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/

Metrics and Analytics: lj 4

     I enjoyed the reading and how it covered how technology can and has made our lives easier but my favorite reading of the week was the blog by Neal stephenson. He has a unique perspective on social media that I agree with. With social media it is difficult to not feel consumed by checking and subconsciously comparing yourself to others. When he said " I did reach a point last year when I was checking twitter and my personal Facebook every few minutes." (Stephenson). I understood exactly what he meant and I understood the struggle he feels with this. Our lives have become so intertwined with social media and being as updated and informed as possible it is difficult to remember that there is more to life than just checking twitter and Facebook. 

    The change in technological innovations has it's pros and cons in my life. A few pros that I can name off the bat is its ability to create a unified community around so many different things. The amount of subcultures formed because of our ability to instantly communicate with someone around the world is amazing. Not only is our communication instantaneous but also our updates on issues around the world such as the invasion of Ukraine that is happening now. We are able to see and form our own opinions on it based on the news we see and information we can find within seconds. The cons that I see with social media innovation in my life are things like interdependency to social media, needing to build different online personas based on the use of the apps and learning to use new apps. I believe the innovation of technology will help with building my career because both of my degrees are based on technology. Marketing is run of analytics and understanding who your product will make the greatest impact on. My other degree business analytics and information systems is solely based on technology and creating efficient data administration systems for companies to use. Without technology both my degrees would be obsolete so it is important we keep making strides to better understand how we interact online and how our online communities can best benefit us in the real world. 

Stephenson, N. (n.d.). Neal Stephenson - Social media. Neal Stephenson - Home. Retrieved February 25, 2022, from https://www.nealstephenson.com/social-media.html

Metrics and analytics 2: LJ3

     We are data was the most interesting thing we have read thus far. In marketing we learn all about how to categorize and use the algorithm to put people into groups for the purpose of selling our consuming products or services. We learn about the ethics of these things now and how to better treat the data we collect to avoid leaks or invasions of privacy but I am sure that before celebrity status became so important we would not have even had a discussion on the ethics of data collection and use. 

     A portion in We are Data states that "our contemporary conception of privacy was born in response to these intrusions," (Lippold 1). By intrusions the author is talking about how poparazzi would invade the privacy of different celebrities in hopes to find hidden things about the celebrities. I think that the idea of privacy stems from the morals and social norms that people accept during that era. The social norm saw these celebrities of the golden era as beyond normal and perfect, with perfection comes the people who seek to disprove it. People thus began to fear that they would become victims of this spying or that they would be mistreated. 

    Knowing that we get turned into a bunch of ones and zeros in an algorithm does not scare me, It is the lack of understanding how to protect data that scares me. In data analytics we learned how for every protective device a company puts in place, a plethora of intrusions become possible, even when you update that stems new and more complex issues. Almost as if it is a never ending cycle trying to avoid losing more data than your competition.  I think that knowing how we are put into a separate category based on who we are makes me a little less fearful of the problems that arise with fame. Like I stated earlier I am not worried about the consequences of being online and posting online more so what companies do and how they protect data. 

    I think in our era there are different layers of fame and expectations that come with each, for an influencer being a good person and having strict morals you stand by are important to maintain a following that respects you. But on the other hand being a musician, you can separate music from the morals you believe in some sense. These are just two examples of how fame is a spectrum. 

Cheney-Lippold, J. (2019). We are data algorithms and the making of our Digital Selves. New York University Press. 

Time Diary

     So these are my weekly and daily averages for three different categories which include social ,entertainment and other. The social category consists of a few apps which were instagram, tik tok, snapchat and twitter. The entertainment category consists of youtube, HBO max, Netflix and pinterest. The times I would use most these social apps was in the afternoon, whether that be when I was at work or when I was just at my apartment during down time. I would use the entertainment apps later in the evening usually around nine, right before going to sleep. 

    I definitely have a habit with using social media and entertainment apps. I use social to burn my time when I am at work or when I am waiting for our workouts to start. I also have a habit of watching youtube every night just to help decompress from the day by watching cooking videos or review videos on random things. I'm not sure if my usage changes with the semesters, I pretty much have class, work and football every semester. 

    I use instagram to communicate or send videos to friends, I use twitter to stay updated on events (like the superbowl last night), I use tik tok to watch videos. I use entertainment apps just to watch random stuff or reviews on things I am interested in buying. I tend to use pinterest to find inspiration for tattoos and design ideas for my apartment. I have my circle of friends who I send things too and they comment or vice versa, such as when I see something they would like I would send it over then we would talk about it. 

Metrics and Analytics: lj 2

     I thought this was interesting, because of my marketing degree I can see the benefits of such a highly effective and efficient system but as a person it is scary to know you can find out almost everything about me. Funny story actually, I was working with a new co-worker  a few weeks ago and I struck up a conversation to get to know them. Of course we share names and hobbies, then they ask if they can google me, so I say "sure," within seconds they can tell me my sister's names and where I was born. They go off on a list of things I didn't even know were available online, they found the day I had surgery and when I got out from recovery. All that power at the tip of their hands, scary. I can see how this might help businesses better connect to the people they serve. In marketing you always want to categorize who you serve and why they want your product, what ways does it benefit them. Algorithms make finding your target audience that much easier, cause it is all at the push of a button. But on the other side of the spectrum is viewing this from the point of view as an individual. 

    An individual sees the issues with privacy and protecting that privacy. One of my favorite stories that represent the duality of individual and business is there is an interview between Sen Dick Durbin of Illinois and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Metaverse. In the interview Durbin asks Zuckerberg if he  "would be comfortable sharing the name of the hotel you stayed in last night?". After a long pause Zuckerberg responds with a simple "No,". This may seem like an odd question with an obvious answer but it brings up the issue of personal privacy and how much social media companies are allowed to take from your use of the app. I tend to allow companies full use of my location and access to camera and microphone. I don't have anything to hide and do not care much for privacy, it is crazy to know that my information is being sold but there is no help to avoid it so why worry about it. I understand that this puts me at more of a risk for hacking and information leaks but  honestly there are so many preventative measures and ways to avoid it, I don't spend much time worried.

Sen. Durbin asks for name of Zuckerberg's hotel ... - youtube. (n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWDwh5UxWMs

Hands on assignment 2

 In my own words I would define social media as a modern way to have social interactions and act as  part of a community, whether those communities be work related or hobby related social media allows us to interact with who we want, when we want. Social networking is the community you create that can be branched back to you whether that be through sports, video games, or Tik Tok. 

    I use a few different social medias; Instagram, Twitter, facebook, Linked In, Tik Tok. Those are the main big ones that I use. Instagram is the one I use the most, this is where I follow pages that I like such as anime, woodworking, and sports. But I also use instagram to connect with coworkers and old friends. Twitter I use for sports, news, and financial market updates because it tends to be the most quickly updated site for that. Link In is specifically for work and networking with people I went to school with. I also use it for training and keeping track of certificates I have completed. Last but not least Tik Tok, I use Tik Tok to burn free time in between work or school. It is probably what I spend the most hours on but with the least gaol driven thing. I use pretty much all of them everyday but I mainly use instagram or Tik Tok. 

    Using my social media helps me feel connected to my friends and those who I cannot see everyday. I love seeing pictures of my friends from high school with their kids or getting married. Posting the happiest moments in their lives or even just updating us about what they've been doing. As for me social media makes me feel connected and closer to events that happen around the world, we are able to consume so much in such a short amount of time, It's incredible.