Social media: neighbors talk about the new kid on the block during Mass Comm Week
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| “Social Media: The New Kid on the Block” panelists speak to students. Pictured left to right: Kristen Sussman, Frank Burns, Courtney Doman, Jocelyn Lai, and Michael Bapko. Photo by Howard Slacum |
By Howard Slacum
There is a new kid on the block and today, residents in the new kid’s neighborhood gave a local’s perspective to Texas State students who might be interested in getting to know the kid.
The new kid is social media. He is popular enough to fill the 400-seat teaching theater in the LBJ building. And his neighbors, a five-member panel of industry experts, offered plenty of insider information, including speaking about one of the kid’s problematic characteristics.
“The big problem now with social media is that it’s noisy and there’s a lot of kind of useless posts,” says Frank Burns, who leads the services group at FeedMagnet. “Brands are seeking out something relevant that’s actually going to persuade people.”
Courtney Doman, the Social Media Specialist at Spredfast, offers some advice for breaking through the noise. “Social media is all about engagement,” says Doman.
To help students become better able to do that, she encourages them to sign-up for Spredfast’s webinar series”Social Engagement Prep School“, which begins Wednesday, Oct. 31 at 1:00 p.m. “We are going to be taking a deeper dive looking at: how do you spark engagement? How do you deepen brand loyalty? And how do you measure the results of that?”
Jocelyn Lai, Talent Acquisitions Manager with GSD&M, points out the role social media can have for job-seekers. Lai says she uses social media to identify top talent. “Who’s writing that awesome blog entry? I want to get to know that person, build a Twitter relationship with them and then direct message them when they’re in town.”
Students left the event with something of value. Sam Maxwell, a Junior majoring in Public Relations, said she benefited by learning, “…to mold your Twitter and Facebook to reach a bigger audience” and to “really look at who you’re talking to and what they want to hear and shape your message toward an audience.”
Advertising major and Senior Shawn Tripputi said, “what I benefited from is … what social media can do for a client [and] for a business.”
Mass Comm Week events continue through this Thursday.
4 thoughts on “Social media: neighbors talk about the new kid on the block during Mass Comm Week”
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Great article! I agree that social media has taken us to places that were never imaginable before. It’s amazing the stretch and reach social media has and the impacts (both positive and negative) that it can have on one thing. Many employers nowadays often use social to search for job seekers (i.e. LinkedIn) and in the same regard, social media and not using it wisely can cause someone to lose their job. A very interesting thing this new kid on the block is!
Excellent article! Personifying social media as the “new kid” was brilliant; it was a great hook that made me want to keep reading. Mr. Slacum did a great job of marrying information and interest.
Great job with the Article and with hooking me into reading it. I do not normally read up on articles like this, which says alot about the author. Fantastic work!
Well that was something new I learned for the day. I follow most of your writing on Facebook, your blogs, etc. I have come to enjoy your writing work. This article is another great piece from you Howard.