Week #13: Final Blog

Credit: http://bit.ly/eTKU6t

This semester has been a great experience. I have learned so much about how to incorporate social media into my blogs to make them more interesting, increase traffic and to help to convey what I am writing about through the use of linking, pictures, and websites. I have learned a lot about different communities surrounding certain blogs and how they interact to generate content flow and build upon each other. I especially love how the vegan community is integrated because they have intelligent conversations and discussions online that benefit everyone who reads them. My biggest challenge when it comes to blogging is increasing traffic to my website. I think if I were to find one topic I could continually write about I could become a prominent blogger in some community of blogs, but because my blog is so random in nature, I am only getting readers who already know me and just want to see what I am up to, or just curious readers. In order to remedy this, I think I need to tag the topics I am writing about so that my content comes up in more searches. I realized today that I have not been tagging, so I think I will go back through my blogs and tag items to see how that affects my traffic. I think I will continue to blog, just to be involved in the community. Maybe I will write more about my experiences in D.C. or adventures I take to other cities like Francesca writes about in her blog. I love to write about what I know and what makes me happy. After all, this is an autobiography in progress. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Credit: http://bit.ly/hd5z4j

Week #12: Social Media and Politics

When I was in 9^th grade, I had this social studies teacher who told us that if we choose not to vote, we couldn’t complain about anything that was going on in the government. This must have been a pet peeve of his, but I took it as a get out of jail free card to not to pay attention to politics because I just didn’t care. So, I have something I have to publicly admit, I have never voted.

I feel like this must be a bombshell for many of my readers, but I really have never physically gone to a voting location and filled out a ballot. I have never followed a presidential race because I never felt I knew enough about any candidate’s political views to have an opinion on who should win, so I just avoided the topic entirely. Actually, I think I am similar to the “common person”, if there is such a thing, that really only get their information from what other people are saying about candidates and from parodies about them like Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impressions on SNL. I don’t know if it’s just in the air living in D.C. or if I have just started reading more about politics and worldly issues after leaving the “Bucknell bubble”, but I think politics are cool now.

I was reading an article today on the metro called Presidential hopefuls ‘Friend’ Social Media. It was about how important it is for candidates this year to be involved in social media in order to enhance their campaign strategy. President Obama, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Donald Trump were all mentioned in the article as having and using Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, YouTube videos, and other social media tools to start their political campaign and state their views and outlooks for the future (links are to Twitter).

Incorporating social media into the campaign is quite a savvy move for campaigners because they are really “communicating directly with voters on platforms where they work and play”, according to Beth Fouhy’s article. “You have to take your message to the places where people are consuming content and spending their time,” said Romney’s online director Zac Moffatt, which is really the case for me because I am able to take in all the content about political views of candidates and current events at my convenience without missing a beat.

Although the use of social media is extremely helpful in getting messages out to the public, there are some downfalls to using it. One thing that could become overwhelming for a presidential candidate is the volume of questions they might receive about their political views on their Facebook wall, or the need to respond to criticisms from other candidates that show up on their social media sites. For one, there are probably plenty of unwarranted or unintelligent questions they just don’t want to answer, but they can’t just delete them. That would create a backlash of criticisms so strong, a candidate would probably loose the campaign. If you don’t respond fast enough to these questions or rebuttal the challenges of other candidates, your reputation and image you are working to build could crumble.

So, social media has a huge importance in this upcoming campaign. The use of social media in with facilitate the involvement of young voters  in political discussions and campaigning. It is important to reach voters directly, and having a clear voice and active passion in you messaging are the keys to success. If a candidate is active and thorough in their campaign and presents clear messages that are consistent, they have a real chance of getting the votes from online users. Once again, this is just tapping into another market of consumers, so will online polls and discussion really give an accurate sample of the population? Probably not. However, it is the easiest way for candidates to reach a large number of voters (President Obama has over 7 million followers on Twitter and over 19 million on Facebook) with a clear message.

How do you think social media will influence the campaign?

Week #10: Spring at my Doorstep and a Blackberry in my Hand

This gallery contains 20 photos.

It’s like I’ve been waiting for a friend I haven’t seen in a while to come visit me, and as the day spring comes to visit quickly approaches I get more and more excited for spring to knock on my … Continue reading →

Week #9: Favorite Social Platform

With the emergence of technology and the Internet has come multiple tools one can use to engage conversation of like minded people. These tools can really help generate communication over multiple boundaries than were ever possible before, like how quickly social media impacted the spread of news and relief efforts for the Tsunami in Japan. As a student in social media, I have been lucky enough to learn about more ways to engage in public conversation than I know what do to with. However, as an active socialite and young professional with a big network of friends still in college, I find the best way to communicate with my peers is through facebook.

Now, one of the main reasons I find facebook is the most useful tool is because everyone has one. Twitter is up in coming, and many people dont follow it or have an account yet that I am friends with, but you can just as easily as tweeting put your status up on facebook which actually drives more people to your page. The advantage of this is that they can learn more about you than just what you are doing at that time. They can see pictures of what you have been up to lately, see in your info what you do (careers, school interests), and see who you have been talking to on your wall. Facebook is the only site that really integrates all the information a person would want to know about you so they can get the big picture of who you are and what your up to.

One way I have used facebook to drive traffic to my blog is to link my blog to a friends page if I mention them in the post or mention a topic they would be interested in in my blog. This way, I am reaching out to them and their network to gain viewership. I also link to my own facebook page to get my network of people interested. That said, there are other ways people are successful at driving traffic to their blog. One of the bloggers in our class, Kelly Carnes, drives traffic to her blog really well by using twitter and writing about relevant current topics so that more people will see her tags and find her blog in Google searches. Her social network on twitter is quite big and includes a lot of people in the natural history network what are interested in what she has to say as a Smithsonian employee.

In order to better generate blog viewership,  I want to use facebook and twitter in combination. In the coming weeks I will try to make my posts relevant to topics of interest amongst my friends so that I can generate a solid following.

Week #7: Going Back While Moving Forward

I agree with Danielle about how spring break after you graduate from undergrad will never be the same. And as my spring break included the first week of starting my first “real job” (as an unpaid intern I may add), I had a slightly more stressful one that the week on the beach and solid tan I was used to coming home with. However, I was lucky enough to get to spend my down time with my friend, Heidi from undergrad, my sister, Dana, Liz and some of my other volleyball friends who decided to come down to DC for spring break this year.

Having old friends come and visit you after you haven’t seen them in a while is the most refreshing experience for me. You always start rehashing old memories and find yourself reverting to the person you used to be in when you used to spend all your time with them  My friend in particular happened to be a teammate as well as a friend, so even when we needed our space in college, we didn’t get to have it. So I guess you could say, we couldn’t be much closer and sort of turn into the same person when we get back together. (Which reminds me of “Sandcastles in the Sand” from How I met Your Mother- greatest show ever). So when we got together this break, things were no different.

After a long first day of work, I felt like I had learned a million new things about the real world. Needless to say, after I spent the day as an adult, I found myself right back in college ready to take on the night! Heidi happened to come down to DC with 4 younger volleyball friends and I joined her with an older friend from the team and my sister. We had a weekend full of fun-filled college style adventures: a DJ at the 9:30 Club, Adams Morgan, jumbo sliced pizza and Shamrockfest.

We all went into this fun-filled weekend with major plans to dominate the DC scene. I for one, love to go out for the sheer experience of meeting new people and spending quality time with good friends while having a blast. We had our first opportunity to do just this at the 9:30 Club. Little did we know that going to the 9:30 Club on a night when the DJ only plays Lady Gaga, Madonna and Kylie Minogue would be a gay dance party, but being the social chameleon I am and the awesome people they are, we had more fun than ever dancing completely free-spirited with a bunch of amazing new friends.

Now, each of my friends from college has their own special unique personality, but Ill tell you, Heidi is an original gem (which is all I can really say about that, but I can also include this embarrassing picture that i think pretty much sums it up).

Spring Cleaning??

Once her, Dana and my friend Liz and I got to Shamrockfest, Heidi disappeared into the mosh pit of insanity, only to come out with a massive blow to the knee, a bruised foot and a freckled new best friend who took her on all the carnival rides she could ever ask for. This girl knows how to get her socialism on, but she is always wary of lies and deceit. She always makes sure to check out people’s background by quickly and sneakily looking them up on google just by entering a couple of key ingredients of the recipe of trickery they told her, and then she calls them out on it (and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel- name that movie). This one in particular happened to claim he played basketball at a division one school, so she put in his name and school and the word basketball into Google to find he was a 28-year-old alum who never saw the court. Now, this is the typical way people in college like to take advantage of Google on a daily basis- to enhance their social networking skills.

One way I think my blog is relevant to Google is that I keep it interesting by writing about varying topics from week to week. I love to keep it social while including my friends in popular topics as well as movies, TV shows, and quotes that I know and love. My links and topics are always different like Dyanne’s blog, which generates a wide variety of content drawing in a large variety of people. I have people asking me about foods that are “accidentally vegan” as well as my running hobby all the time. I also like to use images in my blogs to help describe what I’m writing about and to keep readers interested and alert. The Google site Bing is an image based search engine that I love because I can visualize my search feedback before going to a site and finding out it’s the wrong one (which is helpful to the fast paced results I expect with today’s technology). There’s this great comedian I think of who explains how technology is amazing today but nobody’s satisfied with it, which totally explains my own personal feelings about the expectation that technology will and should always be perfectly convenient when I need it.

 

So to end, here’s a little slideshow of my spring break as a week of moving back while I was moving forward, and my adventures with old friends to make new ones.

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Week #6: The Vegan Diet

So earlier this year, my sister and I decided to do a New Years Resolution challenge. We would both go completely vegan for 2 weeks. Now, this was a pretty big step for me as I went from a week in Dallas, Texas over winter break where I spent every meal face first in Texas style BBQ, ribs, chicken, sausage, and t-bone steak to absolutely no animal products whatsoever.

Fortunately, I ate so much meat and cheese in the anticipation of not eating any, that in the coming weeks that I was actually sick of them, making my transition much more smooth.

Wine and cheese platter ❤

Mostly, my sister Dana and I decided to do this because we had both gained some holiday weight. Dana had already been vegetarian for 2 years, but our equally tantalizing fascination with cheese (and wine) was really making us pack on the pounds.

If I were on The Biggest Loser, my fridge would have goat cheese spread across crackers (or any other cheese), cheese pizza, cheesy artichoke dip, 4-cheese cheesy bread and pretty much any other cheese product. I could just feel how unhealthy I was being. After realizing cheese was our main vice, Dana and I felt the only way we could cut the cheese out of our diet successfully was to cut all dairy products out and make it a real challenge.

Dana and me being animal friendly

Surprisingly it worked really well. I was able to say no to some of my favorite (and most unhealthy) meals “because I was vegan”, and it was nice to be successful at a challenge I was monitoring myself on. I ended up loosing 15 pounds and I actually enjoyed being vegan.

After 2 weeks without fail (except for the one time I made meat chili, which I could have sworn it said bean chili, but it said NO BEANS!, and just happened to be right next to the one that said NO MEAT!), I treated myself to some pizza. But, ever since, I have tried to eat more healthily and only have one meal or snack a day that is completely non-vegan. I have kept the weight off and I plan to try being vegan again in the coming weeks because I really think it helps cleanse the body, and it also made me feel 10 times more healthy.

One thing I learned about veganism is that there are a lot of really good recipes that can completely satisfy your hunger.I have used other blog websites to find recipes and learn more about other people’s experience being vegan. Abby’s blog mentions how she uses other blogs to find fun recipes she hasn’t thought of before. I use other vegan blogs to learn about foods that are accidentally vegan (like oreos- hehe) and recipes other people that have challenged themselves to go vegan for a week have tried.

Like The Long Tail and The Search suggest, the internet is a source of endless information on absolutely any topic which addresses everyone’s needs.

From Vegan Food Mashup

It is so easy these days to google search any topic and find the answer at your finger tips. Before the internet existed it would have been so hard to find information about veganism because the idea of it was so foreign. If you didn’t have an extreme passion for preventing animal cruelty of being healthy, you wouldn’t have any reason to try it let alone have any clue what to eat or what the general consensus in the world on the theory of veganism was. Now, all of that information is readily available, people like me can have multiple interests and learn a little about each one and try it for themselves. I love the fact that I could look up what being vegan entails on Wikipedia, find other people sharing their stories online, and look up fun foods and recipes to make this vegan diet a food adventure and a fun learning experience.

Blogs and websites like PETA where you can pledge to be vegan for 30 days are great sources to make your transition much more simple and help you to be successful in completing your goals. In the coming weeks, I plan to take this pledge once again, and blog about my experience.

Week #5: The Search for an Apartment

This week’s free time has been dedicated to finding an apartment in Arlington. I am looking for a 2 bedroom that is conveniently located to the metro line, isn’t a dump, and less than $1000 a month. Impossible you might ask??  Well we thought so at first.

Monday morning, my best friend Emily and I set out on a seemingly inconceivable adventure to find our first apartment together in D.C. We had looked on craigslist, google, and every apartment search website you could find before hand, so we had a pretty good idea of what we were looking for. I am one of those people that likes immediate results, but I refuse to make decisions without weighing all the consequences ahead of time, so it was really hard to find anything we were willing to commit to until we had seen all the possibilities.

Of course, the weather on Monday was perfect for walking around the Ballston-Clarendon-Rosslyn areas (it was raining and sleeting all day). We were on a mission to learn about the apartments in the area so we could see how much we would have to sacrifice to pay as little as possible. After about 10 minutes into the search, we learned that we would really be struggling to even eat food if we moved to Arlington.

The apartments are so expensive and soo tiny! And of course, Emily and I have much too good of taste to live in an old building with stained floral carpet that smells like Indian food. Also you can’t make a 7.4 x 7.4 den in to a bedroom unless you put the queen-sized bed in it and literally make it the “bed room” and just plan to jump in through the door like the ball pit at a McDonald’s (we seriously considered this).

So we came home after hours with our heads held low. I watched a lifetime movie and slept on the couch in my current home, which is over an hour commute from Arlington.  Then, this morning I work up with newfound apartment searching energy. I got on Craigslist and searched for 5 hours straight, sent out at least 10 email inquiries to strangers telling them all about myself with hopes of striking a chord that would begin a friendship. Which brings me to the question: What do you tell a stranger that you want to live with, really? How do they get to know who you are? I figured some general information is good but how will they really get to know me over the Internet in a short period of time?

I decided, the best way for them to get to know me without taking all time to really meet me (instant results people) is to follow my activity online. I have a really unique blog that covers a lot of topics that they could read and understand my personality. I am pretty active on facebook, and if they were to follow my actions, they would see all my likes and dislikes, what kind of stuff I think is interesting enough to post, what I look like in pictures and if we have any friends in common. Of course, this idea is slightly stalkerish (it takes one to know one), but if they were really into searching for me, they would notice that my blog, facebook, and twitter are all interconnected and they could learn even more about me. Maybe they would also see that during lunch on my apartments search the day before, Emily checked us into foursquare, which would even establish how serious I am in looking. So I decided to send a link to my blog. I have been using all kinds of tools to link my facebook and twitter accounts so this will hopefully increase my traffic as well as be helpful in an actual real-life activity of finding an apartment.

I did get a response, finally, from a woman subletting her condo in Clarendon. SUCCESS. She unfortunately, had not read my blog, but I figure maybe I made some friends along the way, and if this condo doesn’t work out, I have used the Internet once again to widen my broad range of friendly acquaintances (who have rooms for rent!).  Domination.

Week #4: Personality

So this week’s assignment in my social media class is about personality. How does my personality shine through in my blog? I would say, through humor. The whole basis of my blog is that my interests vary more quickly than most, and that I like to try things that are new and different so I can gain perspective on life. But my humor and my voice remains a constant in each of my blog posts. When I write about what I am passionate about at any current moment I write in the same voice I use in everyday life. The casual manner in which I write (I hope) helps the reader really hear what I am saying and understand any sarcastic undertones in my writing. I also love to share pictures or video to help to shape others perspectives on a topic in order to give that extra angle for the visual learner about what makes me tick.

Whenever asked about my personality, I always remember the team bonding activities we did in volleyball in order to learn more about each of our teammates before we got into the competitive part of our season. One of our annual activities was this ego booster: Everyone would be in the same room with a piece of paper taped to their back and a marker in hand. We had to go up to each of our teammates and anonymously write a word or a phrase about that person’s personality on their paper that reminded us of them. In the end, each of us had a paper that said all these great inspirational things about our personalities that we could look back at throughout the season after a tough practice and realize that all of our teammates loved us no matter what. When I looked at my paper, I actually learned more about my personality because I saw how people perceived what I said and how I said it, especially the freshman who didn’t know me that well yet. Apparently I was hilarious, and really really good looking (Zoolander, come on.) This activity really increased everyone’s confidence and taught me a lot about how I act in public, and how people’s first impression of me is formed very much by our initial encounters.

So in this blog, I realize that though I may be emitting a certain persona, everyone interprets things differently. So just to make sure my personality is shaped by me and not only how people perceive my writing, I have included a slide show to show some of my facial expressions because a lot of my personality comes through them. Just like Candice noted in her blog about personality, sometimes when you are starting something new, you take a sort of “back seat” at first until you learn the culture of your audience and what is accepted practice among the peers you are interacting with. I do feel as though I have put some aspects of my personality on the back burner, as they may not paint the most professional portrait of me. That said, I will go out on a limb and share some of my pictures with the most personality with you. (warning: some of these are not the most flattering)

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Week #3: The Way Social Media Influences Me

Whether we can admit it or not, social media influences everyone today. The astounding amount of information online comes at you like a freight train screeching to be heard. But how do we know which pieces of information to cling on to? How do you listen when everybody’s talking in a crowded room? Obviously, it is impossible to hear every conversation, so how do you choose which ones interest you?

One can argue that social media is part of the problem, but if you learn how to use it to your advantage, I’d say its part of the solution. Over the last week I have been trying to follow twitter websites that collect certain topics or clusters of information in one place. For example, if I was interested in how Brazilians feel about the crisis in Egypt, I could go to Trendsmap and click on that topic hovering over Brazil- or any topic that happens to be a popular tweet in Brazil (it would help to know Portuguese probably). I don’t really consider myself a skilled user of every type of social media, considering I just started all of this 3 weeks ago, but I have always (just since the internet has been high speed) used multiple sites strictly for the purpose of learning more about a person, place, event, or social topic.

I think the main way I use social media in my everyday life is not as much to find out what other people are saying about something, but more to keep in touch with friends and catch up on current popular events. Maybe this is because I haven’t found that site that grabs me by shoulders and shakes me saying “I have every opinion you could possible want to read right here on my page”, but right now I focus more on the entertainment side of social media and try to form my own opinions about current events.

One way I waste a lot of time on social media sites is finding entertaining videos, pictures or articles, and pass them along to friends I think would enjoy them with the hopes that I can put a smile on their face and make them laugh.

I sent this picture of Jim Carrey in "The Yes Man" to a friend just to say Hi!

I love to find videos or pictures that will evoke an old memory reminding a friend of a fun time we had in the past.

I really make an effort to stay in touch with old friends, especially those who were on my volleyball team in college. I usually focus my attention on their blogs so I can find out what they are up to these days. It is really awesome to almost hear their personalities coming out of the screen while I read what they write. It gives me a sense that we are together again. As a psychology student in undergrad, I love to hear just about anyone’s perspective because I like to learn about other people and understand their personalities. I love to read blogs by people that have interesting or original hobby like being vegan (which I actually tried and loved and will blog about it soon) so I can learn and understand their purpose for sticking with it. I guess this is the part of my personality I describe as the social chameleon.

All this effort to keep up with friends and maintain my presence in the “real world” make me a very busy person, so in my down time, I like to catch up on the things I missed. I remember back in middle school when everyone would talk about a certain game or TV show that was on the night before, and if you hadn’t seen it, you spent the day in loserville excluded from the hot topic for the day. Not anymore. Now, I can catch up on anything I missed on my own time, and I can do it in bed! Just this last weekend I missed the beginning of the Super bowl because of traffic. Nooo problem. Any commercial I missed, I could watch later on YouTube, and if I missed any part of the game, before I could ask what happened, my phone was blowin’ up with facebook status updates.

I guess what I am saying is that social media- even though I don’t consider myself an avid user- pretty much dominates my life anyway. Any type of question I have, I can google it, go to twitter, youtube videos or hulu television shows in a few clicks. If I want to know more about Justin Bieber after seeing the preview for his new movie, I can learn about his entire life from his full bio on Wikipedia, watch his music videos and childhood videos on youtube, buy his music on itunes and watch his teenage fans drool over his every move just by typing #justinbieber on twitter.

This just goes to show that I am easily influenced by that freight train of information coming my way, I just need to learn to focus my energy on the subjects that really interest me and I will have access to a world of knowledge and expertise about any issues. With all the different social media sources, it’s easy to learn everything you need to know about any topic from any vantage point you can think of.

Week #2: Hello world

After 9/11, America realized the importance of in Internet and it’s ability to immediately update the public on rapidly evolving news not only from news experts, but also from the general public. In “Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters”, Scott Rosenberg explains how this use of the Internet and blogging has become more significant over the past few decades.

Of course there are posts that can be disruptive, completely uninformed and inaccurate according to The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual. But its refreshing to see that of “the percentage of ‘raw’ content published, direct from a creator’s fingers to our eyes, is much higher than in traditional media” (Cluetrain Manifesto). Now that the Internet provides free services for blogging, tweets and status updates, anyone can create their own online persona in which they can share their ideas and interests with world without fear of judgment. We have seen this recently not only in reporting the news, but also in response to current news items such as the active response to President Obama’s State of the Union address on twitter. I have always been someone who has let this fear of judgment hold me back from expressing my true emotions and ideas in print, but if I let that fear hold me back, I will never be truly successful in making my mark on the world. Didn’t we all hope to end up in the history books in grade school? Well, The internet is the new history book, so here’s one of many stories to come about my life in relation to social media.

As a child, I was always restless. I was always running around outside, going on adventures and terrorizing the neighbors. As an adult today, I have the same personality, but I deal with it in a more reserved manner, quietly stalking people on facebook (I’m only half kidding), and internalizing my energy into working out.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think about doing is going for a run so I can get a shower in and begin my day on a good note. If I don’t, my body will feel stiff, I will be unhappy all day and I will feel completely unproductive. Running is my stress release from the world; my happy meditation.

The world of communication and blogging has changed the way I think about my favorite activities, like running, in that I have to learn to put my feelings about these interests in to words in some sort of witty way, with hopes I can interest my readers as well as connect to them in some way.

So far the best way I can put my feelings about running into words is to show pictures of the scenery I run in everyday, in hopes that they can convey the same sort of emotions I feel when I run. I am a very visual person, but I hope over the semester I will grow to learn how to explain the importance of running (and other interests of mine) in my life, as well as how my social chameleon personality thrives on the thoughts I am able to utilize in my “me” time when I run.

I think of this course and my soon-to-be ability to be a ‘social media guru’ as similar to the progress of my talent in running. As long as I put forth a valid effort everyday, I will get progressively better and more informed on my how to best train my body. If I start slow, I will grow slowly, and ultimately access the talent I aspire to have. So here goes. I’ll just run with it.