This week we learned about advocacy and activism, and how how the tools of social media can be utilized to further a cause. Although I don't particularly see the challenge in differentiating "advocacy" from "activism," I found the "Why Social Media is Reinventing Activism" article interesting. I completely understand why the concept of "slactivism" has been brought up in the context of social media campaigns. It can be irritating at times, when you log into your chosen social media platform to find a feed littered with post after post of people seemingly jumping on a bandwagon to promote one cause or another. The recent "Ice Bucket Challenge" comes to mind as one of the recent culprits. It's clear that using social media to further a cause is an idea that's still in its infancy, and I look forward to the better refined techniques that are surely coming to us in the future.
The readings this week made me think back to a campaign I launched at work, in partnership with the Butte Humane Society. Animal welfare is a cause that's really important to me, and I wanted to use my job at the clothing company to help the BHS in any way I could. I launched a spring lookbook for our site, which featured our models with some of the dogs that were up for adoption at BHS. BHS also promoted our lookbook on their site and all their social media platforms. We also donated a percentage of all our sales for the month of February to them, and featured the lookbook with the dogs on the front page of our site. It was useful for us, as it prompted more sales from locals who wanted to support BHS, as well as helping show the business in a positive light, as one that was concerned with promoting local charitable associations.
I'd love to work again to help promote a local nonprofit, something like Catalyst or something along those lines. I think it's important to recognize the possibility of mutually beneficial campaigns that are helpful to all parties involved, as well as having a positive effect in our community.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Week 6:
This week we looked at various social media tools which are geared around helping people create and manage content on the Internet. Regarding which tools I think might be best for the audience of my blog, I feel that both Hootsuite and Canva would be beneficial. Hootsuite was mentioned in both lists of social media tools, although I noticed that Canva didn't make either list.
Hootsuite is a dashboard of sorts from which you can manage your various social media platforms like Twitter, Google +, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. This is helpful when you work in fashion, as having a unified brand across all fronts is important. We use pictures from our sponsored posts on fashion bloggers pages, then use a bitly link to shorten and customize our links, and share them across all platforms. This can be done easily by using a tool like Hootsuite to post all from one place. The downside is that you can't post pictures to show up as pictures on Twitter, but it's still a very valuable, helpful tool. I think Hootsuite is a tool that's becoming increasingly used, but I think as time goes on we will see a lot of much more user-friendly, streamlined tools that do the same thing but better. The tool does support group collaboration, as multiple people can sign in and use the same account of Hootsuite all at once, to interact with people, post content, like and share posts, etc.
Canva is another really great tool, it's a free site that lets you create content for presentations, emails, posters, Facebook posts, business cards, etc. It's like Photoshop for people who don't know how to use Photoshop. With a very user-friendly design and (mostly) free cost of using, it's an excellent tool to create customized content that looks professional and will look the same across all platforms. I've been using Canva to create content for a while now, mostly for my job as a copywriter/content creator, and for my internship at a publishing company. With either tool, it's helpful for interacting with people. With Hootsuite it's helpful for interacting directly with users, from one easy-to-see dashboard, and with Canva it's good for looking professional when you interact with customers, and present media for them to see.
Hootsuite is a dashboard of sorts from which you can manage your various social media platforms like Twitter, Google +, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. This is helpful when you work in fashion, as having a unified brand across all fronts is important. We use pictures from our sponsored posts on fashion bloggers pages, then use a bitly link to shorten and customize our links, and share them across all platforms. This can be done easily by using a tool like Hootsuite to post all from one place. The downside is that you can't post pictures to show up as pictures on Twitter, but it's still a very valuable, helpful tool. I think Hootsuite is a tool that's becoming increasingly used, but I think as time goes on we will see a lot of much more user-friendly, streamlined tools that do the same thing but better. The tool does support group collaboration, as multiple people can sign in and use the same account of Hootsuite all at once, to interact with people, post content, like and share posts, etc.
Canva is another really great tool, it's a free site that lets you create content for presentations, emails, posters, Facebook posts, business cards, etc. It's like Photoshop for people who don't know how to use Photoshop. With a very user-friendly design and (mostly) free cost of using, it's an excellent tool to create customized content that looks professional and will look the same across all platforms. I've been using Canva to create content for a while now, mostly for my job as a copywriter/content creator, and for my internship at a publishing company. With either tool, it's helpful for interacting with people. With Hootsuite it's helpful for interacting directly with users, from one easy-to-see dashboard, and with Canva it's good for looking professional when you interact with customers, and present media for them to see.
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