Viva La Viv

This past semester I have learned so much from our social media simulated internship. While at times it could be challenging I felt that it was a great way for us to apply what we have been learning in class to a realistic situation.  My initial thoughts during the first round of the internship were that it was extremely well-organized and instructive. I was nervous going into it because I wasn't sure what to expect but the program is set up well with many instructive videos and resources. It made completing this internship fairly easy. I appreciated that this internship touched on all the different aspects of social media marketing. It was interesting to learn the difference between organic social posts, paid social posts and influencer posts. Now that I have completed this internship I feel like I am well suited to help others complete it as well in three easy steps.  Step 1: Make sure you watch every video and read every set of directions. The directions are crucial to unde...

In class this week we watched “The Social Dilemma” which was a thought-provoking documentary about the effects of social media on society. I found the dramatized fictional additions to the interview style documentary to be very interesting. They helped to emphasize how torn and out of control our world has become in recent years. The thought of social media taking over got me thinking. I have often heard people discussing the possibility of robots and AI eventually overtaking humanity. They describe it as apocalyptic and invasive. When this is talked about it is often implied that this would take hundreds of years. However this documentary got me thinking that this apocalypse has already happened. If “The Social Dilemma” is correct and society is already so susceptible to being addicted, manipulated and controlled by technology then it doesn't seem like we have much further to go before we can count it as a complete takeover. I liked that the movie emphasized that technology can be...

When Musical.ly first rebranded itself as TikTok many people were against using the app. I however was very excited to see the new opportunities it offered. I was not disappointed.  I use TikTok daily for various purposes. One of the first ways I use it is to stay updated on the news. I am not the type of person who likes to read an article or watch the news on TV so I often don’t know when something big happens. TikTok has helped me become more up-to-date on current events. I can look something up and get a quick 30-second summary of the issue. I like that I don't have to spend a lot of time searching or watching to understand what's going on. It's both quick and convenient. Another major way I use TikTok is to get reviews for products. Whenever I am shopping for something and I don't know what brand to get I look on TikTok to see what other people recommend. I love that I can see multiple reviews for almost any item all in one place. This has been extremely helpful fo...

When I was 10 years old my parents allowed me to download Snapchat. I was about to go into middle school and I was one of the last people in my grade to get social media. I remember being so excited because I could finally be added to group chats and start snap streaks with my friends. The first few years of my being Snapchat active were bright and shiny. I ran wild with it. I think I made a group chat for every single random group of people I ended up hanging out with.  I have always been the type of person who feels the need to be involved and liked by everyone. This was especially true when I was younger. I had a huge fear of missing out so I would push myself into groups to an almost annoying point. Snapchat helped me feel like I was missing out less. For that reason I grew pretty dependent on it. At the time I absolutely loved this but looking back I don't think it was a good thing. Once I got to high school Snapchat started to take a different turn. I don't know if it was...

One of the Facebook content strategies recommended in this week's chapter is to be authentic. This got me thinking about my social media presence and whether or not I am authentic online. I try to make it a rule to always post the things that make me happy. I enjoy taking pictures of my friends, family and even myself. With that in mind I would say I’m authentic. However, I often have to take many pictures of myself before I am happy enough with them to post. I usually won't post a picture if my hair or face looks weird. I even occasionally apply a filter or retouch a photo before posting. This led me to wonder if my audience is seeing the authentic me.  From a young age I was taught the value of beauty. This was often shown to me in the form of actors and celebrities. From that distance this form of beauty didn't seem so harmful. As I grew older I started to see the “beauty standard” around me in the form of my peers at school. It felt like I was constantly surrounded by ...

As a student with a difficult major and three minors, I have to take many classes. Most of the time my brain feels overwhelmed with different types of information from each class. Every once in a while these classes collide and give my brain a break. This has happened so much this past week that I knew I had to write about it. The first instance of this was with Arts Marketing and Principles of Social Media. Both of these classes have been teaching SMART objectives and SWOT analysis. In Arts Marketing we are all responsible for the marketing of one of our spring productions. We are still in the beginning stages so we are focusing on objectives and strategies. I have found this especially interesting because I am in charge of this year's big-ticket show . “Hello, Dolly!” is a classic and respected musical so the marketing of it is intricate. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I want to approach it. In Principles of Social Media, we are talking about the same topic but on...

This week I got to experience a form of social media that I never thought I would explore. Matt Cook and I partnered up for this podcasting project and lovingly named it “Trash Talk.” We have a close friend in our program who has run the Instagram account for the Theatre Arts Department for the past three years. Her name is Katja Roberts and she is currently a senior musical theatre major with a social media minor. I have always been impressed with the quality of content Katja creates and the number of people she reaches. Because of this, we decided that Katja was the perfect person to interview for our podcast. All three of us are currently in rehearsals for different productions so we met at 10 p.m. one night this week to film. Matt and I had previously made a list of about 15 questions that we thought would allow for thoughtful answers from Katja. Those questions were: Briefly introduce yourself and what you do here at ONU.  What interested you in the position of social media ma...

This week's chapter made me think a lot about my voice and who I can reach with it. In Section One, it states that blogs are popular because they “give everyday people a voice,” and I think this applies to other forms of social media as well. When I put something online I know more people will see it than if I had tried to spread the information differently. Additionally, I have the opportunity to be taken more seriously online because my voice isn't smothered by my gender or my age. People speaking up on social media have a history of making changes that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. Online, people can see wrongs and talk about them. This has become increasingly common in the past few years. Recently, a video went viral from a police officer's body cam. The video showed him and a fellow officer turning on a young Black wo man with seemingly no valid reason and killing her after she made a joke he didn't understand. This video spread so fast that people wer...

This chapter made me think a lot about how I have been used as consumer-generated content over the years. I especially recognized this in section two of this chapter as it discussed the #AerieREAL Campaign. I have been a big supporter and consumer of Aerie since I was in middle school. However, I had never really thought about why until I read this chapter. When I was in middle school, I struggled a lot with comparing myself to other people. This was only amplified by the fact that I had access to social media. I was unfortunately blinded by the use of filters and editing software like many young girls are. On one of the days that I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, I came across a brand that marketed itself as a brand for “real people”. I remember immediately being intrigued by that sentiment. Naturally, I asked my mom if we could please go to Aerie the next time we went to the mall. I was once again incredibly drawn in by their marketing strategy as it continued into the ph...