The aspect of COMM0014 that I found the most interesting, from a professional perspective, was the value of demographics and psychographics. Although identifying your ideal target audience might be relatively easy, getting to know them can prove more difficult. Preconceived notions of who we want to engage with our content might prevent us from identifying all of the possible stakeholders; cognitive biases and prejudices might lead us to believe certain things about the characteristics or motivations of our audience that are completely inaccurate. I would love to further explore these concepts in my own time.
A great deal of emphasis was placed on storytelling in this course. Although storytelling is necessary in initially engaging an audience, I see social media as more of a conversation. I found that the other side of our conversations was often missing. Whenever possible, I tried to engage with my fellow learners in our online discussion boards, but I might have extended more of an effort to do so if such interaction had been more actively encouraged.
I am grateful for the opportunity to hone my personal storytelling skills. Although I have been a professional editor for more than a decade, I have never seriously considered the possibility of becoming a writer. What feedback I have received on my efforts on this blog and in our assignments has been encouraging and welcome, and has made me less reticent about my musings outside of sharing them with my immediate circle of friends and family.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 
I really like the idea of social media as a conversation…especially once you are beyond the engagement part of the process.
I found the storytelling portion of the course to be a good refresher for me. I was a journalist in another life so being able to tell a story is not a new skill for me. Sometimes it’s not about telling a story but more about being strategic when comes to what we include.
You’re right…gathering psychographic and other key audience characteristics would be very difficult.
I would have liked to have been able to engage my fellow students…I just didn’t have the time. I am taking my last two social media certificate courses and it’s been a struggle.