Assignment 21A: Reading Reflection No. 2

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users

What was the general theme or argument of the book:

            The general theme of the book was the tips and tricks of how to use social media. Social media is being used more and more in today’s world and there are many ways we can use it to our advantage. The book contains seven different chapters and 123 different tips on assorted topics such as gaining more followers on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and responding to comments.

How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT3003:

            The Art of Social Media connects with the course. The most obvious way one can see this is in chapter four when the book talks about blogging and our class format is a blog. The book also touches on how to respond to feedback, mainly negative feedback. This is useful because some students in this course are sharing their own ideas and businesses and sometimes, depending on who is asked, people do not find utility for a product/service and they may come off cruel in their comments. The book teaches describes a way to respond to the comment while not venturing into an argument. The book also provides tips about how to make one’s social media accounts more interesting and appealing. This is great to learn because it is very important to market oneself as well as the business or product.

If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

            My exercise would involve responding to comments. Someone would post an article or maybe mock business mission statement on their blog. Commenters would leave two comments, one positive and one negative. It would be the job of the poster to respond to these comments, using tips from the book as guidance. The take away from this exercise would be to try to respond to nay-sayers in a professional way.

            After writing the comments, the poster would take a few days and reflect on their responses. Maybe it took longer than expected to answer or maybe it was easier to get ones point across.

           

What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

            My biggest ‘aha’ moment was the fact that this book was so easy to read. I will be completely honest, I do not like to read and I certainly do not like to use social media as much as others do. I chose to read this book because I hear about the growth of social media and how more and more businesses are trying to use it to attract customers. I thought that this would be important for me to gain some insight into as a marketing major.

            The book was organized nicely and was a quick read which I loved. The different sections were informative yet short and to the point and had many pictures and (if reading using an online book) hyperlinks to examples. I feel as though I now have a better understanding of how to utilize social media for myself and my next job.