Over the course of my final semester at ONU I have learned a
lot of different things about social media in general and also how to become an
effective and efficient blogger. We read two different books in my social media
course starting with Guy Kawasaki’s The
Art of Social Media book. This book had highlighted the key aspects of
social media and how to use it. The book had talked about how whether you are
promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of
what determines your success or failure. This book was an essential guide for
newbies or experienced professionals in the social media field to give you the
most bang for your time, effort and money. This book had come with over 100
practical tips, tricks, and insights to come up with an effective strategy to
come up with a strong presence on the most popular social media platforms.
The second book we read was a textbook created by Karen
Freberg called Social Media for Strategic
Communication. This book had provided us with scholarly research that
taught us strategic implementation of social media in both advertising and
public relations. This book all taught us the skills needed to use social media
in persuasive communication campaigns. It had a broad focus on strategic
communication all the way from public relations, advertising, and marketing, to
non-profit advocacy.
My favorite assignment during the semester was the podcast
assignment. This was my favorite because I always like to listen to podcasts
and this was my first time ever trying to recreate what I had heard. This was a
fun experience and I feel like I learned a lot from it. The biggest thing I
learned was that you need to come prepared when you are going to do a podcast
because it is quite easy to run out of things to say.
My favorite part of the class this year was the actual class
itself. I never really knew how to effectively use social media and now I feel
like I have a pretty good understanding of what it takes to put out good
content. I also loved the relaxed environment that we were in when we actually
in the classroom. The class was focused more on group discussion rather than
straight lecturing and I feel like that made me learn a lot better.
The only area of improvement I would say that this class
needs to look into is the workload amount that is given. I feel like two blogs
a week instead of three is a better way to get student more engaged with their
blogs instead of feeling like they are being forced to blog at a certain time.
Overall, I had a great experience in this class and would
recommend anyone to take it if they want to learn the ways of social media.