Social Media: Using it Strategically - A Rough Draft of My Storify

Social Media: Using it Strategically

This is a review of how I've learned and used social media media platforms as beneficial tools in Integrated Marketing Communications. By Nicole Valerio


*Please see my Storify Post with correct images, for some reason I could not get them to transfer over with my blog post. Any help you can offer me on this would be fantastic!

BACKGROUND:
In completing my Master's Degree in Integrated Marketing Communcations at Marist College, one of the most interesting courses thus far has been Social Media Strategies and Tactics. Throughout this course we learned how to create a Blog, manage a Twitter accounts, "pin" on Pinterest, and had the opportunity to participate in an interactive Facebook Group. I will be sharing my overall learnings and experiences from this course in this Storify paper. Posted below is a link to my blog, which will be referenced throughout this Storify.

Social Media Strategies & Tactics

This blog was created as a learning tool for interaction between students studying Social Media Strategies and Tactics as part of the Marist College IMC program. All comments, feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome and discussion is encouraged. I retain the right to remove offensive content if necessary. Ie.

Nicole Valerio

INTRODUCTION:Being somewhat familiar with social media for personal use prior to this class, I was excited to learn more about how to use social media as a professional tool that can benefit one's own career, business, and/or organization. I am about halfway through the IMC program at Marist and have really enjoyed the program so far. I received my Bachelor's Degree at Marist and thought completing my Master's Degree online through my alma mater. Throughout my experience professionally, social media has been present and I found that it has become not only important, but essential to know how to use tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in a manner that comes across as professional and informative.

PLANS & POLICIES

David Meerman Scott stated that blog have a become a popular way to create content "because the technology is such an easy and efficient way to get personal (or organizational) viewpoints out into the market." (Scott, 2013) I found that creating a blog was not all that difficult, and it was an effective way to communicate topics and start discussions with my fellow classmates in Marist Com610. My Site Policies can be viewed by clicking here.

"Comments from readers offering different viewpoints from the original post are actually a good thing on a blog, because they add credibility to your viewpoint by showing two sides of an issue and by highlighting that your readership is passionate enough to want to contribute to a debate on your blog." (Scott, 2013) My plan was to share my blog posts each week using Twitter and Pinterest as promotional tools to attract users and encourage interaction on my blog posts. When posting my blogs, I tagged key words such as "social media," "twitter," "marketing," "Marist," etc. to help promote search. Below is an example of how I used Twitter to promote my posts. I always made sure to hashtag the topics we were discussing, along with our course hashtag "#marist610" to make it easy for students to locate.
 

ACTIVITIES
At the start of each week, I made sure to post my blogs by the Wednesday deadline to enable students to start their comments and discussions by mid week. I made sure to follow up with each student who commented on my blog, offering answers, new topics, and personal insight to whatever they contributed to the discussion.

In order to keep my blog posts interesting, I took Eric Qualman's advice and included photos and video links. Qualman quite simply put that "photos can drive a tremendous amount of traffic by people looking for images via search engines. Also, they make the article more enjoyable for your readers." (Qualman, 2013)

I also used  Qualman's advice and added my posts to Pinterest with the image I used to generate traffic to my blogs. "If you have a particularly great image you've posted, make sure that you post and pin the image on places like Pinterest." (Qualman, 2013) Below is an example of one of my 'Pins' on February 25th.

Pin by Nicole Valerio on My Social Media Class Board | Pinterest

ANALYSIS
In order to analyze how successful my blog was throughout the course, I measured it by how many page views and comments I received each week. Although one of my goals was to increase comments, I maintained a steady average of 17-18 views each week. My post in Week 6, received 74 page views and 17 comments, in comparison to my post from Week 5 which received 61 page views and 18 comments, and then lastly in comparison to my post from Week 4, which received 69 views and 19 comments. I was satisfied to have increased my page views in Week 6 to the highest I've seen.
Below is a recap of the views and comments I received. (Actually, if someone could help explain to me how I can correctly display these statistics from Blogger, that would be really helpful. I'd like to transfer the visuals over to Storify so everyone can actually see them on here rather than having to click an outside link.)

Below is another example of how my page views increased, each time I participated in another classmate's discussion, or used a promotional tool.

CONCLUSION

"Blogs are free like a puppy, not free like a beer. In order for them to grow strong and healthy, they require time and care." (Qualman, 2013) To make sure your blog successfully runs, you have to keep up with it. I learned that comments should not be left unanswered for more than one day, otherwise users will lose interest on the topic and could even forget that they were interested in what you were writing about. It's important to interact with those who are commenting on your blog. As I quoted Scott above, comments from other readers "add credibility to your viewpoint by showing tow sides of an issue and by highlighting that your reader is passionate enough to want to contribute to your blog." (Scott, 2013) Make sure to keep your users and followers engaged by using social media to promote yourself and draw the reader in. Supportive content, such as video links and interesting images help to keep the blog more appealing.

Not only did I learn how to successfully maintain a professional blog, twitter, and pinterest account, I learned that its important to manage these accounts with responsibly and security. “When you’re doing stuff online, you should behave as if you’re doing it in public — because increasingly, it is.” (Lohr, 2010)
Also, by integrating your social media accounts together, you reach a wider audience than if you only relied on one social media platform.
  

WORKS CITED

1. Lohr, S. (2010, March 16). How Privacy Vanishes Online. Retrieved February 26, 2014, from The New York Times website:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/technology/17privacy.html?_r=1&
   
   Qualman, E. (2013). Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business, 2nd edition. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.
   
   Scott, D. (2013). The new rules of marketing & PR:How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases & viral marketing to reach buyers directly (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.