Platforms: How did I get started on each one?

Each platform has something unique to offer. Sometimes it is hard to know which form of social media is best for what you are trying to accomplish. I found an article by Kelly Swee (http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/top-social-media-sites-how-you-can-benefit-from-them/) to be very useful for understanding the advantages to each different platform in business. Swee ranks each platform’s brand exposure, communication, and traffic to your sites. 

While I plan to someday use it in a business setting, I have mostly used social media for personal uses. 

My gateway platform was Facebook. I created my first profile my sophomore year of high school.  I thought Facebook was the only platform I would ever need. What other social media needs could I possibly have? 

Not soon after, my friends spent hours sharing hilarious YouTube videos. I created an account so that I could post my own videos and comment.

I was content. I didn’t need any other platforms in my life. Then, a revolutionary platform made its debut. 

At first I resisted my roommates’ pressure to try the latest trending social media: Pinterest.  I watched them neglect their homework as the clicked on icon after icon of food and clothes and hot men.

I thought it was such a waste of time. Then I got engaged. All of a sudden, I realized the convenience of consolidating all of the cute wedding ideas I came across.

  

My internship in Washington, D.C. introduced me to new platforms of social media.

LinkedIn helped me stay connected with those whom I networked with on Capitol Hill. They were all on LinkedIn so I figured I had better be too. 

I was required by my congressional office to have a Twitter to keep up with our congressman as well as the news outlets. It surprised me how many politicians were actively involved with social media, particularly Twitter. An article by Jane Susskind sites that 75% of world leaders are on Twitter (http://ivn.us/social-ballot/2013/01/12/top-politicians-on-twitter-worldwide-may-surprise-you/). The congressman I worked for would be Tweeting it up from inside hearings and other important events. It kept him really connected to his constituents. 

And I started my first blog in D.C. to keep my family and friends updated on my adventures. It was fun to be able to post all of my pictures and stories where people could see them. 

I have yet to get really involved with anything Instagram or Flicker. I feel like it would be hard to participate in them because I don’t have a smartphone to take pictures of my lunch and stuff with (nor do I really care to show everyone that much of my life).

Although I think it’s totally rad, I also haven’t done much with Google (besides email and docs). I think that will be my next platform to conquer.

Aaron Swartz: intellectual theif or revolutionary thinker?

An open exchange of ideas. This is the idea that brought about Aaron Swartz’ fame as well as his death.

Swartz has been called a technological prodigy. And rightfully so. He began turning heads at around the age of 14 when he began consulting senior technologists. A year before that, he had already conceptualized the idea of Wikipedia, according to CNN.


His other contributions to the internet include: “Creative Commons (an organization that releases licenses so authors can let their work be more easily reused), Open Library (a public library of online works), Reddit (an immensely popular open discussion forum), Markdown (a simple way to write Web pages), web.py (making it easier for developers to create Web applications), Jottit.com (type-and-post website) and much more,” wrote CNN author David Weinberger (http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/15/opinion/weinberger-aaron-swartz/?hpt=hp_bn7).

Many of his contribution fed an audience starving for their voices to be heard over the internet. He helped develop a platform of expression for the masses.

Was he the Robin Hood of the internet information? Did he take from the well-educated at MIT to educate those who are less-educated? Was he giving back something that rightfully belonged to others?

A group known as Anonymous hacked MIT’snetwork on January sixteenth and left this message on it’s pages:

"Whether or not the government contributed to his suicide, the government's prosecution of Swartz was a grotesque miscarriage of justice, a distorted and perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for — freeing the publicly-funded scientific literature from a publishing system that makes it inaccessible to most of those who paid for it — enabling the collective betterment of the world through the facilitation of sharing — an ideal that we should all support (http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N62/anonymous.html)."

I think Anonymous said it well. While I do believe stealing is wrong, I’m not convinced that what Swartz did could be called stealing.

If I am paying for something, should I not be able to access it? If something is publicly-funded, shouldn’t the public have access to it?

I think there is a big debate to be had over Swartz’ final contribution to social media. Where to we draw the line between intellectual property and information for all?

Blogging: The Evolution

I am constantly amazed at how quickly social media changes and adapts. It seems as if each site changes by the week. Over the past ten years, there have been dramatic changes in the way people communicate over the internet. Although we now have multiple sites and tools to interact, this was not always the case.

Since people began using the internet for personal purposes, they have been searching for ways to connect with other users. 

It is thought by many that blogs were the first form of social media. 

According to The Economist, “The word ‘blog’ appears to date back to 1997, when one of the few practitioners at the time, Jorn Barger, called his site a “weblog”. In 1999, another user, Peter Merholz, playfully broke the word into “we blog”, and somehow the new term—blog—stuck as both a verb and a noun (http://www.economist.com/node/6794172?story_id=6794172).”

Studies by Technorati found that a new blog is created every second of every day with 50,000 new posts being created each hour. 

Since its extreme increase in popularity in the mid-2000’s, blogging has certainly evolved. 

Erin Flynn of The Huffington Post, wrote about how bloggers have changed immensely since 2005. “The blog economy that once consisted of hobbyists is now a mainstream phenomenon where hobby bloggers have turned into salary-earning and revenue-generating professionals,” Flynn said (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erin-flynn/blogging-marketing-business_b_1577139.html).

According to Hattrick Associates, one out every six people in the world had a blog in 2012. What was once used mostly by tech-gurus is now being used by mothers, fashion designers, crafters and book clubs. 

Flynn also detailed the way that blogging has reshaped marketing practices. “Bloggers have become the trusted source for inspiration, new purchases, and industry trends,” Flynn said. “The difference, you ask? Bloggers don't report to their editors or publicists. They report directly to their readers (in other words, the consumers), and because of this, their influence and content is not only going to change the way we think of brands but also the way we interact with them.”

I think it will be a great challenge for those of us who plan on entering a career in the fields of PR and marketing to maintain and define relationships with bloggers. 

Ketchum, a global public relations and marketing firm, found that women are two times more likely to buy a product that is endorsed by a blogger than a celebrity. Consumers trust other consumers more than they do spokespersons. This only seems natural. The difference is that consumers now have easy access to those trusted opinions. 

But blog-content that is valuable to marketers as well as consumers won’t be produced for free. No one likes to work for free. It will be interesting to see how the marketer-blogger relationship evolves.