My Last Blog Post for Social Media Principles

This will be the last blog post I will write for my Intro to Social Media Principles class. This class was definitely not what I was expecting, but as a mechanical engineer jumping into the world of public relations I don't know if there was much I really could know to expect. To be honest I took this class because it was the last semester of my senior year in college and I was hoping to take a class that wouldn't require to much thinking, especially compared to the last three and a half years of engineering school.

I may have been looking for an easier class but I think as an engineering I got more out of the class than I thought I would. In the world of engineering being able to communicate with other people is a trait that is sought after because the stereotypical engineer generally isn't very good in social situations. It is important to be able to communicate your thoughts in ways that people around you who did not go to school for engineering will understand. When you go to school for engineering you are essentially learning a new language and for those who are not around it all the time they will not necessarily understand what you are saying because the terms you use are not common outside of the world of engineering.

This class has helped me work on my communication skills for when I am not writing a technical engineering report and instead may be writing an email to a customer. Although I do not use social media very often I think their are other skills you gain from this class in terms with being able to communicate with your coworkers and other people around you. The class also forced me to be a little creative sometimes, having to write three blogs a week was pretty difficult to come up with new things to talk about each week. I would find I spend more time sitting in front of the computer trying to figure out what to write than I would actually writing the blog post.

I would say that in the end I actually enjoyed the class, and I think my time spent for the class was well spent. Not to say it did not annoy me at times, but I learned a lot of things from this class that I would not have learned in the engineering college. The class itself was very light hearted and as an engineer in an unfamiliar world it made it a lot less stressful to be out of my comfort zone.

The Revitalization of the Restaurant Menu

Restaurant menus could soon be getting a major upgrade thanks to social media technology. Social media has already become a major part of restaurant business. People will often go to a restaurant and take a Snapchat of their food or post a picture of their food on Instagram. If you are a restaurant and people are posting pictures of your food on social media, you are getting free marketing to all of the persons followers. I think the customers benefit from this too, a restaurant is going to want to consistently give their customers quality food so they will recommend it to their friends.

A company called Kabaq is looking to change up the formula again using alternative reality and social media platfroms like Snapchat to show the customers food items on the menu before they order. An article on Digital Trends explains the burger chain Bareburger will be one of the first restaurants to implement this new technology. Pictures are taken of each dish on a menu from a bunch of different angles to create a 3D model of the food. Using an app like Snapchat or the Facebook camera you can display an image of the dish on your phone in front of you and look at it from any direction to see if it is something you want to eat.

I think this would be a great way to promote the consistent quality of food being brought to the customers. If they have an augmented reality image that looks like food does in commercials and the food you bring out does not look as good as the image then the restaurant runs some risk of bad press. The customer could take a picture of the augmented reality food next to the actual food they received and the marketing they could be benefiting from is now hurting their business. The inverse of this is also true, if the actual food looks like the augmented reality image, the customer could post the same picture and the restaurant would receive positive marketing.

I think this is a really cool opportunity for restaurants, as of right now most of the food items on menus are described in words with a few items that can be seen as images. Plus, if people are trying to be adventurous and try new food, if they don't know what something is on the menu but they can see a picture of it they may be more likely to try the new food.

Why you Should Share the Road with Cyclists

I am currently training for an Ironman in Arizona and I have been an avid cyclist for many years and as the weather starts to get nicer you will start to see more cyclists on the road each day. As a cyclists you are generally not allowed to be on sidewalks, so unless you have a good trail near you the road is your domain. When you are being taught to drive you are generally taught to drive defensively, it is even more important as a cyclist to ride defensively because when it is you versus a vehicle the vehicle will always win.

When you are riding a bike there are a lot of different things you have to pay attention to. For me personally, one of the biggest challenges I face on the roads is dealing with the winds, they can change direction and speed at a moments notice. I ride a bike which has a larger side profile because it is designed to be aerodynamic, this means when there is a cross wind it pushes me over more than on a normal bike. Driving a vehicle down the highway in heavy winds you can notice this effect at times but the amount it throws you off of the direction you are travelling is magnified when you are on a very lightweight bike compared to a vehicle which is much more stable because it has four wheel instead of two. Having to deal with changing winds is the main concern I have when a vehicle passes to close next to me, if the wind were to suddenly gust I could be blown into your car. So give cyclists the little bit of extra room, although it may not be convenient for you, it will be much less convenient if something bad does happen. Also, if you pass very close to a biker the biker has to deal with the turbulent airflow your car is always creating as it drives, this is very disruptive to cyclists and it can make the bike more difficult to control.

Most of the things I do as a cyclists are intended to keep me safe. Road systems are often designed for vehicles and cyclists and pedestrians are an afterthought. This makes the roads even more dangerous for cyclists. We are exposed to the elements which means the wind rushing passed our ears can make it difficult for us to hear a car behind us, especially now as cars are becoming more quiet on the roads everyday. We also can not be constantly checking behind us to see if you are there because we need to see the road in front of us for the same reasons a driver needs to see the road in front of them. While riding on the roads there are many things a biker could run into that could cause them to potentially wreck, being from the Midwest there are often large potholes in the roads which could puncture a tire or cause other problems. I also tend to do most of my bike rides out in the country, often there are dogs not on leashes in the country and I have had some run out in the road and nearly knock me over. These are all things I have to be worried about which could cause me to deviate from the line I am riding, if something like this happens while a vehicle is passing to close it could cause a very dangerous crash.

In light of this there are steps I take as a cyclist to limit the chances of a horrible wreck happening, I will often ride a little bit out into the road instead of sticking as far to the right of the road as possible. I do this to force vehicles to go around me as well as give me a place to go that is not in the middle of the road if something suddenly comes out and I need to avoid it. I also do this when I am approaching a stop sign or stop light so people do not try to pass me while going through an intersection, it is important as a cyclist to own your space on the road and it is important for drivers to respect the space for cyclists on the road. I am not just a cyclist, I am also a driver so I understand how getting briefly stuck behind a bike can be frustrating but it makes the roads much safer for everyone.

How to Measure Crises

Your reputation as an organization is extremely important to the success of your business. People do not want to by from or be associated with a company or organization that has a bad reputation because the things people choose to associate themselves with in a way represent themselves. By associating with an organization who has a bad reputation they then hinder their own reputation. Stakeholders also have a key interest in the reputation of your company, a bad reputation is going to lead to a drop in the stock market. Ideally you have a good reputation already because it is something that takes time and effort to change for the better. Recent events with Facebook and its privacy scandal demonstrate how quickly your reputation can change from good to bad.


Crises management is important and a well managed crisis is one that deals with all of the bad press up front, right away. If the crisis is not handled well it can cause damage for a much larger amount of time and will make it more difficult to gain back a good reputation. An overnight poll is one method Paine brings up, in her book "Measure what Matters", to find out what people believe about you especially just after a crisis in order to determine if anything you have been doing is working to relieve the situation. Having a good reputation involves having trust, trust will also be a great defense mechanism in the event a crisis does arise. Trust cultivates many positive things throughout an organization so trust is necessary not only between an organization and its consumers but also within the organization. An organization whose employees trust their employer are more likely to do a better job as well as support the goals the organization has in place. A good relationship with the media can help when dealing with a crisis as they are the ones who have a large impact on how information is released to the public during a crisis.

Clearly it is important to be able to measure a crisis and the trust you have with the all those who can support your organization. The first step is to define how what it means to survive the crisis. The goal should be something you can measure, this can be setting goals based on limiting the drop in stock prices or sales among other things. The next step is to define your audience, this is who you are looking to improve or build your relationship with in order to improve your reputation. Next you need to define your benchmark, during a crisis the focus will generally be on your own organization, however monitoring media outlets and how they cover your crisis can also be a useful tool. Once you have determined your benchmarks you have to define your measurement criteria. This often has to do with the amount of containing messages relating to the crisis and how desirable or undesirable the messages may be. You then need to determine what tool you are going to use to measure your progress toward your goals. Finally, based on the data gathered you need to analyze the results and make reasonable recommendations toward actions to further improve your organizations reputation.

Making Exciting Announcements

The boring press release is becoming a thing of the past, now it is important to make announcements exciting in an attempt to generate extra buzz. With an exciting press release, it is more likely people will actually view the press release and learn about whatever it is you are announcing. An article from entrepreneur points out, the medium a message is sent is almost as important as the message itself. One of the most important things to do is determine what medium you are going to use to send out your announcement. The medium you get the most engagement on is obviously one you want to use to send out your announcement, and I don't think you should necessarily limit yourself to one medium although it can work.

The article by entrepreneur discusses some methods you can use to help your next announcement generate buzz and get people excited about whatever you are releasing. The first item they discuss is about the timing of your announcement. In regards to timing the main idea is to make sure you are ready for an announcement. If your product is not ready then you should not be worrying about making some super awesome announcement, doing so will generate hype and then you will let your fan-base down. The announcement also needs to be thought through, releasing your announcement means the media will begin to critique your product. The announcement should also be working to meet goals you have previously defined and already have benchmarks set.

Your next tip is to pick the right platform to deliver your announcement, the platform picked should naturally be the one that will distribute your message in the most effective manner. Your announcement does not need to be done on social media, it can be performed in person at a tradeshow or some other event. The next tip is to think out of the box when making deciding how to make your announcement. Out of the box ideas can make your announcement more memorable and may help viewers do a double take at your message getting them intrigued in what you are trying to sell. This doesn't necessarily mean your announcement needs to be silly but it should incorporate some component that is buzzworthy. The article by entrepreneur points out a very important question to ask yourself before you decide how to make your announcement, "If you saw it, would you be tempted to share it with others? And is it directly relatable to your product or service?" I think these are important questions to consider whenever you are dealing with public relations, it is essentially the golden rule but for marketing.

The last two tips are to generate a conversation and to build on the momentum of your announcement as opposed to letting the press release stand alone. To generate a conversation work should be done prior to the announcement to start getting people excited about what is coming in the future. Having a buzz started before your announcement can help get more people talking sooner.

My First Haunted House

Although it is not October and the Halloween season, I just went to my first haunted house for Friday the 13th. I am not a person who enjoys being scared, you will not find me seeking out a horror movie to watch or looking for other ways to frighten myself. I tend to stick with comedies or action movies, and if I want an adrenaline rush I will go mountain biking or do some other athletic activity instead of finding a way to scare myself. So, why did I decide to go to a haunted house when doing so seems hypocritical? Well, I am in my final few weeks of school before I graduate and I didn't have any plans for the weekend other than sit in my room and watch something on Netflix or Hulu. So, when one of my friends texted me and asked if I wanted to go to a haunted house I figured I might as well make some new memories and try to do something out of my comfort zone. The haunted house was called the Haunted Town Hall and was located in Lafayette Ohio.


As someone who is not normally into the whole finding ways to scare myself thing, I had a really good time at the haunted house. If you are wondering if I yelled or not the answer is yes, and I yelled loud. In between the short moments of horror I would find myself laughing once I realized I was safe and it was fake, but as I went through I would still get scared and it just made it all the more enjoyable. It was a really weird feeling for me to go through the haunted house and leave with a feeling of having a good time as opposed to trying to figure our how I was going to sleep that night. This doesn't mean I am about to start watching a bunch of horror movies or go to more haunted houses in the near future but I will be a bit more willing to go with friends to a haunted house in the future. I am still indifferent about the scary movies I think they are something I will have to tackle at another point in my life.

One of the first spots in the haunted house to really get my heart racing was when we walked through this "hallway" which was pitch black and had tilted walls that were very close together. The path took lots of sharp turns so it made you claustrophobic and disoriented, the entire time I was walking through it I was afraid something was just going to jump out at me. At one point the path had pressurized blasts of air, the blasts of air were really loud and sudden which was scary. The other thing to really scare me at the haunted house was when we would enter a room full of different doors and you had to pick which door you thought was the exit. If you chose the wrong door you would open it up to some scary creature and a jump scare. When we went through we actually chose the correct door but one of the creatures came out of one of the doors and walked up behind me, I almost jumped out of my skin. There was a lot the haunted house had to offer and the next time it is open I would highly recommend checking it out.

Infuencers Influencing

Influencers play a very important part in the public relations world. It is important to understand an influencer doesn't have to be someone famous or other high powered individual in the industry. Now, with internet accessible to most people in the world which has brought groups of people together forming many different organizations within many different niche communities. An influencer can now be anyone in the world, as long as they recommend your product or service they are an influencer. This means there are a lot more influencers available to help spread your brand and give you a better relationship with your consumers.

Determining who your influencers are, is largely dependent on who your target audience is, if your influencers don't hold any weight in your market space then they are not going to be a good influencer for you. The first step in finding out who your influencers is to search for blogs and other places on the internet that mention you, your competition, or are relevant to your market place. This is a process that takes time to gather data and information, you cannot gather accurate data in a short period of time. After finding these influencers it is important to verify the sites you found are actually important in your marketplace.

Once you have the influencers it is important to build relationships with your influencers and be able to measure your relationship with them. You not only want to measure your relationship with your influencers but checking the health of the relationship is important. You want to understand not only what people are saying about you, but why they say what they do. As with any form of working to improve your public relations, the first step is to define your goals, and make sure they are measurable. The next step is defining your audience, in this case your audience is the influencers for your product. Once you know your audience you will need to determine your benchmarks, this often is compared to your competitors. The key performance indicators will often deal with what your influencers are saying about you and how much engagement they are receiving on their posts. The final step is to determine your measurement tool, their are applications that can help with this but you can also use a spread sheet and do it yourself, it will just take more work.

Your influencers will help spread your brand beyond people who already know about you and follow you on different social media platforms. The influencers will reach groups in different niches throughout your market space, so develop a relationship and keep it healthy. A healthy relationship with your influencers will aid in the public image of your business or organization.

Facebook's Big Mistake

Facebook has been a major social media platform in the news lately after information surfaced regarding the conduct of Facebook and it's use of users information and data. The central problem Facebook is fighting is a privacy scandal. Facebook improperly shared data with Cambridge Analytica which is a political consulting firm and worked on President Trump's campaign. An article by the Wall Street Journal claims data from 87 million Facebook users was improperly shared. Mr.  Zuckerburg, the CEO of Facebook, will give a prepared testimony on Capitol Hill regarding the actions of Facebook during the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The sharing of user information with Cambridge Analytica is not the only offense against Facebook, such as aiding in the spread of disinformation, and violations of a consent order with the Federal Trade Commission.

It has been established that Facebook will sell user data for research and educational purposes but in this situation there is more to the story. The way this works is a company who does research, in this case GSR, develops an app that pulls user data from Facebook. The data was then sold to Cambridge Analytica which was against an agreement signed with Facebook. The place where Facebook gets in trouble is when they heard Cambridge Analytica had data they were not supposed to have, Facebook should have made certain all of the user data was deleted from Cambridge Analytica's possession. Facebook also allowed the app to take data from the friends of the person who used the app without their consent. According to an article by CBS News, Facebook policies have changed where apps are no longer allowed to take data from the friends of the user, however the GSR app was still able to collect the data because it was grandfathered into the older policies.

Another reason this is such a hot topic is because Cambridge Analytica has ties to Russia, who meddled in the 2016 election. The mass amounts of data collected can be used to predict human actions according the news segment in the article by CBS News.

In light of all of the charges against Facebook, Facebook is creating a commission to analyze the effects of social media on elections. An article by NBC News says the "researchers will have access to Facebook's resources." The idea is to have unbiased data on how social media can affect the outcome of elections. The findings on any of these studies will not have an impact on the 2016 presidential election, but it will be looking into future elections.

The amount of data social media sites can gather on people is rather scary, it can be used for good things such as research but it also presents harmful outcomes if it gets into the hands of the wrong people. Due to how new social media is in the world I think social media companies should take an extra look into the ways they are going to safeguard the personal data of individuals. The users of social media also have a responsibility to understand what they are signing up for instead of just checking the box saying you agree to the terms and conditions. Information is gathered on more than just the things you post, it collects data on the things you like and other things you click on while using the platform. Facebook has a tough road ahead, but hopefully there will be lessons learned by Facebook and all of the other social media platforms to safeguard user's privacy.

The Return of Supersonic Commercial Flight

October 24th, 2003, marked the date of the last supersonic commercial flight of the Concorde. Ever since then we have been flying at subsonic speeds to our destinations. It takes current commercial aircraft approximately eight hours to complete a transatlantic flight, the Concorde would do it in around three and a half hours. We live in an age where technology has exploded, the amount of computing power it took to go to the moon now fits in a computer which we put in our pocket. However, the supersonic commercial airline is still not a common mode of transportation. So why do we settle for 8 hour flights across the Atlantic when it can be done in much less time.

One of the first things most people will say is the reason for not having supersonic commercial air travel is due to the sonic boom. The sonic boom created by a large aircraft flying supersonic forced congress to ban supersonic travel over land. Approximately 75% of flights are over land so the usefulness of the Concorde decreased dramatically. One of the other main problems with a supersonic commercial aircraft is the cost it takes to operate. The engines used to allow an aircraft to fly supersonic are not as efficient as the engines used in new commercial aircraft like the Boeing 787. The new Boeing 737 MAX, which is the newest variant in the popular 737 series of aircraft, is another aircraft with increased efficiency and reduced cost limiting the need for a faster airplane. Companies operating aircraft are looking for fuel efficiency and cost saving measures because they are running a business. The aircraft manufacturers are trying to sell aircraft so they are not going to necessarily spend the time and money to develop a supersonic aircraft which may not sell.

Not all hope is lost for the idea of supersonic commercial flight, research is being done by companies like Lockhead Martin and NASA to develop a supersonic aircraft which has a greatly reduced supersonic shock if not completely get rid of the shock all together. If they can pull off the engineering feat there are still roadblocks to go through such as a repeal to the law passed by congress. Engine development is another crucial aspect of developing a supersonic commercial aircraft. Most engines are not designed for sustained supersonic flight unless it is for a military application in a smaller aircraft like the F-22 Raptor. The F-22 Raptor is one of the most advanced aircraft in the world and one of its features no other fighter has is the ability to super cruise. The goal for the design of a new supersonic commercial aircraft is a tight timeline with the hope of having an experimental aircraft by 2023.

It may be possible in the near future it will be common for humans to travel faster than the speed of sound and make the world an even smaller place. Plus, as a passenger the less time on the plane the better so people may be willing to pay a little bit more for the convenience of supersonic flight.

Creating a Measurement Program for your Organization

When working in public relations and particularly on social media applications, being able to measure how well your content is working is one of the most important things for developing your content and proving your return on investment. The book "Measure what Matters" by Katie Paine, goes through seven steps to help create a measurement system for your social media platforms.

The first step is to define your goals and objectives. If you do not know what you are trying to get out of your use of social media then you are not going to be able to measure any progress. By defining your goals you will be able to tell what is working and what is not working based on whether you are making progress toward your goals or not. In terms of marketing Paine points out there are typically three categories goals lie in such as sales, message or positioning, and public safety or education.

The second step is to define your audience, environment, and the role you play in influencing them. An environment consists of multiple audiences, although you may be targeting one group of people your message will reach multiple different audiences. Knowing your message will reach more than your target audience it is important to understand who might be viewing your content and to know how the relationship with the audience not being targeted can affect your organization.

The third step is to define your investment. This means you need to know what your outreach will cost and what you are investing into your program. The investment is more than just money, investments include the time spent by employees working on the program instead of doing their other work. Taking someones time away from other work to head the social media will mean they are splitting their work into more pieces so less time will be spent on other projects as well. It is important to figure out if the investment is worth the potential costs.

The fourth step is to determine your benchmarks. Benchmarks are used to compare your results, the benchmarks allow you to tell if your program is successful and heading toward your goals and objectives, or if you need to rethink your strategy. Paine points out the best comparisons are to your competition and peers over time as opposed to yourself or industry averages. The reason for this is the world of social media is always changing so what works one day may not work the next, benchmarks will help keep you on track. Past performance is also a benchmark that can be used, if you are improving on your numbers it is a good sign.

The fifth step is to define your key performance indicators. This is where you decide what success means for you in a specific sense. Not all of your objectives will use the same type of measurement, such as money and time, so they will use different performance indicators. In this stage it is important to understand the difference between visibility and awareness. Visibility is simply the volume of coverage your content gets and where it is placed, awareness is how many people have knowledge of the message.

The sixth step is to pick the right measurement tool and collect data. It is important the measurement tool you are using will measure the data you need to evaluate the progress of your program. Having lots of graphs, charts, and numbers does no good if the data being measured is not pertinent to your objective. Accurate, affordable, and timely data collection are important factors to consider during this step.

The final step is to use the data you have acquired, analyze it, and create an actionable conclusion. A measurement program is an iterative process and due to the changing environment of social media must be done over and over again. The best way to come to actionable conclusions is to relate your conclusion to the objectives you created in step one. Changes do not happen overnight, and once a change is made the effects of the change may not be seen for over a year so do not expect changes to affect your data immediately.

April Fools and PR

April Fools is a day where businesses attempt to show their sense of humor with the world and get some extra retweets for the day. Some of the April fools jokes worked well and others simply missed the mark. An article by PR News shows some examples of what companies did that worked, didn't work, and just plain missed the spot. One of the things the companies did which worked well was not making outlandish claims. The companies who had good April fools jokes created press releases in the same format as a normal press release with a claim which seemed strange but once the full article was read the joke was understood.

Some companies were a bit to obvious with their April fools jokes. Obvious jokes are often times not very funny and show a lack of effort. The PR News article uses a solar power plant claiming to be switching to coal power as and example of one of the bad April fools jokes. The joke is obvious, a solar company would not be switching to coal power. The joke is also betraying the values of the company and its followers, the people who are going to see the tweet are not going to think it is very funny.

The worst April fools PR were from companies who essentially created fake news stories. The stories were not necessarily a play on the way they normally do things with a harmless accusation. Stories claiming that your business is going to be closing are not going to be good PR. To me it seems like common sense not to tell your customer base you are closing, if they think you are closing they are not going to keep looking to buy your product, they will start looking elsewhere. The current cultural climate dealing with fake news does not make these April fools jokes any better. The jokes undermine the fact of news being accurate even if it is only an April fools joke.

The Washington Post created an article listing a bunch of the April fools jokes sent out on social media by different companies. Here are some of my favorites:

• Amazon Publishing delivering actual authors
• Google Maps being a game of Where's Waldo
• eHarmony getting into dog matching
• Stephen King running for the Governor of Maine

Although these are not actual events occurring I enjoyed the creativity and playfulness of them. 

The Health of Running

Running has been a part of my life since I was young, in high school I was on the cross-country and track teams. I have also been doing triathlons for a long time. The world of endurance sports has always been something I enjoy and I find the things some people are capable of doing simply amazing. I did not start running to become healthier, I started running because it was something I wanted to do. Growing up in grade school running was one of the things I could do well, even playing basketball I looked forward to the running part of practice. Today I still think being able to run is extremely beneficial in basketball because if you can wear the other team out it makes their job a lot harder.

It has been fairly well established that running is good for your health and their are many ways it is beneficial. Being an aerobic exercise running has been shown to be good for the heart. An article on emedicine health lists other benefits to running such as decreasing your risk to type 2 diabetes. Running can help control control blood pressure, strengthen bones and muscles, improve your mood and decrease symptoms of depression, as well as reducing your risk of some cancers and reducing the risk of dementia. An article by the Washington Post also describes one of the mechanisms which may lead to the "runners high" which gives you a feeling the run is easy and can almost feel euphoric. Running is also known to release certain endorphins in the brain which make you feel better.

Although your mind may feel better your body is still susceptible to aches and pains and even injury can be caused by running. I have personally suffered from an injury due to running, at the beginning of my junior year cross-country season I suffered a stress fracture in my femur. My stress fracture was most likely caused by the way I was running and not due to the pounding involved with running. Building up the amount you run overtime in my opinion is one of the best ways to prevent the major running injuries. As you run and put stress on the bones they will strengthen up. If you run too much too fast your bones and muscles may not have been strengthened enough which may lead to a potential injury. An article by Time points out there is some research which may suggest running can decrease the chance of some injuries.

Running is often seen as an unappealing way to work out but you don't need equipment other than a pair of shoes and you can do it anywhere at anytime. Running also burns calories quickly which is a plus. So, I would encourage others to give running a chance because it might make you fell better, just pace yourself.

The World of Pinterest

Pinterest is a social platform designed to work for niches and is not made for general usage like Facebook. One of the main things Pinterest is used for is shopping and often people will go on the site in a buying mindset. This means if your customers are on Pinterest there is a great potential for a large return on your investment. People often use Pinterest to create idea boards for projects they might want to do in the future or are planning on doing and they are looking for ideas on what to do for their project. Users are able to create a board and then pin relative content to the board keeping it organized with other similar fins so later they can go back and see the pins or collaborate with others on ideas. Do-it-yourself is a large category which Pinterest is known for so if you are a company which can post "how to" content this platform may be useful for you. Pinterest will bring you content based on things you have liked or previously pinned and places it on your news feed as things you might like. Pinterest has a search bar which can be used like most other search bars on social media allowing you to search key terms and it will bring up results which involve those terms. You can also search what pins are coming from a particular website you can type https://www.pinterest.com/source/(sitenamehere) and it will display pins on that website.

Clicking on pins will lead to the website where the pin is from then you can buy a product or learn more about the pin. If you want people to click on your pins and view your boards they should be useful, visually pleasing, and fun. Pinterest is extremely visual, so if you want people to click on your pins they should be appealing, but also make sure it represents the message your company is trying to send. Boards and posts should be both useful and fun to make viewers want to pin and check out or even purchase your products. Encouraging people to contribute to your boards and become a part of the community is a great way to get people involved and talking about your products.

For corporate accounts Pinterest offers analytics to tell what people are pinning from your site. Google analytics can also be used for Pinterest. Being able to gauge how your content is being used and how many people are engaging with different types of content is always an important thing to keep track of, this will allow you to develop better methods of reaching and engaging with more people.

Tips for Doubles Volleyball

Volleyball has been apart of my life since the moment I was born. Both of my parents played volleyball well before I was born. Unfortunately, being born and raised in Iowa there are very few opportunities to play if you are a boy growing up. Volleyball is not a sport offered for men in high school in Iowa, and there are virtually no club teams in the area. When I was very young and my parents were still playing volleyball I learned all of the basic skills such as passing, setting, and hitting. My favorite time in gym class growing up was when we got to play volleyball. I took any opportunity to play which was few and far between but I have always loved the sport. Now, I play beech doubles in the summer and it is so much fun.

Most people do not start their volleyball career playing doubles, but because of my upbringing I had a good skill set and I was able to learn quickly. Since I am right handed I usually play on the left side of the court like an outside hitter in indoor volleyball. A right handed player will usually want to hit from the left side of the court because it gives them a wider variety of shots they can perform based on their body position relative to the court and the ball. In doubles their are no set offensive positions because the play is determined by who receives the ball first as it comes to your side of the court. In general the person who receives the first ball will proceed to pass the ball to their partner. The partner will then set the ball to you and you will hit the ball over. Being able to hit the ball hard is a lot of fun, but in doubles how hard you are able to hit doesn't mean much. Doubles is all about control and placement, with only two people covering the court there is always areas on the court where the other team is not, naturally that is where you want to hit the ball. Good players can cover a lot of court but the more you can keep the other team off balance and scrambling while you are playing in control you are probably going to win the point.

On defense there are things you can do to help cover the court since there are only two of you. Depending on the type of doubles you are playing you may or may not be using a blocker. Generally if you are playing power doubles you will be using a blocker but lower level doubles will probably not use blockers and you will both be back in a defensive position. I have played both with and without a blocker. Most of the time I have played has been done without a blocker. If you are playing without a blocker most of what you have to do is watch the way the hitter approaches the ball and how they are swinging. The more you play, there are trends you will notice in how people hit which will give you a good idea as to where they are going to hit the ball. Being able to tell where the ball is most likely going to go dramatically reduces the amount of court you and your partner have to cover. With a blocker you can try to use the block to force the ball to be played in certain areas of the court by taking away angles from the hitter. 

There is much more to the game then the few tips here, most of which you just have to play to learn. Volleyball is one of my favorite games and I am looking forward to being able to play even more when I graduate.

Life as an Athlete at ONU.

I made a short video for my Principles of Social Media class about what life was like for me the last 4 years at Ohio Northern University. The video is just a very brief summary of life and in no way does my entire experience justice.

Most of my time spent here at ONU has been spent doing one of three things, swimming, school work, and sleeping. Swimming took up many weekends where we would travel for meets or have a long practice. We also had 3 days during the work week  I would have a morning and an afternoon practice. With swimming being such a huge time commitment, I was forced to manage and prioritize my time to make sure I got all of my school work done. My sophomore and especially my junior year, staying on top of all of the school work was a daunting task and I often found myself only getting a few hours of sleep before practice in the morning. The experience definitely taught me about dedication and kept my priorities fresh in my mind.

School and swimming did not stop me from having a good time at ONU. In fact I had a lot of fun doing different activities with the swim team, but it was the people I met here at ONU who really made the experience unforgettable. Some of the most fun times I have had were the times my friends and I found ways to just entertain ourselves. Sometimes we would stay up until five in the morning just talking about life and having a good time.

Ohio Northern has lots of clubs and other student organizations to keep students busy during their time at school. I am involved in FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes), this isn't a huge time commitment for me, only a couple of hours a week, but through it I have met some of the most amazing people and it has given me the opportunity to make some great friendships. There are other interesting clubs students within the engineering college such as building a canoe out of concrete, or building and racing an off-road vehicle.

My time at ONU has given me many high's and lows, and has taught me a lot of lessons. I hope everything I have learned in both life and school will benefit me as I prepare to move off into the real world. I have made life long friends and have made memories I will cherish forever.

The Power of YouTube

Video's are one of the most popular forms of content and YouTube is one of the most popular platforms used to share video's with the world. One of the great things about video's is they can be used on nearly every social media platform, so YouTube is a great medium for supporting the creation of content. Just as on other forms of social media YouTube allows people to give video's a thumbs up, to share the video, and to comment on videos. As with all other social media platforms, reverse engineering what works on YouTube is a crucial first step. YouTube offers you a great opportunity to get some performance metrics on the videos other people have already created. Using the "more" tab, will give statistics on video's and can tell you how well each video did.

Behind the search engine giant google, YouTube is the second most used search engine, you can place keywords for your channel to improve search engine optimization. YouTube is an extremely noisy social media source with a large focus of its media being on entertainment, however there is more to YouTube than meets the eye. YouTube is full of niches, you can find the niche best suiting to your brand and create content for them to get a interactions within your target market. One of the greatest uses of YouTube is the "how to" video, YouTube is often the first place people look when they are unsure of how to do something. When you create your video optimizing every aspect of the video for keywords relating to the, even the script of what is said in the video can be used to help the search optimization process and bring viewers to your video. It is important the search engine optimization part of the video is done before you upload the first rendition of the video because YouTube does the most indexing at this point.

YouTube allows you to place features in your video to engage viewers with interactivity and point them toward other videos you have created. The more subscriptions and thumbs up you receive on your video's the higher they will be placed in search positions giving them even greater visibility. Posting your video on other social media platforms will also help increase the view count on your videos and the extra views will also help the search positioning of your video.

YouTube is a tremendous platform and has much to offer in the social media marketing workplace, whether it is a "how to" video or something more entertaining, with enough creative thought there is something for everyone on YouTube.

Twitter Entering the Fight to Compete with Snapchat

The popular social media application, Twitter, may be working on a new update in an attempt to compete with Snapchat. Many popular social media applications are updating to give sponsored content more visibility, Twitter may be working on the same thing. An article by Social Media Today points out Twitter may be working on a camera-first feature and may ultimately be working on changing the app from a text based platform to a video and picture based platform. Twitter is giving news content a higher priority within their app where they will have a breaking news module at the top of the timeline for current newsworthy events. I would imagine it is similar to the placement of Instagram's stories, instead of personal users creating stories, the content would be from sponsored organizations using Twitter. I hope the potential update will bring more of a focus to newsworthy events instead of being used for advertising for companies. There are already places on Twitter for companies to advertise and I think too much advertisement on a platform can ruin the user experience which should be the primary focus of any social media platform. A news focused section on Twitter may be useful for generating greater public awareness in the event of a disaster as it is unfolding. Ideally the news in the news section of Twitter would be accurate as opposed to just the accounts of people witnessing the event posting on their timelines.  A picture and video-based Twitter may also bring new users to the application, as Twitter is a social media platform people seem to either love the platform or hate the platform. With more visuals as opposed to text there may be the potential to move some people who don't enjoy Twitter to people who would use the application. 

As with any company or application it is important for them to continually expand on what they are offering, otherwise they will become old and other companies and applications will takeover. Although change is necessary the way these platforms choose to evolve will have a major impact on their future, a focus on advertising and sponsored content may lead to financial gains in the short term but if it causes them to loose users they may want to sell their company before it is not worth anything anymore. The world of social media is highly unpredictable and the future is never clear.

The Ultimate Endurance Sport

On November 18th, 2018, I will be competing in Ironman Arizona. Ironman Arizona is a notoriously flat race but a lack in elevation change does not make the event any less difficult. Athletes will have to complete a 2.4 mile swim in Tempe Town Lake where the water temperatures are expected to be frigid in the mid 60s. To put the water temperature into perspective, most pools are heated so they are at a temperature in the upper 70s or low 80s, and many people find pools are a bit chilly to get into at first. Following the swim, the athletes face a 112 mile bike ride, the course is flat but is often subject to swirling winds. The bike course is a 3 loop out and back course and there have been times where riders go out into the wind, the wind shifts and they end up biking back into the wind. The athletes will also have to deal with the dry heat of the desert they will be riding through and proper hydration and nutrition will be crucial for them to complete the run at the end of the race. After the bike, the athletes get to finish their day with a marathon run, if the sun goes down while the athletes are on the run they will have to deal with the large temperature drop in the desert. When the athlete is finished with all of these events, and they met the time limits, they will be called an Ironman.

The event was first created in Hawaii after John Collins, a Naval Officer was debating with his friends over who the most fit athletes were, swimmers, bikers, or runners. Later, Collins and his wife decided to combine the three most difficult endurance events in Hawaii into one and on February 18, 1978, the first Ironman took place. Since the event began, the Ironman has been a proving ground many to show just what they are capable of and every year there are many triumphs of the human spirit, showing people are capable of so much more than they could have ever thought.

I am really excited to compete in my first Ironman, it will be an extremely difficult day and there will be times I am sure I will be asking myself why I am doing an Ironman. What will help push me through is all of the hours I spend training up to the day of the race, and ultimately crossing the finish line will be amazing. I will have accomplished a goal I have had for a very long time. I am not sure what I will do after the race is done, I will have to look for the next challenge to conquer, after some time to rest and recover from the race of course.

The Secrets to Joy

I had a long drive home for spring break and to pass the time I listened to an audio book my sister had recommended to me called "The Book of Joy" by the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Douglas Abrams as the co-writer. The book was written to share the views of the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu on how to have lasting happiness in a world which can bring so much suffering. I found this book to be very inspirational, and it helped view some things in my life from a different angle and it the advice given in the book can help change your views of the world. The book is split into three overarching sections. The first section is a discussion on the nature of true joy. The second section then looks at what the obstacles are to true joy, and the final section is a discussion on the eight pillars of joy.

As I was listening to the book I often found myself drifting off in thought after a point was raised and I would miss the bit of the book as I was thinking of how what they were saying applied to my own life. So, when I got home I purchased a hard copy of the book so I can go through it again at my own pace more carefully and thoughtfully. There were stories told by both of the great leaders showing they have not lived easy lives, and joy is not something they have simply because the positions they hold or something they have that others do not. One of the first things that struck me when they were discussing how to obtain joy was that it is not something you can pursue. Joy instead comes from other areas of our lives when we are not focusing on ourselves and our own situation. Throughout the book a point is brought up by the Dalai Lama, when we experience suffering we should focus on all of the other people in the world and their suffering. There is a quote by C.S. Lewis which says "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." I think the second part of his quote is often what the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu are talking about when they say to receive joy one of the best ways is to bring joy to others.

There are so many good things brought up in the book about living a life filled with joy. I would highly recommend the book to anyone looking to live a life full of joy despite the things in the world that cause us pain and suffering. It is well written and one of the few books that I will read more then one time to help refresh and renew my perspectives on the world around me. I have found myself asking how I have helped other people at the end of each day and view my daily struggles as opportunities to find joy.

The Business of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a well known platform for searching for jobs, and of the different social media platforms it is the best for job searches. However, LinkedIn is capable of more than just a job hunting platform and it can be used as another platform for public relations. Companies are capable of creating their own page which individuals can follow and allow them to start a conversation with the company they follow. LinkedIn is an employee driven social network so the more on board your employees are with having a great profile and actively participate on the site. As with any social media platform you are starting to work on, start out with a search of LinkedIn and see what other people are doing and take note of your likes and dislikes.

A major use of LinkedIn is for networking but do not spam to create connections otherwise LinkedIn may deactivate your account. LinkedIn does offer paid accounts, this will grant you with a nicer looking profile, better positioning when you apply for a job, access to see all of the people who viewed your profile in the last 90 days, the ability to view third degree profiles, and extra search filters among other things. For many people I don't think a paid account is extremely beneficial but if LinkedIn is your main platform than it may be worth it.

Looking active is a good way to to create trust and will keep you fresh in the mind among important prospects due to name recognition. Posting updates with informative content and participating in LinkedIn groups are two ways you can stay active on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn also has a blogging feature built in called LinkedIn Pulse. The pulse feature is part of LinkedIn's effort to increase it's usefulness to not only be useful for those searching for jobs but for those who are already employed. The Pulse feature allows you to post and see content relative to your industry which allows you to stay up to date on industry trends and shows you are trustworthy and intelligent in your field of industry. LinkedIn Pulse allows you to post on other social media platforms and will track all of the traffic together, if it gets enough momentum then it can go viral and create even more connections. LinkedIn is a professional social media platform and is continuing to develop to create better ways for people to connect and grow their network.

The Death of Sharing Content

In the world of public relations, the amount of engagement you get on social media outlets has been the primary means of getting people to see your content. However, as an article on Forbes points out, the amount of shares on social media is dropping drastically. There are many potential contributing factors to the sudden drop in social media sharing such as, changes in the algorithms used by social media platforms to determine what content is pushed to the top of timelines, or an over saturation of information and articles being generated. The world of social media is constantly changing so the current downward trend may not stay the same, but it is important for people running social media to be flexible in the strategies they use to distribute their content. Sticking with the same strategy for social media is one of the worst things you can do, the Forbes article points out, if you used the same strategy as 3 years ago, your strategy would be 50% less effective. The sheer quantity of content put out on social media every day is playing a major role in the decrease in content being shared. Whenever an important event occurs there is an extreme amount of content produced in a short period of time covering the same story so people don't need to share the content because something they are following has put out the content already. The amount of sharing and engagement may not be the best way anymore to determine how successful the content you are creating is, instead the amount of people who view your content may be a better indicator. Finding other ways of sharing content may also be necessary if the amount of people you are reaching and the effectiveness of your content is suffering.  For publishers, making your content searchable on google has recently proven to be a better source for getting traffic than through social media. The Forbes article points out that in less than a year Facebook went from being the number one source of traffic to publishers sites to google being the source of nearly twice as much traffic over Facebook. Understanding where you are getting the bulk of your engagement and how you are getting traffic to your created content will allow you to focus on your energy effectively. If you are not seeing as much interaction on your social media, maybe lessen the amount of content you are creating and instead focus on creating higher quality content.  Youtube videos and political content have shown to be the two things which have not seen the dramatic decrease in the amount of engagement they have seen. So, one thing to consider is changing the form of content you are distributing, if Youtube is not being affected by the decrease in engagement maybe Youtube would be a good way to share content. 

Going to an Out of State School

I grew up and went to school just outside of Cedar Rapids Iowa. I chose to go out of state for college and it was one of the best decisions I have made. Moving two states away was not an easy transition for me but it was one that I needed. I have always been a shy person, and one of the reasons I wanted to go to school so far away from home was to force myself out of my comfort zone. Coming to school and taking part in a varsity sport was extremely beneficial because it gave me a group of people right away to meet and do things with on campus. The main thing I learned from moving so far from home was to be self sufficient, if I had a problem driving home for the weekend was not an option for me so I would have to find a way to solve it myself.

One of the drawbacks, of living far away and being on the varsity swim team was often my breaks would get cut short in order to return to school in order to train. The last four years most of the time I spent with my family was during the summer. I don't think it was a bad thing I didn't see my family as much as others, because it taught me to cherish the time I did get to spend with them. If I lived close to home and could come home every weekend I don't know if I would appreciate what they are to me as much as I do now.

I think moving away from home for a period of time is a good thing for anyone to do. Moving away allows you to experience an entirely new group of people and if I had to make the decision to move away from home again I would in a heartbeat. Going to a school in a different state allowed me to meet people and make friends from places I would never have imagined while I was growing up.

The most difficult part of living far away is the long drives to and from school all alone. The drives have taught me a lot of patience but I will admit there are times where I am just ready to get to my destination. My worst drive home was for thanksgiving break, there was a huge snowstorm over almost the entire area I was travelling and it took me over 13 hours to finally make it home at 2 a.m. exhausted. There are times when the long drive is nice, especially after a stressful finals week, it gives you some time to be alone and reset. Moving to a different state for college was one of the best decisions I made and I would not change it for the world.

A Guide to Using Facebook for your Business

Facebook is the largest social media platform so it is a good place to start spreading your message throughout the community and your target market. Facebook uses an algorithm called Edgerank. Edgerank rewards those who post items that get lots of interaction over those that receive little interaction from followers. As your posts get more interaction, Facebook will put the post higher on people's timelines giving the post even more visibility. So as you start Facebook it is important to understand what Edgerank is and how it can benefit your Business.

The first thing that you should do when you are starting on any social media platform including Facebook is to explore the way the platform works. Although you may have a personal Facebook account their are extra features available to you when running an account for an organization or company. While you are exploring Facebook you should also follow other companies including competitors to see what they are doing and what you like or dislike about what they are doing.

As with any social media platform it is important to identify your target market, if they are not on Facebook than you probably do not want to use Facebook as your main tool to reach them. When you have identified your target market Facebook and start posting on your page, Facebook will gather data on the people who are viewing your posts and how they are responding to posts. You can use the information form Facebook's Page Insights to tell what posts are getting the most reaction and if they are reaching your target market. Using the data gathered by Facebook you can then start to create better content that gets more reactions from your target market and will increase your Edgerank.

If you are struggling with getting interaction there are some types of posts that have shown to get more interaction. One way to get reactions is to create sentimental posts, everybody loves puppies and kittens, or nice posts about family members so there is a better chance people will like those types of posts. Humor is also a good way to get engagement, it is important that you maintain the image your company has already created on social media. Utility posts that answer the question of how to do something may also get reactions. Facebook is generally a positive place, most people do not post about bad things happening in their lives but will share the good things, so keeping posts positive is the way to go. A general guideline is to keep around 80% of your posts as fun and only 20% as promotional, this will help people to keep reading your posts.

Snapchat's Gamble Update

The new Snapchat update has seen massive backlash from users of the app. An article on PR news claims there is one petition which has had 1.2 million people sign asking them to revert the update back to the previous version. The update was a major redesign to the way that the app runs. The Snap stories are now in the same place as the chat section and the place where the stories used to be located is now all sponsored news stories. The article on PR news says Snapchat still chose to roll out the update in the United States after it had received terrible reviews in beta testing in the U.K., Australia and Canada. Currently on the Apple App Store the app is receiving 1.8 out of five starts. The process of re-watching a friends Snapchat Story is one of the main issues that has users of the app in uproar.

As the PR news article points out, the update was not necessarily tailored toward everyday users, but toward the brands who have stuck with Snapchat through the years. The update now offers analytics for brands that are apart of Snapchat's Official Stories. Snapchat also appears to be working on an E-commerce platform where different brands will be able to sell through the app itself. Finally, Snapchat is working on a new way to allow more brands to create Ad's to be used on the app. These features do not seem to be put in place to improve the users experience but it is to continue to make money.

I am not sure that putting the brands first on the priority list of the user is the best move Snapchat could make. If the users of the app are upset they may not want to use the app anymore and then the focus on the brands will not have been helpful. If Snapchat starts to lose users the brands are not going to get as many views and they are not going to want to use Snapchat as a platform they will use to advertise. As an everyday user of the app I agree with the majority of users on the fact that this update was not a good update for the users. Currently I still use the app but I have slowly started to use it less often than in the past and if Snapchat continues to put the brands ahead of the users I think they will be signing their own death warrant and will lose a lot of their everyday users.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the Snapchat update. Do you think that Snapchat will reverse their update due to the pressure from their users? Will Snapchat putting a priority on the brands over the users be helpful or hurtful to the app? The way that Snapchat responds to the users of the app may have an affect on the future growth or death of the app.

The Grand Tetons

When I graduated from High School my friends and I took a trip during the summer to Estes Park Colorado. We did a lot of hiking in Rocky Mountain National park which is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. My favorite hike that we did on the trip was originally planned as an eight mile round trip to Black Lake. When we arrived at Black Lake we noticed that we could go further up the valley that we were travelling to get to the lake. We were feeling good so we decided to travel up to the end of the valley. It ended up being surreal as we were in a place that not many people ever travel too and has rarely been touched by humanity. It was quiet and peaceful and we all just took some time in silence enjoying nature. On the way back we ran out of water because the eight mile trip we were planning on taking turned into 13 miles so we ran the last half mile trying to get some water as soon as possible.

After our first trip the next summer we decided we wanted to do another trip. We decided to go to park city Utah. The trip to Utah did not run as smoothly as our trip to Colorado because the weather was not as nice as it was when we were in Colorado. The weather patterns caused us to change some of the hikes that we had planned. One hike in particular we decided to do because weather caused us to cancel another hike was to hike up Mount Olympus. We saw it was only supposed to be about a 6 mile round trip hike which was a short hike for us at the time. We did not realize how steep the trail was going to be and it ended up being one of the most difficult hikes that I had ever completed. 

The next summer we decided to go to Grand Teton National Park and do a three day hike along the Teton Crest trail. The hike was one of the coolest things I have done. We had to carry all of our supplies because we were staying in the back country where there was no human connection. We had to carry our tents, sleeping bags, clothes for all different types of weather, and all of the food that we would need for the trip. We also had to bring a water filter so that we could drink water from mountain streams when we ran out. The first day we ended up waling close to 18 miles because we decided to take a trail that would take us to the Teton Crest Trail instead of taking a lift to the beginning of the trail. The lift would have brought us closer, but it also would have cost us money. By the time we ended the first day we were exhausted and the sun was going done so we had to put the tent up quickly and make our food as quickly as we could. We saw a lot of great scenery the first day but my favorite day was the second day of hiking. The second day of hiking was the day that we got up close to the Tetons and saw amazing scenery the entire hike. There was some good scenery on the final day of the hike but we ended up taking a shorter way back to the end of the trail because we were so tired and we were told that we did not have the proper equipment to go on the longer path. If I go back again, I would take another day to do the trip and go along the longer path because we were told that the scenery was beautiful. The longer path would have taken us through Paintbrush Canyon but it would have added a few more hours onto our hike.

We have not taken another trip since then, but at some point I would love to take some more trips back to the Rocky Mountains.

The Start of Social Media Marketing

Jason McDonald's "Social Media Marketing Workbook" provides tools for small business owners and marketing managers or non profit organizations. It looks into some of the most common social media platforms in use and will teach theory along with workbook activities that allow for hands on experience. The first chapter of the book doesn't go into depth on any particular social media platform but it does discuss some tools to help get started and to optimize the use of social media for marketing purposes. The workbook begins by relating marketing on social media to throwing a party. The goal of party synonym is to demonstrate that it takes work to throw a good party, but a good party looks effortless to the attendee. The goal of marketing on social media is to make it effortless and entertaining which means work will have to be put in behind the scenes.

Part of the work that has to be done in order to "throw a great party" is looking at what other people have already done. The book goes into some detail on "reverse engineering" other companies social media sites. One of the main points made of doing research on other companies is to take notes on what is done well on each site, and the things that you do not like about the site. By taking note of the things that you like and dislike, you will be able to tailor your content in the most beneficial way possible. When starting out, the workbook points out that Google is a great tool to use for any questions that arise while working with different social media platforms. The workbook also highlights that it is not necessary to put lots of work into every type of social media platform, instead an understanding of your target market can help you focus on the platforms used mainly by your target community. The main goal of using social media for marketing is to get people to talk about your organization and also to spread awareness for your brand to people that may not have been searching specifically for your organization.

Not all of the content that is put out on your different social media platforms has to be created by your organization, you can share other people's content if it is relevant to your cause. The workbook points out that there are benefits and costs to both approaches to sending content out on social media platforms. The workbook offers many worksheets throughout the book to help provide an understanding of the theory that is being presented in the writing of the workbook. The end of the first chapter gives the reader some content marketing tools and resources that may be helpful for running your social media outlets and creating content.

Love and Christianity

At Ohio Northern University I am the treasurer for an organization called Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Fellowship of Christian Athletes is often shortened and called FCA. Every week we get together for an hour and discuss the Bible and connect it to our lives. I recently live tweeted one of our discussions which was on the topic of love. Love is a very important topic in the Bible and is a crucial aspect of the Christian faith. During the discussion we covered three main areas of love. The first was discussing love for yourself. The main of the section of loving yourself was finding value in yourself, not being a narcissist. We looked at the idea that God created us in his image and since God is perfect than we are perfect. This doesn't mean we do everything perfect, but it means we are perfectly ourselves. I am the perfect version of the person I am, and you are the perfect version of who you are and no two people are alike. The Bible is not as concerned with loving yourself as it is with loving others and those around you.  The second portion of our discussion looked at love for others and how we can go about showing love for others. Having love for everyone is one of the most important things taught in the Bible. If you are looking for a section in the Bible that has a major focus on love I would recommend first checking out 1 Corinthians chapter 13. In 1 Corinthians 13:13 it states "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." According to the Bible we are called to act in love toward everyone, even your worst enemy. I think if everyone acted in love toward one another, many problems present in the world would disappear. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world but it is the job of the proclaimed Christian to do everything in love regardless of the world around us. Romans 12:9-21 was another section of the Bible we discussed, it gives an overview of how to love others.  The final section of the discussion looked at our love for God and his love for us. For this section we looked at 1 John 4:16-18 and Proverbs 20:28. With these versus we discussed how we can prioritize our love for God versus our love toward earthly things. We also discussed why love from God can drive out fear, and finally we looked at the differences of emotional love and God's biblical love. C.S. Lewis has a quote that does a good job of describing where our focus should be "Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither." A focus on heaven will allow us to have joy here on earth, but if our aim is only toward earthly material objects than we will not find joy. No matter what you believe there are going to be good and bad times in life, in fact there are many stories in the Bible of suffering, but with an aim toward heaven we can still have joy even when times are difficult.

The New Life of a "Swammer"

Over the weekend, I competed in my last collegiate swim meet. Swimming has been a large portion of my life and finishing my competitive career in college was bittersweet. It was an emotional event for all of the senior swimmers during the final session of the meet. I was extremely nervous before my last event which was the 200-yard backstroke. There were so many thoughts going through my head about it being my last race, I was afraid I would not be able to swim as fast as I was capable of and would leave having regretted some part of my race. Our team was also in a tight race for the conference championship so we needed every point possible which added pressure to performing well in the event. In the end, I dropped three seconds from my prelim seed time to my final time and set a new personal record and maintained my position to help score points for the team. It took me a while to realize that I was officially done with my swimming career. I am not sure that I have fully come to comprehend how much different my life will be without swimming taking up a major portion of my time.

The 100-yard butterfly was my main race in high school and college, and when I finished my last 100 fly I was extremely emotional. Being done racing the 100 fly was a hard pill to swallow it was by far my favorite race and you can bet that every once in a while when I get in a pool I will swim a 100 fly just to see what I am capable of doing. The 100 fly was the only race that I swam throughout all of high school and college which is why it holds a special place in my heart.

Swimming has not completely left my life, I plan on coaching after I graduate and hopefully sharing some of the joy that I found during my career with others. I will also continue training in the pool for triathlons, especially as I train for Ironman Arizona. The fact that swimming is a sport that you can do for your entire life makes the sport all the more enjoyable and I would not trade the time I have spent in this sport for anything.

Swimming has given me so many memories that I will take with me and cherish for the rest of my life. Swimming has brought me pain, tears, happiness, sadness, but most importantly, it has given me the opportunity to meet some of the most amazing people and it has brought me some of my best friends. The chapter of my competitive swimming career may have closed but as I come close to graduation I am looking forward to starting new chapters of my life and creating even more memories. I am sad that I am done swimming in college, but I am so thankful that I stuck it out through all of the early mornings and difficult practices because I love the sport of swimming.

A Review of "The Art of Social Media"

I would suggest "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick for anyone working or planning to work in the public relations field. The book is tailored toward people using many different platforms of social media to promote a company or a brand. Some of the tips in the book can be applied to personal use but this is not a book that teaches you how to use social media tools. The book gives tips for optimizing the use of different social media platforms and creating the best content for each platform. 

The book is a quick read and offers over 100 tips which you may or may not use. When I read the book, I found there were some tips that seemed like common sense and I feel they did not need to be stated in the book. An example of a common-sense tip is asking yourself if other people would reshare your post before you post. To me if you don't think other people would repost it than why would you be posting it in the first place? However, the book is full of tips I had not even thought of when considering different platforms of social media. An example of this is to wear solid colors and avoid stripes when you are on a platform such as google hangouts where you are on video. The stripes can create an optical illusion where the image looks wavy instead of clean.

The book doesn't cover every type of social media platform currently available, but a lot of the principles are used on other types of social media platforms may be applicable for platforms not covered in the book. For example, Snapchat is not a topic covered in the book, but it is a tool some business can use for promotion such as making a filter with the company’s name for an event being held. The tips the book gives for videos and pictures could apply to the use of Snapchat for your organization or business. 

"The Art of Social Media" will guide you through the best way to optimize your profile so it is attractive to other viewers. The book will give tips on how to gain more followers. There are tips for naming your blog so it will attract readers, and tips on how to find interesting content if you are running short on ideas. A main focus of the book is to gain more followers, the more followers you have means more people will be reading your content, sharing it, and creating a larger brand awareness. There are also tips on how to deal with your followers and handle their comments. The book not only gives tips on how to use specific social media platforms, it also gives tips on using different platforms for events being held and can be used to promote your business.

Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick did a good job of creating a simple book that covers a broad spectrum of topics. The book is a quick read and will provide you with many tools for the job. No book can give all of the information required to be the most successful user of social media because the field is constantly changing. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just dive in and learn some lessons yourself.

The Taper

For a swimmer taper is the most wonderful time of the year. Taper is the point in the season where the amount of yardage the swimmer is swimming starts to go down. The practices shift to shorter sprint sets with lots of rest and a focus on race specific details. If you are around swimmers who are going through taper you will notice a sudden increase in the amount of energy they have compared to the rest of the season where they may have been in a constant state of fatigue.

Throughout the entire swim season swimmers will have two-a-day workouts until taper starts this means there are a lot of very early mornings for swimmers throughout most of the year. As a swimmer the morning workouts I have taken part in would consist of dryland and lifting, along with a shorter pool swim. Dryland is a term used in swimming for workouts performed out of the pool. For me these workouts were often composed of some type of circuit training where there are different stations set up and at each station there are different exercises you perform. The morning workouts usually happen anywhere from three to four times a week. The main swim workouts happen every afternoon, this is where the bulk of the swimming yardage is put in throughout the season. 

There are different styles of training for swimming, some programs will focus on swimming lots of yards, while others will swim less yards at a higher intensity. From my experience there has been a shift from the programs that use lots of yardage to the programs focused on high intensity training. The high intensity training allows for more race specific details to be practiced whereas swimming lots of yardage will create a large aerobic base. I prefer the high intensity style of training. I think the high intensity training teaches you how to swim fast, and considering most of the races in swimming are 200 yards or less you do not need to train where you swim close to 10,000 yards in a day. The high intensity training also gives you a good benchmark for how fast you will swim once taper comes and you are rested. The yardage training offers an unpredictable taper performance and the outcome varies greatly from person to person.

Taper is a time where swimmers become loaded up with energy and it can be difficult to contain, but don't be surprised if you here a swimmer making an excuse to not do something because they are on taper and do not want to over exert themselves. A joke used quite often among swimmers is when they say a random activity will ruin their taper. Taper is a time of high spirit and lots of excitement on the pool deck, it is a time every swimmer looks forward to and it often marks the end of a season full of hard work and dedication.

Modern Immigration

I had the pleasure of getting to speak with Riku Watanabe about on a podcast that I did called The Social Engineers. On the podcast we talked with Riku about his move from Japan to the United States. We take a look at his first few years in the United States, then his life and college, and finally his future hopes for employment.

Riku first moved to the U.S. in 2005 following his father who got a promotion in his job leading the Watanabe family across the Pacific. During Riku's first year in the U.S. he did not speak any English and it would take him 8 years to have a comfortable command over the English language. Riku's hard work would eventually pay off and being bilingual is a very marketable trait in his search for employment after he graduates. During the podcast Riku talks about his first day of school and his story highlights a need to provide a better transition experience for young children from other countries into the school systems. For Riku, there was very little that was done for him and he often did not know what was going on during his first year of school.

Riku followed in his fathers footsteps and decided to go to college to study mechanical engineering. During his sophomore year he became the president of the Asian American Student Union at Ohio Northern University. He also has a job on campus working for International Student Services. Riku helps students transition to life on campus among other things. Riku's experience from moving to the U.S. from another country means that he was once in the international students shoes and understands some of the confusion that comes with moving to this country. As Riku's college career is coming to a close he faces many more tough situations, as he looks for work he has to find a company that will sponsor him so that he can obtain a work visa in order to stay in the U.S. Riku discusses some options that will give him some time after he graduates to stay in the U.S. and find work. The fact that Riku is in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field, under current laws and regulations which are constantly changing, he will get 2 extra years to find work.

I learned a lot during the podcast with Riku, even though I have been friends with him since our freshman year of college, there are a lot of things dealing with international students and the way that work visa's which I still do not know about. The complexity behind being able to become a citizen in the U.S. baffles me, I don't think that it should be as difficult as it is for someone like Riku, who has lived in the U.S. since he was 10 years old, to become a citizen of the U.S. I had an awesome time talking with Riku and I encourage you to check out the podcast for yourself and hear what Riku has to say about being from another country.

Thriving on Social Media

The final chapters of Guy Kawasaki's book "The Art of Social Media gives readers some final tips for using different forms of social media. Before diving into the different forms of social media he gives readers some tips to not look clueless while posting on different forms of social media. Some of his tips for not looking clueless seem obvious but there are still people that do some of the things that he mentions, otherwise he wouldn't have to bring them to the reader's attention.

The first tip is to not say bad things online. Sarcasm doesn't always convey through words on line so depending on the type of media that you put out, it may be best to not use sarcasm. Just being belligerent and mean is not okay to use at any time as a general rule of thumb for life. You do not get anything good from being mean to other people. His next word of advice is to not tell people what to share. People don't like to be told what to do but I don't think that this is a black and white rule for using social media. Making suggestions for other social media profiles for people to read is not a bad thing but telling people that they shouldn't read something should generally be avoided. The next tip is to not buy followers or likes or other things that social media tools use to show that people like your content. This is different from buying page space on Facebook because that is the way the Facebook was designed to run. However, buying followers is unethical if you are trying to show that you are improving your numbers. In the long run it just hurts your company, you are not going to see improvements in other fields which would reflect that the increased number of followers is not helping. I think that the main lesson you can take from Kawasaki's tips to avoid looking clueless is to put yourself in the shoes of your audience and see if that is something that you would react positively towards.

Kawasaki discusses some ways to make your content better based on the platform that you are using. If you can, depending on the platform that is being used, embed videos that you are uploading. Embedding videos is more visually appealing and it will be more likely that people will watch the video as opposed to clicking on a link. The Instagram app was designed to keep posts simple. Instagram was made to share the moment of life that you are in, so there is no need to overthink it and try to make yourself look better than everyone else. LinkedIn is a social media tool that is becoming a standard tool used for searching for jobs and building a network in the professional world. If you are trying to build your network, writing a personal message asking people to connect will give you a greater chance of that connection being added. Kawasaki gives multiple tips for many of the most popular types of social media, if you are interested in many more tips across multiple platforms of social media I would encourage you to check out his book.