Personal Reflection

Before completing this course, I thought of myself as a talented writer. Week after week, I was proving to myself that I had yet a lot to learn. This course has helped me with my creative writing and how I can tie it all together with directing my message to specific audiences. For example I have learned that when the target audience is children it is important to be yourself and not try to act like a child in effort to relate. After completing this Digital Communications course I now understand the importance of story telling when delivering digital content. Story telling not only helps achieve an attentive and cooperative audience, but it also keeps your audience intrigued and cooperative. Whenever I am delivering a story digitally or even verbally for that matter, I make sure I am telling it in storytelling format. This is the most effective way to deliver your message to your audience. I want to tell stories that are of interest to my target group. Although I have completed this course and I now feel a lot more comfortable communicating digitally, I still realize I have a lot of room for improvement and will continue to further educate myself in order to improve.

Do people know your story?

I want to talk to you about a question by John Jantsch. The question is what is your favourite customer story. I am currently working on establishing a septic installation business. Last year I was gaining experience working for a local company. One hot summer day in July, I was installing a septic tank in a near by area with a coworker. When arriving at the job site, we quickly realized that there was no one home. All the blinds were shut and all the lights were off. We came to a point in the installation where we needed to test the system by flushing the toilet. We decided tot are a chance and knock at the door to see if anyone would answer. This elderly lady who must of been about eighty years old greeted us and nicely invited us inside. She made us something to eat and ended up being the nicest lady. This goes to show that you should not judge a book by its cover. We thought that the person living in this house would be cold and distant. To our surprise the nicest lady we had both ever met answered and fixed us a delicious lunch.

Personal Brand

This week I will talk to you about my personal brand. What sets me apart from my competitors is my dedication and my will to ever give up. I am also very intelligent and am good in resolving problems under pressure. I am friendly and out going which leads to meeting new people and forming bonds. As much as personal branding is important I tend not to worry about what people think of me. I feel that coming off fake or trying to hard is extremely self destructive. My colleagues admire that I am calm, cool and collective even in some of the most stressful situations. I seem to always find a resolution to fix any problem. Personally, I think that panicking and stressing out over things that you have no control over are pointless. Keeping a stable mind set is what allows me to find solutions to problems. My colleagues also admire that I not only worry about my self but I will also go out of my way to help others. I put a lot of importance into a team concept. Everyone is good at different things and when you help people they are going to want to help you in return. That is how the world turns.

B2C Case Study

This week I researched a business who interacted with their consumers online. John Warden Septic is a local septic tank and portable toilet business in my area. They interact with their consumers online through social media. They are using Facebook in order to reach out to their customers. They use the features on Facebook to push out ads of their business to attract new customers.The quality of their interaction with customers is good. They listen to the consumers wants and needs and then do their best to accommodate. You can see that they empathize with consumers and really take action when it comes to solving problems and accommodating their clients needs. Obviously with this product it can be a necessity for many people. This company seems to understand the importance of their service and product. It seems they’re building relationships with their consumers. Their approach seems to be working and The response of the public is positive. I think that listening to the wants and needs of consumers in a B2C business is vital, especially when you are relying on returning consumers to keep your business rolling. This business’s approach is working. they are using their online interaction with consumers to assure their  happiness with the service and product. They are also looking for feedback in order to know how they can improve their company.

Target Audiences

This week I researched the target audience for one of my hobbies. I am interested and participate in online hockey pools. I have always wanted to start my own pool. After looking through my Facebook groups, I realized that my audience would mostly be men. The best way to reach out for this hockey pool would be through social media because it is the easiest way to gather a large group of people together. I can also find out before asking someone to join my group, if they have an interest in hockey and in hockey pools. After finding out my audiences demographics and psychographics I realized they aren’t so important being that Facebook is free and I am already aware of their interest in hockey. I will be dealing with a diverse group of people and anyone will be able to join anywhere in the world. I will have to involve content that is culturally relevant and current in order for everyone to feel comfortable and want to be involved in this activity. Targeting your audience is very useful especially when communicating online since it eliminates barriers and enhances communication.

Communication Styles

This week after reading the lesson I found out that all content is a form of story telling. It seems pretty obvious but I guess I have never thought about it until now. Story telling has been used for many years in ways such as entertainment, education and culture preservation. In order to achieve success in these areas it is important to have effective communication. It is important to be clear and to the point in order for the audience to clearly understand the message. In a written message its important to read over and avoid spelling and grammar mistakes. It is important to create your own writing style and that you sound like yourself. This is more entertaining for the reader and helps the writer stay consistent. It is important that when you are communicating with an audience that you direct the message towards them. This is where persuasive writing comes in. It is important to know the audience you are communicating to. It is important that you get your audience to react to what you’re saying. I like to think about it as don’t think so much about what you want to say but what your audience wants to hear or is interested in. What it is they need from me. You want to give them the necessary information at the beginning incase they stop reading.

A useful research tool for school is Pinterest. I first found out about Pinterest from a friend and realized it could be used for ideas on almost any subject. It has a whole section for education. Pinterest is different because it is so well organized. It can give students the chance to find ideas that work for each individual. I personally used an idea that helped me organize my self and this has saved me a lot of time scrambling to find documents.

What I did this summer COM0014-842

Last summer was pretty hard to beat.  It’s as though everything was lined up and set for perfection.  Today I will be talking about my trip to Niagara Falls.  I have been there before as a kid but as many of you know, when your parents take you somewhere at the age of five, it is unlikely that you will remember.  All this to say that when I saw those big waterfalls, it was as though I was seeing them for the first time. They were absolutely beautiful and I would recommend going to see them to anyone. The strip is the place to be. There is so many possible activities. You’re never bored there; that is, until you run out of money. The thing is that every activity you take part in is costly. I suggest walking around and observing before deciding which activity you want to do. There is honestly something for all tastes and it ranges from haunted houses, wax museums, games, rides, historical events and materials to all the restaurants you could imagine. The night life is pretty good as well. They have a firework show on the falls which I was able to see from the window in my room. It was such a beautiful site to see.  For anyone who wants to be romantic with their significant other, I highly recommend it. During this trip I also experienced the Maid of the Mist which is a boat that goes in and around the falls. This tour was an amazing experience and when you see the falls up close, you can appreciate how big and powerful they really are. Did you know there were people who attempted to jump down the falls? After personally witnessing the Falls, I think jumping down these falls would have to be a suicide mission. All in all, it was an amazing trip and an amazing experience. It really finished off a great summer. A lot of folks were in disbelief when I told them I actually lost weight on this trip. My wallet became as light as a feather!