College Diaries

I’ll be honest, I am very unfamiliar with X and still call it Twitter. I don’t own an account, and don’t feel the need to. With that being said, this chapter taught me a lot! I want to point out a few highlights before getting into the benefits of marketing with X! Jack Dorsey created Twitter in 2006. At the time, he wanted to create a platform that communicated by a short messaging service. In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter. Soon after, he rebranded Twitter to X. There were financial turmoil and several challenges that arose. Even with the decrease, X still attracts well over 580 million followers. I’m not going to get into the specific challenges Elon faced, but I want to highlight the benefit X has for business users. X is primarily a video-centered platform. The new immersive video surface allows users to vertically input videos similar to what you see on TikTok. To step up their game, X included new audio and video calling features. This could have been to keep up with other platf...

Given my 18 years of life, I’ve gone through a lot of firsts. From my first birthday many years ago, all the way to my first time going off to college. This week, I added to that list! On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to photograph my first lacrosse game. My on-campus job allows me the flexibility to sign up and photograph different sporting events. I decided to take a chance on the weather and choose an outdoor women’s lacrosse game. At my high school we didn’t have lacrosse, so I wasn’t around it. I figured this was the perfect way for me to learn about the game all while doing something I love. The weather had been warm all day, but as soon as it got to halftime, I was cold. There must be a wind tunnel in that stadium. It was a little unfortunate, but I still enjoyed taking pictures for the team! While I was taking pictures, I had to switch with another girl because there was only one camera available. During that time, I picked up on a few of the rules. If you ask me, lacros...

Around the world, business professionals have turned to Instagram to serve as a beneficial tool. Marketing with Instagram has become a powerful way for brands to connect with their audience. Instagram allows the opportunity for brands to showcase their products or services on one, easy to use platform. By creating stories, posts or going live, brands are able to use visuals to capture their audience.  Instagram launched in 2010. Founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger saw rapid growth in users in the first few months. From there, it has grown exponentially. Whether it's for personal or professional use, people around the world have turned to Instagram in more ways than one. Over 71% of businesses are active on the platform, with a majority of Instagram's daily users following a business account. Just by the numbers, it is apparent that Instagram is a beneficial tool for companies. Companies who use Instagram are frequently posting, trying to create more engagement and reach for...

A lot of people may have this perception that Facebook is just for parents wanting to brag about their kids. Maybe that's why you chose to download the app in the first place, to see what was being posted about you. For me, I downloaded Facebook to see what my high school was posting about me. I was fortunate enough to not have a Facebook mom who posted cringey pictures of me for my birthday. In reality, Facebook can be a beneficial tool that companies use for advertising. For this week, we'll be exploring advertising with Facebook. With more than 2 billion users on the platform, brands are turning to Facebook to reach their target audience in a direct and efficient way. The Essentials of Social Media Marketing book states that Facebook is voted to be one of the best platforms for return on investment. If you're unfamiliar with return on investment (ROI), it measures the profitability of an investment by measuring how much a company gained compared to how much they original...

In theory the spring semester may sound like a breath of fresh air or even the start of something new. Potentially a new wave of motivation and a clean slate! Somewhere between going over the syllabus to the week of midterms, it’s pure survival mode. This is the reality of my semester this year. The fall semester ended up being an easy transition into college. I took six classes which I was able to manage, and I wasn’t drowning in homework. I had track practice during the week and an occasional club meeting at night. I was able to build my routine and schedule very quickly, getting into a rhythm early on. For the spring semester I really wanted to take six classes again. Looking at my schedule, they seemed manageable and wouldn’t require too much work. People warned me that with indoor track starting and my on-campus job, it may be too much to handle. While I took their advice, I was set on knocking out some classes in order to have lighter semesters in the future. On Monday, Wedne...

While there are many steps in creating a social media marketing strategy. Today I will be focusing on the second step! This crucial step is all about creating an audit, social listening, and developing a SWOT analysis. Until this chapter of the textbook, I was very unfamiliar with audits and what they were composed of. Believe it or not, there's several elements that are crucial to creating audits about a specific brand. Let's dive in!  To start, social media listening is a type of audit that monitors the internet to determine what is said about a particular brand. This could be good or bad. It may have to do with how the brand is perceived by the public. When you think of your favorite brand, it's likely going to be something positive. If it wasn't your favorite brand, you would think negatively! For example, when I think of Taco Bell, I think of unappetizing food that's going to hurt my stomach after I eat it. Everyone won't have this same sentiment toward Tac...

Personally, I consider the weekend to start as soon as classes are over on Fridays. For this weekend, it started Friday at 9 a.m. because of an away track meet in Indiana! Due to the time that the meet started, it meant missing all my Friday classes. My events for the day were the 60-meter hurdles and pole vault. Unfortunately, the hurdles were the worst they've ever been. The biggest thing I learned from the experience was that sometimes you can't always PR and have a good run every time. I tried to look ahead to pole vault and regroup. For the past 2 weeks, I had a mental battle with pole vault and was finally able to work past it in warmups. I was pole vaulting the best I had in weeks and was anxious for the competition to start. I ended up clearing my first 3 bars on my first attempt which meant a new collegiate PR! I was happy to finally have my confidence back. Thankfully, it didn't end there. I ended up winning the event which was my first time for college! Eventuall...

If you need a sign to start podcasting, here it is! Whether it's for personal use or to educate the public, they can be as simple as you make it! Podcasts are digital audio programs that are uploaded to the internet for subscribers to listen to whenever they want! The beauty of podcasts stems from their flexibility. Listeners can stream and download content from any mobile device or platform at their convenience. Podcasting brings in 504.9 million listeners worldwide. Surprisingly, there’s one more popular day of the week for podcasting which is Wednesday! There are many formats of podcasts that include solo commentary, Q&A, storytelling, etc. What’s beneficial is that there’s a podcast style for everyone! Within the different formats, there are hundreds of options to the podcast topics themselves whether it’s cooking, lifting or even sports! It’s common for influencers to start their own podcasts. If you didn’t know that, then search for your favorite influencer or celebrity...