Engaged with Social Media , What did I learn ? How did I know if a story is True?

While The scientific method utilizes a series of facts, hypotheses, laws, and theories to explain observations in the natural world (Union of Concerned Scientists. the USA), trusted source can be similarly applied to the experience of gaining knowledge through mass media. As long that have been using social media, and work in PR, field I learned many things through the evolution of technology such as people’s Identification and Image reputation the importance of being   selective in reading   information and   to apply researchable keys words while writing future post.

              Fast forward, some important facts we know from the story of Social media during the dawn: In 1997, The Web had one million sites. Blogging begin. SixDegrees.com lets users create profiles and list friends. AOL Instant Messenger lets users chat. Blackboard is founded as an online course management system for educators and learners.  In 2000, the world of business and commerce, the dot.com bubble burst, and the future online seemed bleak as the millennium turned.  In 2002  Friendster, a social networking website, was opened to the public in the U.S. and grew to 3 million users in three months.  In 2003, MySpace another social networking website was launched as a clone of Friendster.  Linden Lab opened the virtual world Second Life on the Internet.  LinkedIn was started as a business-oriented social networking site for professionals.  In, 2004, Facebook, another social networking website, was started for students at Harvard College. It was referred to at the time as a college version of Friendster (The Brief Story of Social Media).  After the dawn in 2009 Citizen journalists everywhere were electrified when Twitter broke a hard news story about a plane crash in the Hudson River. The New York Times later reported a user on a ferry had sent a tweet, "There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy" (The Brief Story of Social Media).

 Furthermore, we learned in 2010 The Democratic National Committee advertised for a social networks manager to oversee President Barack Obama's accounts on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace (The Brief Story of Social Media). In connection to that Pew research center mentions, in theory, digital technology allows leaders to engage in a new level of “conversation” with voters, transforming campaigning into something more dynamic, more of a dialogue, than it was in the 20th century. Nevertheless, it was predictable that Obama came to win by using social media especially when his staff included Hughes who is recognized to be “the man who made Obama” and one of most post in social network. In fact, Obama dominated the social media space because his team got how networks work (Dr. Rutledge, 2013). 

             Currently, many countries around the globe are heavily engaged with social media. About 25 percent of the world's total population uses social media while three-quarters of the online population uses one or more social networking sites. But the real power of social media is not in the number of posts or Tweets but in user engagement measured by content spreadability (Rutledge).  Social media conduct us to have an identity and to maintain it depending on the image or the message that we are looking to send.  In fact, Baran says the goal is the maintenance and prosperity of the industry as a whole (Baran, 2010, p.275).  Which teach us the importance of image reputation using social media.

             Another great thing I learned about social media is that: Conducting and implementing keyword research is also highly effective for social media marketing. Whether your target audience is sharing content on YouTube or Flickr, or they’re Tweeting on Twitter, your social media marketing efforts should start with determining which keywords your audience is using.  User behavior varies from search to social and from platform to platform and thus your approach to keyword research must also adapt. By following the steps laid out in this expert guide to researching keywords for social media, you can leverage the domain authority of the Web's most popular social networking sites to promote your brand, products and services (Larry King, 2014).        

 Lastly, I also learned the importance of evaluating whether if an information is a true or false base on the images (videos & pictures). Most people have a single definition for the words news, the classic one, learned in grammar school, may be “news is whatever is happening that didn’t know”(Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2010). But I noticed that today news coming from all social media including Facebook and twitter can be confused, therefore they need to be selected. Perhaps, when I read one of the top story article’s “ Rutgers coach fired after abusive video broadcast” posted in different social media and on the CNN website in April 4, 2013; I believed that the story was true because I watched the broadcast video, on CNN and YouTube.

As your sphere continues to grow, over time it will turn into a powerful network that can further your career and even open unexpected doors (Schwabel, 2009). So every other day, my connection (or friends) on social media growth, I learned more and more through people. Let’s just say Bill Gate was right when he says the internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.

References

Dr. Curtis Anthony. ( 2014).  UNCP Mass Communication Dept. Resources for courses New Media. Retrieved from http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/NewMedia/SocialMedia/SocialMediaHistory.html

Baran S. J. (2014). Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and culture (8th ed). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

Pew Research Centers Journalism Project Staff. (2015). How the presidential Candidate Engages in Much Dialogue with Voters. Retrieved from uhttp://www.journalism.org/2012/08/15/how-presidential-candidates-use-web-and-social-media/

 Dr. Rutledge P. (2013). How Obama Won the Social Media Battle in the 2012 Presidential Campaign. The Media Psychology Blog. Retrieved from http://mprcenter.org/blog/2013/01/how-obama-won-the-social-media-battle-in-the-2012-presidential-campaign/

Union of Concerned Scientists. ( n,d). Science Evolution, and Intelligent Design. Section 1: Science a Way of Knowing. Retrieved on from http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/science-as-a-way-of-knowing.html#Section_1_Science_as_a_Way_of_

  Southern New Hampshire University.  Communication 510- Overview. Module Two: Ways of Knowing.

Larry King. Word Stream. ( n,d).The Expert’s Guide to Keyword Research for Social Media. Retrieved  from http://www.wordstream.com/articles/keyword-research-for-social-media-guide

Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information overload_. New York: Bloomsbury, USA

Bill Gates. ( n,d) Brain quote. Retrieved  from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/bill_gates.html

M. Pearson, B. Brady. Sports CNN. Rutgers coach fired after abusive video broadcast.   Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/03/sport/rutgers-video-attack/