Final Blog Post

      So, it is finally coming to an end. 15 weeks of posting blogs. It seems like not so long ago we were all on week two and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to keep up with all of the work required for this class. Yet, now I am glad I did. Honestly, I feel like I have learned so much about the world of public relations and social media. I have learned that it is much more than likes, shares, comments or anything else out there that is visible by every user. It is numbers, hard work and a lot of planning. Like a lot of planning. Nonetheless, I feel as if I could legitimately see myself working in this kind of field. Honestly, there were times throughout the semester where I truly considered switching majors to work in a field like this because I find it so appealing. Thus, I think I would definitely recommend this class to anyone who would be willing to take it. Because it seems like a lot of work right when you start the class, people will not want to take it. Although, once you get into the groove of everything you come to realize it is nothing more than a weekly Associated Press style quiz and some blog posts that you have to make sure are timed out properly. Also, the professor is super cool which is always a bonus. In summation, I am more than happy that I took this class and I am thankful to all of you who have read my blogs. Hopefully, I get to see some of you in my future classes.

The Greatness of Social Media

      Well, it does not sadden me to say that this will be my last blog post about social media. Honestly, it is pretty difficult to come up with things to talk about revolving around social media every week. So, this week I am just going to talk about how great social media is as a whole because as crazy as it sounds, I'm not sure that I've talked about that yet. Social media is awesome. Truly, I don't know what I would do without it. The way that is has the ability to connect you with anyone in the world at any time is just crazy. Think about it, before social media there was no way to keep up with your cousin who lives across the country without giving them a dreaded phone call that we all know would end up lasting way too long. They would tell you everything about what has been going on in their life, and they would give you way too much unneeded information. Yet, with social media all you have to do it just scroll through their post and only read what you feel the need to read. Additionally, it allows you to keep up with people who you would have never been able to keep up with before. Namely, celebrities. I mean, before social media there is no way I would have been able to see what the Kardashians do on a daily basis. Now, I can. That is amazing.

Dead Week

      Oh how I can't wait for the semester to be over. I know that I talked about this last week, but I swear I still have the same amount of work now that I did last week even though I have done a lot of homework since then. It really is just a never ending pile of projects, papers and anything else professors decide to stack on top. However, this is the last week so I suppose that stack will dwindle down to nothing here soon. Or, I will decide to turn none of it in and take a big, fat L. Probably not that, but maybe. I mean hey, you never know what the end of the semester may bring. For all I know, this whole college thing could turn out to be one long drawn out joke and I get to go home and never come back after this week. Once again, probably not, but maybe. On a more serious note though, I did exactly what I said I shouldn't do last week. I got to the library ready to work. My brain juices were flowing and I had a plan set in motion of everything I needed to get done. Then, I decided I would take a second before I started working and just take a quick "peak" at TikTok. Fast forward an hour later and I haven't started anything. So, now I must go make up for lost time. Woe is me.

End of the Semester Blues

      It seems that with the end of the semester rearing its ugly head all of us students are so close to Christmas break. We only have like 400 projects each to get through. Well, that may be a little hyperbolic. I suppose it is more like 399. Seriously, I am sure that everyone feels the same way I do, and I am sure that some feel it even more than I do. For example, I have one class in particular in which I have three projects to get done before the end of next week. Now, could I have been working on some of the projects earlier? Sure, but that is not the point. I am the victim here. We, as in us students, are the victims here. We are the innocent who are getting played like a fiddle. Well, all jokes aside I truly do have a lot of work and I swear every time I check moodle there is something else that has just been added to my long list of things to do. Granted, I know that it would be in my best interest to not be on my phone for five plus hours a day constantly texting, checking TikTok, looking through Instagram or seeing the latest on my Twitter feed. However, I can't help it. School work just has a way of being boring, and that isn't my fault. So, once I finish this blog post I will probably get sucked back into the wormhole of social media and blame my teachers for piling on too much work. It's the common problem of the college student.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

      I truly love this time of year. There is snow falling outside, Christmas trees being put up in houses and all kinds of holiday cheer being spread around. Yet, there is one thing that still tops everything else around the holiday season. That is none other than social media. During this time, social media truly reaches an absolute high. There are just so many memes and funny videos floating around that it is ridiculous. For example, it is almost exam time for just about every student in the country. Therefore, you get to see all kinds of funny memes about how much students hate exams, or hate studying for their exams. Also, there is an increased use of cell phones because students are trying to procrastinate at all costs in order to somehow try and avoid their inevitable doom. Additionally, I also love getting on my phone and seeing the posts about people who make the videos of waking up on the first of December because those are always hilarious and relatable. On top of all of that, people have to be on their phones more because they are stuck inside because it is colder than taking an ice bath in the North Pole outside. Well, especially in Ada. In conclusion, this time of year is the greatest time of all for social media and I can't get enough of it. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Textbook Review

      The textbook "Social Media for Strategic Communication" was a great read. We read it for class and I can honestly say it was very helpful. It contained a lot of great insights into the world of social media and how we, if it it should be our future line of work, can prepare for it. Also, the author presented the information in a way that was very easy to read and understand. One of my personal favorite chapters of the entire book was Chapter 6 where the author talked about building a strategic plan for social media. It really proved to me how much work goes into the world of social media. I know that I talk about this a lot, but I think it deserves more attention because I believe that most people are under the impression that those who work in the media field have an easy life with little to no work. However, that is not the case at all. For example, building a strategic plan for social media is a lot harder than people might think. It takes weeks of research, looking at analytics, finding a target audience, creating a brand voice and then deciding how to best go about creating the most ideal content for each platform you are using. Needless to say, it is much more than posting pictures with clever captions, and this book really allows you to see the world of social media in its entirety and all of the nuances that go along with it. So, I think it's great.

Numbers For Social Media

      During class on Tuesday my professor gave an interesting lecture. She talked about how many people assume that people who deal with social media accounts don't have to worry about numbers. Those things are left to the mathematicians of the world to boil down and put into the pot that is data analytics. However, this isn't necessarily the case. Even though most people may assume that social media strategists, as I will call them, do not deal with numbers, they do. There is actually a lot more analyzing than you may originally think. For almost every post you have to deal with numbers that go beyond likes, shares or retweets that are visible to anyone on social media. There is background information for every single piece of content and most people do not know this. For example, there are social media tools out there that will allow you to look at how many people have clicked on a post, and what kind of traffic each post you have is generating. Who is seeing the post? Who is liking the post? What kind of posts are statistically doing better than others? These are all factors that have to be put into consideration when you are managing multiple social media accounts. Thus, even though people who run social media pages may not be rocket scientist they still have to deal with more numbers than you might think.

The Positives of Social Media

      I always find myself taken back at the level of involvement social media has in today's world. It seems as if every time I look away there is something new, or something different, that was not there the second before. Recently, I have noticed something on Facebook. Granted, this isn't a new trend that was not present before. However, considering I never use Facebook, it is something that is relatively new to me. Anyway, the other day my girlfriend was scrolling through her Facebook and I happened to glance over at the moment she went past a picture of a missing dog post. This post had hundreds of notifications of people commenting, sharing or any other way to get the message out there. Now, I am not new to this and I understand why this is a popular thing to do, but it still blows my mind. I never realized how popular this was on Facebook because I haven't used it since some time around the fifth grade. Yet, now posts like these are commonplace, and it is great. There are many negative things to social media, but I have to say that this is a very big positive. The fact that people are willing to share posts about lost dogs so that they may be found more quickly, or even at all, is just superb. So, I hope more positive social media innovations like this come about for the future users of the always lovely internet.

Luka Doncic is the Future

      Last night the Dallas Mavericks rookie, Luka Doncic, did something truly amazing in his game against the San Antonio Spurs. The young player recorded a 42 point triple double. For someone his age this feat has only been topped by one other player, and that is LeBron James. So, needless to say Luka Doncic is putting himself in some pretty great company as of right now. Doncic has quickly established himself as one of the best players in the league and could possibly be the greatest European prospect of all time. Last year he took home the National Basketball Association's Rookie of the Year award over Atlanta Hawk's star Trae Young. Obviously the most impressive stat the viewers would see is his 42 points, but he also managed to rack up 11 rebounds and 12 assists. Most average fans would not understand the difficulty and magnitude of these two stats. First of all, 11 rebounds from a point guard, even if he is big for the point guard position, is very impressive. Doncic is grabbing those boards around people much taller than him including his 7'3" teammate Kristaps Porzingis. Additionally, Doncic's 12 assists become even more impressive when you realize that having that amount of assists means that he was involved at least 66 of his teams points, which is over half of their total 117 points. Needless to say, Luka Doncic is a great player, and recording a stat line like this in his second season of play shows the potential for a great career. 

The "It" Factor

      Today in class we talked about Chapter 9 of "Social Media for Strategic Communication", and it stumbled upon the idea of one of my favorite things to talk about. It all began when a slide came up that talked about how each social media brand or influencer should have one "it" factor to their social media and use it as the fuel to fire all of their content. Then, our teacher told us about a story who has half of a million followers on TikTok because of the way she takes notes. That's right, you read that correctly. Apparently, she incorporates all of these really interesting, unique doodles into her note taking and puts them on TikTok for other people to copy, and they love it. Thus, bringing me to what I love talking about which is that "it" factor. I think a lot of people think that it is some brilliant idea constructed over thousands of hours of contemplation. Yet, often times I believe it just comes from what people are passionate about. A great example I can think of is people who have gaming channels on YouTube. In fact, one of the most, if not the most, popular channel on YouTube started out as a guy playing video games. You may have heard of him. His name is Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie, and he currently has 102 million subscribers. Yet, he obviously did not start out that way. He has discussed in many of his videos that he started making YouTube videos of himself playing video games because he loved it. It was something he enjoyed and was passionate about. Now, he has turned it all into a multi-million dollar business over the course of nine years. This wasn't some brilliant plan hatched over years of thought and preparation. It was something he genuinely enjoyed doing, and happened to find success in. The moral of the story is, do what you are passionate about and success will find you along the way. Don't go looking for the secret ingredient, or the "it" factor when the truth is that it doesn't really exist. So, whether you want to play video game for a living or post videos of yourself taking notes, just have fun with it.

My Favorite Kind of Troll

      Last week I discussed the idea of real-world trolls who roam the space of the internet. This week I will talk about one that I have actually come to love. He is a troll in the world of sports, and some of you who continuously keep up with that world may have heard of him. His first name on Twitter is Barry and his last name begins with an M, but I am not going to finish it because it is highly inappropriate. I believe that if you truly want to take a look for yourself you can find the man on Twitter @sexytrooplover. Now, on to the description of his trolling abilities. First of all, he has actually gained a lot of popularity for what he does. Granted, his accounts constantly get deleted, but after having one for awhile he will usually sit at somewhere around 500,000 or more followers. His tweets consist of many different things. For basketball he will likely talk about how overrated Michael Jordan is, and for football he will constantly discuss the fact that Tom Brady is a system quarterback. Although, my personal favorite tweets are the ones in which he pretends to be another famous sports reporter. He will change his profile picture and name to match theirs. Often times he will even go so far as changing his @ so that it is only one letter off of the real person he is imitating. Then, he will tweet something absolutely ridiculous and make it seem as if it has come from a real source. Believe it or not, his tweets have actually come up on multiple sports talk shows and organizations around the country because people think it really is the real reporter and not Barry. Some of what he tweets is very childish and ignorant, but I can't help but find it funny. Thus, he is one internet troll who I will follow on a daily basis.

Bounce Back Time

      This weekend the men's basketball team here at Ohio Northern University (ONU) had our very first games. On Friday we played Mount Saint Joe, and on Saturday we faced off against Transylvania. The Mount Saint Joe game was a tough win. We came out in the first half and competed hard all the way through the end of the first half. Unfortunately, we did not have the lead at that point and were down by six points. Thus, going into the locker room we kept hyping ourselves up saying the we didn't play a great half and were only down by six. So, we came out and played a terrible first five minutes of the half. Mount Saint Joe increased their lead to 15 points and it seemed as if the game was out of our hands. However, we did not give up and started to turn the game around. Then, with about six minutes left in the second half we took back the lead, and fought hard to keep it. In the end we won the game by nine and trotted into the locker room with our heads held high after the first game of the season. Yet, our game against Transylvania would not yield the same result. The story, however, was much of the same. The score was close at half, and then went on a run at the beginning of the second half. Once again, we fought back and cut the lead to three just in time to put up one last shot with just seconds remaining on the clock. However, the shot fell short and our hopes of being undefeated went right along with it. Now, it is time for us to bounce back and defeat Denison this Friday. Go bears.

Real-World Trolls

       Chapter 11 of "Social Media for Strategic Communication" delves into very relevant topic in today's day and age. That is none other than the subject matter of internet trolls. Trolls are essentially haters. They comment on your pictures leaving nothing but negative feedback. Everything they put is just trying to bring you down, and often times they want nothing more than for you to respond to their hate. It fuels their weird, twisted fire. Trolls are the kind of thing that seem easy to ignore. I mean all you have to do is not read the comment section, right? Wrong. Well, not exactly wrong because if you never read the comments you would avoid a lot of the hate. However, avoiding comment sections if you are famous is not exactly a great thing to do because that means you are also neglecting all your loyal fans leaving positive, loving comments. So, if you don't respond to your true fans then they will eventually stop commenting, or following you, all together. Thus, while it is easy to tell people to avoid reading negative comments it is almost impossible. One example of someone who let the trolls get to him is Ed Sheeran. He read all the negativity and eventually deleted his Twitter account because of it. Thus, it seems that trolls no longer reside under bridges as they have since the dawn of time. Now, they reside within the firewalls of our beloved internet.

Empty Followers

      Have you ever noticed that it seems way easier to get followers on some sites than it does on others? The prime example I can think of is TikTok. With this platform being relatively new you would think that it could be hard to get followers. However, I swear the opposite is true. For example, I have seen multiple people who have accounts with over 10,000 followers, but many of their videos will only have 40 likes. How does that happen? How do you have that many followers and only that many likes? It honestly blows my mind. I find that often times their large following stems from one popular video where they accumulated a mass amount of likes. I find this attribute to be somewhat similar to YouTube. You can go on YouTube and see that someone has over one million subscribers and they will only get a 100,000 views on a video. Now, don't get me wrong that is not a bad ratio, and by no means and I saying that you should get the amount of views, likes or retweets equal to your number of followers because that is not the case on any platform. I mean, I have over 1,000 followers on Instagram, but I have never received even 400 likes on a picture. Although, platforms like YouTube and TikTok are different because users on those sites often, like I mentioned earlier, have one video that has received much more recognition than any of their other videos. To me, it makes their following seem a little more empty and less useful. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I'm not.

College Basketball

      I know that lately I have been talking a lot about the National Basketball League (NBA), but tonight something that might be even greater is starting. National College Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball starts tonight with the long awaited Champion's Classic. Tonight number two seed Kentucky faces off against number one seed Michigan State in what is sure to be a great game. Although, as a Kentucky fan I hope they blow the doors off of Michigan State. Then, the third seed Kansas Jayhawks face of against the number four seed Duke Blue Devils. Honestly, for that game I would just like to see a good showing between two teams. I do not have any particular dog in that fight. Yet, this night is exciting for more reasons than the simple fact that there will be good games on. It also means that it is almost the start of Ohio Northern basketball. We have our first game this Friday in Cincinnati against Mount Saint Joe. This season will definitely be a big test for our team because we lost All-American Ryan Bruns, and we have a lot of freshman that will be playing this year. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how the season turns out. Last year with an All-American the team finished with a total of seven wins. However, I would like to think that we can do better than that. On top of that, I would say that we have a promising future with the amount of young members that we have. Thus, here is to the start of college basketball and the future of Ohio Northern.

Brand Voice

      Chapter 7 of "Social Media for Strategic Communication" talks about something very important for those who are interested in a career field involving social media. That is the importance of brand voice. This is something that is necessary in order to manage a company's social media account. Your tone of voice in every post has to correspond with the beliefs and values of your company. If not, it is going to throw your readers for a loop and probably make you talk to your superior. This idea also goes hand in hand with the fact that you should make sure you are a good fit at a company before you accept a job, or even apply there. If they hold the same values and morals that you do, then it will be much easier for your "brand voice" on social media to be in alignment with how they would like you to talk. On top of that, you will also have a greater chance of fitting in better at said company. Thus, have a better work experience and happier life overall. In essence, brand voice goes much deeper than having a certain rhetoric when you are making social media posts. It must apply to every single kind of content that you are putting into the internet. Every retweet, like, share and any other form of association or publication must align with said brand voice. In addition, your character should probably have some sort of alignment with it as well due to the simple fact that it will make the job easier. Brand voice is just another great example of something that seems easy on the surface level, but difficult once you actually understand the effort put into it.

The Transition of Social Media

      In this day and age it seems that social media platforms bounce around day in and day out. Well, not exactly with that much frequency, but you get what I mean. I still remember when I was a young boy in the fifth grade. I was outside during recess and one of my good friends came up to me and told me about this new app that was about to be the new wave of social media called Instagram. I still remember to this day looking at him and laughing. I had only even heard about Instagram a couple of times, and to be honest it seemed silly. Fast forward to today and it is one of the biggest applications on the entire market. Everyone ranging from ages young to old has an Instagram account that ranges throughout the entire world. Yet, at the time I, and everyone else my age, only ever used Facebook. In today's day and age Facebook is still popular, but it has moved away from its once younger crowd and now gravitates towards a much older, mature crowd. My point is, social media changes rapidly over the years. A great example of this is MySpace. Go back about 15 years and MySpace was one of the most popular social media communities out there. Today, it is erased from the face of the internet and no one ever talks about it. The space of social media moves quick, and it can be quite hard to grab your stake in the lottery.

The Battle of the West

      Now that the National Basketball Association (NBA) has begun it is likely that many of my personal blog posts will be about this topic because it is just something that I happen to be very passionate about. With that said, I am, as I believe I mentioned in my last post, a huge fan of LeBron James. Not only is he a great player, but he is also a great person and an influence to all young people out there trying to make a name for themselves in the world of basketball. Therefore, I obviously would like to see his current NBA team, the Los Angeles Lakers, do very well this season. Honestly, I think they have a great shot to do something amazing this year. There is no doubt in my mind that they are a lock for this year's playoffs and they could easily make their way to the Western Conference Finals. However, they would have to get through at least one tough team to get there because there will be no bad teams in the Western Conference playoff bracket. Thus, they will have to face a team like Portland, Houston, Denver or the Jazz. Every single one of those teams has a solid lineup with the potential to give the Lakers a run for their money. Also, I say all of that without even mentioning the league's new top contender. The Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers have, without a doubt, the best lineup in the entire NBA starring two-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP), and arguably the best player in the league, Kawhi Leonard. They opened up their first game of the season with a 112-102 win against the Lakers. On top of that, their 10 point win was done without the help of all-star guard Paul George who is sidelined for the coming weeks due to a shoulder injury. Granted, the Lakers were also missing a key player in Kyle Kuzma. However, there is no doubt that George will add more for the Clippers than Kuzma can for the Lakers. So, I am hoping the best for LeBron and the Lakers, but they have a tough road ahead of them to say the least.

Sponsored Posts

      According to Chapter 9 of "Social Media for Strategic Communication" there is now a big need for social media brands to make use of content marketing. This is exactly what is sounds like. You advertise and push out your created content on social media by using money to have it sponsored on various websites and platforms. This is very important to do because it allows you to get viewers outside of those who follow you or just happen to see your content on the discover page. However, I recently heard a piece of advice on this particular topic that made a lot of sense. A speaker, who had experience in this particular field, said that if you are a "social media influencer" and you are paying for a post to be advertised it is vital that you use a post that is already popular on its own, and not one that is already an advertisement or uses the hashtag #ad. This is because when people see posts that are dubbed as advertisements, especially when they are already paid to be sponsored on your page, they will pay zero attention to them. I mean honestly, who wants to look at an advertisement post that they know has nothing to do with them. Therefore, it is important for people to pick a post that has done well on its own. It could create a sense of wonderment to someone just swiping through their feed instead of just turning their nose at yet another advertisement. So, if there happens to be any influencers out there reading this, don't be afraid to use this tip.

SEO and Analytics

      In our class on Tuesday we discussed the importance of analytics within a business and search engine organization (SEO). Both of these things allow a business to function at its highest possible performance. Analytics are important because they essentially break down what your company is doing well and what you need to improve on. It is one of those things that you don't know how much you need it until you have it. It can tell you anything and everything about your business. It almost makes you wonder how companies used to function without the knowledge of what draws the most clicks on their website. With that said, it leads me into my next point which is, as I mentioned earlier, SEO. This is essentially the craft workers use to get their websites to pop up on Google when people search certain keywords. It is so important because it makes it easier for your website to receive more traffic. Also, it is used for having advertisements pop up when you are on social media websites. Have you ever been looking at shoes, or something of that sort, and then you find yourself browsing social media and an advertisement for the exact shoes you were just looking at pop up? You think to yourself, how is this possible? Is the internet reading my mind? Well, sort of. A programmed code is reading your mind and has been designed to allow that advertisement to pop up on your social media page because it knows your search history through SEO.

Tis' The Season

      Tonight starts the greatest season of them all. You may be curious considering that neither fall, winter, spring or summer start tonight, and you would be correct in thinking that. Yet, it is a season much bigger than one that follows a weather pattern. It is the season of basketball. Tonight tips off the first games of the National Basketball Association (NBA). I could not be more excited. The end of the Warriors' dynasty is on the horizon and every fan is looking forward to the new landscape the NBA has to offer. There are multiple dynamic duos, and with such a diversity in the spread of talent across the league there is no way to determine who has the best chance to win the championship. For the first time in years there is an even chance for every team. Personally, I am a huge fan of LeBron James. Therefore, I would love nothing more than to see the Los Angeles Lakers do well. However, I most excited to know that I truly have no idea who will come out of the Western portion of the league and make their way to the championship. As I mentioned earlier, the Warriors have completely and utterly dominated the West for the past six years and made a run at the finals each time. However, after losing Kevin Durant to free agency and Klay Thompson to an ACL tear there seems to be no hope left in the organization besides Stephen Curry. Thus, for the first time in a long time it really is anyone's game.

Writing For Different Crowds

      Chapter 7 of "Social Media for Strategic Communication" discusses a very important topic for those who are interested in majoring in social media. It is the idea that you need to understand how to write for different audiences based on various platforms. This is a topic that I have discussed in many of my classes this year, and it is extremely important. A great example of this is how you would write for Twitter compared to Facebook. Twitter draws a much younger crowd. Therefore, you would likely have to use a much more juvenile tone when tweeting out content. I have actually noticed this from many different companies. For example, I have seen many tweets from Wendy's that have a humorous, comedic tone, and they will receive a lot likes for that reason. On the other hand, Facebook is a completely different crowd. As time has progressed and social media has evolved Facebook seems to have drawn a much older, more mature crowd. I have noticed that there are a lot more parents and adults that occupy Facebook's users. Therefore, if you were a social media manager for a company and you had to write a Facebook post it would likely be mature and professional sounding unlike the tone you would use for Twitter. So, in today's era it is very important to understand who your audience is and how you should be writing to that specific audience.

The Evolution of the World

      Today in my convergent media class we discussed an interesting topic. It is the idea that journalism majors are not only dying out, but that those who still major in it have to do more. In its origin, journalism was exactly what you would expect it to be. Writing. However, as time has moved on and technology has evolved so many more requirements have come with a journalism degree. For example, it is expected that you should have some knowledge of photography and photo editing. Thus, if you are writing a story you should know how to take your own pictures for the story and edit them to make sure they are perfect. Also, it would be very helpful if you are skilled in the art of video editing because that would allow you to create your own news packages from start to finish. That includes: recording footage, having audio, likely creating some sort of script that the video will follow and putting it all together in a manner that is pleasant for viewers. This idea reminds me of something I talked about earlier in the year. That is the fact that the same thing is happening with businesses and the evolution of social media. Originally, businesses would only have to worry about perfecting whatever kind of service or product their company provided. At most, they would have a small marketing team that would put up some kind of billboard. However, just like journalism, as time has evolved they are expected to plaster social media sites with advertisements promoting their company. In essence, it is interesting to see how the world is changing for people and businesses as technology and expectations have evolved. Maybe there will be one person doing everything for an entire news company in the near future.

Fall Break

      I would say that this week it only seems right to discuss fall break seeing as it just ended. Of course, I did absolutely no school work over the long weekend. There were a couple of times that it crossed my mind, but ultimately I decided it was not worth ruining the good time I was having to focus on mediocre school tasks. Therefore, I feel it is appropriate to simply give a breakdown of my weekend. So, after classes on Friday I decided to go to the gym and shoot before I went home for a four day break. After that was done, I went back to my room to gather my things and prepare for the drive home. For those who don't know, which I am assuming most of you don't, I am from Springboro, Ohio. That is near Dayton, Ohio by the way because I am also assuming that no one reading this knows where Springboro is. Nonetheless, it is about and hour and and a half long drive from Ohio Northern to Springboro. Anyway, once I got home I had a great evening spending time with my girlfriend, Brynn, and my family. Honestly, it felt like a holiday weekend. Everyone was home, there was a big dinner and I got to see all of my favorite people. Then, on Saturday my family, my girlfriend and I all went into the basement where we held a pumpkin painting contest. I'll go ahead and spoil it for you. My girlfriend and I's pumpkin didn't win. Although, that is okay because I suppose it is that fun that counts anyway. Now, on Sunday I went to the annual Sauerkraut Festival held in Waynesville, Ohio with my my girlfriend, her mom and my mom. It was a good time where we walked around for a little bit and ate extremely unhealthy food. After that Brynn and I went to the University of Cincinnati where her apartment is and stayed there for the remainder of break. It was a great time. We made breakfast together, walked around campus a little bit and even went to dinner at Dewey's Pizza in Newport. Needless to say, it was a perfect end to a great fall break. However, I am not too sad to be back considering that basketball practice started this afternoon. Thus, cheers to fall break and the upcoming season.

The Grueling Preseason: Finale

      This blog post will serve as a reflection for one of my very first blog posts. Specifically, the one where I discussed the grueling preseason. Now, almost six weeks later, and the preseason is over. We topped of this last week with a workout and conditioning session on Monday, and an early morning pool workout on Wednesday. Knowing what I know now I can truly say, it was hard. However, it was worth it. Like I said before, if you approach conditioning with a bad attitude then you are going to hate every second you are out there. Therefore, I tried to adopt the mentality that I knew it was going to suck, but I would get through it. In my head I would just keep thinking that at some point later that day I was going to be in my bed. The truth is, nobody enjoys running 800 meter sprints six times. I mean, that is three miles of actual running. Not jogging. Running. Yet, I'm alive. I made it and the worst of it has passed because now I get to enjoy actual practices, and play in actual games. It was funny, one thing that always motivated me was the little saying on the bottom of every one of our lifting sheets. It read, "What is worse, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret?" Right below that it had the date of this year's Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) championship game. It was small, and you could barely see it on the paper. But, there were times I didn't want to be there, or I didn't want to lift that weight or do the core to finish out the last set. However, I know that I couldn't live with myself if I were to get to the end of the season and think that I could have been better if I had only worked harder in the preseason. Thus, I would like to end this post with a quote from the great Muhammad Ali that seems to relate well to this topic. He claimed that he hated every minute of training, but he would tell himself, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."

Social Media's Rocket Science

      Content calendars. They seem almost silly to think about. The idea that a company needs a schedule for various things to tweet, post or blog about on social media. It seems equivalent to planning out basic things. For example, you don't plan out your meals months in advance. You just decide what you're going to eat as you go. Just like tweeting isn't something you plan out for weeks at a time. A funny tweet comes to your head and you tweet it. Simple as that. Or is it? Because if you agreed with what I just said, then you are in the same boat I was first in too. However, pumping out content on a daily basis for weeks on end is really hard work. You have to come up with funny, relatable, interesting or important things to talk about every day multiple times a day. Honestly, I doubt I could think up five good tweets in a week. So, I can't imagine what kind of rocket science goes into content calendars. I mean, of course there is going to be guidelines if you are working for a company and you know that there are policies, products or something else of the sort that you are supposed to tweet about. Although, I believe that creating a content calendar is likely akin to a podcast. At first, you think it is just sitting in front of a camera and talking. How hard could it be? Then, you realize how weird it is to talk to yourself, by yourself, in front of a camera. On top of that, you realize you have to come up with something to talk about every day. Not to mention the entire editing process and equipment that goes into it. I guess what I am trying to say is, content calendars are hard work, and reading about the work that goes into them gave me a newfound respect for workers in the social media industry.

Live Tweeting Amateur

      This past weekend was the weekend for live tweeting. Each of us in my social media principles class had to live tweet an event happening at homecoming weekend. Being someone who enjoys attending sporting events, I decided to go to the Ohio Northern football game where we played Marietta. I'll be honest, at first I was anxious. Tweeting is somewhat of a foreign concept to me. It's not that I don't use Twitter, or that I don't know how to tweet, but more so that I just never do it. I mean sure, I will retweet something sports related or funny every now and again. However, that is never something tweeted by me. So, I knew going into it I was would feel weird tweeting out the happenings of a football game when most of my Twitter followers have almost never seen me tweet before. Although, I must say it went relatively smooth. Well, the very first tweet where I gave the score after the first quarter took me a second to get out because, for those who don't know, you can't just hit return or enter and have your cursor go to the next line on a tweet. That is not how Twitter works. If you want to tweet something where you different sentences on different lines, the easiest thing to do is to go to the notes on your phone and type it out the way you want it to look, then directly copy it from there to your tweet. At first, I had forgotten that I needed to do this trick. But, like riding a bike, I caught on pretty quick and never had that problem again. So, overall I would say my first live tweeting assignment was a success. Because while it did seem odd to me at first, it allowed me to get out of my comfort zone and do something that I'm not accustomed to. Thus, I would consider doing it again. Maybe.

The Power of Image

      In Chapter 3 of Social Media Strategic Communication the author talks about something important that I preached in my social media policy this week. It is the idea of keeping a consistently positive image of yourself across all platforms of social media. The important part there is the fact that is must be across all platforms of social media. I find that many people have one account, such as LinkedIn, where they come across professional. It is the kind of account that an employer would look at and be willing to hire you. However, you could go to that same person's Twitter, Facebook or Instagram account and see all kinds of posts, tweets or whatever else they may have and it will not match the professional appearance they have on LinkedIn. This is a dangerous thing to do especially in today's modern era because employers are checking all aspects of our social media. Think about it, all they would have to do is look up your handle and be able to find out all kinds of information about you. For example, by looking at who you follow, and who follows you, it could tell them what kind of political affiliation you hold. Thus, retweeting, liking or posting one wrong thing could end up being a detriment to the entirety of your future. A great example of not keeping a consistent positive image on social media is something that a great deal of high school kids come across some time throughout their four years. They go to some kind of party and decide that they are going to post a picture that has alcohol in somewhere in it. Then, the wrong person sees it and they get called down to the office and receive some sort of punishment. Granted, this isn't the largest deal in the world, but a mistake like this in the future could lead to the difference between you getting hired or not. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to consistently maintain a positive, well-rounded image of yourself on social media.

11 Years of Mario Kart

      Today I am going to talk about a subject very near and dear to my heart. Of course, that subject is "Mario Kart". An arcade-like racing game involving all of the characters from the beloved series "Mario". The first time I ever played was when I was around eight years old. My parents bought it for me as a gift for my DS. For those who don't know, a DS was a handheld gaming device that nearly every single kid had growing up and I'm not sure how you wouldn't know what it is. Anyway, I immediately fell in love. I would play "Mario Kart" in good times and bad times, in sickness and in health and anytime I was allowed to get it out at the dinner table. My brothers and I all had a copy and we would race each other online to see who was the best. From what I can recall, I believe I got my butt handed to me every single time. However, that never deterred me from playing the game because I legitimately loved everything about it.
       Fast forward to today and I still play it. Over the summer I bought the game for my Nintendo Switch and my roommates (CJ, Grant and Landen) and I all play it together. In fact, there is a white board in our dorm room that has a "Mario Kart Hierarchy" chart with all of our names and a tally for each time that we have won. If my memory serves me correctly, then I believe Landen and I are tied for first with 40 tallies each, CJ is a close second and Grant is nowhere to be found. Although, it goes beyond winning and stems back to the original reason why I played it as a kid with my brothers. We have fun doing it and it truly brings us together. That isn't to say that when we lose we don't yell a long list of profanity at the person who won, but I suppose that is just boys being boys. Overall, it is a great game that I wouldn't trade for the world and I honestly don't know what I would do without it here at college.

Technology's Greatest Mix

      It is beautiful to see how the world of media and entertainment have blended so smoothly in today's era of technology and innovation. The combination of the two makes you feel connected to both worlds. You may be wondering what I mean considering that statement is quite vague and left open for interpretation. Simply put, it is nice to know that whether you are on a media site or entertainment site you have the ability to see much of the same content. Also, it is possible to see advertisements for entertainment on a site meant for media. A great example of this is Netflix. Everyone loves streaming services that provide them a new, better way to watch television without advertisements. However, when you are not watching Netflix you have the ability to see advertisements for new shows that are coming out and may interest you on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. "Thirteen Reasons Why" is a perfect representation of this. You may have watched the first season and completely forgot about it because no one knew when season two was coming out. Then, one day you are on Instagram and see a plethora of advertisements from Netflix talking about the thrillers of the upcoming second season. Although, I would like to point out that this happens in more areas than streaming services. A prime representation of this is sports. You may miss the entire game, but afterwards you can go on almost any social media platform and see all of the great highlights from each game. Nonetheless, the entertainment and media worlds are evolving in a brilliant way that is satisfying for people of all ages, and connecting multiple markets on multiple platforms.

A First Timer's Crisis

      Seeing as it likely pertains to everyone reading this blog, I am going to talk about doing your own laundry. Before I begin I should mention that I am the classic case of never doing a load of laundry before my first week of college, and it just so happens that my first week of college was about a month ago. So, it seems fitting that, to go along with being the classic kid who had never done a load of laundry before leaving for college, I had a terrible first experience. Well, maybe not terrible, but let's just say that things definitely could have gone better. For starters I walked down to the laundry room only to realize there were no washers available. Thus, I walked right back up to my room and waited until one opened up. Then, I put my clothes in the washer, placed in the Tide pod, put in roughly 150 Downey scent-boosting capsule things and started the washer. After about 30 minutes I walked back down the check on my load of laundry. So, I opened it up only to realize that the scent-boosting capsules did not disintegrate in the slightest. Keep in mind that at this point in the story it is around midnight, and I had my first day of classes the following morning. Now, I did the only logical thing I could think to do, and I ran the entire load again. However, this time I went back down after about 15 minutes because I decided it was too late and I couldn't possibly wait another full 30 considering I still had to dry and fold my clothes. Therefore, I opened up the washer and noticed that because I didn't let the load finish all of my clothes were sitting in about three gallons of water. Tired and annoyed, I decided I would wring my clothes out myself and place them into the dryer. Needless to say, I got water all over the floor of the laundry room, but I didn't care because it was too late for other people to be doing laundry anyway. I was the only one dumb enough to stay up that late before the first day of classes. Anyway, after an hour I went back down to take my clothes out of the dryer and got one of many first lessons in the Park Hall laundry room. The dryers suck. My clothes had somehow become more wet since I had taken them out of the washer and placed them into the dryer. Nonetheless, I decided to start the dryer again for another hour and just go to bed. Next, I woke up early in the morning only to realize once again how bad the dryers were. So, I ran that load of laundry four more times that day until finally, at long last, my clothes were dry. Since that day I would say my skill in the laundry department has increased immeasurably, and I have not had much difficulty whatsoever. It's just like the old saying goes, there's a first time for everything.

Social Media's New Vine

      Do you remember the good old days back in 2014-2015 when Vine was one of the most popular apps on the social media market? Everyone was quoting and talking about the hilarious creators on the internet's most beloved space. Six second videos had become the new medium for everyone in America to watch and enjoy. Then, it disappeared. Just as nonchalant as the wind blowing a leaf down the street, Vine was gone. At first it seemed nobody even noticed considering the reason it was shut down in the first place was because people had stopped using it. Yet, just like a 5-year-old, once the app was taken away everyone wanted it back. Ever since people have been Tweeting, blogging and posting about how Vine must be brought back. However, it seems those calls have possibly been answered as a new app seems to have taken its place. That app is TikTok. TikTok has a similar concept to vine. It contains short videos, up to a minute long, where creators make content with the intent to be funny, cute, follow trends or just be outright weird. At first, people mocked the app because of some of the rather interesting content it contained. Although, as more people have joined the TikTok wave the videos have progressively become better. Thus, drawing in more users and becoming the new era of Vine. TikTok has a certain allure to it because it speaks to people of all ages and genders. The app seems to have an endless amount of videos on its "for you page", and all of it is customized based on your likes. Hopefully this time around people will realize what they have before it is gone, and TikTok may hold the torch from Vine for many years to come.

Final Thoughts

      Last week my social media principles finished up "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick. Personally, I thought it was a great read. There were so many small details about social media provided by the authors that I would not have thought about otherwise. One example I can think of that was brought up many times throughout the book was the use of aggregator sites. These websites pull information from all over the internet and provide a source of readable content that you can talk about on your social media. Ideas such as that are especially important for avid social media users whose world revolves around people reading content on their Twitter, blog, email list or any other site they may have a viewership on. Keep in mind that is just one great topic out of the 123 talking points they discussed.
      With all of that being said, there were some downsides to the book as well. There were a lot of unneeded common sense tips that did not need to be said for today's modern era where almost every single person uses social media. Also, considering the book was written sometime around 2014 there were many sections that are now outdated. A prime example of this throughout the book was the frequency at which the authors talked about Google+, a site that is no longer in service. All in all, I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone looking to get into the world that is social media. The great talking points and professional advice outweighs any downside you may come across when reading the book, and it provides a great foundation for all readers no matter the age range or demographics.

Twitter Aficionado

      In Chapter 11 of "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki the author talks about specific ways to optimize your timeline for particular platforms. Personally, I found his tips for Twitter to be rather interesting. Firstly, he talks about how it is necessary to try and use at least one graphic per tweet because it simply makes whatever you are tweeting about more interesting. I can absolutely agree with this statement because when I am scrolling through my Twitter feed I often skip past tweets that just have text because there does not appear to be much to look at. Also, it is a point of redundancy. What I mean by this is that graphics often help reiterate whatever point has already been made in the text of the tweet. Therefore, it just adds another level of context and understanding to an already interesting topic. For example, if you create a tweet talking about the increased gun violence over the past couple of years and back it up with a graph showing the numerical data it will not only make you more convincing, but also it will keep those who read it more interested.
      Another topic Kawasaki discussed that I found rather interesting is the different ways in which you can respond to others on Twitter. He shows you that if you put a period in front of someone's handle whom you are responding to then it allows anyone who follows you to be able to see it. Yet, if you did not place that period there then only the person being mentioned has the ability to see it. This is a tactic that not many people think of, but it could be very useful in many different situations if you are responding to clients or people who are showing support towards you. In essence, the writer provides many creative ideas and tips to Twitter users in this chapter and it is something that I would highly recommend to any who frequently uses this app.

Memes: Taking the World by Storm

      It is interesting to me the way that social media has taken over everything in our daily lives. In fact, I have come to this conclusion, and even made this exact statement, a multitude of times. This particular time I was scrolling through Instagram, as I often do, and came across a meme page called Kale Salad, and it got me thinking how digitized the world of comedy has become. In its origin it is likely that jokes were told through word-of-mouth. As time has progressed this still remains true seeing as comedians still tell jokes by word-of-mouth, and many of them get paid a lot of money to do so. However, within the last twenty years a new medium of comedy has risen to the stage, and it is called a meme. By definition a meme is an image, video or piece of text that is copied (often with slight variation) and spread rapidly by internet users. Memes may contain anything from a simple joke to a hurtful image at someone's expense. Yet, they have taken over and you can find many meme pages that have millions of followers across all kinds of platforms. On top of that, the people running those pages are getting compensated for advertisements that may be placed on their page. It truly is a new form of comedy that has really never been seen before. For the most part you will find that memes typically resonate with a much younger crowd as adults don't seem to find much humor in juvenile jokes. Nonetheless, there is major space for them across all areas of social media and it will be very interesting to see what the future holds for that which has been dubbed the meme.

Podcasting Experiences

      Talking into a microphone with the idea of sounding like you are having a conversation with someone sounds like something easy to do in theory. However, I found that recording my first podcast was a lot more difficult than I originally perceived it was going to be. For example, I felt very awkward talking into the phone, in a location by myself, knowing that there was no one else on the other end. It is almost a feeling of embarrassment even though you know there is nothing you should feel awkward about. I mean at the end of the day, it is just a guy, sitting in his car by himself, talking to his phone about sports. With all of that being said, having show notes for the podcast did put my mind slightly at ease for the simple reason that I knew everything I was going to discuss was planned out prior to recording.

Also, I found that I had an overall great time doing it because it allowed me to step outside my comfort zone and talk about something that I love. On top of that, I felt more involved in the world of sports by sharing my thoughts and research on a host website (YouTube) even if it never gets viewed by a single person. In addition, I believe those who did listen would agree with my thoughts about LeBron James and his potential to make the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Defensive team. With a better team and a full off-season of recovery to rehab his body James will look to attack this upcoming season with energy and intensity that many believe he has lost. To summarize, podcasts are difficult, but rewarding, and LeBron, with the help of teammate Anthony Davis, has a great opportunity to be on the first or second NBA All-Defensive team.