Benefits of the Class

This class was unlike many of the other classes I have taken. In no other class have we seriously talked about memes or Instagram. They are things we are all aware of as existing but not normally considered as tools. This class understood the importance of emerging social trends and interests and helped us to understand how they could be used. This class held many benefits and contained many things I enjoyed.

We were responsible for reading three books over the course of the semester. Overall, I did not hate the books. There parts and times in the book when I did not necessarily enjoy them, but I didn’t hate them as a whole. The first book was a great beginning. While I was aware of the majority of social media platforms and their abilities, it was a nice overview and introduction to the class. It covered many topics in a short span of time and contained a lot of common knowledge. That being said, it also had a new trick or tip to learn for every platform in every chapter. There was always something to learn, so while some of the reading seemed tedious, it wasn’t without benefit. The second book had humor but contained more unknown matter to learn than the first book. While slightly outdated in some areas, the information was still relevant. The information was delivered in a way I could easily understand and learn from. I believe these books were very well chosen and should continue to be taught in the class, especially if new editions were released.

While probably my least favorite aspect of the class, blogging is the absolute best way to relate the class to the outside world. Yes, creating a Pinterest board and live tweeting allowed us to directly interact with different platforms, but being forced to write three blogs every week pushed us to improve our writings skills that will allow us to best interact with an audience. It also forced us to apply the topics and ideas we’ve been reading about. We had to be able to understand the best ways to engage an audience and keep their attention so they would pay attention to what we were writing. I did not always enjoy it, but I understand and appreciate its value.

I may no longer be taking social media classes and going for the minor, but these skills are necessary for our technology and social media-based world. If we want to be successful and thrive in our futures, we need to be able to understand how to navigate what’s important to our audience. This class, ultimately, helped to guide us in the right direction.

The Good Within the Bad

From talking to friends and reading other blog posts, it seems like this past week has been quite a mix of emotions and events, mine not excluded. Within the past two days, I have gone through a wide range of emotions, all mixing, mingling and overlapping. What a wild ride humans live. With everything going on, it can start to feel more and more difficult to point out all the great things going on in our lives. I just want to take a step back for a second and remind myself of the wonderful things I have going on right now.

Friends:

Audrey and I have an authentic laugh.

On Saturday, the 21^st, the Indian Student Association and the World Student Organization organized the festival of color, Holi. Originally, I didn’t want to go. I was in a bad mood and had things I thought were more important to do. I couldn’t imagine I’d have a good time throwing colorful powder at people and having it thrown back at me. I was wrong. My friend, Audrey, talked me into going. I think there will be very few times in my life when I’ll be able to be covered head to toe in colorful powder and not only have people expect it but encourage it. It was a good way to just have fun and be carefree if only for an hour. When I get to spend time with important people in my life, making such fun memories, how can things be all bad?

Pets:

Alice, the mobster, secretly cleans Opie, the fat one.

I have the world’s cutest cats. It’s not even a competition. Sure, when I’m home and have an entire wardrobe of black, it gets tedious picking off endless amounts of white fur, but they can’t but to shed. Every day, my brother or mom sends me a picture of them (usually sleeping and usually where they shouldn’t be) and I can’t help but laugh. Opie is so fat and we’re pretty sure Alice was a mobster in a past life, but both are equally loveable. Knowing classes are going to be done soon and I’ll be able to be home and annoy them is a real motivator.

Books:

Since first reading it five years ago, the
book now carries many memories for me.

My ultimate cool factor is my love of books. There have been a few times in the past week where I’ve been able to pick up a book, flip to one of my favorite chapters, read it and feel just a little better. I have been able to categorize and remember many of the important events in my life by what book I was reading at the time or who I had shared the book with. I don’t need to reread the entire book, just a part and remind myself of all the great times/important people I associate it with.

We tend to remember and focus on all the negative things we have going on with us and I think it’s a fair thing to do sometimes. Not everything can be fantastic, happy-go-lucky every second of every day, but it’s times like when we believe nothing will ever get better when we need to remember all the good in our lives. For each of us, it’s something different and it’s important to recognize what those things are. 

Chapter 13: Nonprofit Measurement

A good portion of things we have looked out through the class is how social media can be used for companies and businesses. Many of my blog posts have emphasized the possibility and importance of doing so. What has been talked very little about is how nonprofits can use social media. Even less has been focused on the measuring of such things. Luckily, Chapter 13 of Paine’s book deals exclusively with the topic.

Paine’s thoughts on not measuring with a nonprofit? It’s not an option. She explains in our current world, it is nearly impossible to run a nonprofit without measurement and accountability. The number one reason she blames for this is social media. While incredibly useful, it has caused a disruption of how to best deliver information from ways before. In order to determine just how many people your organization has reached, you must be able to measure, and understand how to measure, the impact of your outreach.

Paine outlines the necessary steps for measuring with nonprofits as:

• ·         Use the mission to define the objectives
• ·         Identify and prioritize the audiences
• ·         Establish a benchmark
• ·         Pick metrics
• ·         Pick a measurement tool
• ·         Analyze results and make changes

Nonprofits provide an endless amount of good in our world and are responsible for creating real, lasting change. It is vital for them to be able to adapt to our technological, social media-centered world. Without doing so, they will become even more overlooked and eventually forgotten. While not as known, smaller nonprofits have just as much of a chance to thrive as larger organizations on social media. They provide a necessary voice and perspective to relatively unknown topics but do not have to stay that way. If the organizations follow these steps, they are sure to succeed in measuring relationships with the users they are interacting with and have the possibility of becoming more well-known and interacted with.