and create a better experience for readers with the use of available plugins. Some handy add-ons such as SEO Ultimate optimise a blog’s appearance and features, while other add-ons include a Twitter and Facebook link that allows you to configure your blog to connect with your social networking accounts so followers or friends can access your blogs too.

Hope that pointed you in the right path towards becoming an online sensation

its not all about charlie sheen

To all you PR students out there!!! There are more reasons for joining ‘Charlie’s blog’, or what its better known as- ‘Twitter’…..other than for finding out how much Charlie Sheen’s mental state has deteriorated. The FREE micro blogging site Twitter can become a powerful communication tool. Thanks to new technology people can tweet on the go, and with simple a tweet, you’re able to act as a live-reporting service, broadcasting insightful news updates which can increase your profile credibility. So for future reference (this may or may not concern most of you), instead of updating your status with some outlandish statement about how you melted your face off fantasying about the drug that is Charlie sheen, try sharing some enlightening info about an event you’ve either come across or witnessed and promote a story…provide a PR service! Start an activist movement! (for a good cause) there are limitless possibilities where Twitter can act as a beneficial platform for connecting you with other PR groups such as http://muckrack.com/ and other agencies so it is worth getting all cosy with them to get in the know how, just join them and see what all the fuss is about!

If you haven’t already, sign-up to twitter today by just following this link (https://twitter.com/signup) and begin your social media expedition!

Or if you have some time, check out some of these quotes to take the edge off.. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8359242/Top-10-Charlie-Sheen-quotes.html

To Conclude, Twitter + PR= Bi-winning!

hot off the press

soooo many comments to approve…

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