As a Senior Media Studies student, I can confidently say that Journalism and Social Media Analytics was extremely helpful to me. An important skill that I learned in this course was the information processing model. I believe that this was an important aspect of this course because it taught me that poor information processing can lead to bad communication. This is something that we probably all know while communicating but something we don’t bring much awareness too. Another important skill I learned in this course is audience engagement. When referring to building a business, one of the key tools to success is understanding your audience. Therefore a skill I learned is to choose a target audience and experiment with content in order to determine what attracts them most.
This course also allowed me to do a reflection on what my brand is and how I want to promote myself on social media. A lesson I learned is that developing your brand can create a major difference in how you present yourself to potential employers and show professionalism. Building off of this, I learned that understanding your own brand can be fun in content curation. The content curation assignment allowed me to be creative all while trying to build something that sends a message and is attractive. This is the same for our tech report assignments. A lesson I learned through completing these assignments is that there is a wide range of opportunities for creating attractive ads and developing your business through social media. Social Media is a great tool for businesses to build and attract customers because of all of the features they offer. Social Media networks are so complex today that they offer all the tools and features one would need to make their impact.
Before this course, I wasn’t aware of the importance of an online presence. Career-wise and personally I have always relied on developing connections with people and businesses I meet in person rather than engaging through networks such as Instagram or LinkedIn. The skills and lessons I have acquired through this course has brought me to a point where I see growth in developing myself and my brand through social networking sites. Since I am a senior looking to begin my career in media, I find it important to represent myself in a way that is accurate and attractive to potential employers. This course offered a deep insight into the world of journalism and social media that we all exist in today. It was helpful to learn how social media analytics has an effect on society’s communication processes. It was also interesting to hear about how this ties into the information processing model. I will carry knowledge from this course with me while building my career.