kkula's blog

Before taking this class I never thought of Twitter as a place to brand myself for future employers or to follow people who are experts in social media or public relations. I thought of Twitter as just a place to update what I am doing to my friends and to see what new celebrity gossip is rising to the surface. After taking this class I realized that Twitter is a useful tool that I was not using the right way or taking advantage of. There are many individuals on Twitter that everyone should follow for information and updates on social media.

@MyLifeUS is a great example of a Twitter account that should be followed and is one of my favorite accounts for new information on social media. They have roughly 5,000 followers and over 1,000 tweets. Their biography on their page is “Get all your social network updates and email messages all in one place, and discover personal and work contacts you won’t find anywhere else — 700M+ profiles.” They have their website linked to their account for individuals who are interested in more information.

MyLife.com is a website that will link all of your accounts together so you can manage them on one website. You can find employers, classmates, or friends. What I like best about this Twitter account is that it has information about social media linked to articles for more details.

Some of the topics that MyLife.com covers are branding yourself, new Facebook updates, and also promoting joining their website. When they have a tweet about their own website they use the hashtag, #mylife. This links all of those tweets together so if someone is interested in joining their website they can click on the hashtag and get all of the details in one place.

The articles they link in their tweets are useful and relevant to college students. I personally have been following MyLife.com for awhile and continue to keep updated with their tweets. They have been a little slow on posting and I think that they should be at least posting once a day. The last tweet I saw was posted on Nov. 15, but besides that MyLife.com knows how to capture attention and provide useful information and updates about social media.

Once news broke that a hurricane would be headed toward the United States, attention-obsessed Twitter users quickly jumped on the idea of a spoof account.

Many have been created, but the one that stuck out most to me was @HurricanneSandy.

The Twitter user created this account on October 25 and has posted around 140 tweets. With nearly 164,000 followers, this spoof account has been very successful.

At first it was harmless humor like using Sandy Cheeks, from the television show “Spongebob,” as the hurricane’s mascot. They used picture memes of Sandy Cheeks on maps of where the hurricane would hit or pictures from “Spongebob” with jokes about the hurricane.

This soon escalated to distasteful and offensive humor. Tweets using constant swear words or derogatory language covered the majority of their page. They started tweeting things like, “RETWEET IF YOU WANT ME TO DESTROY YOUR SCHOOL FOR YOU. I GOT YO BACK,” which I thought was unnecessary. Many people are affected by this hurricane and it is one thing to make light humor by assigning it a mascot but in my opinion it crosses the line when that person is joking about destroying schools and the East Coast in general.

@HurricanneSandy never did redeem themselves. They continued to post the same jokes over and over again. I believe I saw the same jokes at least four or five times scrolling through their page. Shockingly, the pictures this twitter account posted were not as distasteful as I thought they were going to be. Their pictures were an example of light humor of the situation. They were not too offensive and even I laughed at a few of them.

After this Twitter page gained as many followers as it did, a few celebrities followed them, one was Miley Cyrus. After Cyrus followed the page, the account user borderline stalked her and the rest of their posts up to the last one was directed toward her.

The creator is attention obsessed and took this account too far. Not once did they send their condolences to the people affected by the hurricane like other Hurricane Sandy accounts did. They took a serious event and even though their humor was harmless at first, it quickly grew into something that was unnecessary and offensive.

On social networking websites, it is rare for a company to not solely be focusing on promoting their products. General Electric is one of a few companies that have had major success on Pinterest because it chose to go down a different path, inspiring others, which also promotes their brand in a more natural way.

GE has very few pins or boards about their products. The majority of their pins are inspirational about their founder, Thomas Edison, going green, curing diseases, or building amazing machines. They have 12,006 followers today and after looking at their different boards I was quick to follow them as well. I actually got lost for about an hour just looking at pin after pin. GE knows how to capture an audience, create relationships and not pressure followers to just buy their products. A relationship more meaningful than just business and customer is made from their account on Pinterest.

Some of GE’s more popular boards are Badass Machines, That’s Genius!, and #GEInspiredME. Badass Machines is a collection of pictures that just blow my mind. It has a wide variety of different machines and parts with a creative touch to them so it draws a person’s attention. That’s Genius! is one of my personal favorites. This board is all about their founder, Thomas Edison, and inspirational quotes to go along with the pictures. One of their more interactive boards is the one titled #GEInspiredME. A collection of 96 artistic fan photos fills this board. Every photo is creative, beautiful and helps GE fans feel like they mean something to the company.

General Electric is successful on Pinterest because they did not make their page all about them. They thought about their fans and audience before creating a single board. Interesting and involving your audience is a smart way to build your follower list and create a relationship with potential clients and customers.

Before this class I never thought about blogging and how it would promote myself and my views. I did not think that many people read blogs or were even interested in them. It blows my mind how blogs affect people getting jobs and meeting new people.

This class introduced me to the power of blogging. Getting your views and ideas out there for everyone to see is very important because it helps explain the type of person you are to future employers and it might even attract employers your way.

While I was on Facebook the other day I came across a post by a girl who went to my high school but was a few years older. Her post was about promoting her new blog. She is a public relations major and is interested in fashion, just like me.

I opened the link to her blog and skimmed through a few of them. She talked about different outfits you could make for different occasions, what colors work together, what to wear for a job, and so on. Her blog is interesting to read and would be very helpful for someone who does not know that much about fashion.

Reading her blog and seeing how many comments she receives inspired me. Fashion is a big part of my life and I was never sure how I wanted to combine my public relations major with it at first. I think for me, a blog is the first step. A blog will let me express my views about fashion while networking myself for future employers to see.

I was not sure if I would continue to blog after this class but after seeing how effective a blog can be in the real world, I definitely will continue. Once I finish this class I want to open my own fashion blog to express my creativity and views.

When my class was assigned to write about a social media blunder I thought that these would be hard to find since a group of people usually operate the company’s social media websites. I figured with a group of people working on a promotion, it would be hard to mess up or have a campaign that failed. Once I researched the topic many companies came up with their stories.

One that stood out to me and I found interesting was a campaign on Facebook in 2009 for a free Burger King Whopper. The title was Whopper Sacrifice and the application on Facebook encouraged users to “unfriend” 10 people and they would get a coupon for a free whopper. Also once the user deleted those 10 friends, Burger King let each of those former friends know in a humorous way that their friend “unfriended” them for a free hamburger.

Facebook shut down this application for two reasons.

1. It encouraged users to connect with fewer people on Facebook when Facebook in all about bring more people together and connecting them. Social media is supposed to be “social” and this application was doing the opposite of that.

2. Facebook does not send friend removal notifications. It violates their privacy policy and this was the main reason Facebook wanted Burger King to fix their application.

This application had nothing to do with the company itself. It could have taken the more positive approach and had users add 10 friends for a coupon. This would not violate Facebook’s privacy policies and would connect more people together.

In the end the Whopper Sacrifice had been sacrificed. Burger King did not want to make the necessary changes to their application that Facebook wanted them to so they terminated the campaign all together. Facebookers were not turned away from this campaign though. Nearly 234,000 Facebookers were defriended and Burger King gave away more than 23,000 coupons for a free whopper.

After reading the first few numbered points in the article written by Hollis Thomases all I could think was discrimination, discrimination, and discrimination. Every point on Thomases’ list could represent a person of any age. That is why we have the interviewing process. A company should not hire a person anyway if they are too immature or untrustworthy so to say that all 23-year-olds are too immature is a little too extreme. The business just has to find the right person to represent their brand and company well.

My generation grew up with social media so we know the ins and outs and are able to use these tools successfully. Facebook and Twitter come naturally to me. I was fortunate enough to watch these tools take off and grow. Since I was young, probably around 7th grade, I was able to get involved with early social networking sites like Myspace. I have the experience of these tools, older adults do not.

Social networking websites did not catch the eye of older adults at first. They were skeptical and kept their distance. My generation made it popular and a successful PR and marketing tool. We are the audience so I believe that we know how to connect with one another and can promote a company better than someone who is much older and “matured.” This generation brought it to the world’s attention so we should be trusted with the responsibility of promoting a business. Speaking for myself, finding a job in this economy is tough enough that I would never risk an internship or a job by acting “immature” on a company’s social media website. Young adults do know more than an older generations would so I think we are able to make a businesses website more successful and inviting to consumers or clients.

Social media websites like Facebook or Twitter are a great way to communicate with friends but they are also a great way for businesses to communicate with their consumers. Before Facebook, advertising agencies had to rely on television or magazine ads. They were easy to skip over and ignore. Advertisements tried to be personal by putting their products where they fit best. For example make up products and high end fashion brands are advertised in Seventeen magazine. These target girls but not all girls that read Seventeen magazine care about make up or brands of clothes.

Personal connections are hard to make because businesses do not know who is and who is not interested in their products. Facebook has solved that problem so it is no longer a challenge for businesses to point out who wants their products. Users can like different pages ranging from clothing stores to fast food restaurants to musicians. By users liking these pages they not only show their friends what they are in to but they show businesses what appeals to them and what they want. Businesses can then target these users and put advertisements on the side of their browser showing what that specific person wants to see.

I think social media has improved the way businesses reach consumers. For me personally I love the fact that I actually want to click on the advertisements on my Facebook page. By joining a Bowling Green State University page and liking a shoe company and iPhones, announcements for apartments in Bowling Green and sales going on for shoes and iPhones now appear on my page. It targets me and only me. It makes me feel special that a business knows what I am looking for. No more random ads that show products that does not appeal to me. Social media makes finding out consumer needs and wants more attainable. It also makes consumers not want to skip over every ad.

When I was a teenager, social media websites were a way to express myself, my opinions, interact with friends and look back on memories. Never once did I think, “I should probably watch what I say because in a few years future employers will judge me by this one website.” My mindset was not on my career, which I would like to think is normal. My main focus at the time was to have fun with my friends. I did not think future employers would look back to when I was 17 or younger and judge me or consider not to hire me. I was carefree and thought that since my profile was private, it was safe.

Growing up into adulthood, I slowly changed my profiles to become more professional looking. I had to watch what I posted, what pictures I was tagged in, and what my friends were writing on my wall. I realized that nothing is private even when it claims to be. I have to watch what I say and post because one wrong post can change the way people view me and in a professional setting that can be quite damaging.

Businesses today think that they have the right to ask for my Facebook and/or Twitter passwords and to me that is not okay. Even to just look at my profile seems too much for me. Social media, in my opinion, is supposed to be entertaining and a place where you can express yourself. No person acts the same way at work as they do with their friends or family and I feel that businesses expect everyone to be professional on a 24/7 basis. That is not who everyone is all the time. It is not who I am and I do not think I should have to act professional on my Facebook or Twitter because that is a place where I connect with my friends not with businesses. A website like LinkedIn is a place to be your professional self. Write all of your achievements, internships, volunteer work and so on. I don’t think it is fair for employers to “creep” on how you act with your friends because it is none of their business.

I agree that there are boundaries on what should and should not be put online. Social media users should be aware about the damages these websites can cause but it should not restrain them from being themselves. My personal opinion is that employers should give drug tests or type names into Google and look for police reports or anything negative tied to that person’s name. Looking at your Facebook and/or Twitter does not represent your professional self all the time and a person should not be judged solely on one wrong post or tweet.