Hello,
a bit about me:
I am a professional writer located in Pittsburgh PA. I work for the content creator Schenley.net and I manage a client account for NakOnlineBranding.com. I focus primarily on writing blogs and doing SEO work. My topics for writing include tech, SEO, and medical cannabis.
I have no experience in running social media accounts but I know how important it is for businesses.
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In this class, I would like to learn more of the nuance behind social media and it's relevance to the working world.
Final Reflection
On this site you will find a portfolio I crafted over the course of a semester for a Professional Uses of Social Media course at the University of Pittsburgh. Inside you will fine a various assortment of documents demonstrating knowledge of professional social media uses. First, I evaluated my own personal social media usage by conducting a personal social media audit and creating a resident map. This showed me that I use my social media simultaneously as a professional and personal tool, as I share articles I write for my job as a freelance author across my social medias, while also using them for personal pursuits. Next I created two pieces of writing specifically with social media in it's focus: a hypothetical social media story as Shaquille O'Neal and an Op Ed about cannabis and social media. Finally, I crafted a social media strategy for El Burro Dos, a mexican dine in and take out restaurant located in Regent Square near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. This taught me about how to interpret business' goals and make a strategy which will accomplish their goals. I gained experience on how to design a cross platform social media campaign. This exercise taught me how to conceptualize professional social media, how to think about what goals and outcomes are desirable to a business, and how to determine and implement ways to achieve these goals through social media, as well as measure and evaluate my efforts.
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During the semester I also got to ask challenging questions about the ethics behind social media, specifically taking the events surrounding Facebook and their security breach to open a discussion about social media privacy. Being able to engage, collaborate, and listen to my peers social media pursuits helped me better understand and improve my own social media strategy. One of the key takeaways I have is that you have to be concrete with what you want social media to accomplish. Instead of saying that El Burro Dos simply wanted more engagement, I quantified what that engagement would give them, a number of new customers, and then I created a strategy and social media posting schedule that targeted new customers. This has made me a more critical planner when it comes to professional social media pursuits, even in my own personal life.
Midterm Reflection
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Over the course of this semester I feel I have learned quite a bit about how to look at social media in the professional world. While I am not managing any social medias professionally at the moment, my study of El Burro helped me understand the questions important to ask when you go into creating a social media strategy for a local business. It is not simply asking where do you want a social media presence, but what you want that social media presence to accomplish, and how do you plan on doing that?
I really like the metaphor, found in Blanchard’s discussion of social media goals, that social media is like any other communications tool used by a business, like a phone or email, and this tool plugs into your business, not the other way around. I found this idea that social media needs purpose to be very telling and instructive for how you go about deciding and conceiving your social media strategy.
In terms of learning about style guides and social media policy, they are important learning material behind the practice of using that tool. These process document pieces, like the style guide and policy guide, are the building blocks behind the purpose of your social media strategy. These guides have to align with your purpose, so you have to know what you want to get out of social media.
In terms of content, so far over the course of the semester I have recognized your business’ social media content must be tailored to produce the desired results behind your purpose. I found thinking about KPIs helpful toward determining what content will do what in your social media strategy. I also learned that you can stratify content to reflect customers in different steps in your conversion funnel. By doing this, you assure your posts are purposeful.
Overall, I feel I have gained a lot so far from this class. What I would be interested in having discussed more is how one goes about getting jobs in social media, and how you can demonstrate these skills we have learned to prospective employers.