LinkIn experience

In all Honesty I had a lot of experience with linkin because I have been using it for a few years. There are two big reasons I enjoy using linkin, the first is that it puts together all collective data on certifications and other things to be able to be seen very easily, and also there are ways to get certificates and training through linkedin. Before this semester I did not use linkedin very often, I would check it every few weeks or if I needed to use it for a class I would but now I actually do use it a little more frequently because I am working and like to be up to date on my certifications. 

Becoming certified in different areas was a large part of getting both my degrees. In my first major which was marketing we learned how to do digital marketing and the importance of staying up to date on everything online through one of our certifications through linkedin. Another certification I received was for my second degree which had to do with coding. It was just a basic course but something I will be able to show recruiters I am sufficient in. 

Alongside the direct linking to new certifications and courses, Linkedin is also linked with a lot of third party systems that can be used to improve your profile. One way that I improved my profile is by using google certificates to improve knowledge. I think overall my experience with Linkedin has been good, I have used it for a while and will continue using it for a while.  Here is the link to my Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/darriengrant99/

Metrics and analytics :LJ9

The post that I am choosing to write about is "We're all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem,". In this post they discuss how marketing towards groups is increasingly difficult as our lives become more intertwined with social media. When I was getting my first degree in marketing, one of the first concepts we discussed is how you will never be "on the money," when targeting. You can get close but by the time you release the product or service the ecosystem has changed. It is very much like fast fashion where one person's style could be a throwback for another. This idea of an ever changing ecosystem on social media brings up the idea of influencers who help with marketing campaigns. 

Influencers are buffers between some companies and the social media ecosystem. I believe this is done in a few ways, through natural marketing and through partnerships. Natural marketing is when someone with a lot of followers has used and consistently used the brand and recommends it because of the benefits they have experienced from it. These are usually products that are already well established and well known. The other form of marketing they use is partnerships where the company pays or sends a product they hope to market out to people who fit their criteria. I have done a partnership with an energy drink brand because of my role with sports, They said it was because of my following which consisted of mainly athletes and people who lifestyles involved gym activities. I think having this connection to people through influencers also helps the consumers become much more involved in the process than what we had before. They talk about this in the article how consumers have a much more individualistic approach to the products to where they want unique designs and to have a sense of self with the products they may own. To conclude what I am saying is that the ecosystem we know will be ever evolving so long as new trends and ways to use social media appear. Influencers are one of the new ways that brands find ways to market quickly to people who they hope to target. 

Metrics and analytics :LJ8

 So for my post I want to talk about the first article which had to do with how social media reacted to the story at the oscars. Although viewership did not match, there was an explosion because of the event. With such easy access to the clip on social media there was not much of a reason for people to tune in and watch the oscars. I believe that the access to just what happened being available on social media made it so people did not need to watch. This interaction allowed people to talk about it without having to be there. I interact with broadcast media on social all the time, such as with the draft or new episodes of shows. I interact with celebrities on their live streams sometimes but not very often. 

After I finish commenting on livestreams and such, I sometimes talk to my friends about stuff people say in them or other stuff like that. I was a small time influencer, I used to be a streamer but had to stop when I started playing football. I also have a decent amount of followers, who follow me for football content. I think that the story with will smith shows how fragile the imagine celebrities build themselves online truly are. If these people who spent their whole life building is so easily taken down why would anyone want that form of pushed attention on their lives is my thought process. 

My feelings towards social media are forever changing, I believe that it can be a tool to really help people in their daily lives but also that it can be an issue if it consumes people's lives. Especially with an event like the oscars where someone was actually hurt by others actions and people became so engrossed in the lives of another that it is nothing but negative energy. But also there are events such as good things that happen. 

Hands on assignment 4

 

Metrics and analytics :LJ 7

 The book does a great job explaining how social media can be used to better our world in a plethora of ways but the one I want to talk about is health care. The way that social media has helped healthcare is incredible. One specific way that they talk about in the articles is by connecting us to people who are going through similar experiences. For example with Covid, we were able to see millions of different ways people were affected and what worked for them such as burning an orange and trying to recover your sense of smell. Covid opened up all kinds of new ways healthcare and social media interact such as doctors whose whole following are people wanting to learn more about healthcare. Not only is it a great location for information but also there are new ways to have appointments. 

Some very cool features that came out when we were all stuck in quarantine were things like being able to schedule online appointments and the ability to see different people. There was an app that came out that paired people with therapists online and you could set up appointments to talk with them online, there was also a very similar feature with a lot of general practitioners that allowed patients to set up appointments online. These are some of the great features of support that they talk about in one of this weeks articles. Another thing they talk about is how access to information allows for better self care, we are able to make better decisions in our day to day lives because we are far more informed with social media.  

Metrics and analytics :LJ 6

     Although I found the textbooks rules and laws portion interesting I would much rather focus on one of the articles we read which has to do with misinformation that is spread via social media. Social media is the land of information, very few filters and tons of ways to get that information. Take for example, Twitter where you can go click on a thread about a subject and see thousands of different opinions and ideas within seconds. There are bound to be opinions stated without any grounding at all. But what do these social media sites do to avoid people believing everything they see is verified and fact checked, they post a warning at the start of the thread stating something along the lines of "This post was not reviewed by fact checkers therefor some information may be false, proceed with caution, ". probably the best thing they can do is post a warning and hope people fact check for themselves, sometimes it is more difficult than that such as when COVID 19 first became a major issue and we saw an ever changing landscape online of things to do and things to not do. Even if we went by the advice of the CDC, the rules changed everyday and most social media platforms started having to add tags to any posts involving Covid. 

    Another interesting thing that the article talked about is how social media and misinformation can cause division amongst it's users. We can see this happening across any of the social media platforms but one specifically i'd like to talk about is tik tok and its use of the "for you," page. The page is designed to show content that you are believed to like, such as videos from one side of a political party or videos from one group of people. These videos confirm the beliefs that a person may have which strengthens their belief that they are right. Honestly now that I am aware of how divisive social media can be I try to skip past anything that is political or talking about issues in the now because I know if I like one video my timeline will be flooded with the same content.

    Although I have already preface this by talking about how misinformation spreads based on my own personal experience I would like to talk about an article we read by Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow in the article they talk about the how misinformation is spread and more specifically the misinformation we see with voters. In the article they ask what their most important news source was "14 percent of americans listed social media as "most important"," (Allcott and Gentzkow). Another important piece of informationation that I feel is left out is who is using each of these sites. Facebook is definitely a different generation then the majority of those who use instagram or tik tok, especially when they first began. These videos also circulate well when they hit their target audience which is why we in the article they saw "...Those favoring trump were shared 30 million times on Facebook..." (Allcott and Gentzkow). This video hit its demographic and performed just as planned by the creator. I thought the article definitely shed light on the fact that people can take a few mins to believe anything they see. 

I think another interesting portion I would like to argue is that most millenial and gen z individuals use almost exclusively social media to get their news. I know from personal experience that I follow pages that are said to report unbiased news as it happens. But even I understand something that Dominik Stecula states in their article which is "..Using social media as a source of news is associated with increased likelihood of being misinformed about important topics..." (1). Honestly understanding that most people get their news from social media makes me question when someone tells me news, I tend to ask where they heard it or if it came directly from that person. 

    

Metrics and analytics :LJ5

 

he readings were interesting, the thing that I found most interesting is how a lot of these articles talk about the unique positions each app takes and also how the articles fail to mention Tik Tok which is probably one of the most consumed apps out today. Not to say the other articles were not as important such as the idea to create Burst. Burst is unique because the owner said, “It’s like Snap Chat for grown-ups, perhaps.” (Perez). I think the idea to market towards a certain group of individuals is great and it works well with many different products and services but also, I believe an app should be broad enough that it piques the interest of outside consumers, such as people who use snapchat. The whole idea for Burst is that it targets adults who want to share a specific event and links that event to the calendar, such as a video from a birthday or a soccer game. The issue I found with this is also not that it is very niche but that this idea has been done by others before so what really separates them from competition. 

The second thing I took from the readings is the lack of acknowledgment for Tik Tok. The thing that makes Tik Tok so great is how it can be easily consumed anytime; it matches our shrinking attention spans and uses and algorithm to keep us interested. Take Instagram for example, you have your feed which consists of your friends and people you follow and then you have your for you page which is tailored just to the things you like while Tik Tok is tailored to the videos you watch all the way through and the things you like. I also feel as though the flickr app is made solely with the idea of sharing photos as the base, not really user experience. User experience in my opinion is the most important thing for an app, you want something that people can use and come back to use very easily such as Tik Tok where a user can open their phone click the app and watch the video in two easy steps. Those were my two biggest take away from the readings.

Perez, S. (2012, June 19). Burst raises $3.5 million for private, family-friendly photo and Video sharing app. TechCrunch. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/19/burst-raises-3-5-million-for-private-family-friendly-photo-and-video-sharing-app/