Category Archives: Exploring Social Media

The Ins & Out of a Privacy Policy

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The Ins & Outs of Instagram-Prezi

Instagram is the snapshot into the lives of its users however few understand what they are signing up for. The privacy policy of Instagram has been controversial since it was acquired by Facebook. In the past 3 years privacy lines are still being crossed. This breakdown of the privacy policy will show some of the concerns users are having with this platform.

 

Prezi 🙂 

I have used Prezi for a presentation several years ago. After a 4 year gap I did have to spend some time relearning how to maneuver the site. I actually prefer Prezi to Powerpoint because it allows more creativity in how the presentation flows. I love the zoom feature and the surprises that can be added to a presentation with the amount of space that is available in one path. The most confusing part of the experience was customizing paths and trying to rework and delete content.

Pinterest : A Virtual Inspiration Board

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https://prezi.com/zmsl04agazgi/pinterest-the-social-scrapbook/

Pinterest is essentially a photo-sharing site where users can catalog ideas. It’s easy as uploading, saving, sorting, and managing photos, primarily known as “pins” on the site through collections known as pinboards. Pinboards are usually organized around a central topic or them making it accessible for other users to find and add the pin unto their own board as well. Boards range from food & recipes to tattoos and cars. The range of themes and topics are endless. There’s nothing that you can’t draw inspiration from on this social network.

 

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670681/ben-silbermann-pinterest

The image above, provides an overview of the social network’s demographic with nearly 80% of Pinterest’s users being women, most between the ages of 25 and 54, according to Google Double Click Ad Planner.

Prezi vs. Powerpoint

I found myself struggling to use Prezi and didn’t like how time consuming it was. PowerPoint is my ‘go-to’ software when making presentations because its simple to  and doesn’t come with a whole lot of baggage like Prezi. Powerpoint is without a doubt more user-friendly. The interface of Prezi was a bit overwhelming when I first made an account because it was not a program I was taught to use in school. I had to watch a video before I could begin with my presentation. I have to admit, even after watching a video I was still overwhelmed and frustrated because of all the animations, zooming, templates, etc. I think I’ll stick to using Powerpoint as the simple slide themes can be redesigned to look more professional and modern, while the straight progression of the presentation makes it simple for anyone to follow.

Facebook “Rules”

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Facebook contains many popular components such as the wall, which is essentially a virtual bulletin board. Messages left on a member’s Wall can be text, video or photos. Another popular component is the virtual Photo Album where photos can be directly uploaded. Although there is no limitation on quantity, Facebook has the right to remove any inappropriate or copyrighted images.  Facebook also has an interactive album feature that allows its member’s “friends” to comment on each other’s photos and identify (tag) people in the photos. My presentation entails some of the main features and rules of Facebook, predominantly, its origin, uses, and data policy.

Creating this project on Prezi instead of PowerPoint was challenging for me. I have used Prezi before but this time, I went even further and tried using the Prezi CSS editor feature.  I like that it gives me a big space to zoom in and out and that it flows flawlessly from slide to slide; however, it does have deficiencies such as limited fonts.  Although PowerPoint is much easier to use, once you get the hang of Prezi, it looks much more professional and effective.  Overall, I give it the thumbs up provided you have training!

Image result for thumbs up

www.clipartpanda.com/categories/smiley-face-clip-art-thumbs-up

https://prezi.com/lschyqw7gu3e/facebook-rules/

 

 

 

LinkedIn: Can You Recommend Me?

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LinkedIn: Can You Recommend Me?

LinkedIn is considered to be one of the most important platform for being an professional with over 1,000,000 active users. For many professionals who seek credibility often times ask past co-workers, mentors or professors for recommendations.  Many users who have recommendations stand out to recruiters. It is very significant because professionals seek validation from past/current employers. Another community within the LinkedIn community is the group capability. Groups allow liked-minded professionals to join in on important discourse related to their fields or wherever their interests lie. In the presentation I pose the question do groups play a role in exclusion of certain users?  But at the same time recommendations and groups play an essential role in how you represent yourself.

 

Prezzi

To my surprise, I found Prezi to be difficult. The presentation software same seemed easy when I first set up the account even the introductory how it works presentation to be exhausting. It was very interesting trying out Prezi for the first time. I had no idea idea what template to choose so I chose the most basic one. While using the basis template of Prezi, it still went over my head. For one thing, the zoom feature is my least favorite, it goes up and down and I’m still getting used to the set up of the software. In a way, I can understand the popularity with Prezi, it does allow certain features that Powerpoint does not like the movability of it, the cool storytelling of it, redirecting of the arrows. I say this not to discount Powerpoint because of its simplistic, organic features. Most traditional businesses tend to use Powerpoint, I think several start-up companies would love Prezi.

It was a great experience to try a new software— pretty cool! I’d be very impressed if someone takes the capabilities of Powerpoint and Prezi and create a super presentation software but in the mean time I’ll stick to Powerpoint for now.

 

 

Twitter: The power of a retweet

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http://prezi.com/rbn9g9rp3tdo/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Abstract

Twitter, launched on March 21, 2006, is a popular social media platform which has millions of users world wide. Twitter is unique because posts are limited to 140 characters, meaning you have to say what you want to say and get to the point.Twitter is used by many organizations to reach their customers, fans or supporters and to gain new marketing strategies. A powerful aspect of twitter though is a users ability to retweet posts, meaning you can forward, share and comment on things ranging from political posts, breaking news, weather and things as simple as comedy. Retweeting is both a blessing and a curse because a positive message as well as a negative one can be spread relatively quickly. There is no stopping a post once it gets going, even if the original poster removes the content its been copied so many times getting it back is almost never an option. However all in all twitter has a positive reputation in the social media community and continues to build its brand. Retweeting or just tweeting in general is specific to Twitters brand and it’s how people distinguish where a personal social media content came from. Donald trump has a major following and his tweets both good and bad get dragged all over the Twitterverse sometimes within minutes, showing just how quickly a retweet can spread.

Prezi Summary

This presentation was the first time I had ever heard of prezi let alone used it. I have to admit it was a bit of a challenge because it proves to be much more complex than power point. In my first ten minutes I had circles flying all over my screen, talk about overwhelming. Once I got the hang of it though I organized my content in sequential order, starting at what I was going to be talking about and then the sub topic within it. I typed out all the content and then I fixed the sizing, font and spacing. Once I had all my content in those tricky little circles I played with moving them around the screen and seeing where they looked best but also made the most sense. My big blunder though came when I added the background after I placed the circles, meaning I had to totally redo it when I chose the background.. oops! After all was said and done though I thought prezi was kind of cool though I didn’t find it to be more professional than power point.

 

Tumblr : What you need to know about fandoms

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Tumblr: What you need to know about fandoms

Fandoms are an essential part of the Tumblr discourse community. They in themselves create smaller discourse communities within Tumblr. They achieve high levels of participation and attention generation. They also create vast amount of various medias. In this presentation I will be showcasing my findings of how the Tumblr fandom communities work and how the fans interact within these communities. Fandoms are critical part of the Tumblr community in what they offer both in both creativity and production.

Reflection

Prezi was a new an interesting experience to say the least. I found the software to be very new and exciting. It was very different from the other presentation software that I had used before. In my eyes it seemed a bit more creative in the way it bounced around and the color schemes it offered. Although, it was a new experience and a good one at that I do not think I would be using Prezi again. The way it bounced around, zoomed in and out was hard to toggle with. The constant in and out motion was hard to follow and confused me. I wish that there was some sort of tutorial that help me understand the software more indepthly.

I experimented to the best ability with animations, transitions, and audio. I saw some similarities with the software that I have seen in others before; however, I wish that there were tabs to indicate functions instead of clicking to find out what functions were actually available. All in all, I found the experience to be very different yet very creative. If all the problems I encountered could be fixed I do believe Prezi would be a go-to site for me presentation.

Social Media in the Workplace

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“According to Lee Rainie and Berry Wellman, communities online are a new social operating system that gives rise to ‘networked individualism’ because, when you are in a community online, it is personal and individual and for multiple simultaneous users multitasking in the environment” (Cohen & Kenny 10). Diving a little deeper into the idea of “networked individualism”, I found that what it actually means is the transformation from group-based networks to individualized networks.

I have to disagree with the notion that being a part of an online community is personal; in fact, I think its welcoming to outsiders or those who share similar interests because essentially, users of the digital realm are producing content onto the World Wide Web for anyone and everyone to see. For instance, Republican staffer Elizabeth Lauten took to Facebook to criticize President Obama’s daughters. Take a look at the photo provided below.

GOP Staffer Calls Obama Daughters Classless, Dressed for the "Bar"

After reading her comment, what is your prospective on what she said?

Her comments created a media uproar of social media backlash with people taking it as far as saying she deliberately cyber bullied Sasha and Malia Obama; causing her to delete the post, set her social media account to private, issuing an apology online and finally, resigning. Cohen and Kenny make it a point to explain that “the content or material discussed through text, displayed through visuals, or heard through sound captures the imagination of the web user” in that case, giving digital users the freedom to express themselves freely without sugar coating over anything (10). Elizabeth Lauten did not sugar coat how she felt, as millions of others do everyday without thinking but writing in a digital space where she felt comfortable enough to speak openly to a community online. Unfortunately, what she had to say, not many people took a liking to it.

Technology is rapidly changing the way business is being handled and social media has become the dominate form of communication. Countless numbers of businesses use social media such as Facebook,  Twitter, and Google+. Social media can act as a customer service tool allowing consumers to interact with product from a specific company. At the same time, these companies must be mindful of balancing an employee’s privacy against the employer’s security. “In social media employees, should be transparent about what they are doing and why” because anything can happen, ideas or opinions can be misconstrued, taken out of context, and it effects negatively not only on the employee but the organization as well (Carroll 250). Recognizing that nothing on the web is truly private should have digital users stopping and asking themselves what is worth putting online for everyone to see.