The Value of Networking Now and in the Future

Networking is an incredibly important part of an individual’s life. You can be one step closer in accomplishing a goal you have because someone in your network has information that can help you or has a connection to someone or something that can also help you achieve your goal.

I do not have a strategy as to developing my professional network whether it be online or in person. From a young age it has been embedded into my daily routine at how important networking can be in life. Everyone I meet and interact with is stored in my mind as someone I can potentially reach out to down the road to help me in achieving where I would like to be in the workplace or even just in my social life.

At the moment, I do not have a LinkedIn account. I have heard that these accounts can be very helpful in seeking advice on what path you could potentially take when it comes to getting a job you would like. Another strategy I could get into is attending seminars, or conferences, workshops and/or job fairs in fields that I am interested in so that I can meet new people who work in these fields and make a connection. In doing so, I can then ask them questions about anything regarding that professional field. It is always good to build a professional relationship with potential employers/employees so that you feel comfortable going to them when you need assistance.

It is always important for us to remember that anyone we interact with can become someone we can run to, to help us get ahead in life. It does not matter if it is a social situation or professional. Your network is your network and really can get you ahead in life.

NHL vs. People Magazine

The whole point of social media is to make your audience aware of what is going on in your organization and keep them up to date on the latest. It is also used to engage and connect with your audience on a different level. Twitter is a great example of a social media tool that has provided organizations and business with the ability to connect with their target markets or their audiences/consumers on a real-time basis. Sure, it could be difficult filtering through all of the responses you get to a particular tweet. And sure, you cannot respond to every reply you get to a tweet. However, with the use of a hashtag it has become increasingly easier to connect with your businesses followers but filtering the replies by searching that particular hashtag. That does not mean that you are going to respond to everyone but it does mean that you are able to narrow down the replies to that hashtag which is more than likely the main focus of your tweet and what you want the most feedback on.

Of course, the hashtag is not the only beneficial use of Twitter, its maximum 140 characters per tweet make your tweets straight to the point so that your followers do not have to peruse through a whole bunch of text to understand what you are trying to get across. There is also the benefit of posting links if necessary if your audience does want more information. Twitter also allows you to attach photos and videos, which again can catch a reader’s attention even before they have begun to read your tweet.

There are many organizations that I follow in particular that tweet fairly well. There are also organizations I follow that do not. I have many interests, from sports, to fashion, food and fitness. The world of Twitter has allowed it to be increasingly simple to follow all sorts of organizations and businesses to keep many others and myself in the loop with what is going on in those particular industries.

One organization I feel, as though has a strong Twitter presence would have to be the NHL account. With over 2 million followers they are amazing at keeping us all in the loop on a daily basis with what is going on. They tweet live scores, keep us informed on a stand out play that may have happened in a game we are not watching and much more. They are extremely good at retweeting other NHL organizations tweets to let us know what that particular team is saying about what is going on in their game, or any game in particular. The NHL account also tweets out general information. It lets us know who has been suspended and why by posting a link the watch the video with explanation, they tweet out polls to get the audiences advice, it also tweets links to articles in regards to alumni and what they are up too, upcoming players and their statistics, and much more. The account gets the job done when it comes to keeping their audience informed on almost everything imaginable when it comes to the NHL. If you want to know about it, they are probably tweeting about it.

Going off of the NHL Twitter account I also follow many individual team accounts such as the Ottawa Senators, Colorado Avalanche and Chicago Blackhawks. I really have to commend the Ottawa Senators on keeping their fans and audience in the loop with everything going on in the organization. They are always tweeting live scores whether the team is playing at home or away. They are always letting us know if someone is injured or if a great play was made. They also keep us informed on practices and tweet us links to what coach MacLean has to say about practice or the game or the team in general. They also send out links to videos chatting with the players about the game or goofing off asking them fun questions so that the fans can see them in a different light. The organization account also keeps us in the loop about charity events the team is apart of in the Ottawa area, or if there are any contests going on in regards to winning tickets and how to win them. The Ottawa Senators account really does engage with their audience and fans doing their best to keep everyone informed on the latest and with almost 200,000 followers, I think they are doing a fantastic job.

I also follow People Magazine on Twitter. They do a good job in tweeting the latest celebrity news and retweeting their sister accounts however, I find that they are getting old and tiresome. I see myself scrolling right past their tweets now and are not capturing my attention when it comes to the tweets they are sharing. I find that this may be because more recently they have just been tweeting the same tweets over and over. In one day, I believe I read the exact same tweet 7 or 8 times. Granted sometimes they add “Earlier:” to the beginning of the tweet just in case a reader did not see it before but the majority of the time they blatantly just tweet the exact same tweet they sent out 3 or 4 hours ago. Enough is enough in my eyes and they are going to start to lose their 5.2 million followers. Yes, their may only be so much celebrity news that they can tweet but if they do not have anything new to report do not report something you already sent out less than a few hours ago.  Even though they have a social media presence I feel as though their account is just one of those accounts that people follow to follow. I believe that if they started to tweet about things that would catch their audience’s attention like movie reviews for example, or the latest the music world rather than just tweet which celebrity had a baby or a picture of a good-looking celebrity, they would have a more engaged audiences. Yes, the gossip like tweets are fun to read every now and then and can be conversation starts but real informative information on the movie and music industry and even the fashion industry I find would really grab their audience’s attention and keep them around for a lot longer.

That is my 2 cents. Even though all the organizations I have a discussed have a strong followers background does not mean that they are using the social media tool to their advantage. I still feel strongly about the NHL and the Ottawa Senators organization and am proud to follow them and recommend their accounts to others to stay informed. However, even though People Magazine’s account has the most followers out of the accounts I feel as though they lack in what it really means to use social media. By continuing to tweet the exact tweet and by just retweeting their sister accounts and even retweeting the same tweet numerous times gets annoying. Which loses my attention and I do not even bother trying to read their tweets anymore. They need to step it up and understand their mistakes or many others are going to be just as annoyed as I am.

Comm0015- Blog Post 1: Tools and Sources

Well ladies and gentleman here goes my first blog post ever. This shall be interesting; I hope I am somewhat decent at it.

Growing up with the internet just starting out I have been able to see it adapt to how technology has changed. Social media in the last few years has become such a huge hit globally. It is really fascinating that information one person has shared can reach a large population in a matter of seconds. I grew up with Facebook and I was in love with it at first. I would say that I was even obsessed. I was always curious to know who was saying what, who was hanging out with who, who was taking pictures with each other. Now though I find that the tool has become too open and too much information can be shared. I have grown as a person and I don’t enjoy everyone knowing my business. In fact, once a year I find myself going through my friends list and deleting people I haven’t spoken too. It does not matter if they are friends or family, I don’t talk to you, I am not sharing my life with you. One of the positives of Facebook is their privacy tools but I have found myself so confused about everything now that I just don’t use it anymore.

I would have to say that my all-time favorite social media tool is Twitter. I did not jump on the Twitter bandwagon right away. I actually only created myself an account a year and a half ago. It was probably one of the best decisions I ever made. The fact that you can only post information using 140 characters is genius. The people who love to post novels about what is going on in their lives, no thank you, just get straight to the point or I am probably going to ignore you. If that is so wrong of me then, oops. I enjoy the fact that I can get my information by reading tweet in about 15seconds.

I thoroughly enjoy that I can follow just about everyone and I thoroughly enjoy that I can unfollow them just as quick. I think it’s smart that they verify accounts now so that you know you are truly following the person you want to follow. So many people create these fake accounts, being someone they aren’t and it really does confuse me. Why not, just follow the person you admire so much? Anyways, enough of that rant.

I love that you can make your profile private and that people have to request to follow you. For someone like me who is a fairly private person, this is such a simple thing to do by just the click of your mouse. Another thing I love is the retweet button and the favorite button. Being able to retweet someone else is a great tool because that means you are agreeing with what they are saying on a matter and you don’t have to sound repetitive and post your own tweet about it. Simply just retweet theirs and your followers can now see how you felt about that particular situation. The enjoyment of favoriting a tweet is pretty cool too. Let’s say an article was attached to a tweet that caught your interest and you didn’t have time to read it. Well, all you have to do then is favorite it which saves it to a list on your own account and you can just go back to it later. Favoriting makes finding tweets much easier.

I also love the discovery page that is offers. Twitter’s discovery page allows you to see what hash tags and topics are trending worldwide and see other opinions on solely that matter. It also creates a feed of news articles or just simple tweets that seem to be popular for you to check out. It also directs you to an activities page where you can see what your followers are retweeting, favoriting and who they are starting to follow. Slightly an invasion of privacy but may be they’ve found something that has caught your eye.

Twitter’s such a simple tool to use and follow and get the correct information on the fly from the right sources and not have to deal with all those pesky rumours that get sent out. And, because of that, that is why Twitter is the number one tool for news and information I love to use.

The second tool I like to use is Instagram. This photo sharing app also has its own website you can log into to see what photos have been posted. Now that they offer video this is another get tool to use to promote your brand. Of course many people just follow their friends but you can also follow many different stores, restaurants, public figures, celebrities and see their day to day life posted in their own photos and videos.

Personally, I have friends who created accounts for their business’ on Instagram as another way to promote their product to their friends. They post a picture or a video of the product they are trying to get on the market and their friend will like that post. The great thing about liking a post is that on the news feed a friend who is following me can see the post I liked and if they enjoy the product as well and have never heard of the company, they can then start following the account as well.

The fact that Instagram again makes privacy settings so easy just by the click of a mouse really does make me give them a pat on their backs. Kudos to them and two thumbs up.

There you have it folks, you have learned that I adore Twitter and Instagram and that I am a pretty private person. Until next time…

See ya.