One last post to sum up my experience this semester...

Through this class I have learned a lot about a variety of social media platforms, and many more intricate details about how they work and how you can make the most of them than I knew before.  I had a strategic sense of a few of the big tools and how they work, but now I have more of a working and operational knowledge of them.  Constant Contact is a good example.  I’ve provided content for newsletters before, but until this class I had never used all the different gadgets in Constant Contact to put a whole newsletter together.  Knowing how to do that and what you can do with Constant Contact gives me a better sense of how to best contribute to newsletters in the future and how I can take on building my own newsletter from scratch.  The same is true for Facebook.  I’ve created content for others to put on Facebook, but I had never built a company page before or used Facebook analytics or created posts that were not timed to go out immediately.  Now that I am more familiar with some of the details of how facebook can work, I can devise better Facebook strategies. 

Overall this class has given me confidence in my own abilities and a sense that if I do take on leadership of social media for a company, I know the basics of how to do it.  It also helped me to see that there is a lot that goes into it.  Just writing one blog can take a long time if you are trying to write something thoughtful that helps your audience and shows that you are a leader or expert in your field.  Also, images are so important.  Investing in collecting powerful images is an important part of a social media strategy that cuts across all of the tools we have been using. 

I have also learned a bit more about social media as a listening strategy and I am beginning to understand how to learn from social media. 

I am glad that I have our texts and lectures to look back on some day if I ever do move forward with a company or take on a greater leadership role in social media for a job in the future.  But I will remember to think about what has changed between this class and whenever I implement these ideas, and I will remember to keep my eye out for what’s next.  I will watch out for where my target audience is engaging and I will go to them there, listen to them there, and create value for them there. I look forward to it!!