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.

Stay Calm and Embrace Chnage

School is back in full swing after a nice mid-semester break. The weather is starting to feel like fall at the good ole Mount St. Mary's. Student, faculty, staff, administrators, and other community members are starting to order the typical pumpkin spice lattes, wearing boots and vests. With being back at school I am now trying to master time management again. I look up quotes and gifs to remind myself to relax and stay calm.

A little pep talk from Mark Walhberg. (google images)

Mark Wahlberg is one of my favorite actors. He is in one of my favorite films called The Other Guys. I like his character that he plays in this movie. I frequently like quoting movie lines when talking to my friends and for the past week I have been quoting Wahlberg's line "I'm a peacock, you gotta let me fly."

Overall, being a college student has been busy in all aspects. However, I am managing by telling myself one day at a time. I also tell myself if my day is not going according to plan to breathe and read remind myself of the quote below. I believe that these quotes were trending around 2012 and I am glad that they still circulate the internet today.

Motivation quote for the week. (google images)

Just Checking In

It's Midterms week here at Mount St. Mary's University. Since it's my last set of Midterms for a fall semester I am still keeping up the spirit up while giving my best!

   So far in COMM 373, I have learned that each social media platforms are broken into a technology, users, content, ownership, governance, and business models categories. I find this to be the most interesting because I have never thought of social in these terms. These terms help me rethink of what I am actually doing on my social media. I also think it is interesting that VanDijk thought of social media in these terms because I have never thought that social media would be a "technology" so to speak. 

 The most boring assignment that we had was reading the Sular reading. It was an extremely long text about social media that was hard to digest. Luckily as a class, we dissected the important aspects but it was still challenging. Other additional readings have been okay but they are still long and very and dry about 50% of the time. 

What I have been learning is the technicality of social media. I have experience with social media for the past four years and I am still learning the ways to optimize my profile and how to present the best version of myself online. By taking COMM 373 I will learn the tools to present my online self more professionally.

Image from Google. This quote targets me because I too turn to scripture during midterms week.

Tweet Tweet

In my opinion, when I think of Twitter I think of an open social media conversation that any user can partake. Twitter is for anyone who wants to voice their opinion or facts about any topic. We can favorite, save tweets, retweet, subtweet, and follow friends, family, other people or, organizations. Users can also share articles, Direct Message other users, quote other tweets, and upload pictures and videos. Verified accounts is another function on Twitter. Certain accounts have verified blue check mark to verify to other users that the person is real. Mostly celebrities and politicians have this function because they are followed by a lot of people.  

This platform of social media holds high power because it voices users private and public perspectives. This is so important because it leaves a trail of what a user does, thinks, values, and supports. We can learn a lot about a user based off what they Tweet. In the link below this article can give a person an understanding of how Twitter works in an interactive way. The FBI interns of Albuquerque New Mexico offered to answers to questions about certain their honors internship program and the conversation went into a different direction.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-interns-twitter-albuquerque_us_59cca1e4e4b05063fe0f276f

Based on this article from the Huffington Post, my perception of Twitter stands. Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to have an open conversation with any other user under any topic. Users who were replying to the FBI by taking advantage of their professional help and turning it into a mockery. 

So can we be Facebook friends?

 Ahh, Facebook! One of the most successful and game-changing social media platforms. Facebook started when I was in elementary school in 2004. A couple years later as I entered in high school, Facebook was the way incoming freshman got to know each other. The "cool" thing was to see how many Facebook friends you can get. The more people you know the more popular you were. My parents were against me having a Facebook and I thought that if someone wanted to get to know me then, they can meet in the hallways and not on the internet. I liked my privacy but I also told myself someday I will eventually sign up and get an account.

 When I was 18 years old after I graduated high school; I got a Facebook. My parents were against social media but I knew that Facebook would help me connect and network with people.  Although Facebook was an older form of social media in 2014, I thought that was okay to be apart of the hype now. I knew to be careful of what I liked, comment and post. I knew that my private life would be online and I was ready to share who I am.  Reasons, why I got a Facebook, was because I wanted to have a change in my life and I also thought that I would have closer friendships with people from college than in high school.

Now of being apart of Facebook for about three years, I use it daily. I am in touch with people from overseas and other states. I like to see what my family and friends are up to. I am still careful with what I share and I try to limit how much of my time I spend on it. I am now more free with clicking the "Like" button but I am still careful because I know that I am being tracked. Facebook is also social media platform that I used for school purposes with class pages. I also use Facebook to share my interest of cute videos and "like" the photos that people post. 

Am I impressing you or not?...

Have you ever stretched the truth about yourself on social media? Have you used a filter to enhance your profile image or post something that you thought was funny but a lot of people thought it was offensive?

Our online decisions tap into who we are in face form. What we do and what we post, like, share, re-tweet is a reflection of our behavior and how to portray ourselves in an ethical way.

Ethical considerations that people should face to present to people online are their personal information such as your age, sex, and where you are from. A profile photo of just yourself is also a good is also idea because the person does not want to confuse you with someone else. What you post is also matters because it adds to your personality. It tells your friends and followers what your interests you have and what you care about. If you have a certain appearance on one social platform you should be the same with all of them.

Some of the pitfalls/dark sides of impression management are the photos, and posts that we get tagged in. These can give us a good or bad reputation when it comes to the job search. Another pitfall is that people may think you judgmental if you tweet or post your opinion all the time. Your followers and friends may like or not like what you have to say and you can be classified as that annoying friend on social media. If you alter your social media face to be a certain way when your real self is the opposite, it can cause some unnecessary drama. It can be messy on all sides. For yourself, for people who know you personally, and people who follow your online self.

Moderating what we say and share with our social media accounts is key. Therefore, impression management is typically in the back of our heads when we look at our social media accounts.

Google images

Top Ten Ways that College Students Can "Professional Adult(ing)"

The following is a combination of helpful tips about maintaining a positive social media profile and how to write effective emails:

10) Less (<) is more (>): 

When emailing a person, you want to be direct and to the point. The same goes for bio line or mantra line on your social media accounts. 

9) Make your profile pictures the same on ALL your social media accounts!:

This is an important tip because if someone is trying to connect with you and your profile pictures are all different they might be unsure if they are connecting with the right person. I recommend keeping your picture professional with a face shot. 

8) Screen names and email addresses MATTER!:

      To keep things professional, you want to have a simple email address such as janedoe2018@gmail.com. This shows employers and professors, that you are professional and want to have a good online image. An example of a bad email address is puddin-pants@gmail.com. Screen names apply to this as well. Do not have a screen name that you will regret later. People do judge you off your picture and screen name.

7) Formatting an email and post matters:

      When sending an email or posting a message on social media make sure you do not have text that is yellow and font size 20. People can read normal size font of 12 with black text. Be mindful of also what you want to stress. People can detect emphasis with bold, italics, and underline. 

 

6) Be yourself:

     When sending an email or posting on social media it is important to communicate clearly who you are. A simple "Enjoy your weekend!" is acceptable and meaningful. People can tell if you over compliment in any email or post.

5) Make yourself easy to be found:

      Adding an URL, a blog, or any other personal product in your signature is also helpful. This is a good tip because people already look up other people on social media or any other platform if you add your extra links to your profile or email signature you are beating them to the punch.

4) Go Anonymous: 

      This is a smart tip because you get to evaluate what the outside world sees on your profile. You can analyze what future employers can see. 

3) Always have the goal to be understood:

       This applies to both social media and email writing. When we send messages on both platforms know that it will read by somebody, if what you are saying makes sense, will it upset or annoy anyone, and does it take too much time for someone to read. These are simple goals to have before sending or posting. 

2) So what's the point?...

      This is important to ask yourself before you send your email or post online. In a social media setting people are judging you so be careful you are not offending anyone. As for email make sure that you are not wasting your time as well as the receivers time with a question, concern, or comment that you can figure out yourself.

1) Check yourself!:

Think before you hit send, share, post, like, comment, heart, follow, favorite etc.

      This is SUPER important for college students. Take a moment and look at your history. Anything that you post on the internet is traceable.