Isabelle's Creighton Blog!

And That’s the Social Media Game

When scrolling through your social media you don’t normally just start thinking about why certain feed is showing up in your timeline but little did you know there’s a whole algorithm that helps decide what you should see. Something as little as the “like” button on Facebook is part of an algorithm. It helps Facebook decided what to show you next by pressing the like button. I found it so interesting as I read through articles about how Facebook’s algorithm has been created and continues to be developed.

I find it so fascinating that the algorithms that social media platforms use to show people’s feed is so simple yet so complicated at the same time. Facebook uses everything you do and react with to decide what it is going to show you next. Theoretically you should like this because the feed you receive should be stuff you like and want to see more of. The problem is it isn’t always correct and you might start seeing stuff that you don’t care for. The amount of work that teams put into tweaking the algorithm and testing it out is insane. Yet, no matter how amazing the algorithm is, it still isn’t human. According to the author of an article by Slate “Facebook’s algorithm, I learned, isn’t flawed because of some glitch in the system. It’s flawed because, unlike the perfectly realized, sentient algorithms of our sci-fi fever dreams, the intelligence behind Facebook’s software is fundamentally human.” This means that even though the algorithm is what “decides” supposedly what should be on your feed and in what order it also means you are in control of what you see. Everything you react to, like, look at, etc., reflects what content you see in what order. The problem with this is that you as the viewer could just be liking a photo just because it’s popular or viral or you could click on a story and then not like it after reading but the algorithm for Facebook doesn’t know that and will just gather what you have clicked on and seen.

All of this is plays into this idea of “gaming the system”. There are many different reasons for doing this. Lots of people who want to be “viral” or gain more followers and get more reaction from their content will do this. They look at how the algorithms are working with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and they will make their content to fit what the algorithm wants. Such as putting hashtags or posting certain content that they know is popular with people or tagging other accounts or posting at a certain time.

Now companies who are trying to advertise themselves will do the same thing by trying certain techniques that will get them to show up first due to the algorithm. According to an article in SproutSocial “Marketers often look at social media algorithms as roadblocks. But rather than try to fight with algorithms, it’s more prudent to understand how to craft the sorts of posts that algorithms want to see.” For example they will post stories that ask the audience questions to get them involved. That way people comment on the post answering the question which creates more reactions to the post and therefore the algorithm thinks the content must be liked and people will want to see it.

Algorithms help Facebook and other sites out financially because by “figuring” out what you want on your feed and what you like allows them to provide just that. This means you will see things you are more likely to want. For example if you really want a new dress and start looking at dresses you will start to see advertisements for dress pop up throughout your feed. When scrolling and seeing an ad for something you know you want makes you much more inclined to click on the think. By knowing what the audience wants to see and have, it financially benefits them. This can be scary because the audience isn’t always fully aware of these things and is being sucked into something without even knowing that they got sucked in. Though it can be nice to have your feed personalized to what you like and have convenient advertisements that are disguised to look like your feed pop up it can also be a scary thing and I believe it is good to make sure you are always a little aware of what game is being played.

My Insta, My Rules

The podcast I choose to listen to is from Hashtag Authentic and the episode I choose was Episode 79, “Making your own rules on Instagram”. I originally choose this episode because the title caught my eye and I thought it sounded interesting. After listening to the podcast it ended up being a lot different than what I was expected.

This episode revolved around Sara, who is the owner of the podcast, speaking to EJ Osborn about how he uses Instagram in his life. EJ is many things. One of them being a woodworker. His work took off on Instagram originally and helped him become a BBC presenter. EJ is much more than that though and he uses his Instagram to show that. He builds his brand by doing more than just showing off his amazing woodwork skills. He lifecasts on his Instagram to show off every part of who he is. Sara asks him to describe his brand and he says he would describe his brand as himself and just being authentic. To him it’s about what hes passionate about and showing who he is in life and Instagram followers get to follow him on his journey. He explained that he has had many bigger brands reach out to him for marketing and branding purposes but he said “I have never gone near it because it has just never felt right”.

EJ talks about how he never wants to get too involved with numbers because then it would take away from his personal vibe that he shares with the social media world. He doesn’t want to change himself to portray what he thinks will sell best but he wants to stay true to who he is and be his authentic self. EJ went on to say the recipe to his Instagram posts are that he will not post something if it doesn’t feel right to him. Instagram is a way of communication for EJ and he uses it to feel connected to his followers.

I really enjoyed this podcast because it showed me another side to Instagram. Nowadays I feel like all I hear is people talking about the best way to get likes and what look will get those most likes and want time is the best time to post. It is always about how can I get the most likes and not about sharing who you really are. EJ talks about how he uses Instagram to share his story and his work and his life. It was refreshing to hear another side of social media and people use Instagram and yet they are still very successful plus are a hundred percent their true authentic self. I would recommend this podcast to anyone who feels like they need inspiration for themselves and how they use their social media.

Photo By: Unsplash
Prateek Katyal@prateekkatyal

Purpose

When thinking about what single sentence would describe me I really just wanted to say something about fashion. I really enjoy all things fashion but that doesn’t describe me very much, just something that I am passionate about. As I began to watch the video by Daniel Pink, I started to think more about the big picture and what really encompasses me as a person right now.

I started to think about what things in life I enjoy and what I am passionate about. First I love fashion and clothes and wanted to spread my love for it. So I opened my own fashion blog page and Instagram fashion account. Then I thought about my love for performing and how I went for it by doing theatre in high school. I really enjoyed singing but I knew I wasn’t great at it and got embarrassed to sing in front of others so to get better and over my fear I joined choir.

I really love working with kids and also have a very creative side so I originally worked as a camp counselor at a gymnastics gym. Then I wanted to use my leadership skills and use my creative side so I worked my way up to being the summer camp coordinator/director who ran the summer camp. Lastly, I really enjoyed being a dancer and decided I wanted to teach kids my love for it too so I became a dance teacher. After thinking about all of these things I enjoyed and did, I realized what all of these things had in common. One sentence. My sentence. “I am a go getter.”

I found it very interesting when Daniel Pink said that this “one sentence” exercise is very unique and important because it helps show people their purpose. In life I have been told that I am a very ambitious person and won’t let anything stand in my way of getting to where I want to be. I don’t let anything hold me back. This summer my dad and one of my best friends told me something important. They said no matter how hard things get for me or how many times I get knocked down or no matter how discouraged I get, I don’t care what others think and I just go for it because I am a go getter.

Social Media Craze

Whether we like social media or not it is a huge part of our lives. Social media can have a positive impact but it can also have a negative impact on our lives. I personally enjoy using my social media platforms to share what I believe to be fun and interesting things happening in my life. I like to use social media to connect with others and to use it as a source of entertainment. I believe it can help keep you updated with people in your life that you might not get to see often in real life.

I’m on most of today’s “popular” social media platforms such as, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, etc. My favorite to go on and use are Snapchat and Instagram. I really enjoy using Instagram for a couple of reasons. The first is I really love to follow and look at fashion bloggers. I am super into fashion and I am able to get so much inspiration on Instagram from them. Secondly I like being able to see everyone’s super cute photos and stay updated on my friend’s lives that I don’t get to see often. Thirdly, it can keep me entertained for hours with funny memes and videos. And finally I get to share experiences in my life that I find really cool and important. Snapchat I use to talk to my friends but instead of just texting or calling I am able to see them. I like being able to send pictures because you don’t even have to say anything to have a conversation. Sending goofy photos back and forth is enough and I really enjoy that. Something that I used to use more that I don’t use very much anymore is Twitter. I didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t super picture oriented. It started to become more of a platform to complain and start arguments over silly things and I wasn’t having it so I slowly stopped using it.

Though social media can be a great place it can also be a dark place. Over the years it has turned into a popularity contest and I believe that takes the fun out of it. When posting a picture on Instagram people begin to worry so much about the amount of likes they receive that it changes what content they are posting. For many the need for the “perfect picture” to be posted in order to get a lot of likes becomes so important that they aren’t able to post whatever images they actually want. I hope to see a change in that aspect of social media so that there isn’t so much pressure on being “perfect”. Fortunately, Instagram is looking into the issues revolving around “likes” and are playing with the idea of removing the like button all together. On the bright side I believe social media has brought amazing opportunities to advertising and brand marketing. It is a creative and exciting way for them to reach audiences. I know as a viewer whenever I see something I like such as clothes on social media I will follow the links to the site or follow the page to see more. I also believe social media has opened so many doors for smaller business or people who want to start something up. It gives them a chance to reach out to the world and share what they have.

I personally have started to use socially media for my own branding. As I mentioned a little bit earlier on in this blog, I am really into fashion, so I decided to start my own Instagram fashion blogger account and fashion blog page. I am so excited about it and can’t wait to see where I go with it. I am hoping this class will teach me how to further my skills on my usage of social media and I will become proficient in it.

Fake News! Fake News! Come and get your Fake News!

As a busy society we rely and trust that news media will provide us with all the true factual information going on around in the world. The problem is that a lot of the news that we receive is the exact opposite of that and it can be hard to distinguish between what is true and what isn’t. Luckily there are resources that are there to help us tell the difference between what stories are true and what are fake.

It’s unfortunate that many news articles are produced out of false information or just pure lies and what for? The answer is most likely to gain attention which means earning money for them. According to a Harvard article, it suggests “Perhaps because eye-popping headlines in our social media feeds make it easier for us to share content than evaluate or even read it. This creates a viral storm of sound bites without substance.” Another reason may be to persuade people about a certain idea or topic, specifically political related news. The problem is when the public reads these fake news articles not everyone can tell that it is fake, then fake news starts to get spread and it becomes hard to tell between what the real story is and what is made up.

Many fake news stories creates uproars among people. A great example of fake news that was spread and caused many arguments was a short clip-it of a video of these boys that were wearing MAGA hats at a rally, that looked as though they came up to someone and was making fun of their culture. This caused many people on the left side to be enraged. But according to the podcast The Hidden Brain podcast on Screaming into the Void, only a short portion of the video was uploaded and told only a small part of the story. After research was done and the full video was watched, the story seemed to have a whole different meaning to it.

Many consumers don’t check to see if the news they are reading is true or not and the reasons for this can vary, one easy answer is that they don’t care enough and claim to not have enough time to do their own research. An easy and simple way to check if the news they are reading or watching is true, is by using a fact checking website such as https://www.factcheck.org/ or https://www.snopes.com/. Both of these sites are trustworthy and non-bias and will help you conclude if the news you are reading is true or not. If you do have a little spare time on your hands and want to do some personal research, according to another article a tip that was suggested is to “Read multiple stories on the same subject to see what sources are being used and where the differences lie. ”

As a society where everyone is always busy, sometimes it is important to check your information and not jump to conclusions right away. We need to beware of where our news is coming from and what the motives are. You will definitely come across many fake news articles in your lifetime but whether you choose to do some fact checking and get the real information is up to you.

Public Relations and Advertising Makes the World go Round

Public relations and advertising has been around for some time now but the digital age of importance is fairly new and is ever-changing. The goal of someone in public relations is to communicate a message to the audience while the goal of advertising is to try and promote sales of something. Both of these things require getting attention of the public and in today’s world the answer to that is by using technology and social media.

In today’s world of public relations, the focus needs to be directed towards the costumers. With everything being online today the main source to speak to the costumers is the media. According to an article on Forbes people are much more likely to skim what they are reading and to only catch some of the important words. They are much more likely to look at the graphics that go with it. The less the consumer has to read the more likely they are to read the whole thing and catch everything you want the consumer to read. You must have strong research strategies in public relations in order to be successful. The more you know the more you are able to rely and therefore benefit both the company and the consumers. In order to be successful in the world of public relations you must keep up to date with what the public wants. If you know what is popular with the people and then do your research on it, you will be able to accurately grab and keep their attention.

Advertising is nothing new but the ways of advertising are continually changing. One of the main changes of the past decade is the need for advertising to be online whether it’s through social media, news content or in videos. With ads being so popular on websites and other online media, people are finding new and creative ways to block and ignore them. As an advertiser you need to know how to grab the public attention in a creative way where they don’t feel like they are just seeing another annoying ad. Trends that resonate with me are definitely viral videos and product placement. I think it is very creative and clever to have a product in a video and make it in a way that the audience can laugh or it’s interesting and unique. That way it is placed in the audience’s brain without even realizing it. Also viral videos are a great advertising strategy because they are something that people want to share with others and it keeps getting spread around and it doesn’t cost the company any of their time, energy or money. The reason for this is because the consumers are doing all the work by sharing it with others. Product placement is also very smart because it is a very subtle yet effective way of advertising a product in a positive light. According to an online article, by using the trend of product placement, it allows for advertising a product to be very under the radar and has highly increased sales in many products over the years. The product placement can happen in movies, T.V. shows, or even by popular YouTubers who will wear a certain brand.

Public relations and advertising are very important for the producers and consumers but the ways of communicating and advertising are ever changing. Online and news media greatly impact the way the public is able view content and it’s very important that public relations and advertisers are able to keep up to date with all of it. They need to make sure they are able to keep the audience’s attention by being creative and keeping the communication going.

Keeping Journalism Alive

Journalist are so important in today’s day and time because all their information that they gather and put out is what the public reads and hears about. Though not as many people may read the newspaper as often as in the past, the newspaper is so important because many times that’s where reporters will take their information from. The problem we are facing with keeping news media alive is that nobody wants to pay for it anymore. People today are so used to being able to get their news for free that they aren’t willing to pay for it anymore. We as a society need to find a way to keep it alive.

As normal human beings who have busy lives we aren’t able to go to important political meetings and debates but that’s why we have journalists to inform us on the news about it all and what happened. As consumers we want all of this information we are receiving to be correct but everyone also wants the information instantly. The issue with this is with all the reporters and journalists competing to get the information out first mistakes will be made. This means information might not always be correct. As stated in the John Oliver video journalists are expected to do everything, this includes: tweeting, video, images, online posts, the newspaper, etc. The results of having to do all of this in such a limited amount of time is simple and that’s incorrect information.

In an article that is about the future of the New York Times, it talks about how their main source of income is from their paying subscribers and that they value those consumers over trying to reach out to a large amounts of audience quickly. While they want to continue to make their content very reliable and information that their paid subscribers want, rather than the ones that get their news for free, there is a small issue. While it makes sense for them financially to provide for a small group of paid subscribers the ad-supported digital model makes it difficult. The model has made it so that well written journalism content is shared with a much larger scale of people which is highly valued.

In another article it talked about how they needed to find a happy medium between paywalls and news being completely free and leaving the newsroom. An idea they believed could work is Native advertising. “Native advertising and other new approaches could be a way for local news outlets to win back advertising dollars lost to competitors such as Google and Craigslist.” By putting in these “ads” that don’t seem like ads and fit in with the article content it could bring in lots of revenue and keep the consumers happy.

In the Future of Journalism Podcast by Nicco Mele, he mentions brand advertising. This allows for building and creating relationships with consumers over time. He also mentions it might have to move to government funding too. Another point he brought up was that they want to find a way to be independent and not be dependent on business funding them. I personally believe that we as consumers will eventually just have to realize that we will need to pay for our news if we want to keep it alive.

Facebook Faces the Truth

The documentary “The Facebook Dilemma”, takes you into the world of Facebook and all the insider information that you never knew about it. Have you ever thought about why Facebook ever was created in the first place? In the documentary Mark Zuckerberg (the creator of Facebook) says that he originally made it because he thought it would be an online directory for colleges. Little did he know that it would become so much more than that.

In the PBS documentary Mark states “Make things happen and apologize later rather than make sure that you dot all your eyes and not get things done.” He believed that people are always too afraid to do things so instead he thinks they should do it and apologize later. The general focus of this idea sounds good until you come along to the problems that need to be fixed. One of the problems that began to arise was simply the posting of negative feed and harmful information being shared. One of Facebook’s company members said that they focused mostly on growth and connecting people and the good stuff rather than anything negative that it’s used for. This being said, they should have focused on not only the good Facebook may have been doing but also the bad and figuring how to minimize the negatives.

Another major issue that Facebook began to see as it grew larger and larger is personal information and user information security. Facebook will use your information and see what you view and then use a special algorithm to help pick what would be the most interesting news story for you. That news will then pop up on your feed. This information I personally knew a little about and it seemed to me not to be too worrisome but then I found out about all the data collection happening and the sharing of it. Facebook was sharing users personal information with third party developers, which essentially could have been anyone who created an app. This is super deceptive to the users, when Facebook wasn’t making it clear to their users that their information was going to these third party developers. According to a BBC news article https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582 Facebook did say this, “However, it has acknowledged again that it should have prevented third parties being able to tap into users’ data, after publicly announcing that it had ended the privilege for security reasons.” Not only that but Facebook wasn’t monitoring what the third party users were doing with the information. That means Facebook really had no control over where/who the information was going to once it left them. I found this very scary and disturbing as a user myself.

Facebook’s slogan and goal is to make “A more Open and Connected World.” This is something I believe they have achieved but there are many more side effects to this achievement. Along with the security issue, is the effects of news influence. This news influence includes fake news which has hugely impacted viewer’s decision making in elections. According to the documentary Facebook is the number one places for political conversation to take place and it received over a billion campaign posts for the 2016 elections. It has “connected billions while inflaming divisions.”(PBS Documentary). The “patriotic trolling” turns democracy upside down. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/facebook-political-campaign-midterms.html “Facebook said on Tuesday that it had identified a political influence campaign that was potentially built to disrupt the midterm elections, with the company detecting and removing and 32 pages and fake accounts that had engaged in activity around divisive social issues.” That being said as a user, be careful what you share, what you view and how you let it affect your life and decisions.

Photo By: https://unsplash.com/@neonbrand

Me, My phone and I

Human relationships are complicated, no doubt about it but adding in interactions with one another through your phone makes it all the more complicated. The reason for this? Emotion. Showing human emotions and voice inflection is basically impossible talking though text. Even with the use of emojis it is so difficult to actually understand the inflection of the person you are messaging.

I agree with what Sherry Tukle talks about in her TedTalk , when speaking on texting interactions. She speaks on how texting is very useful when trying to rely simple information such as plans and time but when it’s trying to be used to get to know someone it doesn’t allow people to reach that same connection. I know that as a person who is very sarcastic it is difficult to translate the sarcasm into text most of the time, which leads to lots of miscommunication. Sarcasm comes a lot from the inflection and tone in a person’s voice and I can’t really do that when texting.

In an article on https://www.alligator.org/opinion/columns/too-much-texting-hinders-real-life-connections/article_aa9e6f6e-dcde-11e4-b6f5-cbf7f843a7b7.html the author says “we need to be careful not to let texting replace the more genuine and meaningful ways of connecting with other people.” I agree with this statement in many ways because I believe you can’t truly show your personality and who you are by only texting. Using your phone or technology for an “online” relationship isn’t all bad, in fact I think that having technology to connect to others is great. A good example that I have of this is keeping a long distance relationship. My boyfriend and I of over 3 years have been able to stay connected with each other while going to separate colleges by being able to message and Snapchat each other. The downfall of not having that real life, face to face connection all the time is communication gets a little messy. We have had plenty of arguments over things that wouldn’t have even happened if it weren’t for the text messaging miscommunication. It could be from the missing of tone, facial expression, or voice inflection. All of that stuff is what makes up conversations in face to face interactions. In this article https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-novel-perspective/201301/the-trouble-texting a “UCLA professor Albert Mehrabian found that 58 percent of communication is through body language, 35 percent through vocal tone, pitch, and emphasis, and a mere 7 percent through content of the message.” This shows how important face to face interaction really is and trying to solve an argument without all of these things makes it feel impossible.

I do believe having your phone to be able to keep connections that you otherwise might not be able to have is amazing. I also believe it is a hundred percent necessary to have that real life connection with someone to truly get to know them as a person. In my JRM class we were talking about texting also allows a person to create an image of themselves however they want to be seen. In real life when you’re having a conversation you don’t really have time to stop and think about what you want to say. When texting you can type and then delete what you typed and then retype and then send what you want to say but in real life conversations their isn’t a “delete” button but our flaws as a human are what makes us human.

No Phone? No Problem… Right?

Four hours without a phone may not sound too bad for some but for others that sounds like an impossible mission. I would consider myself to be one of the people that finds it more difficult than not. I also believe it depends on how busy your day is. If you have more of a slow day with more downtime I think it would be much more difficult but if you have a busy day it might make it easier to not want to check your phone every two minutes.

For my JRM class I was asked to take four hours of my day to not be on my phone at all, for anything. The day I choose to do this assignment was a busy one so depending on what you personally believe I may have taken the easier way out. I took on this task over this past weekend on Friday. I decided to make Friday my errands day since I didn’t have any classes and I only had work for a little bit. I ran to the grocery store with a few of my friends, did laundry, and cleaned up my dorm room. All and all I’d say it was a pretty productive day.

Not being able to be on my phone at all was a bit of a struggle for me just because I do find myself using it a lot to text or Snapchat friends. When I went to the store it was a lot easier than when I was back in my dorm just because I was out and about. I will say I did use my phone to check the time though (but that was it). When I was back in my dorm doing laundry and cleaning it was much more difficult because whenever I started to get bored of what I was doing I wanted to just take a break by checking my phone. This made me think of one of my class readings, a UNL study news article written by Alex Coe. In the article, a professor mentioned that the primary reason that students check their phones is that “because they say they get bored in the classroom”(Coe). I will say though it made me much more productive not using my phone because I didn’t waste any time scrolling through my Instagram feed and getting sucked into watching videos. In the article https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/how-to-curb-you-smartphone-addiction-in-2018.html the author mentions how in a research study that the constant want to check your notifications interferes with being able to focus. I was able to get my stuff done so much quicker than I would have if I was using my phone.

I definitely felt weird not checking my phone for a few hours because it’s not something I’m used to especially when I’m not in class. I did feel like I focused on everything happening around me much more because I didn’t look at a screen once while doing any of the things I was doing. This article https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/business/cell-phone-addiction.html is very interesting because the author talks about how he went on a much more intense and longer phone restriction journey. He talks about how he found himself wanting to check his phone in between just small actions such as waiting the 3 seconds it took to put his card chip in when paying for something. I found this so interesting because I, unfortunately, noticed myself wanting to do the exact same thing when I was out grocery shopping. I’ll try to even check my email for the mere seconds I’m waiting. That was very eye-opening and will make me think about it whenever I am out. While I didn’t necessarily love the experience I also didn’t hate it. I think not being on your phone for a bit at a time is a good thing that we all need to do. It allows you to be more aware of your surroundings.