Pinterest May Be More Than a Just a Boredom Buster

Like many other 22-year-old women who are into fashion, beautiful things, making plans for a future home, and discovering new do-it-yourself ideas, I am mildly obssessed with Pinterest.  If time and my schedule allowed, I would spend hours on this online bulletin board site, and would be more than delighted to do so.  Therefore, there are no issues with convincing me how great Pinterest is as a site in general, since there is an endless amount of new information to discover; yet, I am very interested in knowing if this networking site can be used in a professional sense, as well for marketing endeavors, or to also build upon an online personality.  I wonder if it is now or will soon be acceptable to provide a Pinterest account name to a resume and what employers could possibly gain from viewing a candidates profile.

In an article published last month by Tom Spiglanin, blogger, scientist and educator, a new side of Pinterest is revealed;  a professional side.  He mentions that he is using Pinterest as a “professional development” tool and that he is new to this form of networking, and is therefore in the process of discovering the many possible functions of Pinterest.  He offers 5 techniques that he has already used or is planning to use on his Pinterest account to utilise the site’s professional capabilities, and these tips shed a new light on the many benefites of Pinterest.

First, Spiglanin suggests “pinning” blog or web pages that you have learned something from, and are educationally related to your career field.  He mentions that he found many of these sites from his Twitter feed, so he is able to save, in a sense, the “tweets” or information he finds on Twitter through his Pinterest account.  Ah, the joy of cross-networking.

Secondly, the writer states that one should use the “Pin It” button offered on many websites to automatically add more information or “pins” to your Pinterest account.  It is assumed that only images can be “pinned” but articles or text-only pins can be pinned also, and a Pinterest icon will appear if there is no image available.  This tip broadens the range of the content lurking in the black holes of the Internet that is waiting to be pinned (as if there wasn’t enough content to dig through to begin with) and presents the opportunity to build upon a Professional “pin board” to balance visual stimulation with literary stimulation.  Also, using this “images AND text” approach may help one to create a more well-rounded online personality.

Thirdly, Spiglanin suggests visiting his own personal professional Pinterest board where he has pinned multiple articles pertaining to the career-related uses of Pinterest.  I clicked on this link and, indeed, Tom had many articles pinned that pertained to learning through social media with titles including “List of Social Media Tools that Can be Used for Learning,” “The Twitter Spectrum for Educators” and “Social Networking and Your Business: Don’t Get Left Behind!”  I can be almost 100% sure that the articles I saw on this educated blogger’s Pinterest account will come in handy in my career.

The fourth tip is simple:  search for other similiar boards on Pinterest to widen the range of results.  This not only adds supplement information to further support articles already read, but spawns new questions and topics to explore in the same, similar or completely different fields.

Lastly, Spiglanin suggests pinning with colleagues from around the world through Pinterest’s “shared pinning” option.  I am not positive about this, but I am pretty sure that the writer’s reference to the “shared pinning” option means clicking the “repin” button at the left hand corner of another person’s pin in order to “re-pin” it to one of your boards.  The person you received the pin from is credited, but the VERY FIRST person to originally pin the image is not credited.  With topics such as beauty tips or craft ideas, the point of origin is not as important, but when pinning an educational article or a blog post, it is probably a good practice to make sure that the original publisher of the information is cited.

Using these tips that Tom Spiglanin has outlined, is is easy to see how one like myself who is already somewhat experienced with using Pinterest can tweek the site to function as a professional tool for communication, discovery and online personality development.  So, you skeptics out there who think Pinterest is a mindless waste of time, might want to think again, because it appears that there is more to Pinterest than meets the eye – literally.

Website Progress: About 20% more to go…

It has truly been inspiring to watch my website progress from its  bare bones to a dynamic, workable representation of all that I have done while at Bloomsburg University, and also an accurate picture of the person that I am and what is important to me.  This project is still a work in progress, and in some sense, always will be as I come to learn of new elements that I can incorporate into my pages.  There have been days where I have signed on to my account and stared blankly at the screen, not having a clue of what I would add or tweek next on the pages.  Yet, there were other days when I felt inspired to add this and that and everything in between to make my website the best it could be within the boundaries of my skill set.  I am approaching the finished product and I am excited to see and use this website in its best form as a weapon in my scholarly artillery as I prepare to graduate.

Recently, I have been working on adjusting the written content of my Index page and my Biography page.  I wanted to make the information about myself on my Biography page a bit more personal, instead of focusing solely on my academic persona.  That is still a work in progress, for it is difficult for me as a 22-year-old to sum up the better parts of myself in 3 or paragraphs.  But doing so will demonstrate that I understand the importance of creating content that readers can work through quickly while receiving an accurate image of myself as a person.

Also, I have added some inspiring quotes to my website for a couple specific reasons:  firstly, I love the drama that a good, quality quote can have on a person’s insight, and I chose two quotes that refer to writing, my biggest love in life, and another quote about the possibilities that await me, which I found fitting as graduation approaches.  These thought-provoking statements from Maya Angelou and Ernest Hemingway, not only refelect my own thoughts, but show the deeper contents of my soul.  Also, I feel that the addition of these quotes, breaks up the monotony of the text on my site and create some intrigue since these literary additions may be an element that not many people choose to incorporate into a personal website.

I have added a couple new images to the slide show I posted on my Photos page, which include an image of the BUNow logo, an organization for which I have written multiple stories since freshmen year and a scanned newspaper image of a picture taken at the Bloomsburg Highschool at the closing of the “Flood Buddies” campaign.  I plan on adding more images to this slide show; I have about 8 images to date.  I also created a link to the BUNow website from the logo pictured in my slide show.

In terms of aesthetic changes, I have added dividers to some of my pages to streamline the information.  This is only a minor alteration to my site, but I know that it is details like these that will combine in the end to make a uniform, effective whole.

*****

There are smaller additions and changes that I have in mind for my website.  These include saving all my documents as PDF files so that they cannot be altered by those who visit my site and I also want to add some screen shots of articles that I have had published on BUNow, as well as articles published about the “Flood Buddies” by various media sources.  I want to add a Wordle to my Homepage as another way for a viewer to immediately see the subjects on which my website will be focusing.  I am still in the process of sifting through my photos to find more that can be added to my slide show, and will probably play around with the arrangement of these images.  Finally, I still want to add a couple scanned images of a newsletter that I created, a communication model that I devised and a video that I created and edited for a BUNow article.  I want to incorporate as many forms of media as I can so that I will portray myself as a versatile individual, and so that viewers will have just enough information to look at on my website without becoming overwhelmed.

The Importance of Having a “Professional” Facebook Page

Networking is everywhere and virtually everyone has at least heard the term of “Facebook” even if they do not have their own account. Facebook, in theory, is a wonderful tool to stay connected to practically anyone anywhere. But, there are drawbacks to anything digital and Facebook is no exception. It is quite possible to put too much personal information on Facebook, and since employers do in fact access potential employee’s pages, they can decide to forego hiring someone solely because of a trashy picture or crude post on a person’s pivate site. It seems wrong that an employer could turn down a candidate for something so small or maybe even accidental, but as I try to adjust my mindset to think of what companyies look for in a potential employee, I think it makes perfect sense that Facebook is used as an employment tool. It is far quicker for an employer to log onto a person’s Facebook page to gain a general opinion of that person, than it is too have that person come in for an interview, where the candidate is on his or her best behavior and true colors may be subdued.  I do believe that such a thing called “Facebook etiquette” does and should exist where one knows what can and can not be posted on the Internet and has a professional and intellectual way of using Facebook as a communication tool. When I entered Bloomsburg University as a freshman, I never anicipated that my Facebook account could play such a crucial role in the future and fate of my career.

In an article by Jennifer Waters called “Facebook is Fun for Recruiters, Too,” companies are now referring to this tool as a “social media background check,” and offers the ins and outs of what to expect from this intimidating search technique. Waters states that most employers will look past pictures of 21-year-olds or older if there are alcoholic drinks involved – but this will be a big deal if the pictures showcase minors drinking or partying. Kim Harmer, a partner at a recruiting firm in Chicago stated that she isn’t so much looking at the activities that candidates do on their Facebook, but more so “how they communicate what they do and their thoughts and their judgements to the public as a reflection of what they will do with clients and team members.” This is probably a relief to many. The purpose behind this whole process basically lies with whether or not an employer feels that a potential job candidate will do well with representing the company with which they would be hired. Everything that a new employee does reflects back on to the person that hired them, so this is important to remember.

Waters offers helpful tips for job-seekers not sure about where to start when cleaning up their Facebook profiles. First, Waters suggests doing some searches of your own name either on Google or another search engine to see what surfaces about you, both good and bad. She reinds that even things that could be taken out of context, such as inside jokes, should be removed from the Internet as much as possible. Next, Waters says that privacy settings should be checked and re-checked on all social media accounts so that those that have accounts on social networking pages can have more control over the information that is made public about them. Also, it is a good idea to create “a postiive online presence” by putting up a resume on a site with a personal domain name ( I am pleased to read this, because I am working on doing exactly this in class), and lastly, those that are truly unsure about where to begin, can hire a company like Reputation.com to help with the dirty work.

If there is one thing I could tell students still in highschool (some whom I was friends with on Facebook and “defriended” them because I felt it was unappropriate to be “friends” with a 16-year-old), it would be that they need to start paying attention NOW to what they are puting up and saying on Facebook. When I was a senior in highschool, Facebook was just taking off, so I can only imagine how much more exposure kids seven years my junior are up against. If they aren’t smart about Facebook now, more than likely, the stupidity of their youth will catch up with them later in life.

I am definitely in the process of giving my Facebook a makeover, and for good reason, too. I want employers to see my intelligence, sense of humor, creativity, meaningful relationships and interests on Facebook, but anything more than that I would like to keep to myself, as I should. I am deciding that my Facebook is going to be a tool for my future and not a barrier to my success.

Digital press releases: the future of traditional public relations

The first concrete thing I learned about public relations after I enrolled in my first course at Bloomsburg University was how to write a press release – and I learned that if I stuck with this choice of major and career that I would be writing a lot of them.  I learned the proper format of a traditional press release:  how to properly use a header, what contact information and specifics to provide below the header and how to arrange the body or content of the press release.  The process got easier I wrote more press releases as I moved from a freshman to a senior – and then my world of press releases was thrown upside down when I learned about the newest trend in PR communication:  the electronic or digital press release.  I am still learning the “ins” and “outs” of this style of digital communication, and it is certainly intriguing.  But this personal anecdote of mine proves that the second one becomes comfortable with communication or it’s pathways, the game will be sure to change.

For the sake of learning some fun new facts, I decided to research the brief history of the digital press release, since I was unsure of when exactly it came about.  In a packet given to me by my PR professor, Dr. Richard Ganahl about SHIFT communications, a technologically savvy public communications firm, the history of this new style of press release is outlined, and it was actually the SHIFT company themselves that released the first template for the social media press release in May of 2006 (“A Necessarily Living Document,” 21).  This document itself was published in 2006 and is considerably outdated, but it still presents an abundance of useful information.  Tom Foremski from Silicon Valley called for a press release that accommodated social media, and SHIFT Communications complied.  Provided in the document is the template for the electronic press release that SHIFT produced, and it appears to be very easy to follow and extremely interactive.  The contact information and headline are still provided, as well as core news story facts, but the overwhelming difference in this 21st century press release is the amount of links contained on a single screen, including photo, video and podcast links, a link to a “purpose-built” del.icio.us page, RSS feeds, “Technorati tags” and “digg this” links.  This layout is impressive to say the least, and was created six years ago.  The writing, or content in the press release seems to take a back seat to the technological counterparts, but I am learning that this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Viewing this press release reasserts, once again, the strong presence that social media, in all its forms, will play in my future.  I am doing my best to stay up to date on my “status updates” and “tweeting” as I can, but I admit that I’m not as apt as I should be.  It excites me that I will be required to maintain a constant learning continuum in a public relations position.  Learning as much as I can is an attractive concept to me, and will undoubtedly come in handy in more ways than one.

Thanks,

Erika

Website construction: less daunting and more fun

This is how I feel NOW about creating my own website

During Tuesday’s class, I experienced a technological breakthrough:  I found that the process of designing my own website on Weebly.com could actually be fun, and as I started playing around with the different elements, I realized that time was zooming by.  Dreamweaver is still intimidating and hopefully with not be closer to the end of the semester, but Weebly is another story; it is starting to feel comfortable and familiar.  I already know that working with these website programs will be an excellent skill to add to my resume and I plan on keeping up with it and adjusting the layout, content and elements as times continue to change.

In terms of my new discoveries on Weebly, there have been a multitude of them.  I crafted the background of my site the way I like it and actually managed to find a purple background design code in html and added it to the background myself.  I think I almost fell off my seat in class when I realized I’d actually managed to manipulate html language to create an end product with which I was happy.  I also created most of my pages (though I hope to add more in the future), which presently include a home page, a biography page, photos, a page that links to my blog, an online portfolio page, my contact information and a page where others can input their information in order to contact me.  I am still in the process of adding information and links to these pages, and it is exciting to see my online presence become somewhat organized and accessible to others.  I know it will take a lot of tweeking to bring the site to the level I would like to see it at, but I anticipate feeling very accomplished and fulfilled at the end of the class.

Another thrilling discovery I made on Weebly during the last class included figuring out how to make a slide show of pictures of me with my family and school/career related  events.  Adding this component to my site gives a personal feel to the other information and puts a face to the pages of content.  Altering the font styles, sizes and placements was also fun and enhanced the personality of my site, while maintaining a professional appeal.

As I learn about more changes I can add to my website, I find that it will probably be in my best interest to make a continuous list of elements and design additions to keep my site up-to-date and as interactive as possible.  Some ideas I have come up with to add to my site in the near future include a Wordle, as well as links to  and Twitter page, @EZaborny (and possibly my Pinterest, my newest obsession).  I also plan to add an interests or hobbies page to my site, and I aim for this page to offer the most insight into the person I really am and the things I love to do.

These are only a few of the plans I have for my website and as I learn more, I will add more to my online presence and am now officially exited to do so.  =]

 

Thanks for reading,

–Erika

Let’s go back to the beginning…when MySpace was King

My reference to MySpace in yesterday’s post sent me off on a trip down memory lane.  I’ve been a member of Facebook for the past five years, and when I first made the switch from MySpace over to Facebook sometime in 2007, I accessed both profiles for a couple months and then gradually left MySpace in the dust completely, until I deleted it altogether.  Gazing back in retrospect, it was MySpace that kick-started not only my digital footprint, but also my blogging experience.  I never considered MySpace to be a blog until yesterday while writing this blogpost, when I realized that I had been an active blogger at the age of 14, when I would post on MySpace almost every day, writing about my day at school, posting poems that I had written, as well as links to other web pages that interested me.

As this sinks in, it’s impossible to deny that MySpace has taken a backseat to Facebook, but I wonder if MySpace may have contributed more to online literacy than Facebook, since I myself wrote much more on my MySpace page than I do currently on my Facebook page, and posts are even shorter on Twitter, which is the most recent boom in social networking.  This trend would suggest that writing on the Internet is becoming more a thing of convenience and efficiency, rather than a vehicle for quality communication.  Facebook is quicker, but was there more substance to teh communication styles of MySpace?

I don’t remember exactly why or when I deleted my MySpace profile – perhaps I found it to be more juvenile than Facebook.  Since it has been a year or two since I had even logged onto the MySpace web page, I decided to check it out and see the state of MySpace in 2012.  I immediately noticed that the overwhleming theme of the site has been directed toward music and entertainment, rather than advertising social networking for the average person as the site’s main purpose.  It seems that MySpace has taken the route of a media directory and upon accessing the page, I found music videos, movie trailers, links to “MySpace music charts,” “MySpace TV” and “MySpace music player.”  There were also links to recent media news stories and multiple advertisements for the Grammy’s.  It is obvious that MySpace took a different marketing approach to diversify its services from Facebook, but for me, it has lost it’s original appeal as an online journal – the original blog for the youth, if you will.  Although I won’t be signing up for another MySpace account, I can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic toward the days when I first discovered an outlet for my writing on the Internet, and I can safely say that MySpace assissted me with exploring my own writing and helped me to appreciate the effect my words had on my family and friends.  So, I thank you MySpace – you served me well; but my social networking life goes on.

National Literacy Trust says that technology is making chlidren “better writers”

An article published a little over a year ago by the BBC suggests that children who blog, use social networking sites, text and have IM chat conversations regularly are said to be better communicators and writers.  3,001 children between the ages of nine and sixteen were surveyed and questioned about their technology use in a study conducted by the National Literacy Trust, and it was found that 24% of kids in this age range have their own blog and post on it regularly.  This informaton is surprising to me in both positive and negative ways.  In one sense, it is nice to learn that children are being familiarized at a young age with digital writing, such  as blogging, and are being taught to express themselves (hopefully intelligently) online.  At the same time, I don’t necessarily believe that children younger than 11 or 12 should be puting more information than they need to on the Internet.  Texting and IM are fine because the audience of a tween’s message is more controlled.  But once information hits the Internet, all gloves are off, and anyone, anywhere can access personal information – hence the blessing and curse of the World Wide Web.  Of course, this presents an issue more of privacy than of literacy, but for some reason, a 10 year old having a blog is a little unsettling to me, and I hope that privacy settings are being used in this instance.  I can see, however, how a child posting regularly on a blog, such as MySpace, where hopefully only friends and family members are reading the child’s opinons and thoughts, is helping to cultivate a more thoughtful generation that want to write in order to communicate.

A quote from Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust, explains the positive influence of technology on this specific age group of society:  “Engagement with online technology  drives their enthusiasm for writing short stories, letters, song lyrics or diaries.”  Douglas isn’t worried about the “informal” style of writing that “text language” has been blamed with creating in young adults, stating firmly that the “research results are conclusive – the more forms of communication children use, the stronger their core literary skills.”  Along with Douglas’ convictions, the more tech-savy students themselves seem to feel that they have stronger writing skills because they use more communication technology than their peers, and the article states that “Of the children who neither blogged nor used social network sites, 47% rated their writing as ‘good’ or ‘very good’, while 61% of bloggers and 56% of social networkers said the same.”  The kids seem confident in their literacy skills, which is good; but until there are no more “u” instead of “you” substitutions in papers and assignments, I will continue to lead toward skepticism rather than advocacy.

This article sheds light on the good outcomes of technology, especially for youngsters, but I feel that only time will tell if this up and coming technologically-able generation will truly be better off because of Internet writing, or the Internet in general.  Of course, I hope that this is the case, but I am not sure that I am yet convinced of the benefits.

Thanks for reading,

Erika

The Tech Changes in the Public Relations Field

Writing and Communication – those two areas have always been my passions and have harbored my greatest skill as a scholar.  Upon coming to Bloomsburg, I felt that the field of Public Relations would be the best career path for me, but I knew so little about what exactly it was that I would be doing besides writing and communicating in some fashion.  I would soon learn how huge of a role technology would play in PR, and I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t ready for it.  Technology changed the rules of the Public Relations game, and it is opening the doors for my career possibilities in the future

In a senior-level class taught by Dr. Richard Ganahl, my advisor and primary public relations professor at Bloomsburg University, we were handed a 40-some page manual pertaining to the changing ways of the Mass Communications field that, to say the least, overwhelmed me.  The document was titled “PR 2.0 Essentials: A Necessarily Living Document,” and was created by SHIFT Communications, a Public Relations Agency with offices in Massachusetts and California.  Once I skimmed through the pages, I realized that I could possibly be holding communicative gold in my hands.  In the pages, everything from social bookmarking to Podcasts to effective Blogging was discussed.  I say that I felt overwhelmed because there were so many dimensions to public relations that I knew so little about, and I wondered if I could handle it all.  To top off this creeping feeling of doubt, I glanced at the copyright date and realized the document was published in 2006, and the digital world has morphed tremendously in the past five years since then.  Needless to say, a bit of panic started to ensue as I thought of how much catching up needed to occur for me to some day be a PR professional.

I quickly understood that the numerous new developments in the world of communication were not something to fear, but were simply challenges that I would need to rise to.  In order to do so, I would need to alter my personal definition of what it means to communicate.  After reading through SHIFT’s manual, I now believe that communication itself, as well as the morphing, pulsing creature of the Internet are, in a sense, living and necessarily so.  As technology changes, people change and I feel that striving for progress and betterment are imbedded in human nature.  We are flexible beings and our manners and styles of communication and language should be as well.

But, that is simply my personal opinion.  Some people might enjoy limitations.

All for now.

–Erika

Facebook: helping or hurting?

Don’t get me wrong – I love Facebook as much as the next college student, and use my account to stay up to date on pretty much everything happening on a social level.  But as I think about it, Facebook is depleting the degree of “face to face” conversation in interpersonal communication, just like Instant Messaging and texting did before social networking.  I have a love/hate relationship with this technological phenomenon, and I smirk when I see someone on Facebook at the library, as if the urgency to check for a notification or a friend request is so overwhelming that it must be dealt with immediately.  However, in the same breath, I find myself signing on to the Internet some days, and immediately type in the Facebook web address, operating entirely on auto pilot, when it was not the site I had intended to access.  These accidents make me realize that I’ve trained myself to be dependent on technology, partly because society is telling me to do so, and partly because I want to do it myself, so that I don’t miss a beat.

I know staying connected to the outside world is absolutely necessary in today’s fast-paced society, and most of us crave instant gratification, myself included.  But, is there such a thing as being too connected, or too involved in someone else’s business?  It is now possible to know fact upon fact about a person with whom no form of physical contact has been made, and that actually frightens me.  Regardless of this unsettling idea, I can not yet allow myself to become bitter in any way about technology, considering it will presumably become more and more important and possibly necessary for survival as the future becomes the present, and I can’t afford to shy away from the digital world.  I try to see the pros and cons of situations before I decide how I feel, and the varying opinions posted on ProCon.org suggest many good and bad possible outcomes of social networking on society, some of which are surprising at first, but definitely make sense. 

For now, I’m going to give social networking the benefit of the doubt, and hope that society (especially my generation) becomes more liberated and knowledgeable because of social media, and not more confined to glowing screens and fearful of face-to-face conversations. 

Those are all the musings I have for now, thanks for reading.

–Erika

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. After you read this, you should delete and write your own post, with a new title above. Or hit Add New on the left (of the admin dashboard) to start a fresh post.

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

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