Blog Post 7

1. Identify the risks and benefits of engaging with a public audience in a media space – what are the risks for a public figure or person in a position of trust (educator, lawyer, government official)?

There are many benefits that come from engaging with a public audience through social media. For instance, its a great opportunity to grow your platform and form connections with people that can form lifelong friendships or may further your career path. Engaging with people through social media also allows you to connect with people from different backgrounds, therefore, allowing you to learn from others experiences and perspectives. Moreover, social media acts as a direct connection with people around the world that you can learn from and whom you can share your knowledge with. However, engaging with people also comes with risks. Forming connections with people over social media also gives them access to the information you share on your platform. In terms of a person in a position of trust, they would want to ensure that the information they are providing to their audience is accurate. Making sure that you are balancing in engaging content that can be discussed and debated while also making sure that you are being respectful and aware of other peoples opinions and reactions. By looking at this question in terms of being an employee of a company, one can face many risks on the content they post. Many people forget that posting on their personal platforms, even when they are private, are accessible to nearly anyone who wants to access it, including a boss. When you are hired by a company or business, your actions in person and on social media is a direct reflection of them. Thus, it is extremely important to make sure you are aware of the conversations and information you are posting.

2. How do notable individuals use social media?

Many influences use social media for different opportunities in their career and personal life. As I discussed above, social media platforms can be a great way to gain a following and create conversation around your platform. However, social media can also be a great tool to form income. For example, many notable individuals use social media to do paid sponsorships for companies. Brands are able to market their product, and individuals are able to capitalize on their influence to gain an income. Additionally, I have seen many influencers use their platform to bring awareness to a particular area of interest. This has been something I have seen for recently with the upcoming 2020 presidential election. Many people who have gained a following on social media are posting the importance of voting, which is encouraging many adolescence to get out and vote.

3. What are the benefits of being in the public eye and having a PLN? (career development in the public eye)

In Sophie Liu’s interview for the class talked about some of the benefits she’s experienced from social media. The first one she talked about was that she feels like she needs to remain active on social media to stay relevant. She expressed that social media is constantly growing, and without her continuous use of it, she fears her followers could loose interest. Additionally, she said that one of the biggest benefits she gains from using social media is the opportunity to learn from a wider intellectual world. She expressed her love for constantly educating herself on new topics and perspectives that she would of never otherwise considered.

4. Building community with online tools provided by the employer can be limiting, what are the perceived restrictions and benefits of having social media directly associated with employment? (verified accounts because of employment, accounts that are professional versus personal, hybrid accounts)

This topic, was one that was new to me, I have never had social media that has directly been associated with my employer so I did some research on the topic and found the article “Managing and Leveraging Workplace use of Social Media”. One of the benefits it talked about included the ability to use knowledge-sharing platforms, such as blogs, or discussion posts (Shrm, 2019). I think these would be extremely useful in a workplace as they can increase employee engagement and communication with coworkers. Colleagues are then able to share experiences on the job that helped or hurt them, or gives the workplace the ability to have open discussion boards with answers to questions that employees have. However, by having your social media associated with your employer can also create some restrictions. For example, depending on the job, clients may want to be able to reach out to you with confidential information. If you are using a platform that is connected to the business as a whole, you may loose out on building personal connections. This is because people might not be comfortable with sharing personal information with an entire business, which could lead to them not moving forward with your company.

5. Delivering information in a connected society requires verifiable resources, how does one build a PLN that can be consistently relied on?

I think its important when sharing information is to make sure your arguments can be backed up. For example in the chapter 4 of the article “Navigating Social Journalism: A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen”, they talked about the importance of being able to justify and back up your arguments. I believe that people respect their followers more when they are transparent and accountable for the information they share. For example, if you make a mistake its better to own up to it and correct the error, then to just pretend that it didn’t happen. Consistently posting and making sure your content connects to a similar message will slowly allow your followers to gain trust in the credibility of the information you are sharing and the more likely they are to continue to follow you.

6. How do those, who are veteran story tellers, minimize risk in sharing misinformation?

I think when being someone who likes to tell stories its easy to share information that may not be accurate. In order to prevent this one thing someone could do is share stories that they have experienced first hand. Then they wont run into problems that stem from misunderstanding someone else’s story. However, I do understand that you cant always share your own experiences, thus, if you are going to share a story that isn’t yours its important to research the topic beforehand. This can come from looking at multiple different sources and including this in your post so your followers can see that your information is correct.

References:

Hirst, M. (2018). Navigating Social Journalism. doi:10.4324/9781315401263

Miller J. (2020). EDCI 338 A01- Lui, Sophie. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T4jOdKd12I&feature=youtu.be

Shrm. (2019, August 16). Managing and Leveraging Workplace Use of Social Media. Retrieved October 29, 2020, from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingsocialmedia.aspx