Last Friday, March 22, I had the opportunity to attend the Ohio Northern University Public Relations Student Society of America’s (PRSSA) sixth annual social media workshop. As a student looking to pursue a career in marketing or communications, this workshop proved valuable. Throughout the day, I shared insights and key takeaways from the sessions I attended via live-tweeting. Here is a quick recap of my day.
The day began with a compelling keynote speaker, Amy Hertsenberg, who talked about AI-powered digital mastery. It was an amazing presentation illustrating how AI can do the smallest tasks that humans either don’t have time for or dread doing. Hertsenberg had me captivated the entire time.
Following the keynote, I delved into my first session on brand engagement. Presenter Sally Stearns talked about what she calls the three C’s of brand engagement: Connecting, Converting and Cultivating. Stearns did a deep dive into each topic, including real-life examples from her job and other famous brands. I learned that social media is the No. 1 channel for brands to connect with their customers and that 27% of customers prefer to discover new products on social media over any other platform.
After a brief lunch break, I attended Mallory Grayson’s session, where she shared insights from a recent campaign. I chose to live tweet this session pretty heavily because I thought it was a different perspective that many people don’t see. It included things like the breakdown of data and a timeline of the campaign; it was like I was a part of the team. Grayson also talked heavily about influencers; how to use them, how to work with them and how to find them. It was like a glimpse into a behind-the-scenes tour of working on a real campaign.
My final session, led by Brandon Daniels, focused on mastering the algorithm. I did not expect to like this session as much as I did! I think the most interesting thing I learned was how the different algorithms each platform uses affect the content that’s fed to users. For example, platforms like Instagram and Facebook use a positive feedback algorithm which keeps content you interact with more frequently at the forefront of your feed. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, TikTok uses negative feedback which monitors how long you stay on a certain video. TikTok’s algorithm is meant to make you question your taste, like when you realize you never really liked videos of dogs in backpacks until you saw it on TikTok one day and now that’s your entire feed. This was definitely a fun and interesting session to end with.
Overall, I had a great time getting to listen to all of the speakers at the workshop and learning so much about social media and public relations to help me in the future. I also learned that live tweeting is stressful and not for me but I hope my followers enjoyed watching along.
I also really enjoyed the last session a lot more than expected by Brandon Daniels as well. I feel that about the live tweeting too, it was hard to multitask which made it stressful like you said. Hope you also had fun at the workshop :)
ReplyDeleteI can definitely agree that the session with Dayton and that quote summed up his entire presentation perfectly! As quickly as we see things on social media and then don't see them again it shouldn't be as stressful as people make it. We are humans and make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are happy accidents and can lead to great things!
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