My Social Media Policy

MY SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY

1. Connecting:

I am a senior at Georgia Southern University with a major in public relations and a minor in fashion merchandising and apparel design. I mainly want to connect with others for networking purposes. I believe that there are so many people that are much more educated and experienced than I, and I know I can learn so much from these people. Connecting to these people gives me that opportunity.  It also gives me the chance to connect with people that I am similar to and can talk to about what we are experiencing as graduating seniors and young professionals.

2. Follow, add, friend: The more friends you have, the more fun you have

I am somewhat particular about people I befriend on the Internet. I only friend, follow or add those people that are in the public relations or fashion field, those working for companies I would like to inquire information about, fellow students, etc. For sites such as Facebook, I only accept friend requests from people I know in person. On sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter, I follow people that I feel I can learn from or that I can help or be helped by. I do not automatically reciprocate a follow notifcation until I check out that person’s page.

3. Privacy, boundaries and safety: Beware of predators

Like I stated before, I am particalur about those I befriend. It is important that I do not add random people that are not on sites for the same reasons I am. I am careful about what information I put about myself, but the information may differ by social network. On Facebook, I include some of my favorite things, whereas LinkedIn is strictly things I am professionally involved with. I also take advantage of limited profile capabilities depending on the network and the person.

4. Signal to noise: Have a point

I do not have strong opinions about my social media experience as far as what others are doing. I am fine with RSS and multiple status updates as long as they are meaningful. If a person gets out of hand with pointless updates, I am likely to stop following them on Twitter. If the person is consistantly providing me with useful links and information, then I continue to follow that person.

5. Personal data and sharing

If someone asks me questions, I do not mind sharing information about something I feel qualified to talk about. I think part of connecting means that you are sharing a bit of yourself with other. With sharing a bit of personal data, then I would not truly get the networking experience I want. It is fun to talk with people that share similar interests, and interesting to talk with those who I have only one or two things in common with. I am not looking for deep, meaningful connections on any social network I am involved with, but if fun conversations evolve, I am fine with that.

6. My networking needs and uses: Personal v. Professional

I use Facebook strictly for connecting with my friends. If I have friended someone on there, they are someone I have met in person and went to school with, know through friends, or am related to. LinkedIn is a network I use to meet people professionally. People I connect to on there are people I can ask questions and talk to about life after college.

Cynical Senators?

Absolutely not, Obama nor McCain! These guys have so much optimism, I wish they could share some with me!

I really enjoy watching the presidential and vice presidential candidates. I missed the first presidential debate, so I made sure I would be home for this second one. I enjoy the debates because it is interesting to me to see how the candidates react under such stress and with no preparation for specific questions.

I like that they walked around and got involved in the audience when asked questions. While Obama is a great public speaker, McCain was a little easier for me to understand. I felt like Obama was trying to be overly formal, but McCain was truly making an effort to connect with the public.

Some things are hard for me to follow, because I really (and sadly) don’t know enough about what’s going on in this country. Each candidate talked a lot about education, health care, foreign affairs, energy and economics. They both offered their “solutions,” but I still believe that at this point, neither one of them is prepared for what they are getting themselves into. I have a candidate that I have chosen to vote for, but that doesn’t mean he’s perfect.

 

Don’t be so square…

How to make that triangle perfect

So you may know by now that you can make the perfect square or circle by holind down the Shift key while you drag the mouse. But sometimes, you just need a triangle.

Tips from David Blatner:

Method #1

Instead of drawing with a “triangle tool,” just draw out any shape (even just an open path) on your page and choose Object > Convert Shape > Triangle. Yes, that’s yet another menu item that most users don’t even see, no matter how long they’ve been using the program. When you do this, you typically get an isosceles triangle (where only two sides are the same length). To get an equilateral triangle, start off with a square or circle before converting.

Method #2

Here’s another way to get a triangle (this one even works way back in InDesign CS!): Use the Polygon tool (which is hiding under the normal frame tools). Double-click the Polygon tool in the Tools panel to open its options dialog box. Set it to 3 sides and a Star Inset to 0% and you’ve just defined a triangle. Click OK and drag the cursor out to create a triangle. Or hold down the Shift key while dragging to make a perfect, 60-degree-per-angle, triangle every time.

Method #3

In a right-angled triangle (or “right triangle”), two lines in the triangle are perpendicular (that is, they form a 90-degree angle). How best to form one of those? I like to draw a rectangle, switch to the Pen tool (press P), then click on one corner. When you click on a corner point with the Pen tool, it deletes just that one point, leaving the other three.

Adapted from David Blatner; http://indesignsecrets.com/making-a-perfect-triangle.php

My life on Twitter.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been getting acquainted with life as a tweeter. At first, I was very skeptical about the experience because I’m not very technologically savvy. As I started actually playing around with the site and searching for people that may be of interest to me, I became more interested about twitter and what it had to offer. I have become such a fan of twitter, that I have begun convincing my friends that they, too, should get involved.

I have already made contacts through the site and twitter is officially a part of my everyday life. I would recommend this site to anyone who is interested in networking and expanding their social horizons. Becoming an active tweeter has made me more interested in using other social media sites, and I am more involved online all together because of this experience.

I really believe that I will be able to use twitter, and the other sites, to their utmost advantage and make myself more marketable because of my online presence. I had no idea that there are as many active PR professionals as there are online.

I am very glad I took the time to play around with twitter because I will be able to use some of these connections throughout my career as a PR practitioner, a career I may begin as a result of my new twitter friends.

I’m in…

Public Relations Publications with Barbara Nixon right now!