My Really Late Mid-Term

I think that the most useful thing that I’ve done in this class is blogging. This is the first time that I’ve blogged and it’s an interesting form of writing. It’s taking me time to get use to the writing style. Initially I was afraid too write with my voice in a piece because, in any good news piece, you don’t let your own personal voice show but now, with some practice I’m getting use to it.

I feel that I’m doing ok in the class. It would probably help if I remembered to complete all of the assignments. Writing is my strength so knowing how to write isn’t a problem, but writing with my own voice and learning to write shortly are the two things I need to work on. I would really like to focus on writing Twitter messages. Like you said in class, it’s like writing headlines and that is something that I am not very good at.

I would like more information on how to use social media to spread a message. I know that the final project is suppose to teach us this, but since it’s a fake company, it really doesn’t matter what materials we put together and how we put it together. I would like to learn about marketing strategies and how a campaign uses all of these different medias to get a message out effectively. Also, I feel that blogging would be more effective if it wasn’t just reactions to what we did in class.

There is this website called stock.xchng, http://www.sxc.hu, which offers free, open stock photography. You have to sign up for an account with an e-mail address but overall I have found it a very useful web site for images.

“Brown Is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream” Review

Made in 2007, the title is misleading, especially if you only read the first part. Green has taken on a much different context in the past few years and when I skimmed the title, I was initially confused. Even when reading the title, I don’t think of a Hispanics person as a brown person, I think of me as a brown person.

It seems a lot of the video is dedicated to clips of George Lopez’s stand-up and from his show. Overall, I feel that most of these clips didn’t add much to the content, if anything, to the video. Also, the random use of special effects was distracting. Especially when it was making a person appear as a drawing, which was used, it appears, for no reason.

Despite these details, the video brings up a lot of interesting points. Right away, they point out that Hispanic is a term that was created by the US government for race classification. I don’t think this is something that most people think of. For instance, you’d be surprised at the amount of people that can’t believe that I’m Asian. Also, most people aren’t aware that if you’re from the Middle East you’re White according to the government.

Like the video points out most Hispanics identify themselves from the country they’re from and not as a Hispanic. This is the issue that the entire video seems to revolve around. How can the media market towards a “Hispanic” culture if there isn’t a really defined Hispanic culture as most people think, as well as exploring the new, emerging Hispanic culture that teenagers are creating.

To reach this, new developing culture, social media can be easily incorporated. Teenagers are a large number of social media users, and they use it daily. By reaching out through social media, people can spread the word about things that interest them, from immigration reform to connecting with their cousin in Columbia.

The same is true for any idea. With social media being as prevalent in today’s culture someone can find out about any topic that interest them, or, if they are that rare person that doesn’t use social media, the changes are someone they know will have a similar interest and inform them about it.

H2O 4 All

H2O 4 All

For my campaign I would like to use Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and WordPress.

Facebook is he most popular social media tool out there and it would be a good place to start to get the word out about H2O, gain follower and gather people to help the movement. While there are less people utilizing it,

Twitter gets more a response from its users. This is a good point to connect with other organizations with similar goals, start a conversation and share information.

Foursquare is useful when attending a conference or and event and also for when we hold events. It’s just another way to make sure people know what’s going on and adds creditability to anything that you may blog on later.

WordPress is apparently THE choice for professional bloggers out there. Every cause needs a blog to share information, ideas and what’s happening in more depth than Facebook or Twitter will allow.

New Media @ the Library

Let me preface this with I love libraries. I love everything about them-the smell of books, the quiet (sometimes) murmur of people, the sound of pages turning. Where else can I go and satisfy my thirst for books, without spending a dime (assuming that you return said books on time) and see people from all walks of life.

With technology today, libraries aren’t only for books, and the roll of a librarian has evolved, as detailed in an article, “The Evolving Librarian.” The great thing about libraries is that it’s available to anyone. This is also the problem for librarians, especially when dealing with new technology, like new media. Do you carry resources for the young 20-something that has grown up with it or for seniors, who are just learning how to use a computer? This is a dilemma that every library has to deal with.

At Madison Area Technical College the library as compiled a new user guide for new social media users. Matt Coan presented information about social media and while, most of the information is review for anyone familiar with new media, there was some nice reminders on how useful Google advance search is. Coan compiled a useful site that covers a lot of basic information on social networking, from copyright information to the history of social media but is really too basic for the advance user.

Madison Area Technical College Library Social Networking Site

http://libguides.matcmadison.edu/online_social_media

Four Website Review

Special Olympics

They have a YouTube, Twitter Wordpress and Facebook accounts. All of the accounts are used effectively to help communicate the message of the Special Olympics and provide an outlet for ambassadors to promote the cause. It is also used to spread different stories about Special Olympics athletes, volunteers and families from across the globe.

Greenwood School District

The school district does not use any social media on their web page or has any social media link that I could find. Social media could be used to effectively communicate with parents and the community what is happening or if there are any early school closings.

Target

Target has many different social media accounts. YouTube is used to share the commercials the company has produces. Target has a regular Facebook page along with a Target Baby page. Most of the questions are targeted towards encouraging users to interact, with relatively few product placements. There are also multiple Twitter accounts, from a regular account to a corporate and daily deals twitter pages. Depending on the account, the tweets are either advertising deals or driving a conversation between them and the customer. The Twitter account seems to be a real conversation between Target and customers compared to the Facebook account. On the other hand, the Target Baby Facebook page is a conversation between new parents and Target.

www.isthmus.com

The Isthmus has Facebook, Twitter and a Flicker account. Flicker allows readers to submit their own photos from events for other Isthmus readers to see and comment on. Facebook and Twitter are used in a more traditional news media manner and to interact with readers, posting stories for readers to react to.