Here is the file to the press release I made with Alejandro Lopez for COJR 3422
Category: Blogs
Podcast with Alejandro
Check out this 3-minute podcast I did with Alejandro Lopez, where we talk about online privacy in the United States.
Here is the link below
All the information needed
Press releases have been around since 1905. They provide valuable information not only to the public but journalists around the world. Since the takeoff of the internet, press releases have grown much more and have become way more common.
Press releases have changed with the growth of technology, allowing press releases to become more widely available rather than just seen through traditional media. With the growth of technology, press releases have incorporated multimedia and a way to access these releases online for millions of people to see and look up.
You don’t just want press releases when there is big news because “big news” doesn’t always happen. It’s about making any news have a hook that will intrigue journalists. Having a shift in a company is not the biggest news, but giving a reason for that shift can intrigue a journalist to want to dive deep into that story. This works the same for something that involves evidence. If Taco Bell were to take something off the menu, that is not newsworthy. Still, if they were to take something off the menu after finding something harmful or contaminated within that object on the menu, suddenly, it becomes a great news hook to follow and gather information about.
Press releases provide helpful information to the public and journalists looking for stories. Without press releases, people would go crazy wondering about how certain events happened without the company talking about it, and that’s what press releases do. It also doesn’t have to be a bad event that makes a press release. Some great press releases come from Apple whenever they release a new product and discuss the new features they offer. All in all, press releases are a great way to gain information through the evidence and details that they provide within these releases.
The start of something new
Vlogs and podcasts have become the new norm. Consuming them has allowed people with certain niches and hobbies to profit off things they love and build massive audiences.
Trends come and go, but some things are meant to stay, and they do. 15 years ago, watching a tv show or a movie was so common and was the biggest consumption in the video world. Vlogs, podcasts, and other youtube videos have become a completely normal and popular thing to consume.
I’ve said it before, but the biggest reason people consume other people’s content is that they resonate with it. Vlogs and podcasts allow the creators to talk about themselves and what goes on in their life. Through this, it allows fans and users to compare themselves to these creators and ultimately become fans. For example, the biggest YouTubers always have a niche, whether it be video games, makeup, fashion, sports, etc. Through these topics and the ability to record yourself, you become easily accessible to people wanting to watch the content. The way to create more engagement is just to be a likable and trustworthy person. At the end of the day, fans want to be recognized as loyal supporters who feel appreciated.
The explosion of vlogs and podcasts will set up younger generations to engage with the internet younger and younger. An example of a young youtube star is Ryans’s Toy reviews which have amassed 34 million subscribers. Soon enough, all the kids will be looking up to YouTubers before finding out about movie and tv stars.
Social media and why it’s addictive.
Social media and its algorithms are the reason apps are so addictive. Content is generated for users off their statistics and then is built into filter bubbles. Here is why social media keeps you interacting with your feed constantly.
Social media algorithms separate content among users. These algorithms allow every user to access different content from their feed. Whether it be Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, etc. All these social media companies provide algorithms based on how users interact with their feeds and who they follow, and how those users interact with their feeds. Also, filter bubbles are a huge part of these algorithms because filter bubbles groups users into certain content and will show you the same topics over and over again.
Algorithms from social media companies usually imply the same things. How long will a user interact with posts? Will the user like, comment, or share a certain post? Does the user have a mutual follower who interacts with certain posts? Most of all, is the content relevant? Ultimately providing more engagement. All this and more goes into social media algorithms and is the reason why these apps are so addictive.
Filter bubbles come in after algorithms. Filter bubbles are the content you enjoy the most and interact with, but that comes at a price. Once you are in filter bubbles, you will rarely see opposing content. For instance, if you love cute animal videos, you will never see gore content or animals being killed. I know that’s a harsh example, but everything is on social media, so deal with it. Another example is politics; if the system recognizes that you lean towards a certain party, all the political news you will receive will be from the party you engage with the most. This is detrimental because young Americans will lean towards a certain party and never get the chance to hear opposing viewpoints.
An example from my personal life is one of my friends started to see conspiracy theories on the internet and would constantly research them spending all his time going into depth about how these conspiracy theories might be true. Within a week of constantly looking into different theories, his whole feed was conspiracy theories. This is harmful because the more content you intake it will affect your personality and who you are. For months this friend of mine seemed to have become his own conspiracy theorist because of all the content he would intake. There is worse content out there to intake, and if people fall into those filter bubbles is detrimental to all of society.
So as we progress with social media, it is necessary for society to understand these algorithms and filter bubbles because most don’t. As time progresses, it’s important for people to understand why these apps are so addicting and why users constantly see the same content on a daily basis.
The usefulness of social media business profiles.
Instagram and TikTok are some of the biggest social media apps and offer business profile access. This allows for users to see basic information regarding the business and allows for users to learn more about the company but also gives easy access to buy the products.
Social media has become a powerhouse in terms of digital marketing. With apps like Instagram and TikTok, engagement and business marketing tools have allowed brands to take off just due to their presence online.
Instagram launched its business tool in 2016, and since then, it has added multiple tools surrounding the business side of social media. When the business tool first launched, it allowed regular users to turn their profiles into business ones. For brands and companies, it allowed them to put store hours, contact information, a website, a direct contact button to get in touch, and all the analytics of the business profiles. The analytics include the demographics of the audience, such as age, gender, and the impressions they got from those specific demographics. In 2020 Instagram added more to the business side of things and put in a store tab in Instagram where companies and brands could directly sell products and tickets directly from the app without leaving. With even more additions, such as stories and interactive stickers to add to stories, Instagram has set a mark on how they have helped businesses get traction online.
TikTok hasn’t been popular as long as social media companies like Snapchat and Instagram, but it does offer the best chance to blow up and exceed numbers in terms of popularity. It has similar tools to Instagram in the sense of business profiles and how users can view certain aspects of your business, like contact information, location, etc. What TikTok offers that Instagram doesn’t its popularity and how many users consume the app. A certain stat says 90% of users spend more than 52 minutes on the app a day. TikTok has the biggest numbers for engagement and can boost a profile that has 0 followers to a million in a week, and it wouldn’t be a surprise. These social media companies like TikTok and Instagram have allowed massive waves of people to cross over these accounts from companies and brands and allow them to explode on social media.
The one con of these social media companies is the pay. Most social media will pay profiles that generate a lot of content and views that also have high engagement, which would lead them to keep on regenerating high numbers in views, likes, and comments. Even though these companies receive lots of exposure and customers through these apps, they are still pumping up numbers for the social media company itself, therefore, letting these social media companies completely profit from their own “success,” which just seems to be exposure. For instance, a famous YouTuber and internet boxer KSI has amassed 9 million followers, 70 million likes, and over 200 million views on his TikTok yet has received a mere $3000 dollars from the app. So even though, TikTok and Instagram offer great business features to allow companies and brands to push their products online easily, it doesn’t repay big companies who offer users to the social media companies. This is also a reason why many influencers don’t use TikTok or Instagram as a way of making money online and instead use youtube.
Social Media Influencers is the new digital marketing
Social media influencers are all around the world today. They are important because they have changed how companies go about digital marketing and marketing in general. These influencers have massive audiences that trust them and leads to them being able to market products off their following.
Influence today is much different than it was centuries ago. Influence would come in most forms of trying to influence religion on someone or political ideas like Marxism, for example. Nowadays, there is an influence in social media, products through basic e-commerce and many other products or brands that have no real influence on the world itself, just the joy or happiness a person gets when they receive the products.
The title influencer has become increasingly popular since social media has allowed people to make a living off having an influence alone, whether its impressive or not. If Jesus Christ were alive today, he would be considered an influencer.
Social media influencers are what has taken a storm recently. An app like TikTok, it has changed the direction of social media influencing. For most of the time social media has been around, there have rarely been people with no real skill that have a major influence. When I say no skill, I mean they are not an athlete, politician, musician, actor, etc. I mean, people like Kim Kardashian, who became famous for looks and dating popular people and ultimately caught her break, when a sex tape got released of her. Now Kim Kardashian is one of the biggest influencers on social media and has amassed hundreds of millions of followers. Tiktok has allowed for people with no real skills besides looking good or being funny to have a massive influence allowing them to profit off their audience.
In conclusion, influence has evolved throughout history and in today’s world. It has taken a new form through social media and e-commerce. Social media influencers have become a dominant force in the creator economy, and their impact on marketing and advertising has grown significantly. While some influencers may not possess traditional skills like actors or musicians, their ability to capture attention and create online relationships with their audience has allowed them to profit and become major players in the industry. However, to maintain influence and success, authenticity and genuineness are crucial. Overall, being an influencer may seem easy, but it requires hard work, dedication, and a commitment to building trust and with one’s audience.
Learning from my Social Media scavenger hunt
On February 14, I set out to complete a social media scavenger hunt. With this scavenger hunt, I created tweets with questions revolving around various seton hall topics. I wanted to see how students would answer these questions but I also wanted to use my journalistic capabilities to utilize twitter to spread and gather information regarding how students feel about certain aspects of Seton Hall.
Results
The scavenger hunt was very interesting as I got a lot of different answers from numerous students. From receiving numerous answers, I noticed how my Twitter page started to look more professional and organized.
Seeing what some of my other classmates tweeted
I also engaged with some of my classmates and what they were tweeting. It was enjoyable to watch everyone put on their journalistic shoes and get to work. Here are some of my favorites.
Engaging with others’ posts
I even engaged with some of my classmate’s posts where I thought my answer could be valuable to their process. Below are some of my answers to my classmate’s questions.
Final Thoughts
After conducting the survey, I found that utilizing Twitter as a reporter is more tedious than it looks but is also a fun task. Throughout my surveying, I found that listening to what others have to say and how they feel is always a good experience, especially if something is new to you. Hope you enjoyed my survey findings, and I look forward to utilizing my Twitter more.
Engagement is KEY
Twitter is a great social media for numerous reasons. It allows for easy engagement due to easy access to commenting, retweeting, or quote tweeting. It is not an app directly for pictures or videos, so engagement is heavy. Commenting on what someone wrote on Twitter vs commenting on a picture on Instagram is two totally different things and makes Twitter more accessible to actually hearing people’s thoughts rather than what they are going to compliment about a photo.
Twitter for journalists is an amazing thing as it works as a portfolio for them, and is super easy to share articles through Twitter. Any type of topic written by a journalist invites that specific group to engage with their Twitter posts, whether they are posting their article or just talking about a specific topic. For instance sports beat writers invite fans to ask specific questions during the season so the journalist can provide insight.
Some practices for journalists on Twitter involve responding to comments, sharing other colleagues’ work, sharing parts of personal life, and sharing your own stories but also posting other tweets that don’t just involve links. By doing this, it allows the journalist to grow followers in a way where they can also be considered fans of your writing and insight.
Whether its Twitter or other social media platforms, journalists cannot ignore other social media platforms because that is missing out on important engagement. All different social media sites offer different demographics, especially Facebook, which is not primarily used by people older than 25 and not part of GEN Z. Journalists can’t ignore certain apps because it takes away from the main part of why they are writing which is the number of clicks and engagement their stories can receive.
Engagement is key in a world full of followers, which is why it is the most important thing in social media. Engagement will always beat out followers because, by having constant engagements, social media algorithms push your content to the top of people’s pages where it can be seen. Any amount of followers can’t do the same thing unless their engagement is high as well. I referenced this in my last blog, but let’s say 1 account on Twitter has 5000 followers with a ton of engagement, and another account has 500k followers with little to no engagement. Even though one account may seem like they make a good amount of money because they have followers, in reality, the account with 5000 followers and more engagement would be crushing the other account in terms of getting paid even with 495k fewer followers. Engagement is KEY.
SEO and SEM, what is it, and why is it so important.
Optimizing your online copy is a massive deal for digital marketing and keeping a brand afloat, especially when it’s making most of its money through online purchases, which many brands do nowadays. SEM and SEO are why brands can market online and allow simple user searches to direct them to their websites.
Now, what are these two terms, SEM and SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization and does just as it sounds. It optimizes your search in google. SEO is accessible for anybody trying to optimize a search that would redirect them to a website. It can take longer to build up and gain traction by not paying, but it would likely be there for the long run if that success were ever to come. SEO also allows for my trust because some users don’t feel that level of trust when seeing an AD sign above a website.
SEM stands for search engine marketing, which is similar to SEO but has slight differences in the long run. SEM is paid for advertising but does offer way faster results than unpaid optimization like SEO. The quick results come from Ads being the top section of google searches. Also, the data for paid marketing is far more advanced than just free optimization, which allows for websites using SEM to make data-driven decisions, while that can be harder for someone using SEO. Finally, SEM allows for further testing within your marketing, letting you test different options for different searches. An example brought to my attention was, “when someone searches for “cool t-shirts” you can test sending them to a page with many options for t-shirts or send them to a page with just your three best-selling t-shirts.”
Ultimately, SEM and SEO are great ways to optimize your search for whatever you want to market and optimize. It allows websites to push products fiercely through paid advertisements or let a company gain traction through different searches for free. It’s a great way to capitalize off targeted keyword searches.
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