Social Media Specialization

Social media has become such an integral part of society that branches have come off of it into forms of specialization. Platforms can be used in so many ways entertainment, sports, crisis communication, and journalism. Each specialization uses social media in different ways taking advantage of different tools in social media.

Entertainment:

• Regular updates 
• Strategic briefs 
• Influencer branding
• Graphics and visuals
• Videos
• Press releases

Sports:

• Game releases
• Game events
• Updates 
• Content and scheduling 
• Sponsorships 
• Graphics and visuals
• Videos
• Branding 
• Influencers

Crises:

• Crisis plans 
• Statements
• Exercises and training
• Backgrounds on key professionals
• Media monitoring and listening 
• Policies and guidelines
• Live video and news releases

Journalism:

• Stories
• Updates 
• Features
• Articles
• Exclusives
• Investigations
• Video

Social media is used in so many facets. It can effect so much of the life we live in so many different ways. These are a few ways that social media continues to grow and impact the world.

Creating Content

As this piece of content is being written I sit here in week 11 of a 16 week semester. For one of my classes I was tasked with creating three pieces of content a week. My feeble inexperienced mind has begun to seriously struggle in the later weeks with what to write about. Enter chapter nine for this weeks reading. Based on, generating content. There are four key types of content on all forms of social media.

Written:
Often the first impression of a brand or company comes from writing. Writing tools are readily available it is good to write constantly on any ideas that come to mind. Connecting your ideas to your brand or your audience also adds to the ability of your writing.

Audio:
Audio is a powerful tool that connects to an audience. Podcasts have become increasingly more popular and with increasing audience for them their use has expanded. Interviews and talk shows are two audio mediums that have taken social media interest.

Visual:
Visual can take many forms. Reports, analytics, presentations, statistics all play a key role in grabbing attention and being keen content for a brand.

Graphic:
Perhaps the most popular of the options above graphic content is sexy. The key to graphic content is not losing sight of the whole picture. What do graphics achieve for a brand what do they give to an audience while they may grab attention sometimes they don't accomplish the intended needs.

Creating content is difficult. The keys behind content are what make it difficult. Using all of these forms adds to the diversity of a brand and its platforms. If a brand can lock down these and bring them all together into a constant diverse stream of content they are on their way to a well run social media campaign.

How to Find Brand Voice in Writing

Before a brand can take off and even begin its digital presence and marketing it needs voice. The ability to connect and be unique. This can be broken down platform by platform or audience by audience. Making each writing style unique and different depending on the intended audience or goals. 

1. Give your brand a personality and stick to it

2. Find attributes you want to stay away from

3. Determine the attitude you want your audience to have towards you based on how and what you share platform by platform

4. How do you want people to feel about your content

5. What is in it for your audience what are their benefits from connecting with you

6. Who are the audiences you want to focus on and key into

7. Know your competitors including how they communicate and what their voice is

8. What are your goals

9. Does everything you post have a goal or purpose reflect on your content right now and where it is and should be

10. How do you want your audiences to respond to your content

These 10 key steps can help drive your content and writing and where it should go into the future. The ability to review and look at the content already being managed can have a lasting impact on all of your existing audiences.

Social Media the Fastest Newspaper Ever

The first newspaper was printed in 1566 in Venice. The first english newspaper appeared in 1621 in London. News has been an integral part of society ever since. Today however newspapers are fighting to stay relevant.

News now comes from the world of social media. Every form of social media has seen growth in the use of their platform to acquire news. Upwards of 50 to 70 percent of people are using their social media sights to reach real time news that newspapers are often late to now. On facebook about two thirds of users, use the site to get news throughout the day.

Social media users have issued in a new wave. Users on any platform that provides news have dropped their newspaper usage down to single digit percentages. Newspapers have worked to combat this swing by creating their own apps or even social media pages.

News comes out much faster through social media channels. With live witnesses often displaying the events in real time. More and more content on live news events is displayed social media platforms have developed trending content. Allowing users to see the news in real time when ever and where ever they choose.

As society progresses and ages newspapers will have to continue to work to find ways to stay relevant. Whether through social media or in the standard paper edition newspapers must find new ways to catch the eyes of readers to stay afloat.

Social Media Strategy

Social media has become a major part of communication in society. As social media can be used to connect with friends stay in the know on news and share experiences. It can also be used to expand your brand and reach.

Most only see the benefits of social media in the personal setting. What is overlooked is the fact that professionally social media can be a resume, and a communicator. LinkedIn has even added to their profile pages a place where links can be posted to blogs and other social media sites.

With an ever-expanding market, businesses continue to buy into the social media realm. Content creation and posts along with a steady stream of connection and communication on social media has become a key to marketing and advertising.

Brands and cooperation's are working to take advantage of every opportunity given on a platforms. Planning and strategic design and content have become their own works of art.
As social media will continue to expand so will the strategies needed to capitalize on all the opportunities each platform brings. The strategies needed will be key to the future of communication and business.

What Makes Popularity

Through all platforms of social media there is some form of popularity. Followers, friends, and connections are all forms of the same thing. People in your audience. Reaching an audience is a gone of social media. The question is what is the major measure of popularity in social media.

Reaching out and getting large numbers of friends or followers has become quite easy in today's society. Most people will accept requests because they are adding to their audience as well. Is it really a connection or an audience member however if they never react to your posts.

On Facebook a more connective social media platform users average around 400 friends. The same study found that the actual number of people you will interact with no matter how many "friends" you add will stay the same.

Instagram users have been researched and 70% of users have fewer than 1,000 followers. 16% have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. 6% have between 10,000- 50,000 . While the numbers may say certain things. The key behind these numbers is interactions. Studies have shown that 70% of posts to instagram are not seen by main audiences.

Thus creating the question is popularity more about the quality or quantity of the audience. Interactions become more important than the pure numbers of seen.

Monitoring and Listening to Social Media

Research into social media has become a major tool in marketing and advertising to be able to identify audiences. There are two main ways to do this. Monitoring and listening. Each have their own benefits and each are a bit different.

When monitoring analytics become a key factor in the research. Tools have been created to make a systematic and sustainable program to range your success. Listening is finding feedback from the audiences. Comments, questions, concerns all tie into listening to an audience.

Here are the top five benefits to monitoring and listening to your audience:
-Finding what key words, hashtags, phrases, accounts, and user help to reach and impact the audience.
-Identifying which accounts, websites, blogs, and other external links strengthen word-of-mouth traffic.
-Following trends.
-Identifying the growth of your brand through various platforms and outreach.
-Finding overall following data when audiences are active when they respond and when they want to be contacted.

Being able to read an audience and use it to your advantage in the business world of marketing and advertising has become a key to success. Using these benefits of monitoring gives businesses a needed edge in finding the right ways to reach their audiences.

Top 5 Keys to a Personal Brand

A personal brand is a key tool to expanding business. Freberg dives into a key of personal brand as being real to yourself and authentic. She stresses that being able to have a consistent and clear message on your platforms adds to the reputability of your brand. She list six keys to success.

1. Don't be fake
There may be temptations to try and stretch from yourself stay true to your personality and brand. Be unique and memorable in how you post and market to your audience. The idea of being an influencer may have a strong appeal but being true to you gives you a stronger impact on your true audience.

2. Don't buy followers or use bots
The appearance of looking famous or influential can have its draws. The drawbacks however far outweigh the few benefits. People are not dumb and if the interactions with your outreach does not resemble your following force you risk your reputation in social media.

3.Stand by your opinions
Believe in yourself and your own judgement. Don't tell your audience to support something for you to disappear in the near future. Be a resource and generous in informing your audience of your opinions and what you believe.

4. Focus on quality of engagement not quantity
Focus on the connection. The ability for your audience to feel a personal connection to you is the goal. Value each member of your connection and each feedback you get back.

5. Understand the connection of virtual to offline brand
Your media brand is only as good as your offline brand. Be true to yourself in what you promote in all platforms but more importantly in the real world.

In building and maintaining a personal brand in both the virtual and offline world be true to who you are. Build in in your own way with you own opinions and hard work. This is the only way to become the influencer you can be.

Social Media and Politics

Politics have always been a complicated field. Watching as I grew up I remember how as election season came along everyone would make the same old comment as ads came on "oh it's election season again." Now politics, and the political season has taken a complete shift as politicians have access to a year round billboard.

No matter what platform you look at every form of social media has become part of the political battle ground. From releasing ads to every day tweets on popular issues and topics politicians are working to use social media as a year-round broadcast of their political message.

President Donald Trump has 58.1 million followers on Twitter and over 40 thousand as a total number of tweets. He used Twitter to rally his fan base and has used his 280 characters to share his opinions and policies throughout his presidency.

In just the past few weeks headlines have been made over social media. As both Senator Cory Booker out of New Jersey and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts used twitter to announce their intentions to run for President in 2020.

As the new age of politics continues to grow certain political figures are seeing their number of followers rise at astronomical rates. At the forefront of this is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez she has seen her following number rise upwards of 300 thousand in the past two weeks as she has gone viral twice since taking office.

Worldwide Politicians/World Leaders with the Largest Social Media Following:

1. Barack Obama

2. Donald J. Trump

3. Narenda Modi (Prime Minister of India)

4. Hillary Clinton

5. Dalai Lama

6. Pope Francis

The landscape of politics will continue to change. Politicians will continue to look for new ways to use this tool to spread their message. This new form of advertisement continues it will be up to the followers they gain to the knowledge they need to be able to support the politicians they view as the best for this country and the world.

Social Media an Ever Developing Platform

Social media has become a continuously developing tool. Taking shape over the past decade platforms have become tools for business, communication, and marketing. Self proclaimed gurus shower the globe but in reality as social media continues to develop it changes everyday. Specialist work to stay on top of what is new but most would admit it changes all too frequently to be an expert. In the final chapter Guy Kawasaki gives a few brief tips in a final chapter of his book.

His top tips for the most used platforms:

For Facebook the biggest thing he looks to inform readers on is that not all viewers see everything you post. The "news feed" does not show everything posted in a day. Facebooks argument is that it does not want users to be overwhelmed with posts. Your job is to make your posts worth Facebook's "news feed" worthy this is caused by interaction. Use your posts to grab peoples attention. Give people reasons to interact with your posts and profile.

For Instagram while it is a somewhat restricted form of social media it can still be extremely powerful. Keep it short and interesting attention grabbing and informative. Make sure to add hashtags and other easy ways to look back and identify your post and business.

For Twitter be bold and grab attention. Add graphics to stand out. Make sure you understand who can see which tweets and how they are affected by addressing. Understand the keys to twitter and how you can interact with others using mentions and tags along with retweets and replies.

Social media is a new age tool. It's ability to effect society is immeasurable. How it can be used is still developing as more and more functions are added each day. These few tips from In every form we are all still learning as it is still evolving.

Connection?

Living in an era of connectivity. Social media along with other electronic advancements have made it seem like the globe is shrinking. The ability to talk to a friend spending a semester in Europe at the touch of a button baffles me. Living in this age adds a lot to society and what has become the perceived norm.

Communication is at an all time high but it takes many forms. Snapchat allows you to see people minute by minute of their life. Facebook connects friends from years and years back allowing you to stay connected in people's lives no matter the distance or time. Twitter gives hot takes and news faster than ever before. All of these factors have changed communications and connectivity and public relations for the foreseeable future. Everything is faster.

The importance put on communication on continuous level adds to already increasingly stressful situations. Teenage relationships both platonic and not have come to rely on the sense of constant communication and over analyzation on all social media platforms.

In a 2014 research survey done  it was reported that 45% of millennials reported social media had a major impact on their relationships. Advice about relationships may seem like common sense but the top advice given is.

1. Prioritize time without media: Spend time with them while being disconnected and away from the hustle and bustle of technology.

2. Check in before you post: Always communicate with your partner let them know about your sharing especially when it comes to details about you and your partner.

3. A golden rule, if you wouldn't say it or show it in person don't do it on media.

4. Don't Snoop/Trust them

Social media has its benefits and its downfalls. When properly used it gives us connections that in the past would never have been able to be made. When used poorly it adds to it adds on to an already stressful and hectic world we live it.