It is hard to believe that my time as a Social Media Tactics and Strategies student is almost over. Like many of my classmates, I was new to blogging at the start of this course. Throughout the past few weeks, I've learned so much about blogging through formal readings from Scott, Qualman and various papers and through my own experiences with this blog. Now, I find myself thinking about blogging on a daily basis, both professionally and personally. I enjoy visiting Technorati to see what's happening on the blogsphere. In fact, I have started a blog for my upcoming wedding; as Scott (2012) stated in his book sometimes its easier to start a blog than create a website (Chapter 5, p. 60)
This week's blog will be about my digital paper using Storify. For those of you who are not part of my social media class at Marist college, this post may seem a little strange, but I will be using that forum to write my final digital paper for the course. It's pretty cool- I can draw material from my other social networks on there such as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter etc. My paper on Storify will be developing over the next two weeks, so stay tuned for the final one. Update 3/6/2013: I have started writing on my Storify account. Please feel free to read what I have so far, and let me know your thoughts!
Update 3/13/2013: My draft is complete on Storify. I followed the outline listed in this blog, and took the comments into consideration. I am open to additional feedback; please use the above link to read my Storify and post comments. Thanks!
I am open for suggestions about ways to improve my final digital paper. So far, here is an outline for what I plan on writing:
Introduction-How this blog was created:
- Assignment (link to class wiki)
- About me
- Why I chose this topic
- Target audience
- Goals/objectives for the blog (for the course, and long-term)
- Strategies to meet these goals
- Social Media Policy
- Topics-excerpts
- Tactics/Strategies for driving readers (traffic) to my blog. Show examples of blog posts and related activities to drive reads
- Digital Leadership experience and support
- Twitter: show examples of tweets. Explain reason for choosing them.
- Pinterest: examples of pins and reasons
- Statistics of blog overall: Page views, traffic sources, etc
- Comments: were there engaging conversations?
- Did I meet my goals and objectives?
- What I've learned.
- How can I improve
- How can blogging be used in my field
- Final thoughts
And check back by the end of the week. I will have more information, and a link to my digital paper!
Kate, I think you hit all the high points with your post and it sounds like you have a good plan for your project. Your description of your experience with blogging mirrors mine in many ways. Up to this course I was a very infrequent user of any social media. Now, I feel like I have this mania to regularly check all my accounts. It will be interesting to dive in to all he numbers to interpret what they mean. Regardless of the results incertainlymhave taken away a lot from the course and look forward to applying it to my job because this all fits nicely with where our company is going.
ReplyDeleteHi George- glad we both feel the same way! It's reassuring to know that we've both grown in this course; show's we've learned alot. I'm curious to explore additional blogging options after this course concludes. By this I mean, I wonder if there are opportunities for me to blog in my job or if I can start engaging in blogging communities related to my career. It's a whole new world for me!
DeleteKate,
ReplyDeleteI liked the article on social media security. I think this is something many people do not pay attention to. I agree with blogging and my view of it now is I would like to do it personally as well. I have learned a few ways to drive traffic and I am curious to see how I can apply what I have learned to my own personal blog.
Your outline looks great, very detailed.
I agree with Christine that the social media security blog really stood out to me. I wonder if it will show that you had the most hits on it?
DeleteHi Christine and Amanda- Glad to hear you liked my post about social media security. I'm going to review the our analytic's tools to see if it was the most popular.
DeleteHi Kate. I like that you've specifically included your professional career in the digital paper outline. It's one thing to write a conclusion about what you've learned, but it's another to detail exactly how you can apply everything you've learned into your current job, and any future ones. Applying what we've learned actually proves that we've learned something!
ReplyDeleteI haven't given too much thought to what exactly I will write in my conclusion, but I will be sure to include something about applying social media tactics in the real word.
Glad you liked my idea about applying what I learned to the real world Courtney! I know I learned a lot from this course, but having it on paper really shows it.
DeleteThis is slightly different from other final class assignments. We usually do a project or paper and apply everything we've learned, but the digital paper actually shows exactly what we've done, what we've learned, and how we will apply it to our real jobs and career paths, rather than just how it applies to the final paper.
DeleteCourtney, definitely different than other final assignments/exams for classes. The verdict is still out for me....It is cool though how it puts together a path of what we've done through the semester, and what we've learned and how we've applied it. Good thoughts.
DeleteHey Kate.
ReplyDeleteYour outline is a nice start as it allows for growth but you have a set direction. One suggestion I have is if any of your 'tweets' were 'retweeted' follow that conversation in storify. I also think if any of those that re-pinned or retweeted your stuff is of importance to the industry of higher education - demonstrate that. I feel this would show you were interacting with your target audience (which I am only assuming would be individuals in higher education ;).
Your post about the fellow who developed an app as an application has stuck with me since I read it. Considering your focus has been on how higher education must adapt to social media - this was an ideal example.
Great start Kate - look forward to seeing a draft of your digital paper.
-Krystal
Good idea Krystal about following the retweeted path in Storify; I didn't even think of that. Same with Pinterest. I think I also may mention that after the start of this course, my twitter followers has grown; I have many more followers, especially in the last 2 weeks. I wonder why.... :)
DeleteHi Kate,
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you're on a really great path so far. It will definitely be interesting to see when and where most of the blog inquiry came from.
I also had never blogged before this class and I found Blogger to be difficult to use. In a world of instant access and user-friendly devices, I had to really concentrate on the steps it took to create something as simple as a blog!
Your style of writing is very engaging. As I mentioned above, your security blog stood out to me the most. You had some great tips for educators.
Kate, I too was pretty new to blogging personally. It was a totally new experience for me. However, along the lines of security and privacy policies/terms of use, I had some experience. Working for a law firm, rules and ethical guidelines for web presence and activity are much different than other businesses.
ReplyDeleteEven though I had never participated in personally blogging, through handing blog posts for my office, I thought that I had a pretty good understanding of the purpose and tactics. However, I have really learned a lot about the importance of substantive content that really engages readers and creates dialogue. Most of our blog work is done specifically for the purposes of search engine optimization (on our owned pages) and back linking and citations. These areas are so important to our results rankings, we have really never expanded the blog beyond this realm.
As a result of this class, I think I will recommend to the firm that we try to sculpt a more dialogue provoking blog in the future. Looking forward to your paper. Good luck with Storify, I know I've had my issues with it so far. -Kris
Hi Kate,
ReplyDeleteI wish I followed your blog the whole time because this has been very interesting to look through today! Your layout is very appealing and all of your content is interesting. Have your posts been pinned or re-tweeted? This is something I struggled with. Facebook shares were no problem but my lack of followers on other sites made that aspect difficult.
-James
Hi James- well thank you for the nice comment! It's nice to know that you would have been a follower had our class been longer! I did have several retweets and repins....and not just by members of this course. I'm doing more analyzing this week, and will have more of my thoughts about it published soon. Can't wait to read what you have either!
DeleteKate,
ReplyDeleteCan you tell me how you posted this link to your draft on Storify? I cannot seem to post a link that works for others to view. Did you "publish" the story first? I have not done that because I was afraid I may not be able to edit it afterward. Looking for some advice. Thanks
Kate, your project looks great. Nothing else to add...really nice work!
ReplyDelete