I have been blogging for about one year now. As stated in “Why is Uncle Lester Blogging?”, I blog to learn about blogging. I Facebook to learn about Facebook. In short, I actively participate in social media to learn about social media in order to teach it to my students with some degree of authenticity and expertise. Yes, I have a lot to learn, but I am loving the learning.
There have been bright spots along the way. I taught a special topics course in our Mass Comm. Masters program last spring. The first part of every class was devoted to what I called “Reports from the Blogosphere”. The Masters candidates, working professionals all, read communication/PR/IMC blogs weekly and reported memorable findings in each class.
It was a great constructivist learning environment. We co-created the learning with me as coach and helper. In so doing, we shared current thought, best practices, and professional tips from a wide variety of sources. It was always stimulating and productive. It always resulted in applications for becoming better communication/PR/IMC professionals.
Most all of these students had never read a blog of any type. But with each passing week, they seemed to grasp the incredible importance of the blog to the practice of communication/PR/IMC.
One of my favorite social media bright spots involves the Bimbo Princess, as she often jokingly calls herself. She blogged that it is her alter ego. This woman, who came to the USA to study from a far distant country, blogs about her life here in the USA in ways so refreshing, so pure, so real, that it re-grounds you to the reason for blogging. Hers are real conversations. She talks about her frustrations and disappointments both in and out of class. She talks about relationships. She talks about music and movies, and travel on weekends to exciting new U.S. cities.
I laugh when I see the Bimbo Princess reference, for she is close to earning an “A” in two of my most challenging classes. And all the while she is blogging away.
Les, I’m with you on this. I joined Facebook for the same reason, and have now joined Twitter to learn about that, too. Unfortunately I seem to have become a bit of a sad Facebook addict in the process. I daren’t even take a look at Second Life – I need some hours left in the day!
I meet an awful lot of professional communicators who have formed strong views about social media (generally negative) without having had any experience of it whatsoever. I think it’s a) quite a dangerous place to be in and b) not helpful for our customers. In my book we have a responsibility to be able to offer an informed view about when social media tools may be appropriate or not.
You are wise beyond your years, Sue. I am with you in that, how can any “professional” in our business make a judgement on social media without first-hand knowledge? You and I both know the answer is you simply cannot.
I have grown to love Facebook. Just today, I reconnected with a long-time friend in Slovenia via Facebook.
I really love the photo portion of Facebook. In fact, I try to lead by example with what I post in my photo albums. By that I mean, I tell students to be careful of posting things that potential employers will find inappropriate. So, I post only wholesome (if potentially boring) photos. I also try to write real photo captions (cutlines) like in the old days. To me it is so much fun. It is like having your own publication to edit, a thing I miss from my practitioner days.
Thanks for your astute comments, Sue. I am also happy we are FB Friends.