Exploring Social Media Tools and Experiences

Three of the social media tools that I have had experience using are social networking sites, Blogs, and Webinars. With regard to social networking sites, I primarily use Facebook. My experience with Facebook has been generally positive because ultimately, social media is what you make of it. While there are certainly ways Facebook can be used negatively, such as in instances of cyber bullying or spreading negative propaganda, I personally have used it primarily to stay in touch with a vast network of family and friends who I likely would not have been able to do otherwise. Facebook has enabled me to share everything ranging from athletic accomplishments to some of my personal artwork, and likewise, it has given me a means to see all of the interesting events taking place in the lives of many of my friends and loved ones. I also like how Facebook tries to innovate and evolve new ways of getting people to interact with one another in the cyber sphere.

The other social media tool I have just recently gained experience with using is, Blogs. As this post demonstrates, my graduate studies at Southern New Hampshire University have afforded my the opportunity to experiment with blogging using Google's Blogger. I have enjoyed learning to communicate using blogs because I view blogs as a forum designed specifically to share your own thoughts, observations, and ideas of the world, while generating discussions that those following the blog can partake in. In some ways, blogs are like a digital version of the classical Greek style of learning and teaching, where knowledge was acquired through questioning and having an open dialogue over a particular idea or observation.

Lastly, a very unique social media tool that I have worked with in the past are Webinars. I am currently enrolled in a Voice Over instruction program through Edge Studio, and many of the lessons for how to establish a career in the Voice Over industry are conducted via Webinars from the social media company, Citrix. In addition, because people from all over the country enroll in this program, many of the personal coaching sessions with professional Voice Overs are done using Skype. I partook in one such coaching session and felt that the feedback the coach was able to provide was just as valuable as if the session had been done in person.

The social media tools that I think will reach audiences most effectively are social media sites such as Facebook. With the number of regular users these sites have when compared to some of the lesser known social media tools, I think these sites will continue to be at the forefront of communicating information. Social media sites are firmly entrenched within our culture and it has become easier and easier to communicate with mass audiences with the click of a button. While all of the social media tools listed above have played a significant role in changing the way we communicate, none has had more of an impact than social media sites owing to the incredible reach they give to each and every individual user.