The end of Social Media is near. Do I need to say it…thank goodness! Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the class. I said in the beginning I was not jumping on this train willingly. I jumped on and enjoyed learning about the various types; it was extremely cumbersome trying to keep up with them all the time. Have you ever heard the saying “wired 24/7″? That is what I felt like even though I technically was not.
The final assignment…YouTube! I feel going into it the easiest assignment yet! All I had to do was find a video on YouTube that represented my branding throughout the class and embed it into my blog post.
I recently stumbled upon a new app for my android phone through Twitter called AllSportGPS from Trimble Outdoors. This app is available for androids, iphones and blackberries. There is a free version (of which I opted) and a pay version. The pay version is not expensive at only $3.99 for android however; I did not opt to pay because it is the principle. I pay enough already to use a smart phone the apps should be free! That’s my soapbox and I will climb down now.
This week’s assignment in social media class was to spend a week on Diigo, a social media bookmarking site. I don’t know about you but prior to the assignment I had never heard of Diigo. It sounded like an easy enough assignment: bookmark at least five sites pertaining to social media policy, bookmark at least five personal sites, include tags and descriptions, comment on at least 10 other links by other students and follow at least three people outside our class. To increase our grade you could do more then the minimum of the above items as well as highlight and/or post notes to articles. Is that it? I looked at the assignment and thought that was easy. Unfortunately, it was not quite as easy as I thought it would be.
As some of you know I ran a half marathon last Sunday in Erie, Pennsylvania, Presque Isle Park to be exact. The Presque Isle Park Half Marathon is a no frills run. I mean it was a run about running, no bands every few blocks, no spectator cheering sections on the course, just plenty of water, Gatorade and volunteers steering you in the right direction. The course was one loop around the park along the side of Lake Erie. The majority of the course was tree covered with the exception of a few open sunny stretches. There were supposed to be 1000 runners but in the end only 849 finishers. The event organizers did a wonderful job and my hat goes off to the Erie Running Club. I highly recommed this running event!
This week’s assignment was to spend a full week using LinkedIn. We had to join 2-3 groups with a 100+ members, post comments, initiate conversations and get three recommendations. Seems easy enough and I thought I was cooking with grease when I signed up and sent out my six recommendation requests. Where did I go from there?
Apparently I missed a key bit of information during class when it comes to blogging. I am supposed to blog more then the one time a week social media post. Where was I and how did I miss this key piece of information? I digress…now I know and here we go.
I am on a mission to run a half marathon in all 50 states plus D.C. I came up with the idea after traveling out of state to run two half marathons in the last couple of years. I thought with all the places I have run so far wouldn’t it be cool to run in unique or interesting places in each state while raising money for a worthy cause.
Social Media week three required the class to open a Facebook (FB) page. Ground rules: continuing with the branding one’s self theme, create a FB page, create a profile, find friends and post status updates 2-3 times a day. Join two groups with 100 plus members and join the group page for the class.
The assignment was to open a Twitter account and tweet for one week straight. Sounds easy right? The essential function of using Twitter is and was easy, however finding the time along with vacation, work, school and family it seemed that I was always behind. The ground rules for this Twitter assignment was to sign up for a Twitter account if you did not already posses one, check. Follow our classmates and anyone else you would like, check. Tweet using a 3-1-1 rule; three things in general for my audience, one thing in general about me and one specific thing about my brand, maybe a half check. (more…)