Learning Through Social Media

Social media has been primarily seen as a major source of distraction when it comes to students and their learning. Most of my teachers and professors in the past have prohibited the use of cell phones or laptops during their class time. With technology being such a major part of the lives of today's society, I personally believe that prohibiting the use of technology while learning is a huge setback. I think that there can be a great advantage of using technology and social media as a positive outlet in terms of education.

I do agree that it is extremely disrespectful to be on your cell phone or laptop while a teacher is lecturing to the entire class. However, I think that there could be a strict guideline of using cell phones and laptops during a class time that could be created in order to further benefit the learning experience of the student. For example, I had a class last year that had a strict no technology use during the class. However my professor explained that if we could stay off of our cell phones and laptops during the time that the professor was lecturing, when it came to personal work time or collaborating with other students, we would be allowed to use our technology in order to research and educate ourselves and others on the topic that we were learning about. While some students took advantage of the technology usage to text or play games on their phones,  a large majority followed these guidelines and we were able to stay off of our phones and laptops while the professor lectured, and we used social media as a way to increase our knowledge.

As a student who is extremely passionate about the arts, I use social media outside of the classroom as a way to educate myself about what I love. Here are some of the websites that I use:

• Instagram: I follow lots of typography, photography, painting, drawing, and music accounts on Instagram. Through this website/app I am able to gain inspiration from others and I interact with these artists in order to learn about their certain style of art.
• Pinterest: I recently have joined an art club on campus (Club Aesthete-join us! It's fun!!!) and while I love to draw and paint, I have little experience and I have used Pinterest to create art boards where I can find links to art tutorials to teach myself certain drawing and painting techniques. I also have used Pinterest for DIY (Do It Yourself) crafts and have gained inspiration for art projects. 
• Youtube: I use Youtube for SO many different reasons (workout videos, BuzzFeed videos, viral videos, dog videos, etc), but I have used this website to also educate myself on topics including art. In the past I have watched guitar and piano videos in order to teach myself how to play certain songs, as well as crafting videos to learn how to create a certain piece of artwork.
• Tumblr: Tumblr is one of my all time favorite social media websites. As I previously stated, I recently joined an art club and just last night I went onto Tumblr to find hundreds of blogs that focused on art inspiration and tutorials in order to gain further insight on forms of art that I am passionate about. 

There are of course so many other websites and social media networks that you can use to educate yourself about topics that you are interested in. While it can be a major black hole of distraction, social media has become an amazing learning tool and I encourage you to take some time out of your day to use this form of technology as a way to further educate yourself about something that you love. 

Social Media & Creating a Successful Business

Social media has a huge impact on the success of today's businesses. Having your company use social media allows for you to advertise your brand as well as interact with your consumers. Without social media, it would be extremely difficult for a company to become well known. People would only know of the brand by word of mouth rather than seeing advertisements or positive customer interaction on their social networking websites. 

"A recent study, conducted by an Assistant Professor of Communications at New York University for Conversocial, revealed that nearly 90% of consumers, if confronted with unanswered customer complaints on a company’s social media site, would be either somewhat less likely or far less likely to do business with that company in the future." (http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/when-it-comes-social-media-consumers-wont-take-no-answer)

Creating social media profiles for your brand can either make or break you. As an artist it is extremely important to have a positive social media for your brand or name. Here are some tips to help insure that your social media benefits you rather than harms your company/brand/name. 

• Use popular social media. Creating a page on Facebook, make an Instagram account, create a Twitter. Using these social networking websites will allow you to advertise, interact and gain followers with an extremely large market. 
• Interact with your followers. It's extremely important to communicate with those that reach out to you. If your consumers feel as though they are not being heard, it's extremely likely that they will not want to engage in further business with you. Make sure to respond to all messages, whether its a simple thank you or an issue that needs to be addressed.
• Share positive messages or posts from your followers on your social media. And make sure to thank them!!! This will show your followers that you truly appreciate your customers and will have a positive interaction with those that have already purchased something of yours, enforcing their desire to continue doing business with you in the future. 

Using social media for your business is a quick and simple way to help your business. Positive interaction with your followers can go a long way in maintaining a successful name for yourself and gaining more consumers for your brand.

Social Media & Politics

This week's blog will be taking a break from artists using social media and instead we will be focusing on...politics! This week we have been learning about the influence of social media on today's politics, or more specifically, the presidential election. Ever since the 2008 presidential election, social media has become a large tool in political campaigns. Barack Obama focused his campaign on social media interaction and outreach, and was able to successfully gain a wide following on his social networking accounts, which I believe helped share his values and goals to harder to reach audiences.

Fast forward to today, where every single presidential candidate is immensely involved in using social media in their political campaigns. Today's generation are avid users and consumers of social networking websites, and in order to gain supporters, these candidates are using grassroots campaigning methods through social media by posting videos, writing statuses, posting pictures, creating hashtags (#feelthebern) and more. By using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat, these candidates are allowing their supporters to become more involved in their campaign by reaching out on a more intimate level with their followers. For example, the candidates will hold Q & A sessions on Twitter, or even reply directly to supporters on Facebook or Instagram.

I have personally felt as though I have become dramatically more involved in this presidential election through the use of social media. I have followed presidential candidates that I am a supporter of, I share videos and news articles related to the election, I will share my own personal political views on my social media accounts, and I encourage others to become involved in politics online. By having the presidential candidates using social media constantly during their campaigns, I feel more motivated to also use these social networking websites to share my political concerns and opinions in order to feel as though I am an active participant in this presidential election.

I believe that with continued social media use in political campaigns, candidates will have a more effective outreach to the younger generation of voters, and there will be an increase in voting and political debate through sharing ideas and opinions through these social networking websites.

That's enough talk about politics for now, I look forward to returning my focus on artists in next weeks blog post! See you then!

Artistic Activism

Before social media and the rise of technology used to communicate, activism was demonstrated through protests, rallies, parades, tabling, volunteering, lobbying, and other physical events that took place in order to create a change in society. Today all of these events still occur but social media activism is now used to help contribute to these changes.  An activist is someone who vigorously campaigns in order to create a political or social change. Social media activism is a sort of new age form of activism where people can campaign through social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook in order to spread the word about causes they are concerned about in hopes of creating political or social change.

There have been many examples of activism that have taken place and created change due to use of social media, including the #Kony2012 campaign, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Egyptian revolution. Social media played a giant role in these movements by allowing thousands to efficiently organize events, spread the word about their cause, and gain support from those across the world.

But how can art relate to social media activism? Some of you may remember the tsunami in Japan that happened in 2011, killing more than 18,000 people. On twitter, the hashtag #prayforjapan began to circulate and became a key source for those across the world to donate money and provide resources to those suffering in Japan. Many artists wrote songs and other forms of art for this disaster, and donated the money that was earned from their artwork to relief groups to help those that were affected by the tsunami.

I personally believe that becoming a social media activist and creating artwork for certain events would be a great way to not only support the movements that you believe in, but you can also share your artwork and donate the money that you earn to the organizations that are involved in helping these campaigns. By creating artwork that will help benefit the movements that you believe in and by campaigning for these political or social changes on your social media, you will help make a difference in the world while also creating a positive image for yourself. Social media activism will not only help you gain recognition as an artist, but you will have also made a positive impact on the world, and there's no greater feeling than that.

Crowdsourcing

Whether you already have a job that fulfills your desires as an artist, you work in a boring office in a tiny cubicle that you have no interest in, or you're even unemployed at the moment, crowdsourcing is a great way to share your art and earn money at the same time. 

The term crowdsourcing was coined by Jeff Howe, who defines it as, "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call". In simpler terms, artists such as yourselves can submit your works of art on multiple crowdsourcing websites and be payed in small amounts of money if a company decides to use your artwork for their business. This can include creative ideas, photos, designs, logos, typography, and much more. 

While crowdsourcing only pays you in small amounts of money and there is a large community of artists on these websites that you are competing against, if a company decides to use your artwork you can include that information on your resume/portfolio as well as post on your various social media websites which will improve your presence online and professionally as an artist. 

Here are some crowdsourcing websites that I highly recommend for artists:

1. 99designs.com
2. crowdspring.com
3. shutterstock.com
4. istockphoto.com
5. cloudfactory.com

Social Media Tools: Hootsuite

For artists, promoting themselves on the internet by using social media is crucial to their business. Whether you want to merely sell your works of art online by using Etsy, Soundcloud, Amazon, etc. or you want to create a small business with others, Hootsuite is an incredible tool to use to manage your social media networks.

As I have previously mentioned, having accounts separate from your personal accounts for your artwork on social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. is a great way to begin promoting your work. In order to promote yourself in a professional and effective manner, Hootsuite will be a key tool in order to achieve your business goals.

Hootsuite allows you to connect up to three social media accounts for free with a basic analytical report that will tell you what posts and content are receiving the most attention and a message scheduling system that will allow you to create posts for your social media and schedule when to post these items on your accounts. If you want to manage up to 50 different social media accounts though, I would recommend the Hootsuite Pro which includes a monthly fee of $9.99. However with the Pro, you can look at an enhanced analytics report to see how your social media efforts are affecting your business goals, you can engage directly with followers, and you can schedule bulk posts for your accounts as well.

I have yet to try Hootsuite myself but this seems like a great social media tool to use to further promote and enhance your brand online. Not only can you further connect with your followers and create professional posts across your various social networks, you can analyze data in order to gain insight for future improvements in the content that you post. The only downside from this tool is the monthly fee of $9.99 but I would highly recommend signing up for the 30 day trial and see if this tool works for you!

I also found another great tool called Adobe Post that I will begin using when I create a professional account for my artwork in the future. This tool allows you to quickly create beautiful graphics in minutes which can be used for your posts on social media such as Instagram or Facebook. You can turn a simple photo to promote your business into a stunning professional graphic that will enhance the image and aesthetic of your brand.

Feel free to try these two social media tools, I am personally so excited to start using Adobe Post and Hootsuite!

User Generated Content: A Positive or Negative for Artists?

User generated content can be defined as simply the content created by users of a website. It's the content that we, not companies or publishers, publish on the internet. From this blog post to a youtube video or to a status created on Facebook, this is all user generated content. In regards to artists however, is user generated content a positive or negative thing?

Artists create user generated content simply by posting their works of art online. This can then generate an endless stream of user generated content by having others post their thoughts on your artwork, they can share your artwork through social media, or they can post reviews or make suggestions as well. All of this can make a positive impact on your presence as an artist on the internet. Having others write reviews or make suggestions can help critique and improve your future artwork and encourage more creative ideas, and sharing your art to others online can make your artwork and name become more popular in the art community on the internet. 

However user generated content could also be a bad thing as well. Bad reviews or negative comments on your works of art could give your name and future business as an artist a poor reputation. It's important to be able to decipher between constructive criticism and just negative comments due to misinformation or poor opinions. When reading user generated content about your artwork, just remember that you have the ability to let other's comments and ideas affect you in a positive or negative way. You are in control of what you consume on the internet, so appreciate the shares and encouraging comments, but also try to focus on negative comments as well as a way to improve your future work. 

Due to user generated content, we have the amazing ability to create whatever we want and share our opinions and ideas and works of art with millions of other people on the internet. Artists would not be able to exist on social media or the internet without the presence of user generated content. It is my hope for the future that this freedom to create and share with our online community will continue for years to come.