Coffee and Communications

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Technology - So Easy, Even the Kids Can Use It!

Before we really get started with today’s blog, I am going to post this little disclaimer: I am not a parent. I do not have any experience raising a child, so these are my thoughts and ideas that I have both researched and gathered from my own mind. If you choose not to raise your child using what I talk about below, don’t! When my nephew was younger, the only time he was allowed to use an iPad was when he was at my house, with his grandparents. His mom and dad did not want their kid, who was probably around 5, to be too reliant on technology. They set boundaries and did not allow him a tablet at that young age, even though most of his friends had one of their own. Of course, all rules go out the window when you visit the grandparents. He started realizing that he could use the iPad whenever he wanted to when he was with them, and used that to his advantage! I think he was around 2 or 3 when he figured out how to unlock the iPad, go to Netflix, and watch a movie! Even though he c...

Building Personal Brands for Normal People

Sometimes, okay more than sometimes, I joke that something is very “on-brand” for me. What, exactly, does this mean, you may ask? When I say it in this context, I mean that it is very “me.” The color green, hydrangeas, cats, being sarcastic; these are all “on-brand” for me. All jokes aside, it is very important for a person’s personal branding to be consistent across several different places. When people look at your social networking sites, both personal and professional, are they going to want to get to know you? Personal branding is important for everyone, but today it is becoming even more important to social media influencers. Now, I know what you are thinking. Emily, you talk about these influencers all the time, and yes, I do. I do this because these influencers are changing the way we go about our daily lives and we hardly even notice that. It is so important for these influencers to have consistent branding across their sites, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and...

Crowdsourcing for Social Media Influencers?

The rise of social media influencers started around 2010 – 2011, and it has only grown since then. It is interesting to me that, according to our reading, a Major League sports team was one of the first places we saw these “Brand Ambassadors.” They would invite social media users to sit in a special part of the baseball stadium to watch, and post, about the game. The social media users would also have media passes in order to access information typically reserved for traditional journalists. Today, you can’t scroll down Instagram without seeing a social media influencer posting an advertisement for a brand that they are affiliated with. According to Ste Davies , a digital consultant, there are more than 500,000 active influencers on Instagram alone and over 2 million companies use these influencers to advertise products. These influencers can be used for anything from promoting a product to releasing information about the company. Influencers don’t have as many restrictions th...

So You Want To Write a News Blog?

For most people, it is easier to trust something that is coming out from a friend rather than a stranger. Even if this stranger’s job is to report the news. This is one reasons blogs are so popular, but according to one of our readings this week, people have been communicating news in a “blog” type fashion for hundreds of years. By this, I mean learning about local news from friends and anonymous sources by letter or newsletter, rather than just reading it in a newspaper. People find their friends to be more trustworthy. Rather than watch someone on the news tell you about a new restaurant opening, wouldn’t you like to hear it from a friend? This friend may know someone who knows the owner. This makes you feel like you have inside access to the story instead of hearing it from someone with no connection at all! Today, the mainstream media has several things against it, most of all that it is seen as untrustworthy “fake news.” In fact, according to this Gallup poll, only 41%...

Social Media and Politics... These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

I love politics. All four of my internships in college and my first job after graduating with my bachelors were in politics, and I thought it was going to be the industry that I worked in for the rest of my life. That was not the case, as I now work in higher education, but my love for politics has not faded. I know that this is not the case with other people who are from my generations (I am considered a "cusper", I am right on the line of being a Millennial and Gen Z, as I was born in 1995). I have realized in recent years that the older people of my generation have become slightly more politically active, but for the most part my generation does not participate in politics as well as we should. While I exercise my right to vote every chance I can, I don’t think my brothers or fiancé are even registered. I have been keeping up with the President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, but I know there are a lot of people around my age that don’t even know that it is happeni...

Mobile Friendly Websites: The New Normal

Every website should be mobile friendly. There I said it. In my opinion, I think every company that has a website should make that site mobile friendly, even if a majority of the visits to the site are from desktop computers. Unless 100% of site visits are from something other than mobile phones, there should be some type of mobile friendly element to the site. I think this can be make or break for a company. According to the article “Why Are Mobile Friendly Websites and Content Important?” 2016 was the first year that people used mobile internet more than a desktop. This same article lists out 10 reasons to make your website mobile friendly: 1. Google prioritizes mobile friendly websites. Since 2015, Google has been more likely to place mobile friendly sites over those who are geared more toward desktop searchers. 2. People everywhere use mobile devices to do more than just calling and ...