Homework Week 10: Managing Social Media Accounts

This week we looked at 3 different platforms to manage our social media accounts, these were Hootsuite, Socialoomph and Everypost.

Firstly I joined Hootsuite which was very easy to set up and link with my social media accounts, the number of social networks that Hootsuite users have access to is determined by their account level: Free, Pro, or Enterprise. If you're a paying customer you can connect to more social networks on Hootsuite than any on other such tool. The flexibility of sharing and scheduling posts can be appealing, especially for businesses. It offers all in one interface which allows you to divide engagement activity into social networks and streams but if like me you like simplicity, then having so much going on can be a bit overwhelming. Hootsuite can incorporate analytics from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Analytics and its own Ow.ly shortened URL metrics which may be beneficial if using Hootsuite for business. I found an interesting blog post about using Hootsuite by Ian Anderson Gray which can be found here

http://iag.me/socialmedia/reviews/7-reasons-why-you-should-use-hootsuite/


SocialOomph wasn't as straight forward to set up and when I tried adding my Facebook account it wanted me to pay and I certainly won't be doing that when I could use another platform such as Hootsuite and add my Facebook account for free! Scheduling of posts on multiple accounts is SocialOomph’s specialty but you can do that on other platforms so I can't see what it offers that the other free ones don't and in this day an age, most peolpe have smartphones and there's an app for everything but it seems there isn't one for SocialOomph. I'll be deleting my account,I'm not impressed

Everypost was easy to set up and it had a 7 minute long YouTube video showing you how to use the platform which I thought was very useful for someone like me who's never used any Social Media Managing tool until today. It offers more or less the same as the other platforms but in addition it also allows you to add your Pinterest account which I like because it's something I use.

On the whole I don't think I'll be using any sort of Social Media Managing Tools as I don't post often but I think it's a great time saving tool for businesses and could be very beneficial to them.

Homework Week 9: Online Presentation Tools

This week we collaboratively worked on a presentation using google slides to evaluate the pros and cons of the social media tools we've looked at over the past 8 weeks.

Here is a link to our presentation

Homework Week 8: Online Meeting Tools

This week we looked at Online Meeting Tools and how they can be used for learning and support. Beth and I had a Skype meeting which was easy to set up but it is very limited in terms of learning and support. This tool would probably be more suitable for one to one language training but not for much else. Next we looked at join.me which is great for online presentations, video and audio conferencing it can also record your meetings so you can go back and refer to them later, or share the recordings with others. Join.me also allows you to screen share so for example, if a student was having problems downloading a piece of software they can allow their tutor to take control of their computer and show them how to do it whilst doing it for them but unfortunately, to benefit from all it's features, you have to be a paying customer. Lastly we looked at google hangouts, this tool is the best of them all as it has all the features Skype and join.me have but it is completely free, therefore students could be located all around the world but they could all access an online presentation through google hangouts with no extra cost of a subscription. This tool saves on carbon footprint, travelling time and costs, it can be used for distance learning and working collaboratively on a document. All in all, google hangouts is a fantastic Social Media Tool for learning.

Here is an Online Meeting Tool review blog that I found on the web
http://blog.webconferencing-test.com/

Homework Week 7: Facebook

This week we're looking at why Facebook pages can be used as a marketing tool. With over 1.55 billion active users each month, having a Facebook page has many benefits for businesses and is a great marketing tool to reach out to existing and potential customers. It is a lo-cost way of sharing information, building a good reputation and trust between the business and customers. Having a Facebook page can raise brand awareness, steer traffic towards the business website and for a fee, Facebook will analyse all the information that millions of users enter into their profiles and they'll use this information to deliver targeted advertising to a specific group. These are only a few examples of why Facebook can be used as a marketing tool, there is plenty more benefits to explore.

Here is a link to an article I found on Social stream marketing on Facebook: a case study

http://www.inderscience.com/offer.php?id=53268

Homework Week 6: Pinterest

This week we've been looking at Pinterest. I think Pinterest is brilliant! It's a great tool to access all kinds of information whether for educational or personal use, there's something for everyone on there and sometimes visual information is much more effective than just plain text!
I have a wide range of boards on my Pinterest account from recipes, wedding ideas, educational tips and more. I like the fact you can set private boards that you don't have to share with others because it's nice to have some privacy, even on social media! Here are some infographics I found on social media for learning. The first one is to teach you how to use social media effectively, the second is a useful pin for tips on essay writing which I found very useful.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/360569513896399385/

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/360569513893640649/

Homework Week 5: LinkedIn

This week we had to create a LinkedIn profile. Jill Duffy of pcmag.com says "LinkedIn is the most important cross-industry professional network around, despite some gripes most people have with the interface or service. Everyone serious about their career should have an account." (found here http://uk.pcmag.com/linkedin/8297/review/linkedin) but I wasn't very keen on doing this as I don't feel my resume is very impressive and the fact it's online for everyone to see makes me feel uncomfortable. When compared to other people, my resume makes me feel embarrassed and I don't like it being widely available. However if I had achieved many things in my life, had a successful career and an impressive resume, then I'd happily have a LinkedIn profile for all to see as this could improve my career prospects and give my family and I a better quality of life. Here is a link to my profile.

https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/donna-roberts/109/78/907

Homework Week 4: Google Docs

For this week's homework we had to collaboratively write a blog post in google docs evaluating the three social media tools we have looked at so far. Here is the link to our evaluation.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E0XvdkvlYnq9gYayn-5_CF0q7n1zL1p3km7EGRgmA7g/edit