Introductory Statement
Hi! My name is Maura White and I am a University of Pittsburgh senior studying Media and Professional Communication. My familiarity/ experience with social media as I enter this class is generally pretty basic. I have used popular social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
I think that social media has plenty of negative and positive aspects. Social media platforms have been found capable of causing serious harm to individuals’ self esteem. This can stem from things such as number of Facebook or Instagram followers, amount of “likes” on a photo, and simply irrationally feeling as though others have a better life solely due to what they may post on social media. However, social media also has positives. It can be extremely beneficial in the world of marketing and professionalism. More importantly, it is a useful tool for broadcasting important information on things such as events or causes.
From this class, I expect to learn how to use social media as a strong tool in the marketing aspect of the professional world. I specifically hope to increase my knowledge on how to use social media in the world of nonprofit organizations. I also hope to come to understand all aspects of social media platforms, and to learn various techniques that will help me in my future career.
Midterm Reflection
My ideas about social media have changed since the beginning of the semester in that I see social media platforms in a new professional light. Before taking this class, I never really looked at social media as a tool in the business/ professional world. However I see now that social media can be an extremely effective and important tactic in promoting or simply running an organization. I enjoy having the opportunity to use my writing skills in a different way in this class. In most courses, we are taught to write in a very specific way – formal and complex. However, when it comes to social media, this is obviously not necessary in all instances. The audience I chose for my project is people around my age. Young people are not drawn to this type of formal and complex writing that we are taught in school. Therefore, I had the opportunity to write in a more casual style, which is new, exciting and thought provoking for me.
What I’ve learned about how you learn and use social media is that there is no one set way to do it. Each organization and campaign is different and each has its own style. Therefore you have more freedom to be able to choose how you use it.
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The process doc is probably helping me develop the most because it has helped me look at my project from various angles. I think that the group work is the least helpful for me because we all have very different campaigns and mind sets, so it’s hard to relate to one another. This has probably been the most challenging aspect of the class for me so far. Lastly, I feel connected to the coursework because I can see myself enjoying a career revolving around this material in the future.
Final Reflection
My website portfolio contains various elements regarding social media, my Professional Uses of Social Media class, and my social media strategy for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
In regards to social media, on my website I have written an Op-ed about the false reality that social media creates. This opinion piece talks about how the “connections” that we make on social media platforms aren’t real relationships. They are fake relationships shaped through false intimacy and social distance.
For my Professional Uses of Social Media class, I wrote an introductory statement that included my background, my previous knowledge of social media and what I expect to learn in the class throughout the semester. I also wrote a midterm reflection to touch on the new social media elements and techniques that I learned throughout the first half of the semester.
There are several different features on my website that make up my social media strategy proposal for The International Fund for Animal Welfare, including my story and process doc. My process doc consists of various documents that have helped me develop my social media strategy.
I am very excited about my proposal because it’s so rewarding and cool to see all the different elements that I have been working on come together and form a successful strategy. I worked hard on a project that I dedicated to a non-profit organization, which is the career that I hope to get into after graduation. This excites me because I know that I can take the skills that I learned throughout this project and do something similar in my future career.