Food for Thought When Creating a Pinterest Board

One of the most valuable pieces of advice that I took away from the Pinterest chapter of “Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016” was when the author gave the reader guiding questions to ask oneself when creating a Pinterest board. Jason McDonald, author of the book, stated that we should ask ourselves these questions:

“What is this board about?”

“Who will be interested in this board?”

“What will you pin to this board, and where does that content live?”

These three questions are extremely helpful when creating a Pinterest board, especially because it can be somewhat difficult to know where to start. I have never been an avid Pinterest user, but when I was in middle school I attempted to play around with it only to discover that organization is key. However, I never thought about the last two of the three questions McDonald gives us. It’s important to think about who your audience is for your Pinterest board so that you drive the most traffic to it, especially if you are using Pinterest for marketing purposes. Social media is key in today’s marketing world, making Pinterest just as useful of a tool as any other social media site. I will be taking this food for thought with me into my future career!

Trick-or-treating at ONU

This past Tuesday, ONU hosted a trick or treat event for the children of Ada. Dormitories across campus were decorated with different themes for the children to walk through as they collected candy, such as “Finding Dory”.  Volunteers from different student organizations lead groups of children and parents from building to building. Overall, the event appeared to be very successful with many people in attendance.

Although I did not participate in this event, I truly enjoyed seeing the little kids dressed up in their costumes on campus. I was surprised to see parents dressed up as well; their costumes were a bit scarier than the children’s! I felt a bit of nostalgia watching them trick or treat and it made me miss walking door to door on Halloween with my family and friends. Halloween is not my favorite holiday, but I appreciate it and think that it is a fun time of year—no matter what age you are!

Thanks, Ohio Northern University, for putting on a Halloween event for the village of Ada. It was so cute!

How to Lucid Dream

For my Social Media Principles class, we were asked to create a "how to" video. I spent a lot of time trying to come up with an idea that I could easily craft into a video. I thought about what my skills are and what activities I know how to do, but it was very difficult to come up with something that would be suitable for this project. Finally, it dawned on me: lucid dreaming.

I wanted my video to be beneficial for people to watch and grab their attention. I know that not a lot of people know how to lucid dream, so I figured this is the perfect opportunity to teach them. People talk all the time about how they wish they could do it, so I want to help them do just that. I've only been able to lucid dream for about a year, and I learned how to do it on accident, but I know that I can teach people how to go about trying to achieve the dream. What a perfect "how to" video topic! 

Feel free to like my video on YouTube, and please share with your friends and family! Eventually, we all could be lucid dreamers!

Comparing Video Data on YouTube

“Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016” has an entire chapter dedicated to teaching readers about YouTube. The author, Jason McDonald, gives the reader several details about how to best use YouTube and optimize your success on the site. One of these details stood out to me in particular: “Competitor video data is hidden under the ‘more’ button.” I am not an avid YouTube user, but I believe that this information is very useful in the field of public relations. Being able to compare video data to other top competitors on a YouTube video gives us important knowledge, so that a company, organization, business or, an individual can look to see what their audience is responding best to, and what other videos are doing right.

Perhaps someday, when I have a full-time job in the field of public relations, I will be able to contribute to the team by knowing how to compare our video data to our competitors’. For now, however, I believe this piece of information is interesting to say the least, and it could be fun just to compare videos to other videos to see which ones are more successful in the social media world.  

ONU Homecoming Parade 2016: Delta Zeta Edition

The 2016 homecoming parade at Ohio Northern University that took place on Main Street, Ada was quite successful. Overall, the parade had a healthy number of people in attendance who were all there to celebrate ONU’s homecoming. I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in this parade as a member of Delta Zeta.

As we began preparations for this event, I decided to live tweet everything interesting that occurred. My tweets begin with pre-parade setup and waiting time, transition into the procession down Main Street (including Delta Zetas cheering for our sorority in celebration!) and finally, wrap up the live tweet session with a special shout out to our float driver. You can see all of the tweets I am referring to here. If you attended the parade, I hope you enjoyed seeing ONU’s Delta Zeta ladies! If you did not attend, take a look at my Storify that is made up of my homecoming parade tweets!

It was a great experience to be able to live tweet such an awesome event. It made me start to wonder how Ohio Northern University was doing in covering these events, so I took a look at its pages on Twitter and Facebook to see whether or not the people running them were doing well or not. I have to say, I was disappointed in their promotion of ONU’s events. Homecoming weekend is one of the major events that we host here on campus throughout the entire school year, so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that there was hardly any promotion of homecoming on the pages. ONU’s Twitter account, @ohionorthern, had only a single tweet mentioning homecoming at all, and it simply stated that it was homecoming week with an attached photo. It did not mention any of the events ONU would be holding, and it didn’t even attach a link to show us where we can find the events. It didn’t even seem like much of a promotional tweet, since it simply stated a fact and did not encourage anyone to participate or engage with the tweet. Our book, "Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016", tells us to use hashtags to help promote a tweet or event, and ONU’s account did not even do that. The book also tells us to tag people that would be interested in your tweet to give you a shot at someone else helping to promote it, but ONU’s account did not do that either.

ONU’s Facebook page was severely lacking as well. The page has a single post from homecoming week, and it has absolutely nothing to do with homecoming—frankly, it has nothing to do with anything. It was a post about how “You can’t help but FALL in love with this campus”, which I suppose promotes the beauty of the school during the fall, but does not encourage engagement. “Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016” tells us that “interactivity is goal #1 for your Facebook posts” as well as to “be emotional” on Facebook. This post didn’t do either of those things, and it didn’t have anything to do with homecoming at all! I was shocked. The book also advises us to use keywords, but the post lacks these as well.

If ONU wants productive social media pages, the account owners will need to step up their game. On Twitter, they should learn how to tag people who might want to retweet them, use hashtags to encourage engagement, and attach links to sites that give more information about the school or event being hosted. On Facebook, they should consider tagging and hashtagging as well, but they should also consider being more emotional and applying key words to grab their audience’s attention. ONU’s athletic Twitter account live tweeted the homecoming football game, which is the only thing that ONU’s Twitter did right as far as homecoming promotion. ONU’s Facebook page didn’t do anything in regards to homecoming promotion, so that is something the account really needs to add next year. If ONU follows these tips, they may be able to have successful accounts.

Delta Zeta's Homecoming Participation

Homecoming is just around the corner at Ohio Northern University. ONU will be welcoming back the Classes of 2011, 2006, 2001, 1996, 1991, 1986, 1976, 1971 and, 1966 for their reunions. There are several exciting events planned throughout the week and weekend put on by different campus organizations to celebrate, including the homecoming football game.

As a sophomore, I will be entering ONU’s homecoming weekend a bit differently than I did last year, as I now know what to expect. Last year, I only went to the tailgate lunch and the game. This year, however, I will be participating in homecoming events much differently, especially now that I have joined Delta Zeta sorority.

This year, the Friday of homecoming weekend, Delta Zeta is hosting a “Glow Run” to raise money for our philanthropy. This run will be a 5k, and it begins at 7 p.m. on the Tundra. We will have sorority sisters placed in specific spots throughout the course, ready to spray runners with glowing liquid so that they light up as they finish their race. It will be an exciting event, and we courage everyone to sign up and run with us. It’s for a great cause: the Starkey Hearing Foundation. This organization helps put money towards getting the deaf community in underprivileged areas and countries the hearing aids and support they need. If running isn’t your thing, at least consider donating to our wonderful philanthropy and help change lives!

Along with the Glow Run, Delta Zeta is hosting a luncheon for our alumnae. We are very excited to welcome them back into the house for a few hours and provide them the food they deserve while we hear about how incredible their lives have been since college. I have a lot of respect for our alumnae, as do most of our DZ sisters, and I am excited to meet the women I was never able to be an active member with while at ONU. It should be a fun time!

Finally, Delta Zeta will be walking down Main Street in Ada to participate in our homecoming parade. It will be such a fun experience to walk with other Greek members and organizations on campus throughout our town. I am very excited to participate, and I encourage you all to come out and support ONU at this parade, as well as all of the other events going on this weekend!

Happy homecoming!

Tweeting to Journalists

One of the most interesting pieces of advice that our book “Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016” by Jason McDonald has given us is, in my opinion, the suggestion to “pitch journalists view Twitter” as a promotion strategy. Tagging journalists in tweets about your company, product or, services can be extremely useful.

According to McDonald, journalists love Twitter because it is where stories seem to unfold the most. By tagging them in tweets you would want them to see, you are grabbing their attention and giving them a potential story that they may want to dive into and explore. By tagging several journalists in promotional tweets, you may just get lucky to the point where they will want to write a promotional story on you or your company. They also might choose to retweet your promotional tweet, which would give you access to a whole new audience of people that follow that particular journalist.

This is useful information, because promoting on Twitter can sometimes be a difficult task. Twitter is very noisy, and it is hard for users to pick out what to pay attention to and what to virtually ignore. Being retweeted or recognized by a journalist would help your promotion to stand out. I’m glad that McDonald gave this advice because before I read this section, I had never thought about tagging journalists. I believe that this knowledge will assist me in my future career in PR, and I will be able to help companies better expand their outreach and audience traffic on Twitter. 

Apple Pistol Emoji Has Been Replaced

iOS 10 for Apple products has made several changes to the way Apple works. Overall, the public reaction to the changes was positive; most people find the new Apple model to be satisfactory. However, there is one change to the update that has almost gone unnoticed—almost.

Since emojis became a part of Apple products, there has been one emoji in particular that has caused problems that most people are unaware of: the pistol emoji. Although the emoji was, for the most part, used in harmless fashions, there have been several instances of people using the emoji as threatening, or to make others feel threatened. Perhaps a more common—but still inappropriate—way this emoji has been used is next to a face emoji, where the pistol is pointing at the head, insinuating suicide. People have been pressuring Apple to remove the pistol emoji for quite some time now in order to remove the possibility of people using it in inappropriate manners. With iOS 10, those people have finally succeeded.

The new update didn’t just remove the pistol emoji, it replaced it. A neon green squirt gun has taken the pistol’s place, which takes away the threatening appearance of the original gun. This means the only way people are able to use the pistol emoji in social media or over text is to Google the image of the original and insert it into the post or message.

A majority of the population of Apple users hasn’t even noticed the change yet, but those who were fighting to get it removed are rejoicing over the change. However, where there is one opinion there must be a counter opinion. The gun community (those who own and/or operate guns, such as hunters or those with concealed weaponry licenses), despise the change. They feel as if Apple is taking away their freedom to discuss guns over social media and text, which in their eyes is stepping a little too close to the “gun control” debate line. They have begun attempting to put the pistol emoji back into Apple’s emoji inventory.

So far, Apple products are the only ones who have made this emoji change. Since other device brands still have the pistol emoji, they can still send pistol emojis to Apple devices. However, it will appear as the squirt gun to the Apple user, not a pistol. Whether or not you are a fan of the change, you have to admit that it is an interesting decision that Apple has made. 

Clowns at ONU

Last week, a clown was spotted on two different occasions on the Ohio Northern University campus. The first time was on the Green Monster, and the second was near Affinity Village. Campus security was contacted both times, but they were unable to locate the clown.

Students who witnessed the first sighting of the clown claimed that the clown was walking towards them holding an object that resembled a "butcher knife". Regardless of whether or not these sightings were true or simply false claims, they have incited panic in the entire student body. Students have begun exercising campus security's services of escorting, purchasing mace and pocket knives, and avoiding walking outside at night altogether.

Although time has passed since the second clown sighting and people have begun to relax, it doesn't erase the fear in the back of people's minds when they walk alone on campus. Most clown sightings around the country have been dismissed as pranks, but no one likes to be pranked unknowingly, regardless to if it is harmless or not.

People should not be forced into fearing for their safety at a place that once felt so secure. This clown prank has taken things too far, and the students of ONU do not deserve the effects it has caused us. This clown joke is ridiculous and needs to be put to an end.

If you know anything about the clown at ONU, please give that information to the police. This is not a funny joke; it is affecting how safe people feel at their own homes.

Schmoozing on LinkedIn

According to the book, schmoozing is “another word for business networking”. The worksheet we did was all about networking our LinkedIn profiles in a way that helps us engage with our connections on the site to try and build followers for our potential business, as well as make connections that could be beneficial to us. The worksheet discussed 1^st and 2^nd connections. 1^st level connections are those who you may direct message/interact with, whereas 2^nd level connections are “friends of friends”, or your 1^st levels’ 1^st level connections that you can only interact with by being introduced to (confusing, I know).

I thought that this worksheet taught me a lot about how to best make connections on LinkedIn. Personally, I am not all that familiar with LinkedIn, and I have a lot of work to do regarding expanding my profile. This section of the workbook as well as the worksheet provided me tips that I otherwise wouldn’t have received. I have a few 1^st level connections right now, but not too many. I know that I can work on expanding my list by working with my 1^st levels to be introduced to my 2^nd levels, and the book provided my insight on how to best approach that situation. This will be beneficial to me when I begin looking for future careers in Public Relations, because as the book states, “It’s not what you know (in business). It’s who you know.”

Now that I have this knowledge about schmoozing on LinkedIn, I will be able to help other companies in the future that I work with in developing and managing their profiles on the site. Doing so will allow the company to not only find worthy employees, but also worthy clients and partners. I look forward to being able to exercise this knowledge in the future, both in my career and in my personal life. 

A Review of Blogger

Blogger is a website that allows anyone to create a blog for free. It gives individuals the opportunity to craft their own personal blog page on their own terms. It is a great website for beginner bloggers who are just starting to test the waters in the blogging world, because they are given so much freedom on an easy-to-use system.

The students of Social Media Principles use Blogger every week. As a student in the class, I have come to get to know the website fairly well in the couple months that we have been in class. It took me a few minutes to figure out and understand all of the tricks to the site, but once I got the basics down I was set. I customized my page exactly the way I wanted it in every way possible, and I made sure my new blog correlated with how I see myself. It was fun to create the blog’s design and layout, but then after that it was time to get to work.

I now write three blogs a week, and the process has become second nature to me. What I like most about Blogger is how easy it is to navigate the site and organize your blogs. Having all options available and clear to me as I craft my blog makes everything so much simpler. I also love the statistics Blogger shows you about the blogs that you write. These include how many people have viewed and commented as well as what sites they viewed it from. This is extremely helpful in planning where to post each blogs, because it shows you where your blogs are getting viewed the most.

Although those are all wonderful qualities of Blogger, there is one thing in particular that I feel it is lacking. I believe it would be beneficial for Blogger to have a “home” page, so that there may be a feed of other Blogger users’ blogs and blog posts. There is an option at the top of the site that says “next blog”, which, when clicked, takes you to a random person’s blog. However, although this is a step up from not being able to browse any other blogs, it’s not a great system. It doesn’t always show you blogs that are updated, and you never know who’s blog you are going to be viewing. You can’t pick and choose blogs based on your interest, which if that were to be implemented into the site, might really add something great.

Overall, I think that Blogger is a great site, and I’m thankful that I have been I’ve had the opportunity to get to know how it all works. I would definitely recommend this site to friends!

Fall Break at Ohio Northern

The first true break of the semester has finally arrived here at Ohio Northern University: Fall Break. This year, students have October 10th and 11th off of classes, giving them a much needed and deserved break from school. It may be short, but it is most definitely welcomed by all students with open arms. 

One of my last posts regarded midterms here at the university, and those dreaded exams definitely make this break even more wonderful than it already was. As for myself, I have already headed home for the first time all semester. I hadn't seen my dog in over a month, and I missed him dearly. Reuniting was so wonderful, and he is just as cute as the day I left him for school! I am sure several ONU students are reuniting with their pets this weekend, which presumably is as great for them as it was for me. It is also nice to finally be home and just relax on the couch with my family. Moments like those don't happen very often since I've been away at school, and I no longer take them for granted. It feels so good to just relax.

Although I know that Fall Break will be over sooner than I'd like it to, I'm going to make the most of it, including going on a mini vacation to the Sleeping Bear Dunes in Glen Arbor, Michigan, which is about four hours north of my house. Other than that, relaxing is a top priority, since this semester has seemed a bit more stressful than the other ones that I have experienced. 

I'm just glad that we actually have a Fall Break at ONU, because I know most of my friends' schools don't have one. They have to wait until Thanksgiving for their first break to arrive, which seems so far away from now. I know that once I'm back at school I'll be counting down the days until Thanksgiving Break, so I can't even imagine how they feel! 

Fellow Polar Bears: I hope you all enjoy your Fall Break! Be sure to make the most of it, because time sure does fly!

The Four Good Reasons to Use Facebook for Social Media Marketing

In our book “Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016”, the author Jason McDonald begins Chapter 2 by listing off four good reasons as to why Facebook is an amazing place to begin social media marketing. I thought for my book blog this week that I would name these reasons and give my personal input on why I agree they make social media marketing easier.

McDonald’s first reason as to why Facebook is a great place to start is that is it “the largest social media platform, with over one billion active users and countless profiles, Pages, and groups.” At first, I was surprised by this number, thinking about how vast the population on Facebook really is compared to other social media sites. However, after a minute I realized that I wasn’t that surprised. From the moment Facebook became a popular site when I was in elementary school, I knew it was going to be huge. Everyone used it—how was it going to be possible for people to function without it? Yes, there are still people that don’t have Facebook, but everyone I know that doesn’t have one still uses it by googling Facebook profiles. It has become such a useful site, it’s easy to see why so many people in the world have an account.

His second reason was “once you understand the dynamics of Facebook…you’ll more easily understand the dynamics of other social media”. When I read this, it really made me think. Facebook had been my first social media account, and I tried to think about if I would’ve understood the other social media accounts I got later in life like Twitter and Instagram if I hadn’t known how to use Facebook so well. I don’t think that I would have, because Facebook taught me the basics, what is and isn’t appropriate to post online, how to instant message people, and how to interact with others through the site. These skills really came in handy when I got a Twitter, because Twitter has a few differences that make it more difficult to understand if you don’t already understand social media.

McDonald’s third reason pointed out the usefulness of the Facebook component Edgerank, which “rewards you for posting items that users interact with (as measured by likes, comments, and shares)”. I have barely gotten a chance to use Edgerank, but after completing the Facebook Analytics assignment for class, I feel like I have a basic understanding of how it works, and I can easily tell how useful it could be to a social media marketer. The more you know the reactions your audience has to certain posts, the better you can plan your best marketing strategies to get the most engagement with your audience.

The final reason that McDonald listed was “Facebook is fun!” and “social media marketing should not be thought of as a chore, but as a way to get closer to your customers and build a community of evangelists around your company, product, or service.” This is a true fact. When I enter the Public Relations field in the future, I want my job to be as fun and enjoyable as possible. If that includes working on fun social media (such as Facebook), I will be a happy girl! 

The Benefits of Social Media

Social media has been around for several years now, but isn’t it crazy to think about how much it has evolved in that time? We started with only being able to send each other private messages through chat systems to being able to share photos with all of our friends and family in a click of a button. When social media first grew in popularity, older generations became a bit skeptical about how it would play out in the lives of young people. Would it take up too much of young people’s time? Would it have a negative impact on face to face social engagement?

In my opinion, although those fears still exist, I don’t believe it has had too much of a negative impact on our lives. Granted, it definitely has affected the social engagement habits of young people everywhere, but I don’t believe social media is necessarily causing a negative impact. The ability to share your thoughts, pictures, videos, and whatever else you can think of with anyone that you want to any given time is kind of amazing. Texting might have changed the way young people communicate, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. As long as social media is being used correctly (and you aren’t completely dependent on it), then it is a healthy way to stay connected with people.

Another great thing about social media that many people forget about is how useful it is for businesses and consumers. Before, if we wanted to know more about a business and what other consumers think about it, the only real solution was to verbally ask around to see what people thought. Now, we can see reviews of a business and how many people truly enjoy it—not just a few people. Also, it allows businesses to interact with its consumers. The more a consumer feels comfortable with a business, the more likely they will be to stay loyal to it, which is why social media marketing is so important.

Overall, I believe that social media is a good thing. It has revolutionized the way that our country functions, and I think that it is useful for a lot of different reasons. 

Midterms

Midterms have already occurred in some classes are are unfortunately coming up sooner than later in others. It’s that time of the semester when professors decide to test their students’ knowledge on what they have learned so far on a stressful exam. So far, I’ve only had one major exam for midterms, but I know that there are plenty more exams and projects to come.

Being a college student can be tough around midterms. It’s like a miniature finals week, where half the school population I stressed and caffeine-fueled and the other half is in denial. Not everyone has midterms, and midterms are spread out over several weeks, not condensed into one. Even still, they are stressful and make people nervous about their grades. Luckily, even if students perform poorly on their midterms, there is still time throughout the semester to get their grades up—that is, if they put in the extra work to do so.

The only midterm that I’ve had so far did not go as well as I had hoped. In all honesty, I probably should’ve studied harder than I did, but I had felt confidence that made me feel like I knew more than I actually did. Even though I haven’t received my grade yet, I am not too worried about it, since I’ve been doing well in the class up until this point.

I know that there are many more midterms to come, and I am praying that they go well. If you have a midterm coming up, good luck to you! We’ll get through this together.