4-3 Final Project Milestone Two: Blog Group 1, Immediacy

Another major impact technology has had on communicators is the speed and immediacy in which information and can be released and shared. It's crucial for the communicators of today to utilize these newer and faster avenues such as social media. For news organizations, and the public in general, it's no longer waiting for the evening news. Information is being disseminated instantaneously all throughout the day. Communicators must keep up with this new speed via technology. 

One way for communicators to keep up with their information stream, and to maintain a flow of speed and rhythm, is to schedule posts. This is a very effective technique to allow your posts to hit when their is the most traffic online. For instance, you may be working on your social media aspects of your job at noon, but that's not the most effective time to make posts because fewer users are online. Instead, you can schedule the post for a higher traffic time. Keeping up and posting in a timely manner is key for communicators, as is having a steady flow of content. Below is a video tutorial on how to schedule posts on Facebook. 

  

4-3 Final Project Milestone Two: Blog Group 1, Social Media

Technology has led to one of the biggest changes in communication thanks to the advent of social media. Facebook only has more than 1 billion active monthly users and counting. Social media has had a significant impact on how communicators work, and has provided a great opportunity for communicators. I can recall a time about ten years ago when I was a television reporter and my colleagues and I weren't given access to social media sites on our work computers. It was considered a time waster. Fast forward a couple of years, and having at least one social media account was mandatory, and you had to post and use social media several times a day while working. It's now crucial that journalists, and communicators in general know how to utilize social media.

I started my Twitter page about eight years or so ago when I was reporting at the aforementioned news station. Twitter provides a great way for reporters to stay in touch with their local community, and to seek out sources.

Reporters and news stations will often use tweets and Facebook posts when reporting as a part of their story. Sometimes people will have videos or photos of breaking news that the news station wasn't able to capture. Often times, news stations will use social media postings to gather the emotions or feelings from the community on a particular story. Below is an interesting video in this regard, which speaks to how journalists use tweets and videos while reporting on disasters.

4-3 Final Project Milestone Two: Blog Group 1, Utilizing Video

Technology has definitely impacted how communicators send their messages, and there are several tools that they should know or learn that can be very beneficial. Adding multimedia to a blog or article can significantly enhance its effectiveness and how the story connects with the reader. As Zachary Snideman puts it, "A website without multimedia is like a cupcake without icing: Functional but lacking," (Sniderman 2010). I couldn't agree more. You can still get your point across, but why not add some frosting to hammer it home? 

Multimedia such as photos, video, audio, and graphs, can have a tremendous impact on readers, especially those who learn more efficiently with visual tools. For example, when talking about the power and enormous reach social media has, I could simply write that social media is now the number 1 activity on the web! Or I could tell you that 14.4 million people used social media last year to find a job, and that one million new blogs come online every month, (social media Revolution 2014). But, these numbers and dramatic stats may come across more clearly and pronounced in a fast paced graphical video. See below!  Knowing how to embed and utilize video is a key tool that communicators can use to their advantage to provide more engagement, and a better way to show or demonstrate information. 

Zachary Sniderman (2010). How to: Add multimedia to your blog. Mashable.
http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/add-multimedia-to-blog/