COM0015 Assignment 5: Events

I couldn’t manage it. This is the one project I did not manage to meet the requirements for. Between my courseload(s) and full-time work with an inconsistent schedule, finding an event to attend escaped me. I’m assuming that I have classmates with schedules even crazier than mine who managed to complete this assignment, but this one simply fell off my plate.

Nevertheless, I have attended events in the past. I can’t prove that I attended them; I have many videos of myself at these events, but none that I’d be willing to share. This is because the events themselves weren’t specifically for professional endeavors, and we weren’t getting paid, but we were there as professional guests. Our activities at these events were conducted with networking in mind. At the very least, I’d like to be able to tell a story related to the topic at hand and I hope you’ll find it interesting.

I’ve mentioned before that I used to be a part of a group YouTube channel. Not only were these people my colleagues, but they were (and are) my best friends. If you’re curious, you can read about our wildly tumultuous origins in this post from the Fall.

As a group, we attended several conventions as guests/industry pros and saw the results of our channel’s growth in real-time, with every convention we attended. Our first convention was in Cleveland, in the Fall of 2012, where we hosted a blended panel about our content, with a boost from more popular figures in the industry. Our audience consisted of maybe 50 people and I’m sure it was only because we had more prominent people helping our panel. No one knew who we were at the time. Still, I’ll never forget meeting with other industry figures in hotel rooms and restaurants to discuss future plans for collaboration, or sharing upcoming projects with each other. We made our first connections at this convention.

Throwback to what our earliest events looked like (Source)

The following convention took place in Seattle, in the Summer of 2013. By this point we were prominent figures in our industry ourselves. I was personally picked out of a vendor hall for an interview, our team was included in several panels, including an exclusive panel of our own and people knew who we were. Our panels held about 100 people at this point.

From there on, we attended mainly the largest conventions in our industry as headlining guests. Our panels held hundreds of people. As individuals of the group we were all sought after, and as a team we were signing autographs and networking in green rooms. It’s a little hard to believe now, since the channel no longer exists and these events are all in the past. I learned about in-groups and cliques in the professional world, and how to handle competition that is actively seeking to trample all over you. The solution was obvious: don’t respond to provocation, and be on your best behavior at all times. The hard part was also coming to an agreement with a friend who had ended up on a few people’s blacklist, the mutual decision being that we would temporarily dissociate from each other. This was the last big convention we ever did as a team, intentionally.

I’m still involved in creative endeavors, and hope to someday guest at more conventions with these new projects. The networking was invaluable, and seeing our real-life audience grow over the years was an unforgettable experience. All my past experiences at these events have all been extremely useful, and I’m looking forward to the time we can resume normal activities.

COM0015 Blog 3 – Professional Networking Now and in the Future

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We’ve officially reached the one-year anniversary of the first lock-down, which merits some reflection. This past year has taught me that no amount of planning or strategy is ever owed to give us the results we want. Everything is on pause, and it’s difficult to stay in stasis while the pressure to create a life for yourself mounts further and further. That’s not to say progress can’t be made in difficult situations, however. This year has also been a lesson in patience, resilience and resourcefulness. So, even though I may not be able to plan for networking events or gather with people in-person for extended periods of time, I can still take steps to move forward. Such steps include:

– Continuing to maintain relationships with colleagues
– Keeping tabs on future projects from past clients
– Additionally, keeping tabs on keywords from my industry and listen to what people are saying
– Continue studying relevant material. I’ve already started taking the Digital Analytics course from Algonquin to expand my understanding of information gathered from websites.

I consider myself very privileged to have these options open to me, and I’m looking forward to developing my skills more. Opportunity still exists, just in different avenues, and those are the positive points I will focus on.

COM0015 Blog 2: Strong & Weak Organizations

Most of the friends I keep in everyday contact with are long-distance. Most of our communication has been over the web even before the pandemic, so nothing changed about our relationships. However, we all get bored very easily, and we’re all pop culture consumers. So, even though my friends and I are all adults, we regularly get together over social platforms like Discord or Skype and play games like Among Us.

InnerSloth created an Among Us twitter account fairly recently, and it has already amassed a following of 1.1 million people. The following things stood out to me from their Twitter profile.

– Lots of human personality in their posts, including outward appreciation for their audience.
– Incredible amount of interaction with their followers. Just take a look at their Tweets with Replies tab.
– Creative images in posts. Take a look at their Media tab.
– Collaboration with other companies for products their demographic are likely to also enjoy.
– They indulge in their audience’s “online culture”
– Highlighting talented followers through retweets.
– Overall making their social media page as fun to follow as their game is to play.

It was much harder to find an example of a poor social media presence because, as a consumer, I tend to not follow bad social media profiles. Or if I find one, I click away and immediately forget the company. I had to turn to Google to find an example of a struggling social media presence, in hopes of jogging my memory about a social media profile I had encountered before. I did not find exactly what I was looking for, but in my search, I came across a story about a social media failing from DiGiorno Pizza that caught my attention and wanted to talk about.

According to NR Digital Branding’s article on Bad Social Media Marketing, in 2014, DiGiorno Pizza used a trending hashtag on Twitter to promote their product. This isn’t necessarily a bad marketing move, looking at the situation at face value, until you understand what the hashtag DiGiorno appropriated was actually about.

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Even without knowing the full context, I understood what this hashtag was supposed to be about – domestic violence. Evidently, the person who made this mistake did not look into the hashtag before posting, which seems somewhat mind-boggling to me. This speaks of a few failings on DiGiorno’s part: failing to research their marketing and knowing what audience their post would reach, as well as failing to maintain professional standards in their response. The “apology spree” (Radenovic, 2020) that occurred after this post is very telling of this employee’s social media skill. We all make mistakes, but this one surely could have been prevented with very little effort.

References:

Among Us [@amongusgame]. (2021, February 16). DON’T MIND ME JUST VERY EMOTIONAL OVER HOW SUPPORTIVE AND NICE EVERYONE IS. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/dualwieldstudio/status/1361801962178584582

Among Us [@amongusgame]. (2021, February 16). Roll a natural Crewmate with these new official @AmongUsGame dice by @thebluemimic! [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame/status/1361775235914203142

Among Us [@amongusgame]. (2020, December 16). Perfect. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/AmongUsGame/status/1339404657580453889

Radenovic, N. (2020, March 27). Bad Social Media Marketing Examples: 4 Real-Life Brands. Retrieved from https://nrdigitalbranding.com/blog/bad-social-media-marketing-4-business-examples/

COM0015 Blog 1: Tools and Sources

Last semester, I decided to use Brand24 for an assignment, and also to monitor my own personal social media endeavors on top of the company I chose for the class. Google Alerts/Feeder combination has also been extremely helpful.

Brand24: I used the free trial of this application last semester for another class. It was immediately apparent to me how to use it, I enjoyed the intuitive layout. I was impressed by how easy it was to find where people were talking about your content, and I found the report they provided to summarize all activity very useful and interesting. Unfortunately my free trial expired weeks ago, but should I find the budget to use it again, I would do so gladly.

Google Alerts/Feeder: This little combination was essential to my assignments last semester, and I gained an appreciation for listening to and tracking key words. You have to experiment with different term combinations to get the best results, but it has been a great guide for knowing where activity pops up around your terms. I continue to use these apps for my personal endeavors, although since I am a small content creator there is not much for me to track just yet.

Personally, I get most of my news and updates from Twitter and YouTube, which I use as springboards into general searches for more information. Twitter and YouTube may bring a certain topic or update to my attention, which will lead me to seek out more websites to learn more. On Twitter, I have often been able to keep track of trends and important updates using trends and shares. It has also been a valuable tool to gauge my own audience’s engagement, and determine what actions are producing the best results.

I run a webcomic with my significant other, and we have a small following on our socials. These past couple of months have been rough productivity-wise, which resulted in fewer content updates. We tried to make up for the loss with increased social media posting and other forms of content to share. My partner expressed a desire to increase the amount of content he releases per week, which I thought would not be productive in the long run, as he would run the risk of burnout. He already publishes a couple times a week as is.

By listening to our audience on Twitter, and keeping track of our engagement, I was able to dissuade my boyfriend of wanting to publish content more often. Despite fewer instances of published content, our audience engagement has increased significantly. People have been talking about our webcomic on external sites more often, people have been promoting us more. I relayed this information, and told him that we might want to consider that merely increasing our update schedule isn’t the only or more important factor in increasing our reach. There are other, less intensive ways we can build our brand. This is how Twitter has been an essential tool to my personal endeavors in social media.

COM0014 Blog 7: Reflection

This course made me think about my story and mold it into something I can share with and present to other people. Not only is this valuable as a business tool, but on a personal level it helps me realize the kind of value my story has to other people around me.

Going forward, knowing my story will help me build a brand I can consistently rely on. I don’t feel quite so horrified at the idea of making my personality into a brand. Now, I feel like I can include my genuine personality in my business, as opposed to creating a “business persona”. The difference comes down to finding what others might connect to in my story, the positive and negative. I think people would connect to my struggle with self-worth as much as they would my empathy for people. Success is all the more inspirational when it comes from struggle, so that is something I now know I shouldn’t hide away at all costs.

Overall I am very grateful for what I have learned in this course, and I am excited to see where my newfound knowledge will guide me.

COM0014 Blog 6: My Story

It’s hard to say which trait I displayed first in life: my love of music, or my anxiety. They’ve both been part of my life for longer than I can remember, and at times they even seem to feed off one another. Perhaps they developed in tandem, in combination with genetic predisposition and external factors.

One thing has remained consistent, however; whenever inner turmoil threatened to get the better of me, I dove into my passions to keep me thriving. When pre-teen me couldn’t tell the adults in my life about my dwindling self-esteem, I turned to songs like Try by Nelly Furtado or Don’t Let Me Get Me by P!nk to express it.

When I was a young adolescent, I became old enough to understand the full weight of a certain event in my life that had unconsciously affected and shaped me over the last decade – I also discovered my love of musical theatre and started taking private voice lessons. Musical theatre altered my trajectory at a time where I needed it most. On the days I felt as though I had no future, music made me feel like I was worth something.

The earliest tape I could find in my stash.

Today I know that no matter what happens, I will always fall back on my passions to carry me through. That’s how I know my voice is my life’s work, and why I will always keep fighting to pursue my passions.

COM0014 Blog 5: Brand Jen

In search of my self-worth, my therapist once told me to think of people as an assorted fruit basket. Maybe some people have bright, shiny, delicious apples, some people have squished grapes at the bottom of their basket, and others might have downright rotten plums. We can’t have it all, but we all have qualities that set us apart. It’s within this frame that I remind myself of what I have to offer people, even though at times it may be difficult to see the value in these traits.

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I may not be the most outgoing person in the room, and I struggle with taking initiative. I often feel behind my peers, child-like and lost. I’m paralyzed by self-doubt.

You may be wondering why I’m starting this post with my negative traits, and I started wondering that too when I started writing. Maybe it’s to mitigate the guilt I feel for listing my positive traits, for acknowledging them and deeming them valuable in the face of my noticeable flaws. It’s important to recognize our positive traits, though. By knowing what makes us shine, we can work on creating the best version of ourselves, and be confident in what we all have to offer.

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So what do I have to offer? I am reliable; I show up on time, every time. I can take criticism, learn from my mistakes and take direction. This is because it’s important to my core character that I do the best I can at whatever I’m needed for, so I put genuine effort into every task I take up.

I am also a positive person. I can smile through negativity and laugh through stress. During this pandemic, my managers at work have thanked me for keeping a positive attitude around my co-workers and helping others feel comfortable. I take pride in knowing I have helped make my workplace more enjoyable and less stressful for people.

I don’t judge people easily, unless they are unkind. I am patient and empathetic, but I will not tolerate malicious behavior. As someone who often felt outside the norm growing up, I don’t want to make people feel as though they have to be perfect for me. Knowing when someone feels comfortable to be themselves around me makes me happy.

COM0014 BLOG 4: Oats Overnight

I heard of Oats Overnight through a Twitter follower of a YouTube personality I follow. That sounds like a very roundabout way of finding a company, but it was as simple as seeing a Twitter mention on my timeline. I’m always looking for better ways to manage meals, because cooking is the one thing I am extremely lazy about – I just have no patience or energy by the time I’m hungry. So, something I can prepare overnight and just grab in the morning sounds like a good option to me.

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I decided to check out their Twitter page, but was more interested in finding their website to peruse their products. Their website was very easy to find from their Twitter page, although interestingly, their Twitter page is not linked from their website. Instead, their Facebook and Instagram pages are linked.

Upon further investigating their Twitter page, I could see why Oats Overnight did not link back to it. Their Twitter page is a complete anomaly compared to their other social media, to the point where I became unsure if it is an official account. Their Twitter timeline is filled with Simpsons reaction images and GIFs, in every single Tweet since March. The account uses the brand’s name, logo and website. Additionally, the account’s mentions are filled with legitimate customers, and not satire responses. So ultimately, I’m confused about the intention of this Twitter page. If it’s not an official page, why hasn’t Oats Overnight done anything about it, since it appears to be diluting their brand’s image?

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Oats Overnight’s Instagram and Facebook pages are professional, aesthetically pleasing, and consistent with their website. These pages also get a much higher response rate than the Twitter page. I decided to go through the checkout process, and potentially order some of their products. Selecting the products you want and checking out was easy, but I backed out before paying. I determined the product was too expensive to be worth it. $45 USD is too much for 8 packets of oatmeal, and they don’t have very good deals with their subscription in my opinion.

Although I had backed out of the checkout process, I did give the company my email in case they did have good specials in the future. Immediately, they sent me an email reminding me about the items left in my cart. To me, the emails seemed pushy, although I recognized they were meant to be playful. They proceeded to send me another few emails in the next few days, even offering up to 15% off, which still wasn’t a good enough deal for me to buy. After I ignored their discount email, Oats Overnight stopped messaging me except to promote new products.

Overall, while Oats Overnight seems to have amassed an audience that responds well to their social media, I believe I am simply not part of that audience. I’m left somewhat confused and alienated from their social media, which I am disappointed about because I wanted to like this company.

COM0014 BLOG #3: Targeting Writers

I’ve been writing fiction since I was a little kid. It started with short stories about made-up adventures I had with the neighborhood kids. A few years later my hobby took an awkward, adolescent turn with fan-fiction. Unfortunately for me, some of my angsty, teenage abominations still exist on the web today.

A screenshot of something so terrible I had to blur it out

Eventually, though, I started writing full-length novels of my own original stories. Since then, I’ve been hunting for every bit of knowledge about writing that I can get a hold of.

The online writing community is vast and diverse. The fan-fiction circles are dominated by teens and young adults, and the general fiction circles are all-encompassing. Outside of fan-fiction circles, the demographic for this hobby tends to be young and middle-aged adults, between 20 and 50 usually. This is a very wide demographic, one that is difficult to cater to in its entirety.

These days, I find myself perusing a community called “Booktubers”: readers and writers on YouTube. Most Booktubers tend to be adult women, typically under the age of 40. Their audience tends to be even younger, though. I saw evidence of this when a friend and I attended a book convention in New York City last year; the panels and events for YouTube personalities were attended mostly by teenage and young adult women.

This line was just for one event.

Authors are far more heavily present on social media than they were 10 years ago, it seems. Twitter is a major hub for authors to promote their work and connect with their readers and industry peers. Their use of the platform is full of interesting ways to capture interest and encourage engagement. From giveaways, exclusive promotions, teasers, and event announcements, readers are constantly hyped up for new material from their favourite authors.

Do you follow any authors on social media? What do you like about following them?

COM0014 Blog Post #2 – Storytelling: Fiction vs. Business

Storytelling is not just for fictional works. Storytelling is essential to business as well. In order to connect with our audience, we have to be sure that our story will be clear and will resonate with them. In order to reach a certain audience, we have to listen to the conversations they’re having and know what they need. Our story has to be compatible with the audience’s needs.

I’ve been writing fictional stories since I was a kid. Pictured below are 12 notebooks that I kept over my childhood and adolescence, they’re all full.

The black book on the bottom right is my most recent notebook.

There are at least 3 more notebooks not pictured that are only partially filled. Admittedly, I have a bit of an obsessive streak because at least half of those notebooks are filled with snippets and ideas for one story.

Over the years I’ve researched how to use my characters’ actions and plot developments to evoke an emotional response from readers. It essentially boils down to how well your readers can connect with your characters. If your readers don’t care about your characters, or can’t relate to them on a human level, then no one will become invested in your work.

Storytelling for a business works in a very similar way. You are presenting your business in a way that will relate to your audience, in order to evoke a response. To me, this frames storytelling and branding for businesses in a fun, expressive manner.