Blog Post #15 Final Reflection #MillikinSMW17

Here we are. At the end of 15 weeks of learning about social media and best practices for sharing information, creating and curating content, and branding oneself or a company online. For this blog post, I’ll be summarizing three big picture ideas that I’ve learned over the past semester.

1. Consistency. At the beginning of this semester, the first thing we learned was that our social media profiles should all have the same profile picture, header picture, username, vanity url, and bio. In addition to our profiles, our online voice and tone should be consistent. This semester, we also learned about the importance of consistency in regular and scheduled posts. One component of our course that required us to be consistent was our tweets. Each week, we were required to tweet 5 tweets using the hashtag #MillikinSMW17. In our tweets, we should discuss things we learned in our readings or in class, questions for guest speakers, or any sort of knowledge on social media. Another component of our course that reenforced this concept of consistency was the weekly blog posts. Our blogs allowed us to reflect on learning in more than 140 characters. More importantly, the blog posts helped us develop a consistent voice.
2. Organization. Organization is essential in writing, especially on social media. I think the main component of the course that required us to be organized was the blog. I strived to make my blog posts organized so that they are easy and enjoyable to read. The second component that required organization was the research report and facilitation. In order to create an engaging and understandable presentation on research (from a peer-reviewed article that the rest of the class did not read), organization in the presentation was key to getting ideas and concepts across.
3. Know your audience. One of my favorite quotes from our class readings is “Utility x Inspiration x Empathy = Quality Content.” On social media, the goal is interaction or engagement (likes, comments, and shares). In order to get results, you have to know what your audience likes and dislikes. Our tweets really required us to know our audience. I used my personal twitter account to tweet with hashtag #MillikinSMW17, so I maintained my voice from my personal tweets. I found that even my followers who weren’t in our class were engaging with my tweets.

I’d like to thank all of my Twitter followers for interacting with my tweets for class, classmates in #MillikinSMW17 for a great semester of conversations (both on Twitter and in class), and our amazing professor, Dr. Amy Delaney, for piloting this course with us and just being an amazing professor and person.

P.S. I graduate in exactly one week and to say I’m excited is an understatement.