by Show your Social Media Muscle
Abby Bramble @A_bramble, Mark Kellman @MarkKellman and Jenny Kinsman @JennyKinsman
A Recap of the #SOJCssm Twitter Conversation 1/29-1/30
It’s true, possessing a British accent instantly makes you about 20 percent smarter than the average person. Damian Radcliffe (@damianradcliffe) has a British accent, but most people would consider him smarter and more engaging than most, even if he didn’t.
On the second official Monday of the term, Damian graced #SOJCssm with his presence. He described himself as someone who wears many hats and showed exactly that. British accent and all, he came to speak about how social media is a powerhouse of information. He dove into a discussion about how the staggering growth of social media is changing the way we aggregate information and how people communicate all over the world.
He presented a few key lessons from mastering social media practices:
Lesson 1: Expect the unexpected.
Lesson 2: Be open to change and flexible in your thinking.
Lesson 3: Adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. Learn what is new and how to use it.
Radcliff had many underlying points on how to effectively engage an audience on social media. It’s a powerful tool and everyone has the world at its fingertips, but be careful with how you interact with others. What happens online, stays online forever. “You must not lose sight of ethics and humanity” when using social media (This garnered a lot of traffic on Twitter).
Furthermore, when creating content for an organization you must adjust and design content based on the platform. Every platform requires a different voice and format for content to be engaging. Stories can come from unexpected places. Social media strategists have to be listening and monitoring the media consistently.
Emerging trends in social media
Social media platforms are the new breaking news outlets. People and companies often post on their social accounts, especially Twitter before creating a press release or article
By the year 2020, the number of smartphones and the number of people online will be the same. This presents a real challenge and opportunity for companies as they try to rapidly adapt to the digital age and a “mobile first” mentality. Already we are seeing content produced exclusively for mobile devices, think Snapchat and Instagram. These platforms are becoming major focus points for advertisers as they reach a younger, millennial audience.
Social media has the power to affect change in the world
During the Arab Spring, social media flexed every muscle it had. The power of networking and organizing shined as citizens in many countries learned about gathering points and joined together through checking their social media feeds. This caused many countries, like Turkey, attempt to block certain social media sites to stop organizing efforts.
One could ask if you can find a correlation to what happened in the Middle East to what has happened in the United States over the past 10 days. When asked about it, Damian said he could see obvious connections but it is too early to tell how and if these protests will impact change in a way other massive uprisings have.
In Conclusion
Finally, the most popular users on social media during class were @kmatthews (Kelli Matthews), with 27 mentions and retweets, and @MarkKellman (Mark Kellman) with 24 mentions and retweets.
Post class, Radcliffe continued engaging in #SOJCssm. He individually responded to various students’ tweets even including links and informational feedback.
I really enjoyed your summary of the lecture. Very well organized and to the point.
One point I found very interesting about his lecture, that you highlighted, was that he recommended we design and adjust content according to each platform. I had previously assumed that we should just create content for all platforms, but this allows for much more strategic freedom.