Once in high-school I had to write a letter to future self. At the start of the school year, my english teacher took up letters that we wrote to ourselves, and she delivered them to us at the end of the year. The purpose of this was to see how much we had grown in writing and in the way we thought about ourselves and the world. That was a very enlightening experience that I highly valued.
My second summer session class is social media strategies with Dr. Mimi Perreault. Five weeks ago she had us write questions and goals for the class. She instructed us that we would be reviewing those in a blog post at the end of the semester, and as you may see, it reminded me of that exercise from high-school. I chose to ask myself some challenging questions and to set achievable high goals. This is that final blog post with the responses from five weeks later.
Questions I had five weeks ago with answers from today.
1. Can social media promote community health?
You bet! As I have learned first hand from a local community, even if the social media presence is small, it helps. Todd is able to communicate with its community members as well as neighboring communities about the amazing programs they have, they want, and they will create. This is a promoter of internal and external health, image, and success.
2. Can sustainable communities benefit from social media?
YES! Every organization can benefit from a strong and stable social media presence! The access to the community, stakeholders, and future members/customers is essential. The lack of social media can prove to be a large disadvantage even for nonprofit organizations. For instance, Todd's Table is a mobile market parked in Todd, NC Saturday. They sell local produce to anyone who visit, but they also allow for a credit for customers who cant afford fresh produce by use of a donation center. Without the town knowing, or local, organic food-lovers knowing, the system cannot reach as many people as it can provide for. This leaves an access and waste. The community garden is also a volunteer garden so people who do not have the space, but do have the passion can now get on Facebook or their website and find out how to be more involved.
3. Will Non Governmental Organizations take control of their social media before they find a spike in their spokes?
The trouble with this question is that it assumes NGOs and nonprofits have the same access to social media and the literacy for social media as well. Many organizations cannot train people how to use social media professionally, and they cannot afford to pay a full staff team to keep up their social media engagement. Pushing these tools on an organization that is not ready could prove to be fatal. The organization could be worse off if it does not have the team to avoid a social media crime: does not have the ability to be clear and concise, create a retentive following, have a consistent image, keep up with their accounts, and work ethically within the system. When the organization is ready to incorporate a strong social media presence into their business plan, they will thrive.
4. Can social media teach us about how we connect outside of the technological media?
Dr. Mimi Perreault taught two very interesting lectures that make me answer this question in a way I had not previously understood. Primarily, social media is not just online or an app on a phone. Social media is everything from a newspaper to twitter to radio-show call-ins about traffic. This means that social media is actually formed from our real world interactions. Secondarily, twitter was first used as crisis communication to create a social space to allow access to drinkable water. What makes this new form of social interaction special, is the access to information that is independent of physical location. There are other issues with the internet such as the anonymity which may allow for suboptimal content, or the speed of information which may put late responders at a disadvantage. However, what social media tells us about our interactions IRL is that we want to have them. We want to be connected, we want to spread praise, celebrate, discuss issues, solve problems, and celebrate some more!
5. What will social media grow into if it goes unchecked? (What is the future of social media?)
This is something many experts have been hoping to answer, I think that social media has a large power to bring people together, but the type of interactions depend on the platform itself. If we could perfect a social media platform, the outcomes would be incredible.
A Brief Overview of my original class goals, and the progress I made under each.
1. I would like to learn how to work quickly in the fast-paced environment.
Within five weeks time I learned:
code academy
platform pairing
maintain blog, twitter, Facebook, community involvement
growing social media presence from lessons each week
understood how to communicate the right message
operate within means
2. I would like to achieve a new level of competency in this field.
code academy training, website coding
hoot suite experience, creating campaigns and planning posts
understanding nuances of different platforms
working within brand persona to define language and tone
importance of maintaining presence and consistency
3. I would like to find a way to blend social responsibility and social media in the context of sustainable development.
admittedly still working on it (see future blogs!)
4. I would like to learn how social media literacy will benefit new aspects of
sustainability.
community engagement
transparency
dependability
crisis management
5. I would like to make good connections in this class to benefit my future and the future of the students around me.
Mimi Perreault
Geralyn Mitchell
Elizabeth Stephems
Dr. Stephen Daniel
Classmates
Jaime McGirt
Matt McGirt
Blackburn Community Outreach
Connections between subject matter
Connections for Todd's Table and their social campaign