Blog about social media and the various social media tools you currently use. What do you like and dislike about them? You must also respond to a minimum of two other students’ blog posts.
Reply 1: David Hubbard
Good day everyone and welcome back to my blog.
Here I’ll be reflecting on my own experiences with social media, including how I use each website and the different tools that I can call upon when needed. Up until a few years ago, Facebook was my ‘go-to’ social media website as the ability to create a ‘friends list’ with people I know, share updates about my own goings-on and to see what others were up to were great ways for keeping in touch with those I care about. Searching for old friends through the ‘friend suggestions’ feature can be fun to browse through. The ability to join ‘groups’ has been something I’ve particularly enjoyed for my photography hobby – receiving on my newsfeed images/video related to particular brands, cameras or even lenses that I’m interested in.
The addition of Facebook Marketplace has enabled me to keep an eye out for good deals on new/used camera equipment – although I haven’t purchased anything on it yet due to concerns about fraudulent sellers for example. Granted there are many other features on Facebook that are available to use, but I really don’t spend as much time on there as I used to. Hopefully as I begin to work toward a career in social media marketing, I will be able to get myself more familiar again and learn some of the newer features on offer.
One of my main grievances with Facebook is all the negative publicity regarding data privacy. While I can’t say that I’m all too familiar with the ins and outs of their breaches and misuse, word travels fast in the media and I can’t say that I’m not disturbed or put off using their social media site or products in the future. Hence, I don’t tend to post much on Facebook nowadays and try to limit posting images and videos for fear of them being misused. It’s an unsettling feeling which leaves me just using Facebook in a similar way to YouTube for photography posts and seeing what family & friends are up to (otherwise I’ll feel out of touch with people I know).
YouTube has probably become one of my most used social media sites. Primarily for its ability to cater to my personal needs with its ‘free’ DIY tutorials, photography/editing demonstrations, music playlists or showings of any new technological releases and reviews i.e. cell phones, computers, cameras, monitors etc. I like YouTube’s feature whereby you can ‘subscribe’ to specific individuals or channels in order to see any new content from them and relative to what I want to see. I follow several photographers and Adobe users that post once or twice weekly using equipment I’m interested in. The fact that it provides options to view pages such as ‘home’, ‘trending’ or ‘subscriptions’ feeds allow me to choose if I want to see popular posts, only my subscribed to videos or a combination of them. The only thing I dislike about YouTube is its video ads that either need to be viewed in full, or can be skipped about 5 seconds in. I tend to find that these ads are not typically related to anything I’m interested in and therefore are a nuisance to my social media activity.
Admittedly, I haven’t become too fluent in popular social media sites such as Instagram and Twitter. Twitter, I found too complicated to use and finding the posts that were more applicable to my likes/needs. The hashtag use is interesting to me from a marketing perspective, but overall, the website does very little for me on a personal level. Instagram, I do have an account that I view almost daily to see other people’s posts/stories, but I’ve honestly never posted on there myself. With Facebook already providing me with insights on people’s daily lives, Instagram has taken a back seat for now – but in the not too distant future, I would like to start easing myself across as I do prefer to look at people’s images as opposed to reading people’s posts I find. Plus, for my photography, I would eventually like to set up my own website and social media profiles in order to showcase my work and potentially start a small business if I can reach the level I believe I can.
That’s how I tend to interact with social media at the present time. I’d be interested to hear how ‘you’ make use of the various social media channels available to you.
Reply 2: Jessica Price
There are so many social media platforms available, but I only use some of them and for very specific reasons. I mainly use Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube. I feel like I should use Linkedin because it is a great platform network professionally and for employment opportunities. I just haven’t taken the time to update my Linkedin account. I also mainly use Snapchat to play with the filters with my kids and never post anything. I haven’t even been on Tik Tok and my daughter comes home telling me all about it, so I should definitely look into that. I have a Twitter account, but I rarely use it.
Instagram is by far my favorite platform to use. I use it to connect with friends, but also to be inspired by someone’s lifestyle, art, or projects. The only negative I see is that the analytics are lacking. You can use the analytics if you have a creative or business account. It doesn’t give in-depth data like Facebook even though it is owned by Facebook. I really enjoy the interface of Instagram the most. I also like the following aspects:
- Visual Interface, both pictures, and videos
- Stories – super fun and customizable with music and gifs, for videos and pictures’
- Highlights area to keep important stories longer than 24 hours
- Ease of shopping, getting more information by swiping up
- Other accounts are recommended based on accounts you follow
- Hashtags and the ability to track hashtags
I mainly use Pinterest for inspiration and recipes. I use it to find new ways to decorate my house, hairstyles or haircuts, DIY projects, kids’ activities, and more recently travel ideas. I like that is has a visual interface that is easy to use on mobile and desktop versions. I like that it will show more pins like the current pin you are viewing or the overall content you have been viewing. I don’t like how many times the outside links are broken, or that you can’t zoom in on a pin or picture or that you go to an external website and it can be hard to find the information sometimes. I sometimes find the navigation frustrating and that usually makes me get out of the app. I wish they had swiping actions or some sort of navigation help to navigate easier because I always forget to use the small arrow.
Facebook is my main way to stay in touch with people. Honestly, I very rarely post on it. I find the interface a little clunky. There is usually a lot of content I don’t care about and ads that don’t apply to me which I find frustrating. I think they have improved the comments and how you reply to them. I like the communities that are available to join and have joined many about parenting, creativity, and outdoor activities. I don’t like that there is a separate messaging app and you have to leave Facebook. I also don’t really like their marketplace interface. It can be difficult to find the posting information about the product you want to buy and it also is hard to navigate. I do like their Facebook TV and the shows they have and thought that was a clever addition to the platform. I also really like how in-depth their analytics or Facebook Insights are.
YouTube
I mainly use youtube to watch instructional videos or product reviews and have used it for recorded webinars for SNHU. I like how easy it is to use and how you can subscribe and be notified of new content. I like that it keeps playing the next video unless my kids are watching on their tablet and then they never want to stop.
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