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Part 2: Reflective Statement

Word count: 1,642

Through the past weeks I have been studying the course Social Networking for Information Professionals, I believe I was in quite a different perspective to many students as I am studying a communications degree and hold the position of being a social media manager. I had thought I was quite familiar with social media sites, however the course has challenged me to put my pre-existing knowledge to the side and research sites I am familiar and not familiar with to gain an understanding of how these might be used as an Information Professional.

As social medias presence for brands and organisations grows in importance Van Dijck, J. (2018) it is important for brands and organisations to adapt to technology advancements and connect with their customers online.  My current role is a social media manager because of this, I am regularly engaging and interacting on social media channels and staying updated with the latest trends and technologies. An interesting and beneficial takeaway from this course has been learning how far social media has changed, grown and been popularised over the years. When researching the history of Second Life, a platform that used avatar characters and instant messaging in a digital world, it was really interesting to see how interacting online had changed over the years. Even discovering that it is still used to this day (Hogan, 2015). The large popularity and then abandonment of the platform demonstrates the changing nature of social media and how it is important to evolve strategies and consider shifting to new platforms to ensure you are effectively resourcing where your customers are online.

Through my studies I have also had to shift my focus through seeing the channels from an Information Professional perspective and the unique challenges they may face. The first assignment challenged me to develop a proposal on behalf of a localised non-commercial social media channel ran by Riverland Library, a small regional library. The proposal tackled the issues around the lack of a content plan, changing rostering, poor resourcing and low budgets. The scenario allowed me to research how other libraries use their social media channels for a competitor analysis and also suggest a new channel for the library. The assignment also had me research Facebook Workplace which is a platform I had not used before.

 Exploring a social media channel for internal communication was really interesting for me because it is not something I had ever considered or thought was possible. As part of my research into the platform Workplace by Facebook, I looked into the platforms features. The features included a similar news feed feature to the traditional Facebook site with shared documents, live streaming, video and online profiles. The platform also had instant messaging and video calls, however with costing starting at $5 per person, per month it will depend on budgets and might not be economical for all teams and workplaces.  Overall, I would be really interested in exploring this option for internal communication channel in my workplace as opposed to a traditional intranets if the opportunity were to arise. I see the benefit of using a channel like this because of the familiarity, social networking features and easy sharing of information.

 Emphasis has really been put on having a strong social media strategy which identifies “key themes and messages, recommended topics, content purpose…” Peacemaker, B., Robinson, S., & Hurst, E. J. (2016). Implementing a robust social media strategy and policy is essential before launching any new social media platform in an organisation. Understanding what and why to post will shape the page and these foundations are important before starting. Rationalising new channels and why content should be posted was really beneficial for me to consider, of which I am eager to implement these changes to allow for stronger strategies going forward. Drawing inspiration from Orzechowski, V. (2017, January 10) has allowed me to understand the breadth of topics an Information Professional can be posting and sharing information from such as behind-the-scenes posts, event promotion and reference posts.

 I have engaged with a number of platforms over this course as part of my studies. Although I am quite familiar with a number of social media sites and use them daily, in my blog post 3 I explored social media news sites Reddit and Digg. Although I had heard of Reddit I had never heard of Digg and was quite surprised to hear “Digg is the most popular site at the moment for sharing information socially” (O’Reilly 2020). These are social media news sharing sites which are not platforms I use in my day to day or as part of my role.  Before this course, I attributed mostly negative behaviours from Reddit due to its bad reputation. However, after making accounts, engaging and reading other users posts online it is clear they are quite similar to most social networking sites. I really enjoyed these websites, particularly Reddit and even after completing the module I still kept an eye certain forums I had discovered and have even gone there to find answers in my current role when I had error messages on Facebook. I will continue using Reddit for this as it contains a wealth of knowledge from the online community and the topics appear to be endless. While it is difficult for me to see how I will use Digg in a professional sense, it was beneficial and interesting to learn how other marketers and professionals use these platforms in their marketing strategies. I can see how professionals can connect, network, learn and engage on these platforms.

Being on social media allows brands to connect directly with their audience, increase customers and revenue and allows for quick real-time information sharing. However, there are many issues that can arise with an organisation starting social media channels online. This is explored in the text Nisar, T. M., Prabhakar, G., & Strakova, L. (2019) which outlines that having social media channels for your organisation can lead to bullying and harassment on your page, false information being shared, increase in resources to monitor the channels and a comprehensive social media strategy to properly and effectively run the page. I explored this in my second blog post discussing what happened as our channels grew in popularity and the need for monitoring and moderation. Implementing a robust social media policy to ensure we were covered legally and had moderation guidelines in place ensured the page was able to be managed effectively against these issues.

 Completing a blog post after each module allowed me to properly analyse and take notes on readings I was interested in most. Being able to present this information in a way that I knew other students would be reading added slight pressure and accountability to keep the blog updated in a timely and reliable way. Overall completing a blog was and fun challenge and allowed me to gather the information and then present it in an easy to understand and concise way.

I chose a Tumblr blog to manage my OLJ tasks because I had not explored this platform at length before. Updating the blog was intuitive and easy. I spent some time exploring other students work online and their opinions after each module. Because they appear to be studying a different degree as I am it was interesting to learn from them and hear their perspectives on tasks I had also completed.  For my first blog post, I read the case study on using filters online and the effect it had on the person posting it and the audience viewing it Lavrence, C., & Cambre, C. (2020). As a regular Instagram and Snapchat user it was fascinating to read and analyse something I had not given time to consider the impacts of. The article discusses using these filters are normalised and even expected from an audience however, with filtering getting more and more conspicuous it is difficult to tell an edited photo from a non-edited photo. It was interesting to read Monica Carmichael's blog and their perspective on this one too. For the most part, we seemed to pull similar pieces on information and agree. Since writing about this one I am much more aware of online filtering and the effects it can have, I once thought of it as fun and an easy way to fix a photo before I send it however I value authenticity and transparency so this has challenged my understandings of filtering.

It has also been valuable to consider strategies for the future as an Information Professional and how these can be applied to workplaces and social media strategies. The article (Appel et al., 2019) suggests working with influencers are opposed to celebrity endorsements because this can be more cost effective and often they have a more loyal following online.  It is also suggested to be respective and transparent when collecting data and how this is valued by consumers. Another takeaway is the expectation from customers for a company’s social media platforms to be used as a customer service tool for taking inquiries and complaints Gruss, R., Abrahams, A., Song, Y., Berry, D., & Al-Daihani, S. M. (2020). Implementing and testing these suggestions would be beneficial for any online brand and it is interesting to understand customers behaviours with their online use and what they expect from organisations.

Upon reflection this subject allowed me to deepen my understanding of the foundations of strong social media channels. I spent hours exploring new and old social media sites that I really enjoyed and some that were not for me. It is important to always consider how social media is changing and evolving and how you must stay adaptable to change online to ensure you are engaging effectively.  To conclude, I know I will be able to use my knowledge obtained to strengthen and rationalize social media strategies and online engagement.

References:

Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. T. (2020). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 79-95. doi:10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1

Gruss, R., Abrahams, A., Song, Y., Berry, D., & Al-Daihani, S. M. (2020). Community building as an effective user engagement strategy: A case study in academic libraries. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 71(2), 208-220. doi:10.1002/asi.24218

Hogan, P. (2015, August 13). We took a tour of the abandoned college campuses of Second Life. Splinter; Splinter. https://splinternews.com/we-took-a-tour-of-the-abandoned-college-campuses-of-sec-1793849944

 ‌Lavrence, C., & Cambre, C. (2020). “Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze. Social Media + Society, 6(4), 205630512095518. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120955182 

Orzechowski, V. (2017, January 10). #NoFilter: Social media content ideas for libraries [blog post]. LITA Blog. http://litablog.org/2017/01/nofilter-social-media-content-ideas-for-libraries/

 Peacemaker, B., Robinson, S., & Hurst, E. J. (2016). Connecting best practices in public relations to social media strategies for academic libraries. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 23(1), 101-108. doi: 10.1080/10691316.2016.1134244

Van Dijck, J. (2018). Introduction. In J. Van Dijck (Ed.), The Platform Society.  Retrieved from Oxford Scolarship Online.

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Module 6, OLJ Task 18: Thoughts for the future

Social media is constantly evolving. The article The future of social media in marketing discusses where social media is currently and hints towards where online users are going towards and how to keep up. 

Omni social media presence is the integration of social media platforms onto other websites such as ecommerce or review sites. It's important to know users decision making and purchasing behaviour to understand what sites they visit and content they read. For example, when a library patron is looking for their next book to read, they may look at online sites for reviews and recommendations. As a library, the potential here is developing this type of content with librarians writing these reviews and making recommendations on social media. 

Celebrity endorsements are expensive and not something every brand can factor into their marketing strategy, however influencers with a dedicated following are offering this service which is more affordable and personal. "YouTube influencers are now cultural icons, with their own TV shows (Comm 2016) and product lines (McClure 2015)."

I see potential in working with local influencers to endorse certain programs, large scale events and services would be beneficial for libraries to explore. 

Spaces curated for social media posting in mind. Venues including libraries are now being designed in a way to allow for a customer to snap a photo that is aesthetically pleasing and 'Instagrammable'. A great example of this is by Green Square Library in Alexandria who have created a rainbow wall which has garnered attention from online posters.

Online customers now expect brands to answer their inquiries on social media sites. With companies now resourcing these sites as customer service channels to resolve customer issues.  The impact here is developing a customer service social media policy and having staff members who are managing these channels trained in customer service skills to ensure for a good experience for the customer. 

An interesting takeaway to consider for information professionals are the users expectation of increased privacy and more awareness of where their data is captured and shared. Having a well written and easy to navigate privacy policy is essential, and making it discoverable for users to quickly access. 

It is important to stay up to date with trends online so that information can be constructed in a way that is useful and relevant to audiences. 

References:

Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. T. (2019). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 79–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1

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Module 5, OLJ Task 13: Information trends

I will be discussing five shifts or trends identified in the video Digital Transformation Video 2019 and how these can impact organisations and policy's surrounding social media.

1. The world populations according to social media channels. The is broken down to show a contrast of online communities and citizens of countries. With Facebook taking rank as the top position and a country placing only in 5th tied with WhatsApp.  

The numbers demonstrate a need for organisations to join the online conversation and go where communities are. A simple introduction for organisations is ensuring their Facebook strategy is strong and engaging.

2. Two in three people get their news from social media. To me, this number makes sense, with traditional print media on the decline and online usage on the rise these numbers are directly reflective of how and why people use social media. 

For an organisation, it highlights the importance of keeping communities up to date online and posting important announcements.  

For an internal communications point of view, it might suggest that developing an internal communications strategy to reach your staff via social media channels to communicate can be an effective way of reaching them.

3. 93% of buying decisions are influenced by social media. Demonstrating the importance of a brand having a strong trustworthy presence on social media.

4. 80% of our mobile consumption is video. Highlighting the importance of marketers to develop effective video content into their social media strategy to ensure they are engaging with their customers.

5. Gold fish attention span 8 seconds, human attention span 7 seconds. I think this is a really important one! Online, less is more. Using short sentences, photos and infographics, that straight to the point will help users determine what a post is about so they can absorb the information effectively.

References:

equalman. (2019). Digital Transformation Video 2019 [YouTube Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_G_h41ZaQ

[jemmacsu]

Module 4, OLJ Task 9: Mobile exploration

More and more users are heading to their mobile devices to access their favourite sites, as of 2019, 40.1 percent of users accessing websites used smartphones with 55.9 percent using desktop computers (Mobile Vs. Desktop Internet Usage (Latest 2020 Data), 2020). Mobile accessibility is an essential part of building a website and websites should be optimised with the mobile user in mind.

As an avid online shopper, binge-watcher and online student my selections are reflective of my online use.

Category one is online shopping and I have selected mecca.com.au to review their desktop and mobile experience. Mecca's mobile website noticeably built with the mobile user in mind. The functionality, optimisation and navigation of the simplified buttons make the experience user friendly and intuitive. Images are properly resized and text wraps into frame as the site shifts to a smaller screen. The site has strong social media integration featuring share buttons to post on social media, the icons for each of Meccas socials and an Instagram feed under each product.

Improvements that could be made: Load speed of images, I tested this on both WIFI and mobile data and the images fade in slowly, making it quite frustrating to use on mobile when you're trying to quickly scroll.

Category two is entertainment, I regularly am online YouTube on both desktop and mobile so very familiar with the platform on both devices. As a user, the features available on the desktop version are available on the mobile site too. With the primary functions being commenting, searching and watching a video. Watching the video supports to views, one with the mobile in portrait orientation and when the device is flipped the screen enlarges to full screen viewing, this is a very user-friendly intuitive function that makes mobile viewing seamless. The site is classified as a social media site, with commenting, sharing and embedding of videos to place on other platforms. 

Improvements that could be made: Accessing your account to make changes is laborious on the mobile site, with some features not available such as cancelling a membership.

Category three is education, as an online student I use Charles Sturt University's Interact several times a week majority of the time on desktop. It is quite clear after navigating through Interact from my mobile phone that this site was built with the intention of it being used for desktop. While the site is useable it is not incredibly mobile friendly. Images are locked to certain sizes and if they have text in them they are unreadable. The 'hamburger' menu is intermittingly not displaying or it does not support the scroll function on mobile and closes when not clicked on precisely. The site does not feature social media presence for Charles Sturt University or have share buttons.

However, when clicking into modules the site text wraps as intended and is easy to use and navigate. Overall after exploring the website on mobile device, I have a strong preference to using the desktop site. 

Improvements that could be made: Images that are sized for mobile screens. Menu simplified and responsive for mobile.

References: 

Mobile Vs. Desktop Internet Usage (Latest 2020 Data). (2020). BroadbandSearch.net. https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/mobile-desktop-internet-usage-statistics#:~:text=As%20of%202019%2C%2055.9%20percent,them%20from%20non%2Dmobile%20devices

[jemmacsu]

Module 3, OLJ Task 5: Social news sites

I am evaluating the use and effectiveness of Reddit and Digg as social news sites for sharing and discussing news.

Reddit: Reddit is a platform for users to create, share, and discuss online content. Reddit indexes their posts with tags for example /r/library allowing people to follow and engage in topics that interest them most. User contribution through comenting on threads is greatly encouraged with other users 'up voting' or 'down voting' content.

Digg: Digg is a news site which from the surface looks similar to most mainstream sites however relies heavily on community contribution. Admittingly, I had never heard of Digg and was shocked to read “Digg is the most popular site at the moment for sharing information socially” (O’Reilly 2020). The site has an emphasis on science and technology related content and a voting system for users to push content to the homepage.

Interesting and unique features of the platform I observed in my exploration:

- Voting systems: Both platforms have 'Up voting' (Reddit) and '+Digg' (Digg) which put their users directly in control of content and the quality they expect to see the on platform has built an online community that feel responsibility and ownership of the platform.

- Strong emphasis on opinions and conversation: The conversations on Reddit and Digg are broad and often involve strong varying opinions. Although I did notice Reddit has a strong mix of comedic posts and memes on their homepage, whereas Dig's content was similar to traditional news sites and had a big influence of technology, science and gaming articles.  

- Highlights topics not often covered by mainstream media: The topics that were highlighted on the front pages I often had never heard about, it was really fascinating to see how online communities worked together to push certain topics to the front page.

And one thing all social media platforms have in common - no platform would be complete without cute animals, of course!

Some criticisms of the platforms I discovered in my exploration. On Reddit, the topics and posts are from users and have very little credibility in most cases, which could leave to unreliable sources and incorrect information circulating.  Digg appears to have direct RSS feeds from mainstream blogs and journalists such as BuzzFeed contributing to the site.

The platforms rely heavily on community moderation, which means important emergency topics may be overlooked. The faceless and anonymous nature of the platform appears to encourage one sided and controversial opinions with many users actively engaging in arguments, making it quite a negative space in some threads.

Because of the nature of the platforms, using them in a professional sense may carry some negative connotations however, Reddit would be great for collating user-generated content, social listening and keeping up to date with trends when planning a social media strategy. Digg could be used to share blog posts, find articles, and connect with information professionals in the field.

References:

O'Reilly (2021). The New Community Rules. O’Reilly Online Learning. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-new-community/9780596804237/ch01.html

‌www.reddit.com 

www.digg.com

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Module 2, OLJ Task 3: Reflections on the impact of change:

For the past five years I have worked in social media for a government organisation. 

When I was first starting out, we were learning the basics of how many times to post to Instagram and posting a pretty pictures on Facebook. We were excited to gain likes and follows and engage directly with our community online however it was not our main source of engaging with our community. We knew  it was important for our government page to ensure our community was getting their news, and interacting with it safely online Kwon, K. H., Shao, C., & Nah, S. (2020).

These are the two most noticeable changes during my time working on the channels:

1. Shift of relying on local publications to reach the community At the start of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, the local newspaper ceased publication. This is a platform we would spend many hours writing media releases for, responding to media inquiries and creating advertisements for. However, even though this content was written and sent out, often it might not even get posted and we had no way of knowing how many people actually engaged with it.

Fortunately we had built up a strong online following, but we now had to rely on this channel now more than ever. Putting our resources, money and time onto the social media channels allowed us to build stronger pages, improved analytics and reporting on how many people we were reaching with our news, and we were able to target news directly to suburbs that needed them.

2. The need for clear policies and moderation Throughout the years, users have become more anonymous and comfortable expressing their opinions online and disagreeing with others. We welcome differing opinions, feedback and open conversation.  However, as we work in a political landscape, opinions can be mixed and divided causing a lot of online arguments. Some comments we receive can include defamation, derogatory language and false information particularly during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Because of this, we had to develop a robust social media policy to ensure moderating effectively to avoid legal responsibility and keeping users on our channel safe. We blocked over 50 words including names of politicians and staff members to ensure we could catch their names being used and moderate if they should be posted. Because the channels are larger, they are now moderated from 7am - 10pm, including weekends.

In reflection when looking at these two changes the introduction of a detailed social media policy was essential to have in place to ensure a page is being ran effectively. Although losing our local publication was difficult, it now meant we were able to develop and control conversations around projects and news stories that we wanted to amplify to the community.

References: 

Kwon, K. H., Shao, C., & Nah, S. (2020). Localized social media and civic life: Motivations, trust, and civic participation in local community contexts. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 1-15.

[jemmacsu]

Module 1, OLJ task 1: Social Media and Society - Journal Article Analysis

In this entry I am reviewing “Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze. I use social media daily, Snapchat and Instagram are regular go-tos on my phone but never have I analysed the impact of adding a filter to my selfie. Instantly smoother skin in one swipe? Yes please. 

'Selfies' (self portrait photography) are now more prevalent than ever before and through the evolution of photo editing software filtering and distorting these images has become normalised and widely used. 

The two main channels of mention from the group where filtering images is used most were Snapchat and Instagram. With two key differences, Snapchat was regarded as using obvious filtering using fun silly images that disappear between friends, however Instagram was noted as being more calculated, conspicuous editing and thought out posts, referred to as a "highlight reel".

The article discusses the appeal of using facial filtering online and how it is now normalised, the audience even assume that some level of filtering has been done, of which they developed the term "digital forensic gaze".  

The article covers research and transcripts obtained through focus groups. The focus group discusses the evolution of aesthetics in selfie photography and how the quality and standard of this style of photography has become more sophisticated, such as moving towards self-timers to allow for a stylized shoot similar to high fashion magazine and how filters are becoming more accessible and less recognisable. 

They discuss the use of ‘over filtering’ and users can easily reconfigure facial features. The group discussed the differences between altering appearances and fixing mistakes in photos, for example adjusting lighting or removing a blemish on the face was considered acceptable. However changing body proportions was considered "trying too hard".  

Participants exclaim it's hard to tell what someone really looks like because "everyone looks good with that filter!", exclaiming that it was particularly not socially acceptable to use them in dating apps, making it an “instant swipe left”.

The focus group also touched on how men were held at a different standard as women, and using filtering as a straight male was not as commonly accepted. Men using obvious filtering was frowned upon by social media users, with male participants describing receiving negative feedback from their peers using the filters.

The article also highlights how users are praised and incentivised for using filters with research suggesting filtered photos are 21% more likely to be viewed and 45% more likely to be commented on. However, it also discusses the impacts on females wellbeing and how it can cause anxiety to look a certain way or how it is difficult to live up to their online selves.

In conclusion, while participants all agreed that filtering photos online was normalised they agreed it is best to be done in a conspicuous way. The article also suggests that although filters can be used for fun, it also has affects to the audience viewing them and the person posting them. 

References:

Lavrence, C., & Cambre, C. (2020). “Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze. Social Media + Society, 6(4), 205630512095518. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120955182 

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