Too much social media?

I read a blog earlier today about people believing there is too much social media and too much is being shared with it.  The author said that 4 billion things are posted on Facebook every day.  That seems like a big number but when you stop and think about how many people in the world have Facebook and even if everyone just posted one thing per day that would be quite a large number. That isn't even taking into account people that are on Facebook throughout the day posting more than one thing.  I might be a little bias seeing as how I am a 21 year old college student. But I have Facebook and Twitter and I check them multiple times a day.  My generation is one that has been raised with computers.  We feel comfortable with social media and texting.  My roommates and I just moved in to our house a week ago and we haven't gotten our internet set up yet.  Anytime that any of us set foot in to an academic building with wifi we practically jump for joy!  We like to feel connected whether that is checking on our friends back home or just seeing what our classmates are up to when we aren't with them.  We have grown accustomed to the feeling of connection and information and the thought of life without it can seem downright lonely. Call it what you will. Pathetic or unnecessary but never before has there been this much information available to us at the click of a button.  I don't see how too much information could ever be seen as a bad thing.  Be smart about what you post and use the information to your advantage. We could all use a little more information from time to time.


Here is the link to the blog ----->   http://soshable.com/are-we-sharing-too-much-on-social-media/

New Rules of Marketing and PR

I really thought that chapter 5 "The New Rules of News Releases" was an interesting chapter. Press releases are such a big part of public relations.  With press releases having such a big role in the profession it only makes sense that they would evolve from releases from a pr practitioner to a media source to being posted online for all of the public to see.  As I'm sure everyone knows just recently Steve Jobs resigned from Apple.  Had this happened say 20 years ago the general public like you and I would not have been able to simply go to apple's website and view it. The release would've gone from Apple to a media source and we would have eventually found out via the media.

With a direct line from the company to the public I think that public relations can be more effective in their goal of two way communication.  The press release is now referred to as the news release according to the author David Scott.  This name better implies that that the release is sent out as it's basic form, news.  The news release is sent out all the time instead of just when big things are happening. I think this is a great idea because if the public is investing in your company they want to know what is going on all the time. The public doesn't want to just hear from you when something great has happened or even worse, when something terrible has happened.  With these new ideas developing everyday I think pr is becoming one of the most progressive careers of my generation. We are taking the old ideas of brilliant people and making them even better.

Living at the 429

Alright guys, so this year four of my friends and I are renting a house in Ada. It is our first time living off campus and we also have a new addition to our living situation. Last year four of us were living together in a apartment on campus and we have added our friend Ben as our fifth roommate. If you are asking yourself how this relates to life at ONU I'll explain. College is all about growing up and becoming responsible and experiencing things you never have before. SO....living in a huge house without your parents helping you out is exciting and scary all at the same time! It's only been a week of living there and so much has happened! The most recent was a bat. Our Saturday night unfortunately was spent mostly trying to get the bat out of the upstairs of the house! It sounds easy but it is a ridiculous process. It took seven of us and there were plastic bags, broomsticks, foil balls and extremely large comforters involved. Needless to say we finally got him out and are hoping for no more surprises!! Our house is very large and very pretty but we have maybe the creepiest basement I've ever seen in my entire life. It goes for miles! So we have a had a few frightening nights dealing with that as well. Stories too embarrassing to go into on my first blog.

The other challenging thing different this year compared to last is being responsible for bills and rent. When you live on campus everything is included in your tuition so although you are paying a ton to be living in that nice apartment with the air turned down all the way to 65 you never see it actually come out of your wallet.  This year we have divided the bills up evenly so that every person has a bill in their name in order to keep things organized and help all of us earn credit.  This concept takes a lot of money management skills that I don't always have. So this is for sure something new to get used to.

Any other issues I can foresee is just keeping the house clean and everyone doing their part.  I think we have had a pretty good handle on the cleaning so far but then again it has only been a week. So we will see what will happen when it's week 9 and everyone is crazy busy!

Besides all the responsibility I'm having a blast so far and really what doesn't kill us makes us stronger! I think it's going to be an interesting and exciting year! I can't wait!