According to the Pew Research Center, about 7 in 10 Americans are using social media for various tasks such as connecting with other people, entertaining themselves, sharing information and look at news content. For the social media unit project, the N.E.W. students had to create their own social media campaign about a topic of their choice, during this process we have learned a new way for people to use social media. Since it's the social media unit, designing a social media campaign was a big part of the project that really reflects how well we understand the many ways that social media can be used to target different audiences and spread the word about diverse topics. We have learned that social media can be used as a tool instead of just something to look through when we're bored. Social media has become very popular over the years and is growing more and more. Most teens today are on social media and many adults are too, but not a lot of them are using social media to the best of it's abilities.
Because of the social media unit, my way of viewing social media has been shaped so that I understand how to use it and implement it strategically in targeting specific audiences in promoting something like a school project or idea. Instead of seeing social media as a way to contact people or a popularity contest, I now see it as a tool. In my unit project, I campaigned my idea of reducing your risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes by using social media as a way to promote my idea and get other people on social media to see my work. Before this unit, I wasn't the biggest fan of social media. I always thought that social media was just a big popularity contest where the pretty girls would get all the followers and the comments and the likes. Now, I view it differently; social media can be a way to contact not just family members, but experts too. A lot of the students that created a social science lab had to contact 10 professionals and interview them, many of the students used social media to find their experts in the field.
There are many different social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest. For my social media campaign, I used twitter because it is easier to use for this particular project. Twitter is probably one of the easiest and most convenient ways to use social media to promote your ideas. I enjoyed twitter especially because I could follow multiple doctors and people that had news about diabetes and I could re-tweet them so that my followers could learn more about diabetes. I could also post my own content on my twitter page too, like my videos from my unit project. I can also easily link my website on to my twitter profile too so that any of my followers can go see more of my work that I've been doing which will further help to spread the word on what I'm doing in school. I loved how twitter only allows 140 characters per tweet so that I can keep it nice, simple and clean so that my followers aren't intimidated by big paragraphs that will take forever to read. Twitter is easy to understand, I never had a twitter account before creating my social media platform but it was really easy to utilize. If ever needed again, I will definitely consider twitter when I need to create another social media campaign in future school projects or even anything outside of school.
Social media isn't just useful in school, it can be taken outside into the real world with careers, passions, traveling or anything else. My passion in life is dance, and I have a blog about ballet that I can promote through social media. Anyone can promote their website or blog by linking it in their bio on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Anyone can take what their passionate about and expand that into something greater like a blog. Having a blog can be time consuming but it can advance to be very successful and beneficial if promoted correctly. Linking blogs and other websites on social media profiles such as Instagram or twitter can lead to more views. Blogger also offers a great opportunity to help promote blog posts. If I am using blogger and I post a blog post, I can have google send a notification to alert all of my Google + followers that I am posting something. When it comes to someone's career or job, if they are an author, actress, singer, or any other kind of job that is very hard to obtain, social media can be a very important tool. Many singers are using YouTube to post videos of them singing or performing their art so that they can get themselves out there in the world and promote themselves. By using social media, many people can build a career for themselves.
In conclusion, the social media unit has been very beneficial to all N.E.W. students, especially me. It has opened my eyes and changed my view of social media and how I can use it as a tool to make me more successful in school, future jobs and any other activities. Social media is a great way to keep in touch with friends and family and show off that new haircut, but it's also a free way to advertise my ideas and work that I'm currently doing. Not only can I take what I've learned to my other classes, but I can take it with me through college and well into my future job. Thanks to the social media unit, I have a new tool that can take me to great places.
