Last year I accepted an adjunct professor position with Chicago State University, Chicago, Illinois http://www.csu.edu- where I have been teaching an on-line undergraduate business course - MKTG 3705 – ENTREPRENEURIAL SALES & MARKETING. I am excited about this opportunity and will use this course to discuss the impact of social media on business and communities.
My goal has been to develop a case study - that will be picked up by blogs, magazines and other business schools around the country, as a training tool for the new social media realities and how they intersect with diversity and inclusion.
My second class at Chicago State is coming to an end. As part of their final assignment I asked my students to write 300 word paper on what have they had learned about social media and what they plan to do with their personal brand - Twitter page or Facebook page.
I present the top three papers
Here is paper # 1
Charlotte Davis
Social Media Paper
December 6, 2012
Social Media is --“ME”DIA-- In the Making”!
The Old Testament of Social Media: The 1950’s through the mid-1970, social media consisted of the radio, television, telegraph, telegrams, typewriters, shorthand, dictations and transcriptions. IBM gave us the biggest mainframe computers. Two of those monstrosities took up a whole room.
Lights! Camera! Action! Late 1970’s through the mid-1990’s, gave us more television, more radio, the rolodex, answering machines, voicemail, cold calling, newspaper ads, office meetings, networking events, press releases, flyers, brochures, business cards, the mobile phone, cordless, and analog, paper, paper and more paper! Did you know that the internet was in operation in the 1980’s? It was available in corporate America in ASCII and some other special language known to IBM and like minds.
The New Testament of Social Media: The 2000’s and onward, wireless, digital, email, instant messaging, fiber optics, internet, WIFI, cellular, digital, Skype, texting, telecommuting, teleconferencing, digital… did I mention digital? 3G, 4G, fast, faster and exponentially faster. Old methodologies of communicating socially or for business purposes won’t cut it in today’s “technological universe”.
I am constantly learning and not fast enough… that if you are not connected to the internet on a social network, you are not connected. It’s the best way to be found and followed. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Pinterest. Brightfuse. Stationery, no, not paper, “stationary” (a physical location) not required. You don’t have to be confined to one location. Take your office with you. Your office can be your smartphone, laptop, notebook, tablet or IPad. It’s “business without borders” or “a company without corners”. You are connected within seconds. You can connect domestically or internationally. Your clients can find you with a couple of pecks and a click. Cars, planes or automobiles are not necessary. Clients or prospective clients can visit your site and make a purchase without leaving the house or their pajamas. As a business owner, you are afforded the same option of conducting business in your pajamas. Your kitchen table can become your board room just as mine’s has become.
Whether offering a service or product, social media provides electronic exposure which creates rapid responses and revenue. Those responses can create demands for goods or services or “lack of” in real time. It also affords me the opportunity to create a brand rapidly. I can capture data relative to my service or product based on trending activity. I don’t have to wait on manual labor to compile the data. With the right script lodged within my website, each visit is calculated. Wow! Business is taking place when I am offline. Social media is --“ME” DIA-- in the making”!
Just think… social media was instrumental in the election of our 44th and 45th President. President Barak Obama and team changed the face of campaigning using this tool. History was made thanks to social media.