skyping with a social media expert

Yesterday in class we had the honor of a Skype session with Henry Jenkins. Dr. Jenkins is the author of many books including "Convergence Culture," which we have been using in class. He is a professor, innovator, and all-around social media guru. I think I can speak for the entire class when I say that we were a little intimidated to actually speak to him even from as far away as MIT (thank you, Skype). Luckily, we were prepared. The conversation started with Dr. Jenkins giving us a run-down of his life and his experience with social media. That alone was impressive and educating. He has a long-running history with journalism, teaching, writing, researching and living out the new technology and way of social media. Each of us in the class had prepared questions to ask Dr. Jenkins so we could gain even a little bit of the knowledge he could share with us.

I was really impressed with a lot of the questions from people in my class. Not only were the answers to his questions insightful (and a little bit over my head), but the questions posed by my classmates were thought-provoking and challenging themselves.

I asked Dr. Jenkins about how we, as college graduates or future college graduates can effectively use social media without over-using it. Dr. Jenkins graciously explained that forming connections and being involved with networking is incredibly important when it comes to venturing into the job market. He encouraged us to use social media sites such as Facebook to gain and keep connections with people that we can network with in the future.

I thought it was interesting that Dr. Jenkins brought up the idea of collective intelligence. He mentioned that this phenomenon helps us to understand what is really going on because no one knows everything, but everyone knows something.

Thank you, Dr. Jenkins for joining our class!

planning for my client.

My client for a project for my social media class is a member of a CSA in Milledgeville. CSA is an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. CSAs and local farming is something that I've learned a bit about recently and have grown interested and passionate about.

This afternoon I will visit the Farmer's Market here in Milledgeville to meet my client and discuss working on the social media aspect of his business with him.

I think one of the major components that I will use in growing his relationship with social media and therefore, potential clients, customers and those interested in CSAs will be Twitter.

My client could use Twitter to advertise the Farmer's Market, provide updates on CSA members, showcase pictures of crops and answer questions from those interested.

I feel like a fan page on Facebook could also be beneficial to spreading the news about the Farmer's Market.

I am also considering a YouTube channel. It could be fun to provide videos of the Farmer's Market and include interviews with the farmers.

A blog would be a good way for my client to communicate more with potential customers. He could share videos that interest him or give detailed descriptions of what he is doing in his business.

I am looking forward to meeting my client today!

Learning Social Media from Bert DuMars

On Friday, Bert DuMars from Newell Rubbermaid came to speak to our Social Media class! He is the VP of E-business and interactive marketing for the multi-brand company. Mr. DuMars introduced us to the online side of Newwell Rubbermaid by showing us the websites and blogs of the different brands within the company. We looked at Graco's blog and Mr. DuMars explained to us how that brand has to be very careful with what it posting because much of products and information dealing with babies and young children is regulated by the government. I found it interesting how the blogs of the different brands aren't really used to advertise or discuss the products, but to attract consumers or potential consumers as readers.


Friday's class was a favorite for everyone. Mr. DuMars showed us a lot of entertaining videos as well as good resources on the internet. A video that I found really interesting was one from the Dove Campaign for Beauty.


Not only does this video consider the media's affect on young girl's self esteem but uses media to address that issue.

Convergence Culture: 2 and 3

Chapter 2 of our book discusses the phenomenon of advertising in reality television shows such as American Idol. In this chapter, Henry Jenkins discusses how impacting advertising really is and how it can affect an audience without their awareness. Advertising companies know how effective they can be in using reality shows to market their products and it is not an inexpensive feat. As far as observers go, I am probably a casual. I currently have a defective remote, so I tend to watch commercials out of necessity. Sometimes I feel the need to switch the channel and sometimes I will watch them anyway. What I felt was the most interesting concept from the chapter was how texting became popular through the voting process of American Idol. Texting is a huge mode of communication today and it's interesting how that form of advertising for AT&T made it happen.

Chapter 3 was all about story-telling,Henry Jenkins uses the example of The Matrix to illustrate how people interpret a story in different ways. The idea of "additive comprehension" was an interesting concept to me.

Knowledge Communities

Today in class we are learning about knowledge communities. We are picking specific topics and researching about them and learning how to find and create a knowledge community. The topics in my class are pretty interesting, ranging from social issues to cooking to reality TV.
I will be finding and creating a community about aid efforts in Guatemala. I chose this because I have twice been to Guatemala as a part of a missions team in high school. I am interested in how the impoverished people there are being helped.

My first step is a common one: Google. I type in "Aid in Guatemala" and wade through the results to get to what I really want to know.
A website from USAID is fairly helpful. This website describes the history of USAID working in Guatemala and gives many facts about the people and the need for aid there.The site also explains the different programs and factors that the organization is working through.

This website gives statistics about Guatemala and provide links to other articles about the need there.
This website is useful because it also gives links to "profiles" of Guatemala on websites such as Wikipedia and BBC News.

On Facebook, The country has its very own fan page where people can share their sentiments as well as pictures

Some members of my church in Lawrenceville, Georgia are going on a trip to Guatemala this summer to help and love the people there. In a blog, they are sharing their preparation and eventually their experiences.

A very general Wikipedia entry on the country of Guatemala provides the history and demographics of the country itself with some facts about aid thrown in.

Spoiling Survivor

Chapter one of "Convergence Culture" by Henry Jenkins begins by explaining how the phenomenon of "spoiling" reality or game shows affected the fan base of the popular show "Survivor."

When reading about how the people were trying to seek out the results of the show and how everyone was sharing what they had heard on some online forum, it seemed very familiar. We are in a culture now where everyone wants instant gratification. We are constantly seeking out the fastest result, even if sometimes it is inaccurate. The concept of spoiling a reality show came out of this need to know the answer, or an answer as soon as possible. We want to be in the know, and we don't want to wait to get there.

While continuing to read, I was reminded of when the latest season of "The Bachelor" started up on ABC last Fall/Winter. After watching the first few episodes, I immediately loved Ali from San Francisco. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise by looking up the results of the show, though. But, my curiosity was peaked when our very own Ansley Tiller updated her Facebook status about some "spoiler alert" about "The Bachelor." I gave in and looked at the website only to find that the winner was in fact my least favorite contestant: a 23-year-old from Florida.

I'm a fan of playing by the rules, though, and "spoiling" isn't something I'm really a fan of. I think it is really interesting how easily we can communicate the results of shows that we aren't even included it.

Social media is definitely the way that this "spoiling" culture has come to be.

What is Social Media?

Maymester is the best semester at GCSU and this one is going to be even better because of the class that I'm taking... Social Media with Dr. Ginger Carter Miller and many of my mass comm friends!

The blog will be a space for me to share what I'm learning, ask questions and post interesting things we discuss in class. I'm expecting that it will be updated daily to fulfill my homework requirements.

My first assignment is to define social media. Since I've gotten this assignment, ideas of how to explain the websites, etc. that we use daily have been running through my mind. I didn't expect it to be so tricky to really nail down things such as Twitter, Facebook and Blogger that we as a society use everyday.

College has taught me many things.. one of them being "When in doubt, use Wikipedia." I expect that I'm not alone in this. I didn't want to steal any ideas, though. As convenient as Wikipedia is, it wouldn't be fair to use someone else's ideas.

I think convenience is a major factor of social media, though. Social media wouldn't really work if it wasn't convenient. Social media are convenient, easily accessible, easily used methods of sending messages, communicating and networking. Social media can be used for businesses, advertising, advocating or for keeping up with your grandparents in Cleveland. Social media occurs and exists digitally, but have become highly influential in "the real world."

I'm really looking forward to the next three weeks of class! It will be interesting and beneficial to learn about the world of social media!