Tweet!

This week was my first experience with Twitter that I've ever had.  Of course, going in, there was a lot of skepticism on my part.  I knew what the general idea of Twitter was, but having never used it, I didn't know all about it.  After a week, I still have many of the same feelings, but I can say that my view has changed ever so slightly.

Before this week, I didn't like Twitter.  Mostly because I thought of it as a glorified Facebook status.  All you can do is write a little bit about what you're doing, and you had to fit it all within 140 characters.  The stereotype on Twitter was that people would abuse it and tweet about stupid things.  "I'm eating a sandwich," or "I'm on my way to work," or other stupid things along those lines.

After this week, and following a few people, I realized that not everyone does that (although there are some people that do that, and I may have to stop following them).  But, it's rare that people use Twitter like that.  Most people use Twitter in a manner that is socially acceptable.  I feel that I should keep my Twitter account for at least a couple weeks longer, and give Twitter a real chance.

-GP

10 Rules of Engagement

Reading along in Engage and coming up to what we talked about in class a little bit, the 10 Rules of Engagement.  I know we talked about it in class, and that kind of made this easier for me to talk about here.    I also don't want to delve too deep into it because I know we talked about it in class.  But, the 10 Rules of Engagement are:

1. Be transparent and state where you work because your honesty will be noted in the social media environment. Also, be clear about your role.
2. Never represent yourself or your future company in a misleading way.
3. Post meaningful and respectful comments. 
4. Use common sense and common courtesy and don't violate the company's privacy.
5. Stick to your area of expertise, but do feel free to provide unique and individual perspectives on non-confidential activities at your workplace. 
6. If you disagree with others' opinions, be polite and appropriate. Also, never get overly defensive and do not disengage from the conversation abruptly.
7. When writing about the competition, make sure to behave diplomatically and have the facts straight. 
8. Never comment on anything related to legal matters. 
9. Never participate in social media when the topic being discussed is considered a crisis situation. 
10. Be smart about protecting yourself, your privacy and the company's confidential information. Keep in mind that what you publish is widely accessible and will be around for a long time. 


I really have to say that I agree with these rules.  They really are a good thing to follow if you want to be successful in the social media market.  My favorite rules are 5 and 6.  I really dislike when someone starts talking about a topic that they obviously know little about.  It is a pet peeve of mine, and I always get short and angry with them.  I also don't like when people start bashing others' opinions.  If you don't agree with someone, that doesn't mean that you have to go about and yell at them with a wall of text.  You can show your disagreement in a different way with a line or two, but not an entire wall of text.


Those are just a few ways, but I will have to say that I take those two rules to heart a little more.


-GP

Easter Weekend Fun!

I realized this Easter that I haven't spent an Easter at home since I was in high school.  That is kind of sad, but at the same time, I've been doing so much during Easter weekends all through college.  Every other year prior to this year, I've been at Nationals for volleyball.  So, freshman year, I was in Dallas, sophomore year I was in Kansas City, and last year I was in Louisville.  At least I was having fun and being productive every year at Nationals.

This year was a little bit different, as Easter was later in the year, and Nationals were still held the first week in April.  This year for Easter, I went to my girlfriend's place and celebrated Easter with her family.  I'm actually sitting in her living room writing this right now.  It's been really fun to get to know her and all her stories that her parents told.  I won't go into the details about that, because I know that no one really likes to read about that, and that's kind of personal stuff, but I just wanted to make mention.

I just wanted to touch on the fact that no matter where I was for Easter, I was still having fun, even though I haven't been in my own home since Christmas break.

-GP

What to do...

Since it's getting closer and closer to the end of the school year, it's about that time to start planning out my summer and what events I want to go to.  There is always a scramble and every year I'm always trying to figure out what concerts I want to see and which events sound the most exciting.  Living in Columbus, there are always good comedians that come to town, great festivals where you can catch cool stuff, and other things along those lines.

Looking around online, and I stumbled upon the site called UpComing.  UpComing is a site that lists everything that is happening in the city for basically the entire year.  All you have to do is put in what city you are near or what city you want to know about, and it will find everything for you.  You can search music, comedy, sports, festivals, media, politics, other, and even more, or you can ask for it all.  This site will be very helpful later on when I'm trying to figure out which concerts I want to go to this summer.

-GP

Podcast

I finally figured out Podbean and got my Podcast uploaded on in.  That was too much pain and hassle it seemed.


Sports in Social Media

Press Releases

We talked a lot about press releases this week in class and it was also in our readings.  There were a few things that I learned about press releases because of this.  I learned how useful they can be in making a story.  They basically contain everything that a media member needs to make a story.  They also are not just for the media members.  Anyone and everyone can access press releases, which is why they are trying to start calling them media releases instead.  In actuality, they probably are some of the better ways to get your news, as you will be getting it straight from the source.  This makes press releases a lot more important that I had previously thought they were. Without them, a lot of the news we have would be more boring.  We would never get to hear about Charlie Sheen or what Bradgelina is doing next.  Well, at least what we heard would be shaped a little differently.

winning


-GP

NBA Playoffs... Where Amazing Happens

I'm going to continue my trend of writing about sports in my personal blogs.  This one, if you're too lazy to read the title, is about the NBA playoffs.  I know a lot of people that don't really like the NBA.  I also know some people that don't like the NBA playoffs either.  Their reasoning is that they are all professional athletes and they don't care as much as the college kids.  But, I beg to differ.  Once the NBA playoffs start, there is a whole new level of play for most of the men on the court.

I love the fact that every series is a 7-games series.  I think that, yes it lasts a long time, but that just makes it better.  It never diminishes, it's always good play all series long, and every player is giving their all to win the championship.  By the time it gets to the Championship Series, both teams are so tired and so beat, but they are giving everything left in their tank for the trophy (and a big ring and big bonus paycheck).

Even though my team, the Phoenix Suns, are out of the playoffs for the first time in seven years, and had a losing record (40-42) for the first time this decade, I can still watch the playoffs because there are so many story lines that I want to follow.  Can the Bulls live up to their 1-seed?  Can the Spurs live up to theirs?  What about the Miami Heat?  Are the Lakers going to three-peat?  Is Boston getting too old?  Are the Thunder the new flavor?  I can't wait to watch basketball for the next month and a half and get the answers to these questions.  It's going to be... amazing.

-GP

Steve Kardynal is pretty much awesome

I have spent some time today looking for something to talk about in this week's blog about social media, then I realized that I haven't done one on YouTube yet.  So, naturally I wasted the next 20+ minutes watching videos on YouTube.  Luckily, on the front page of YouTube, it had a video from Steve Kardynal (the guy that did "Songs in Real Life") because I had watched one from him before.  I watched five or six more videos from him, most of them were just as good.  This kid is a great comedian, and is very clever.

This got me to thinking, what YouTube has done for the world.  A lot of people think that you waste a lot of time on YouTube and nothing good comes out of it.  When in actuality, you waste a lot of time on YouTube and nothing good comes out of it... That's a joke, but in all seriousness, so many people have made a living off of what they've put on YouTube.  People like Steve Kardynal, and Jeff Dunham, and countless musical artists and anyone else that I'm forgetting.  People become famous because of their creativity and comedy on YouTube.  It's a great website for so many reasons other than that.  I won't delve into all the uses, but I'm sure most of you know the extent of it.  For now, I'll leave you with a Steve Kardynal video:

-GP

Podcasting Can Be Painful

Last week, we talked a little about Podcasting on Monday.  We were told to go out and listen to a couple of podcasts and get an idea as to what they really are used for.  Well, I had listened to a couple of podcasts before last week, and I wasn't sold on the idea.

First off, podcasting can be really hit or miss.  Because of the availability of the technology, anyone can do a podcast.  Because anyone can do a podcast, they can be about anything, or nothing.  There were a couple of them that I tried to listen to, but they just turned out to be very boring and not really about anything in particular.

But, I must admit, there were a couple that I listened to that were interesting.  Gillin talks about podcasters in his book, "The New Influencers."  He makes mention that podcasting is the largest use of social media.  At first, I found this hard to believe, but then I realized that it is probably true.  Why would he put it in the book if it weren't true?  So many people can do a podcast, and if you catch the right one, they can be very useful.

So, I guess my feeling on podcasting are still up in the air.  We'll see how I feel after I have to make one of my own next week.

-GP

6 Painful Social Media Screwups

This is basically a link to a CNN story about 6 of the biggest screw ups in the professional social media world.

1. Chrysler drops the F-Bomb
2. Nestle and their oil
3. Red Cross gets "slizzered"
4. Honda "fan" is actually an employee
5. Kenneth Cole's tasteless joke about Egypt
6. Motrin Moms

Personally, I don't quite understand how people can make these mistakes.  Especially the mistakes that were written by separate social media outlets, not by the company themselves.  You have one job to do, and it's a big job, maybe you should try to do it right and keep that huge company in good light.

My favorite mistake would have to be the Red Cross mistake.  It obviously was just someone who happened to still be logged into the Red Cross twitter, and not his own when he tweeted that.  Luckily, Red Cross, or that guy, realized his mistake quickly, and got it fixed.  They also made something good of it.

-GP

It's Over...

I don’t know how to take this right now.  I just finished up my last season of volleyball, ever.  We had a great season this year, even being ranked 5^th for most of the season, but the ending just wasn’t what we had expected.  The national tournament was held in Houston, TX this year, and we came in as the 8^th overall seed.  The first day went as planned, and went very well for all of us, as we won al three of our matches in pool play.  It was the second day where we got really screwed.  We lost to a Duke team that we shouldn’t have lost to, and we beat a MSU-Mankato team pretty handily.  It was a three-team power-pool and the top two teams go on to the Gold bracket, while the 3^rd place team goes to silver.  All three teams had an identical 1-1 record, so it goes to sets won, and all matches were won in two sets, so it went to point differential.  Duke ended up getting first place, and going into the gold bracket.  But, you cannot get kicked out of gold by point differential, so there was a one set playoff with MSU-Mankato that we had to play.  A team that we beat 25-16, 25-17 just about 20 minutes before, we now had to play another set to get into gold.  We end up losing 24-26 and have to go to silver. 

We go on to have no trouble, wining the silver bracket.  We finished the tournament with a record of 8-1 (maybe 8-1 ½), and that means we got 17^th place.  Tell me how that works.  At least I got to end my volleyball career with a win, even though it wasn’t the win I was hoping for, it was a win nonetheless.  There is just a mixed bag of emotions going through my head right now.  I really wish it wasn’t going to be over.

-GP

POST

Groundswell is a pretty interesting book.  I can say this because we were assigned to read like 4000 pages this week, or at least that's what it felt like.  What really sticks out to me, is a part that we briefly covered in class, POST.

P - People
O - Objectives
S - Strategy
T - Technology

People - You must asses your customer's social activity.  You won't have a very successful blog if your target audience check in every day, and you only update your blog once a month.  You must match up with your audience.

Objectives - Decide what you want to accomplish.  Obviously you are writing a blog for a reason.  Figure out what that reason is, and stick to it.  When you jump around and talk about different avenues you go down, you can lose interest.  Stick to the same style, and grow from there.

Strategy - Plan for how relationships with customers will change.  If you keep a blog for a long, long time, your audience might change a little.  Whether they grow older and wiser, or they just learn more about what you're talking about.  Keep it geared toward them.

Technology - Decide which social technologies to use.  Do you want to use just a blog, or do you want to branch out and "advertise" your blog with your facebook page or with your Twitter account?  Decide what is best for you and your blog and move on from there.


I'm going to take these notes and dwell on them for a little bit.  We'll see how well I implement them later in the quarter.

-GP

There's an app for that!

Recently I've been addicted to a couple apps on my iPod.  It mainly is just one app, and that app is "Words With Friends."  It is basically an off-brand version of Scrabble.  I love it, even though I'm not very good at it.  My vocabulary is slightly limited, let alone when I'm given a set of letters and I'm forced to make words off them.  But, I try to make do with what I've got.

This game is a two-person game, and you get to play against your friends that have the game as well.  Which brings me to my point.  It's absolutely amazing how far the social media scene has grown in the past few years.  Just five or six years ago, things like this were never thought of.  When you said "app," everyone thought about grad apps or job apps.

There are so many things that you can do with your iPod or iPhone or Droid or whatever "smart" device you have.  The app stores are outrageous and there really is an app for everything it seams like.  There is even a way to update all your other social media outlets from your mobile device.  That's really interesting, and, like I've said in all the previous blogs about social media, I'm pretty excited to think about what we have next and the way that technology is growing.

-GP

First Four to Final Four / Finals Repeat

If you've been reading all my posts, you'd have to notice by now that I love sports.  I could talk about sports all day, and I could talk about sports in all my blog posts.  But, that's not the rules to the class, so I'm limited to just one a week.

This week, I'm going to talk about the NCAA Semi-Final basketball game I just watched.  The first one of the two.  The one between two teams that no one believed would be there, VCU and Butler.

Starting with VCU, a team that all the "experts" thought shouldn't even be in the tournament field, but they proved everyone wrong.  I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I didn't think that they deserved in, but, I was definitely rooting for them in this one.  As an 11 seed, they went from the "First Four" in, to the Final Four.  How could someone not root for them?  Their story is so great, and their coach's name is "Shaka Smart."  That is just plain cool.

Moving on to Butler, who is moving into the National Title game for the second straight year.  Last year, they made their way there as a 5-seed.  This year, they are an 8-seed.  No one really had them pegged to get farther than the second round, where they were supposed to lose to the 1-seed, Pitt.  But, they were obviously able to get the big win there, and keep moving on.  They made their way to the Final Four, without their best player from last year, Gordon Haywood, who went pro.  Now, somehow, they defeated ODU, Pitt, Wisconsin, Florida, and VCU to get into the title game again.

Come Monday, you know that I will be rooting for Butler, regardless of who they are playing.  UConn and Kentucky have plenty of national titles to their name already, it's time for the little guy to get one.

-GP