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.