Author: nvillafana

So this assignment was a little more difficult than I thought it would be because I tweeted at a lot of people and only two people actually tweeted me back answering my questions. And even with that the answers weren’t very compelling so it was a bit of a whomp whomp moment.  Although the replies weren’t that AMAZING I will still shocked on the status of the people and accounts that actually tweeted me back.

I wanted to tweet at people who have a higher status in the advertising world who might be able to answer some questions that I have because that is the industry I pray and hope to be apart of in the future.  As some of you may know I am struggling a bit to get my foot in the door so I thought that maybe some of these experts could answer some questions that I had off the top of my head!

The first tweet I got a reply back from was from a man named Tim Nudd who is the creative editor at Adweek and AdFreak.  He was actually the first one to tweet me back quite quickly after I tweeted him.  I first tweeted at him asking “how did you get your foot in the door with the advertising industry?” and he replied back saying “fairly randomly got a job at Adweek!”  Not necessarily the reply I was wanting per say because I feel like you have to have some sort of background to get a job at Adweek. I mean come on… it’s Adweek! A bunch of people use this site to look up the latest advertising campaigns.

My second twitter account that I got a reply back from was from McGarrah Jessee which is a well known advertising agency in Austin Texas.  I believe they are one of the top 5 advertising agencies here in Austin and of course I always apply for positions that they post and wanted to see if I could get a comment back from them on “how do y’all stay updated on what’s the next new wave of advertising?”  And of course again the reply back wasn’t that amazing but hey at least I got a response back…right?  The answer to my tweet was ” we have 150 employees who are exploring that every day.”  So I guess everyone in the company basically works on keeping up with what is up and coming for the new digital media that keeps coming out and keeping us sidetracked with its innovative ideas.

I thought this assignment was interesting and fun because I have never had an assignment like this before and shows me how we can use social media in different aspects such as us using this for a more educational moment and not for us to just put our thoughts and opinions out there.  I definitely think that I will use this tool more in the future for if I ever need to get in touch with someone because you never know who might tweet you back!

A fellow graduate student in one of my other classes presented about the topic of influencers that can be found throughout social media.  We even talked about it a bit in class but it got me thinking about how these influencers can also be viewed as entrepreneurs! Influencers can be seen as ordinary people such as you or myself who have a pretty large following on any of their social media accounts.  As time has passed influencers are starting to pick up companies who are now sending these influencers products to feature in their videos that they might post or on their personal digital media accounts.  One of the ones we will discuss today is the influencer or entrepreneur known as Logan Paul…

Some of us might of started noticing him awhile ago when he was making funny videos on Facebook or Vine.  You might of thought he was funny or outrageous by doing ridiculous activities in public.  But now his humor and outrageousness is catching the eyes of companies and they are hiring him to help with advertising for their own companies and products.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-kim-kardashian-logan-paul-social-media-influencers/

http://www.tubefilter.com/2016/10/24/logan-paul-influencer-marketing-60-minutes/

(I wish the video worked but they have the script in the article. Tried adding a different link to see if that would work)

Even Kim Kardashian attributes her career to digital media and in my eyes she is an entrepreneur.  She created herself through her social media and became widely known for this.  It’s just incredible because many people always bring up what “talent” she has and most of us can agree that there really is nothing but she is smart because she knew how to brand herself through digital media and I think that’s how she attained her money and fortune.  This could also be seen with her sisters in my opinion.

A couple of years ago a guy by the name of Brandon Armstrong started releasing videos of him in his backyard impersonating different professional basketball players. Armstrong began with big name players such as Lebron James and Kobe Bryant and his videos became a hit as he perfectly imitated the mannerisms of the players. He continued his series of videos impersonating and each of them were just as spot on as the first. These videos were such a hit, they began to be featured on Sportscenter and landed him on The Jimmy Kimmel Live show.

All of this started from a set of viral videos. As these viral superstars continue to gain viewers not only does it land them in the national spotlight it, but puts them in position to gain sponsorships. Armstrong has teamed up with New Era for a commercial that capitalizes on his impersonations. He recently released a video of him doing normal daily activities around the house, but did impersonations of how professional football players would complete these simple tasks. New Era is a hat company that sponsored the video and every scene is of him doing impersonations with a different hat on. Not only does this promote the hat, but it promotes Armstrong as a brand in himself. Armstrong has established himself in the internet world and is using his videos, that were once used as entertainment for him and his friends, to get big time endorsements to promote big brands.

https://youtu.be/TsCYnadGeLM

Influencers are everywhere in the world and people may think that they just have social media fam but they are getting paid to do things on their accounts and in my eyes that’s how they became entrepreneurs. It’s a totally new idea and concept that is happening but they have the control over what they want to do with it and like the CBS interview stated. They are turning followers into dollars….

For my last and final blog I decided to look up an article from the beginning of the year (2016) to see what predictions would be made for the year to come and see how right or wrong they were…

One of the major ones that I feel is completely correct is number 2 where they said that marketers will have to think mobile first.  It’s crazy how this year mobile media has just boomed even more than usual. It gets me thinking that 2017 could even further that idea and possibly have us completely transition over to mobile media which is just crazy.  As a student who wants to get into the advertising industry it is a bit on the scary side because if companies have access to mobile media in this current day it almost eliminates most of what they do for each brand or company.  Companies could just have in house advertising and completely get rid of the third party which would be economical for them because you get rid of that cost. 2016 was definitely a crazy year for politics, media, digital media and advertising.  I am definitely up for what predictions are to come for 2017 because I feel like there are endless possibilities for what we end up in December 2017…????

http://www.marketingdive.com/news/10-digital-marketing-trends-to-watch-in-2016-and-beyond/411457/

After attending the International Research Conference this semester I was lucky enough to sit in on an interesting presentation about viral advertising.  The whole study looked at the possibility of viral advertising taking over from traditional advertising.  She explained that since our generation is so infatuated with the internet and digital media that companies are now looking to produce their own commercials or videos and put them on some sort of site such as Youtube and set the video out there and wait for it to become viral.  With traditional advertising she mentioned that you have to pay people to produce the video, then pay for time on the air of whatever channels you want it to play on and then when it actually gets run on the air it’s only for that short amount of time and then you have to wait again for it to get played.  The main points that were made was that it was time efficient and cost effective.  I could see in the future more companies having in house advertising agencies and running the production of their advertising from inside the company and taking away the third party.

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/08/500686320/did-social-media-ruin-election-2016

 

Every election year it seems that some sort of technology comes to light or has a way of changing the election process and I think definitely it was all about social media this year.  I don’t think I have ever seen so much hatred in any election after watching this election unfold.  Not only did social media keep us up to date on what was going on in the election but it aloud us to show more hate and negative thoughts and opinions to others who don’t have the exact same view as us.  It also made it to where I got to a point of thinking, is this election really about what the candidates are going to do for our country in the future or are we ever going to stop talking about what the candidates did in their past.  We all have pasts and whether they are shiny with rainbows and teddy bears or burning in flames we shouldn’t be thinking about that. We should be thinking about what policies and hearing out what each candidate will do for this United States.  This election started out like that from the VERY beginning and while most people in the country stated that they didn’t like either candidate… you could of chosen someone else! There were so many candidates to start off with and I think popularity and social media got the best of this election.  Now all we can do is wait and hope for the best for our future.

The International Research Conference was a great insight about what fellow graduate students were doing in their research.  The conference opening panel was great at opening my eyes to what a graduate student would be getting into if you decide to go thesis track and furthering their own research.  They gave great advice about being passionate about your research and that once you get passed the thesis track and dissertations you are really able to research what you want!  Another point of advice they suggested was to make sure that you have great time management skills and to make sure that above everything else you make sure to keep yourself and your health number one.  I know as graduate students we feel overwhelmed at times and should really spread out our research time instead of it piling up like it always does.  Dr. Martinez said that if you don’t have good health than you can’t keep focused on your research so always make sure that you are taking the time you need to keep yourself healthy.  All professors gave great advice on how to start the research process such as getting published and funded, and that you just need to stay focused on the goal you set for your research.

On the second day of the conference I was able to sit in and listen to three studies that all involved some kind of social media which was very interesting to me because it seems that we are all captivated about what social media will do for mass media in the future.  Ideas about emoticons, instagram likes and viral advertising were brought up in these presentations and I thought all three were interesting and would very much like to see the results when their studies are finished!  It was enlightening to see and converse with other graduate students who are almost done with their research and on the verge of graduating so it gave me a glimpse of what I could be involved in for my future semesters!

I had the great pleasure in presenting in the conference for my group and I think it was an amazing experience to be able to present our research study and show our results to what we found.  The fun part was that it seemed like our audience was interested and intrigued by our study so it made it more fun to talk to them about it because most of them are mass communication majors also. We received a good amount of questions that were raised about our study! It definitely made me think about what they said and want to go back and research some more about the questions they asked about our study.  Overall the conference was enjoyable and exciting and I hope that I can attend next year also to see what other studies are being shown and what other topics my fellow graduates are researching! 

I personally think that all media innovations were significant because each innovation aloud the next to be built upon.  I personally don’t think that we would have mobile media if it wasn’t for the printing press and Internet, although yes it was invented many many years ago, they are the building blocks of what technology we have now.  It is incredibly impressive that we have technology at the palm of our hands but during this time period that we live in, it is viewed as most consequential.  However back when the printing press or Internet was invented people of that specific time period must of thought the exact same thing.  They were presented with a new technological innovation and thought how amazing it was just like we were when mobile media was invented.  So I can’t really say that mobile media is the most consequential because with me being a millennial I would think yes but putting myself in the shoes of people who lived in past innovations they would think the same thing!

As for the second question, my opinion is still the same.  We would not have all these great innovations without building blocks.   Our world had to start somewhere and with each amazingly new innovation becomes the ground work of the next amazingly new innovation.  Currently we are fixated with mobile media but what will mobile media’s ground work lay for the next new innovation.  Will we have the same question for whatever that may be as the best innovation to ever be created in existence.  In my mind the cycle never stops because we will always have great inventors thinking of what the next best thing will be.  So yeah sure people may say mobile media is the most consequential innovation now but what after the next new innovation is created?

I know this is from last week but I wanted to post something about it!!

I thought that this panel was really interesting…more than I thought it would be.  Being a graduate student who is not sure of what is going to happen next for me is a bit scary and makes me super unsure of where my life might go.  But this panel showed me that it’s okay to not know exactly what I want to do RIGHT NOW and that everything will be okay as long as I just go out and try and keep learning about everything that interests me.  I am a bit jealous that the panel graduated and had that “perfect timing” where everything was changing and no one really knew what this new digital media would be because in todays world we are surrounded by all this new media and it has existed for now 10 years.  It brought up an idea in my mind of when I graduate grad school will there be another opportunity like they did or will we be in the time period of waiting for a new wave of technology to roll in big time like they had when they graduated.  Super grateful for all the advice that they offered and took to heart about trying new and interesting things even if I think it might not be for me. AND now I’m dedicated to a full time job of looking for jobs as one of the panelist described, as she influenced me to get my foot in the door and eventually I will find something that I love to do.

I know that I have talked previously about being in a “man’s world” in the business program here at Texas State and then coming into the Mass Communication program. It is a bit of a shell shock but it also brings up a good point of why aren’t girls more educated in the coding industry and why aren’t women being treated equally in the workforce.  It just seems like no matter what women do sometimes we will never be treated as equals to men or be seen in the eyes of others to be able to do all that men do.  I think it’s great that more women are getting educated about coding because it gives us another skill to put us above our competition not only against other women but against the main competition of men.

One cool thing that has occurred over the past two years I believe is that the super model Karlie Kloss has become a HUGE advocate for girls wanting to learn how to code and encouraging young girls to get the knowledge to learn how to code! She teamed up and started providing scholarships to get the ball rolling of young girls learning to code at a young age and not be discouraged that this is only for “boys.”  Women who are in power and who are role models such as Karlie Kloss and Sheryl Sandberg give the opportunity of young girls to realize what they can become and achieve!  Another great example is the entrepreneur Kendra Scott…yes she might just be a jewelry designer but she has started a jewelry empire and is booming all across the nation and even internationally.  Women are on the rise but when we will be seen equal to men is a different story.

Honestly I didn’t even realize that I might be more browser bias towards using safari because I just have all apple products and only use Safari.  I don’t think that I’ve had any problems with using Safari so I haven’t even tried using other browsers.  I know that before I got my apple products I used internet explorer and even before that we had dial up with netscape and that was an annoying process, but that was in high school/middle school a good amount of years ago and can’t even remember using that browser.  And as for search engines I usually stick with Google because I feel like when I have used Yahoo or Bing in the past I don’t like how the pages setup.  I feel like since I’ve used Google for a good amount of time its in my comfort zone and I know how to navigate the site to the best of my ability, however google is constantly evolving and I don’t feel like I have a good grasp on all the things that it can offer.  Safari and Google and definitely in my comfort zone and I’m stubborn enough to not shift away from these browsers and search engines…