In response to the feedback from my pitch video I immediately change the direction of my digital artefact to better suit the direction of BCM 325. So, for my digital artefact I decided to write three different blog posts based on what will impact my own personal future in becoming a social media manager and the prospects that Aquilah productions will have.
In this blog post, I am looking at my personal short term future career for when my university career comes to an end. Since the beginning of my communication and media degree, I have always wanted to peruse a career in a social media management career I, therefore, have decided to research this career to increase my ability to attain this career.
While conducting some research I discovered a ton of research has been done on social media being integral to a business to strive in the modern world as well as research into social media managers as an emerging career to peruse.
I found Jacobson’s paper ‘You are a brand: social media managers’ branding and “the future audience”’ looks at social media management as an emerging profession and what current employees treat their social media and how “always on the job market’ to maintain their employment.
Another source found is Samuels’s ‘9 skills every social media manager must have’ illustrates the skill and technical abilities that are needed to succeed in this industry to become more employable, and also recommends additional sources to improve in the areas that the reader may need to improve on. The skills involve “communication, writing, creativity, efficiency, traditional and digital, customer care, making connections, agility, data analysis.
While Marianna Sigala & Ulrike Gretzel’s book ‘Advances in Social Media for Travel, Tourism and Hospitality : New Perspectives, Practice and Cases, New Directions in Tourism Analysis, Routledge’ details the importance of social media in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry and explains the innovation and techniques that social media managers are recommended to succussed in their career.
Another source I found is ANZ, LH’s paper ‘Introducing the Newest Member of Your Hotel Marketing Team: The Social Media Manager’ presents the social media manager position and responsibilities that are required of her/her.
The final source of my research that I have done was Mountifield, C & Sharpe’s paper ‘Managing Social Media Content During a Global Crisis: Interview With Ben Read, Social Media Manager at World in Motion’ explains how Covid 19 has affected social media content which is integral to learn about as it is most likely to affect my employment in the future and I need to stay up to date with the new techniques of social media marketing strategies to remain employable in the future.
Within this blog post, I will be researching the predicted future of social media marketing in the lenses of consumers, business, and public policy in the short and long term future which I the key aspects to the BCM325 future cultures. I will also predict where I think the future of social media marketing is going as well.
What is social media:
Socialmedia can be thought of in a few different ways. In a practical sense, it is a collection of software-based digital technologies—usually presented as apps and websites—that provide users with digital environments in which they can send and receive digital content or information over some type of online social network. In this sense, we can think of socialmedia as the major platforms and their features, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We can also in practical terms of socialmedia as another type of digital marketing channel that marketers can use to communicate with consumers through advertising.
The first academic paper that I read was Appel’s ‘The future of social media in marketing. Which breaks down the future of social media marketing into three different predictions of the consumer, business, and public policy as well as looking at the immediate and long-term futures in these areas.
The Immediate future:
There are many interesting future research avenues to consider when thinking about the role of influencers on social media. First, determining what traits and qualities (e.g., authenticity, trust, credibility, and likability) make sponsored posts by a traditional celebrity influencer, versus a micro-influencer, or even compared to a CGI influencer, more or less successful is important to determine for marketers. Understanding whether success has to do with the actual influencer’s characteristics, the type of content being posted, whether the content is sponsored or not, and so on, are all relevant concerns for companies and social media platforms when determining partnerships and where to invest effort in influencers. In addition, research can focus on understanding the appeal of live influencer content, and how to successfully blend influencer content with more traditional marketing mix approaches.
The Far Future:
There are early indications that social media might feel different in the future. As mobile phones are held in one’s hands and wearable technology is strapped onto one’s skin, companies and brands are exploring opportunities to communicate to users through touch. Indeed, haptic feedback (technology that recreates the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user; Brave et al. 2001) is increasingly being integrated into interfaces and applications, with purposes that go beyond the mere call or message notifications
My own prediction’s
The Immediate future:
I believe that social media influencer marketing will continue to slowly grow as well as the continuous paradigm shift of traditional marketing slowly burning out with major companies increasing their spending on social media marketing.
The Far Future:
I believe in the far future that we will have the technology that Elon musk is currently developing ‘The Neural Link’ which will allow us to connect to the internet without a device, which would be social media very interesting as It could mean that we could stream live videos without a device making a more immersive experience.
After attending all the lectures for BCM312, week two’s lecture still stood out to me the most. The concept of communication avoidance fascinated me from the aspects of silence being a form of communication like the one-minute silence we give on Anzac day to about how much less social we have become as a society over the last couple of years especially with covid and social media being one of the key ways stayed connected. It also made me reflect on myself and how I truly do prefer to text rather than call often especially if it’s a confrontational conversation. I feel that the significance of this topic is very relevant, and I wanted to find out more about it.
I decided to go with “To discover why do people avoid communication on social media?”. I think that this topic allows me to focus on ‘why’ people chose to avoid specific communication platforms and content.
I found this topic quite personal as I deeply reflect on my own actions of communication as I use to think that I was talking to someone when I was texting them before watching this lecture. However, after digging deeper into my reflection I realised that, yes, I do prefer to call people for small talk like their day was going and what they have been up to, but when it comes to deep and important conversations or confrontation, I do prefer to text about these things.
I think the topic is significant to this generation as communication avoidance comes with a cost to today’s society as I believe that it is eroding our human nature of empathy towards one another. – meaning that we are slowly being unable to understand and relate to each other’s feelings. I also want to dive deeper and find out why people also choose to stay off specific social media platforms and choose to engage and not engage with specific posts in their feed.
Background Research / Context:
In this modern world, we have become completely reliant on technology, especially the younger and my generation. Even though technology has connected us, people are born to be socially interactive communicators and there has never been a time in history where we are more communicative. However, though the invention of smartphones has changed the preference of communicating through texting. Statistics show that the number of texts sent has increased by more than 7,700% over the past decade and 68% of smartphone users said they text more likely than they talk on the phone. The main reasons why people prefer to text is categorised into three justifications; ease of use, ease to remember and less stress.
I found Mukerjee, S. and Yang, T’s paper the ‘Choosing to Avoid? A Conjoint Experimental Study to Understand Selective Exposure and Avoidance on Social Media’ outlines social media platforms provide multiple affordances, which convey several cues to guide users in making decisions about which news to consume. Traditional factorial designs have failed to experimentally study the effects of multiple, simultaneous cues operating on social media. As a result, there is little consensus in the literature about their exact effects on news choice. In this study, we use a conjoint experimental design to examine how source outlet cues, message cues, and social endorsement cues shape news selectivity on Facebook. We find that people significantly avoid news items without-party outlet and message cues. We also find that people select news based only on in-party messages cues, but this effect is smaller than the avoidance of out-party cues. Only strong partisans’ demon- strate a preference for news items with in-party source and message cues. Finally, we find no evidence that social endorsement affects people’s news selection behaviour.
In Zhu, Q., Skoric, M. and Shen, F’s paper the “I Shield Myself From Thee: Selective Avoidance on Social Media During Political Protests” This study examines the phenomenon of politically motivated selective avoidance on Facebook in the context of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement protests in 2014. They conceptualize selective avoidance as individual choices that users make to shield themselves from undesirable dissonant views by removing unwanted information and breaking social ties that transmit such information.
In HICHANG CHO, PENGXIANG LI and ZHANG HAO GOH’s paper the “Privacy Risks, Emotions, and Social Media: A Coping Model of Online Privacy” This study proposes a novel coping model of privacy that extends prior privacy work in two important ways: first, the reconceptualization of privacy coping reflecting both problems- and emotion-focused strategies, and second, the incorporation of discrete emotions as a driver of privacy coping.
However, the more I researched the more I discovered a gap in the research available and struggled to find research done on why people avoid specific social media platforms and choice to either interact or avoid communication on their chosen social media, this is where I have decided to focus my research.
References:
HICHANG CHO, PENGXIANG LI and ZHANG HAO GOH (2020) ‘Privacy Risks, Emotions, and Social Media: A Coping Model of Online Privacy’, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 27(6), pp. 1–28. doi: 10.1145/3412367.
Mukerjee, S. and Yang, T. (2020) ‘Choosing to Avoid? A Conjoint Experimental Study to Understand Selective Exposure and Avoidance on Social Media’, Political Communication, pp. 1–19. doi: 10.1080/10584609.2020.1763531.
Zhu, Q., Skoric, M. and Shen, F. (2017) ‘I Shield Myself From Thee: Selective Avoidance on Social Media During Political Protests’, Political Communication, 34(1), pp. 112–131. doi: 10.1080/10584609.2016.1222471.
This week in our lecture we looked at a series of events that have taken place over the past 20-30 years regarding the internet, in particular, the use of Botnets and the idea of a sock puppet army.
A botnet is simply a number of internet-connected devices. Botnets are more often used for non-illegal activities and are often referred to as ‘the workhorses of the internet’.
Botnets become a problem when looking at their illegal purposes, as they can be used for malicious attacks including credentials leaks, data theft and DDoS attacks to name a few.
This then moves into the idea of a sock puppet army. This term was first coined when documents were released stating that the US government had thousands/tens of thousands of fake accounts on social media that looked realistic. This got people talking about how this has the potential to sway public opinions or draw focus from important topics.
My first comment was on Michaela Shales blog (BCM215 DA BETA). Michaela said that she changed her original idea of playing video games to starting a blog based on the same idea of f gender sexualisation in video games. I gave her one recommendation at potentially looking potentially using twitter to find a community and start an informal discussion and convert followers to interact with her blog post and receive more feedback.
Second comment was on Tobias Joshua Thomas’s blog (BCM 215 Beta blog) he discusses why he chose the topic and he’s love for video games and what topics his has planned into the future of his DA, and the promotional struggles and lack of a feedback. I also gave a recommendation of joining a twitter discussion if there is any on the specific game and media texts which could potentially lead to more readers and engagement with his content.
Third comment was on Ruby Losinno’s blog (RUBY REVIEWS – BETA), she discusses her DA being based around reviewing and potentially reviewing different game shows. I suggested her to look at a particular academic journal about the critique of the price is right which could help in her review process and blog.
From this I got to see a lot of different ideas of what goes into the gaming community and different ways that I could further improve my DA. As well as the importance of laying the information out of the reader/viewer, I would much rather just read the key points of a post then have to look through for the important stuff and having relevant topics, something that will engage the viewer. The ways I could improve myself for future comments would be by having more sources instead of just one or two. As well as get sources from a wider range of areas, such as Journal Articles, academic research and YouTube videos (reviews or game/topic breakdowns). Also that my comments could possibly be longer and better structured in order to let the reader get a better understanding of what I am saying.
They are anyone and everywhere. Hiding in the shadow and on the internet.
If you are unfamiliar with Anonymous well then! You are in for a treat!
Anonymous to summarise is as the name suggests an anonymous decentralised movement. They are hackers known for their various cyber attacks mostly against several governments, oh and of course Scientology…
Social media has made an imprint in today’s society. Allowing for the ease of communication and simplifying the ability to learn and promote. However, with positives comes the negatives as a society which aims to be connected often becomes disconnected.
A negative which has been imprinted within our brains is Social Media’s ease to promote “black magic”. A sort of black magic which leads us as humans to make bad choices.
Personally, I can relate as when assignments and everyday tasks pile up one-by-one, I find some of those tasks can be done to the bare minimal effort and not to a satisfactory effort.
However I also find social media as extremely influential and positive as it can allow for motivation and to spark a drive to do more.
So the question is whether the negatives outweigh the positives?
Feudalism takes the aged idea of a ‘walled garden’ and modernises it to display what the internet is like today. Feudalism 2.0 is the idea that certain companies create ‘walled gardens’ surrounding their products to prevent the external use of such aspects, therefore patenting their work.
Nowadays, Apple maintains full control over their IOS and macOS operating systems and selective process for all their applications that their systems can run, thus once a person is bought into their metaphorical ecosystem. Consumers may customise, personalise and design to their own pleasure, using IOS and macOS applications only.
Putting up a walled garden pulls and entices users to buy more Apple products and thus benefiting profits across the board. A smart idea which companies are beginning to use, benefiting their operations and marketing.
This lecture was really interesting because attention economy is what I call a destructive weapon because as much as it is “beneficial”…its definitely not. It a social media’s way of keeping you on their platform because of their “amazing personalised feed.”
In relating this concept and idea from the lecture to my personal experiences with social media and running my Digital Artefact, Aquilah Productions through platforms likeInstagram,Facebook and YouTube I can confidently say I am a victim to falling into the attention economy.
For you to understand, this isn’t a good thing either. It can cost you a lot of harm on your mental & physical well-being. It not only is a distraction but it an article I read explained it discussed “that it takes more than 20 minutes to get back into the flow once you’ve been interrupted, so even just “one little look” can have a huge consequences for our focus.”
I would love to be able to sit here typing to you and say that attention economy is a great thing and we should all participate in it…however it isn’t and if you stay away from it you might save yourself. Especially going on Instagram as much as it is great, it’s also disruptive to our everyday life and it’s time, our precious time that we are paying / feeding to technology and social media.
Sean Pickering 
