Post by mattallangrizzle on Oct 29, 2014 21:59:24 GMT -5
The mass communications course 291 – Global Health and Social Media has been by far the most memorable course I have taken as of this discussion posting. This is both a positive and negative connoted statement. First I would like to say that Mr. Messner and Ms. Guidry, as well as the TA’s Ms. Gill and Ms. Larson, have been more than accommodating and responsive throughout the entirety of the course. All questions and issues about the course were handled swiftly and aptly.
The content of the course has been definitely insightful and engaging. I have learned quite a bit, especially from the hangouts with professionals over Google hangout, about the reality and practices of health care and non-profit social media campaigns and the industry surrounding social media professionals. Through the research and readings I have garnished a better understanding of the importance of a clear campaign goal and a strong community engagement. I have also learned about the practices involving campaign fundraising, social media metrics tracking, and appropriate multimedia content creation. One of the most important lessons I take away from this course is that virality of a campaign and trying to force a phenomenon like the ALS ice bucket challenge is just impractical and a misuse of social media campaign efforts. Social media campaigning, especially with industries such as health care and non-profits, should be through two-way communication and accessible immersive engagement with the target community. Furthermore knowing the true effectiveness of a campaign is more nuanced than a numbers game. A successful social media campaign should be marked by the real world consequence or effect it inspires and not just the social buzz it forms.
This course definitively lacked in certain aspects though; mainly the course requirement of a team project. Although I failed to take advantage of the week-by-week reviews of group work when I should have, I feel it wouldn’t have mitigated the fact that the only negative aspect I can espouse about this course was the group campaign project. The campaign project, which is an aspect that I don’t believe should be removed but can continued to be improved upon, isn’t really the issue. To the contrary I found it to be a practically exercise of what we learned. I feel the selection of group mates either needs to be improved to a larger number where the likelihood of working with a group of mostly inactive members is decreased (something that I have heard expressed by many others in different groups) or the group size is cut in half and the amount of work is adapted to a smaller group size so the pressure of completing the assigned project weighs heavier on each member. Either way the group work aspect could have been better as this caused the absolute most stress in this course for me personally.
The content of the course has been definitely insightful and engaging. I have learned quite a bit, especially from the hangouts with professionals over Google hangout, about the reality and practices of health care and non-profit social media campaigns and the industry surrounding social media professionals. Through the research and readings I have garnished a better understanding of the importance of a clear campaign goal and a strong community engagement. I have also learned about the practices involving campaign fundraising, social media metrics tracking, and appropriate multimedia content creation. One of the most important lessons I take away from this course is that virality of a campaign and trying to force a phenomenon like the ALS ice bucket challenge is just impractical and a misuse of social media campaign efforts. Social media campaigning, especially with industries such as health care and non-profits, should be through two-way communication and accessible immersive engagement with the target community. Furthermore knowing the true effectiveness of a campaign is more nuanced than a numbers game. A successful social media campaign should be marked by the real world consequence or effect it inspires and not just the social buzz it forms.
This course definitively lacked in certain aspects though; mainly the course requirement of a team project. Although I failed to take advantage of the week-by-week reviews of group work when I should have, I feel it wouldn’t have mitigated the fact that the only negative aspect I can espouse about this course was the group campaign project. The campaign project, which is an aspect that I don’t believe should be removed but can continued to be improved upon, isn’t really the issue. To the contrary I found it to be a practically exercise of what we learned. I feel the selection of group mates either needs to be improved to a larger number where the likelihood of working with a group of mostly inactive members is decreased (something that I have heard expressed by many others in different groups) or the group size is cut in half and the amount of work is adapted to a smaller group size so the pressure of completing the assigned project weighs heavier on each member. Either way the group work aspect could have been better as this caused the absolute most stress in this course for me personally.