The Last Post

Top Ten Things that I Learned from COMM 373:

1. Your profile picture says a lot about you. Presentation of a good profile picture is everything!
2. Consider reading the terms and services so you know your privacy settings and what rights the social media platform can do to sell your information.
3. When it comes to public shaming think before you post!
4. I learned that social media campaigns involve a lot of creativity and thinking of new ways getting people to look at your page
5. That you can make money from blogging your opinion and if you are really good at what you blog about companies can sponsor you and make the big bucks ($$$)
6. I learned about Twitter through the readings and through using it in my social media campaign. From taking this class I am influenced to create an account
7. I learned how to make an interesting blog and personalize it to my liking with pictures and gifs
8. I found that I like reading new stories and academic work about social media platforms
9. I also learned that I spend a lot of time on social media. Writing down my use of social media and Netflix was almost embarrassing but also gave me perspective.
10. Finally, I liked and enjoyed my last course with Dr. Kennedy. I will miss her being my professor because she is the person who persuaded me to be a Communication major.

"Happy Feet" as the semester is ending! Courtesy of Google Images.  

The one assignment that I did not like about the class, was the opinion paper. I thought that it was repetitive of the blogs that we have to write for the class. I thought a lot of our opinions were posted on our blogs and a formal paper was just repeating what weekly assignment that I had to do. I offer that making the opinion paper to be more of a reflection paper for future coarses. I think that all other class assignments were good maybe more than two Skype lectures in a semester if possible. 

How I will feel once this semester is over. Courtesy of Google Images. 

Snapchats can be used for evidence

The following story is about two teens and a 20-year-old man charged with abusing a cat with evidence that was shared on Snapchat.

https://globalnews.ca/news/3877372/2-teens-charged-in-connection-with-cat-abuse-video-shared-on-snapchat/

This short story reveals that two teens and a 20 year old, were abusing a cat and sending what they did to the owner of the cat via Snapchat. In the snap video, the cat was drugged, shaved, and then thrown out the window. The owner of the cat received the Snapchat video while they were away from their home. The two teens and the 20-year-old are charged with suffering an animal.

It is amazing that Snapchat can now be used as evidence. Usually, once you send a Snapchat video it goes away and you have one more chance to review the video. However, if the person who created the video has the setting on repeat then the person will see the video multiple times before they tap on the screen to make it disappear. What I have analyzed from this story is that people can now face criminal charges based on evidence proof of Snapchat.

Google images photo

It makes me wonder if police would be able to see the Snap video or if they can now get a warrant to obtain someone's phone for criminal evidence. It will only take one more incident to where police can access somones Snapchat account or personal cellular device to find the criminal which is both just and scary to think about. It is just because the bad guy will be caught although it may be an invasion of privacy. 

The story was reported by GlobalNews. Global News is a television network in Canada. This story received 3.8 k shares on Facebook. Meaning that this story reached a lot of people in Canada in the U.S. Corus Entertainment owns Global News broadcasting.

Be Thankful for a Change of Scenery

Over Thanksgiving break, I spent time with my mom, dad, and older sister. It was nice to be home and to have a change of scenery from school. However, over this past Thanksgiving break, I was typing a seven-page paper. So it was a restful yet very productive break. However, I did get to see some family members that I have not seen in a couple of years. It was so nice to catch up with them as we shared a meal together.

I thought that Janie Henderson's talk about Social Movement was very informative. She is really good at research and background information about social movements in her community. Her insights about the national guard coming to her street and following the mandatory locked down would have made me uneasy. Also thought it was interesting that she was following Twitter versus the news because it was more accurate and more geared towards her needs versus the local news was an interesting piece of advice.  

My reaction to this ending of this semester featuring the cast of Anchorman

I am looking forward to ending my last fall semester of college on a good note. I will be happy and relieved and jump for joy when this semester is over. I am going to "give it my all" for my last assignments. Also the last couple of weeks I have really enjoyed the classes I have been taking even though the work has been hard. I like my professors and I look forward to going to all my classes.

It's A Shame

Public Shaming a person online is a sticky situation. It's usually very embarrassing for the person who posted the content. People who also draw attention to the post can also cause more harm than help a person. I do not believe in publicly shaming someone. I believe that it normally ends in cyberbullying. However, if you are a parent trying to teach your child a lesson and they believe in public shaming them to teach them a lesson then that is okay because that is their child and they will parent as they see fit. The picture below is a good example of public shaming and makes me think that a parent was trying to teach a lesson to their child.

Three tips to keep in mind about posting online:

1. Always, Always! check what you want to post. Check your caption, and check why you want to the world to see your content. See my last blog post (Check yourself...Is what you post private?)

2. Ask yourself "What is the worse possible thing that could happen when you post content?" This is a good question that I picked up from my social media class as we watched a TED Talk about a Twitter employee whose job was to analyze content on Twitter and see if the content was harmful or not. 

3. Finally, make sure that you will not get fired from your job because of what you posted on your social media accounts. It is embarrassing to write on a job application that you got fired over what you said on social media. You will look like an uncreditable and non trusted employee.

Check yourself... Is what you post private?

Every time before I post anything online I always check for spelling what content I am sending over the interweb. I always ask myself "should I post?", "Will someone call me out"? The same goes for searching information on the internet. I can imagine that someone is benefiting from my Google searches. If another algorithm is analyzing my searches or a physical human being is, it is in a sense "creepy" that I am being watched one way or another. I never feel protected on the interweb no matter if I have all of my privacy settings on for just about every social media website.

I would like to think that I once upon of time in the web 1.0 and beginning of the web 2.0 world no one was watching what I was searching online. I would like to think that I will never get hacked but I know there are no guarantees in life and no one is fully protected. Even if someone has high protective services hackers and scammers can still access your information. My understanding of privacy is that you are only protected until you send or post anything on the internet. 

Photo from Google Images. I like this image because it makes me rethink before I hit the enter button. 

Personally, I try to keep my information private. I never tell google to remember my password on any site except for canvas and moodle. I keep track of my passwords in a journal. I also ask the sites to never remember me and make me ask the security questions. This keeps me safe and allows no one except for me know the answers to my questions. 

Below are some online privacy guidelines that I would suggest to high school seniors.

1)  Do not post any picture of alcohol or drugs. Reason being is that you are underage and you should not have a reputation for drinking or taking drugs in high school. Your adult life is about to start. Be smart and save yourself and check yourself before you wreck yourself. The future university or job that you are applying to should accept you based on your values and merits don't let one post deny cripple your chance of achieving your dream. This also applies to photos that you are tagged in. Make sure that photos are an accurate representation of yourself.  

2) Make sure that before you accept a friend request or follower you know who it is. You do not want to accept another user and not know who it is. There are creepy people in the world who will try to hack you or try to be your friend for other reasons. 

3) Look up your name on Google. You should be aware what the common person can try to find about you. That way you will know how to protect yourself and you will know what information is public knowledge about yourself. 

Photo Courtesy Google images of Parks and Recreation scene 

YouTube Challenge

This past Tuesday I was challenged to create a video with a couple of my classmates of "why I love the Mount". The objective was to produce a video with the answering the question then, posting the video to Twitter to monitor the video by making it viral. My team won the challenge collectively we got 102 retweets and favorites by 2 pm class time on Thursday. My team was the first to post the video and we did ask our friends and family with a Twitter account to either like or retweet it. Our prize was 25 points of extra credit! 

I believe the reason why my group won the challenge was that we post the video early Tuesday evening. We then asked our friends and family to retweet and favorite it. If this was a video challenge where we couldn't promote our video but to naturally watch the video to go viral on its own, that would be a different story.  

I thought that our video was funny and it was fun to create the content. The only challenge that we faced was asking people to be a part of the video. The video only contained my group member's but we got creative with the little things of why we love the mount. 

If I had to redo this assignment I would try to shoot different areas of the campus and encourage other people to be apart of our video. I would also want our presentation of our video to be the full screen and not just a small square. This activity taught me to be creative with the setting of the mount and with the people on my team. The activity also taught me to trust my instincts and to have fun with the question. Below is the link to my team's video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHriVQHO7a8&feature=share

Finally, word of mouth is the way that my team won the challenge. Referring back to Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick tips my group followed the pass the reshare test and reshare your pals' posts of for our video campaign. The reshare test was our proof that Twitter users would risk their social media reputation to like and share our video. This activity taught me that word of mouth is one of the good ways to markets our video. It also taught me that the more you market a video the more attention traffic something will 

FOOTBALL!

One of my favorite football teams is the Buffalo Bills. This team is not one of the popular teams but I like the team because it is the team that my dad likes. My dad grew up in Buffalo and we still have family who live there. The team grew on me because growing up my dad likes having company when he watches the games on a Sunday afternoon. Now that I am at college I do not watch football but instead, I follow the team on social media.

Twitter page for the Buffalo Bills

 The Buffalo Bills have social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. On all of these platforms, the Bills has several thousand followers but they do not follow back many other users. The most followers they have is on Twitter which is 812.6 K.

A recent promotion for the Buffalo Bills and Fans

 A recent promotion that happened today was asking the fans to take a selfie and use the geotag filter Bills Selfie. This promotion was presented by Aesthetic Associates. This promotion was to push fans to submit a selfie and in exchange their picture would be on the scoreboard at the football game this afternoon. This was a smart promotion to get the fans to show off their bills spirit and to sport their face in between halftime and quarters.

An Instagram post of two teammates dancing after scoring a touchdown 

I follow the Bills on Facebook and Instagram. I get to see the live stream score on Facebook. As of right now, they are beating the Oakland Raiders. The Bills post a picture every time they score a touchdown to try to spread the word that they are winning and promote action shots of the players. This tactic helps with promoting the team and to let their followers know that they are doing well in the games.