End of The Road....

Hello World! (For old-time sake)

As you know I started this blog for my Social Media Marketing class, and our last blog entry is today....the end of the road. This is the first time that I have ever blogged, and I have to say that I enjoyed it...somewhat. I enjoyed the part of sharing my thoughts on things, although I was very conscientious of what I wrote the entire time...which is probably for the best! The part I didn't like was that I felt like I had to come up with an idea each week to blog about. I would rather do a blog about something I am passionate about and then the ideas would flow freely. Overall blogging was a great idea, because it increased my presence in social media and encouraged me to comment on other blogs.

I learned a lot about social media marketing thanks to this class. While my career is not in marketing, as a MBA (YEA I am NOW claiming it since we are about 98% DONE!) the information will still be useful to me as I grow in my career. As I use social media I am now more aware of the marketing tactics being used to get me to mention brands or products in my postings. This has made me a lot more cautious about how I now respond to ad's etc, because I realize that my friends will view my liking a page or sharing a status as an endorsement. I really want to have a more strategic focus and marketing is key to any strategic plan. Social media is the next big wave for marketers, and thanks to this class I should be able to contribute to the conversation.

It's been real....Hermonte!

Social Media Allows Us to Keep In Touch With Family and Friends

Hiya,

This weekend we had my mothers 60th birthday party. A lot of my family decided to fly in to help us celebrate. Unfortunately I don't get to see my family very often and as such I am thankful to social media sites like Facebook and Instagram that allow me to keep up with some of their activities on a regular basis. Even my older family members have a Facebook page, and they can keep up with me and my shenanigan's. I am also a military kid, and I have travelled and lived in a lot of places around the world. Thanks to social media sites like Facebook I am able to stay connected with friends I met years ago. Through Facebook I can see how their lives are shaping up, get news about whats going on with them, and share my journey through life with them as well.

So while I know that marketers want to use Facebook for that purpose, I appreciate it for helping me stay connected with my friends and family. I think in this day and age we are all so busy living life that we don't get to spend a lot of time with friends and ultimately loose contact with them. By being friends on Facebook (even if you live 5,000 miles apart) you feel a bit of a connection with people you once knew. You feel like you know a little bit more about them than you otherwise would. So I think Facebook really does bring people together.

That is all for this week! I want to get back to enjoying Fathers Day with my family!

Loving My Family, Hermonte!

The Last Stretch

Hello,

Well we are in the last stretch to be finished with school, and let me say that I am just exhausted. I know it is bad to say, but I have "senior-itis" like crazy! I don't want to do any work or finish writing a paper that is really quite interesting. I would rather hang by the pool (if it would stop raining), play golf or tennis or just sit and read Game of Thrones. Oh yea, I am reading it. I have decided there is just too much I may not know about this wonderful story so I am reading the book.

My paper is about deciding what the best practices are for a social media platform and then looking at three brands within anindustry to see if they are effectively using the platform based on the best practices I identified. I choose Facebook. I use other platforms of social media, but I am most comfortable with Facebook. My industry you might ask?! Alcohol and Beverage!, and my brands are Courvoisier, Hennessy, and Remy Martin. I figured if I have to write this paper, I may as well make it interesting. So that is what I am working on today (at some point). Wish me luck, and let the creative juices flow one more time so I can write a great paper - fingers and toes crossed.

Hermondra

Game of Thrones!!!

OMG Game of Thrones!!!

I typically try to keep this blog to things about social media, and I will rope it in, but if you are not watching the Game of Thrones you are missing the best show on cable. Last night wasn't even the season finale and my mouth went agape for at least two hours last night. I just couldn't believe that the writers of the show (I am not 100% sure if George Martin wrote about it in the book) killed off all of the adult members of the Stark family. And the manner in which they were killed was so horrific and devious! OMG. Last night I thought I would just die, and the interesting thing was that I don't have a lot of friends that watch GOT so I had to go on Facebook to connect with my fellow GOT-heads. Interesting enough, people began responding to my post immediately and they were just as shocked and awed (yes I said it SHOCKED and AWED) as I was! Kudos to the writers of GOT. HBO sure knows how to grab your attention and keep you coming back for more with their original series programming (Soprano's, Sex and the City, True Blood to mention a few). I am going to make sure I like the GOT page today on FB, which I know will be exactly what social media marketers want me to do! And in this case, I don't mind, because this show deserves to be watched by the masses. I can hardly wait for next weeks finale - I am not sure what else they can do to bring in higher drama for the finale. But I am sure they have something up their sleeves to shock and awe again. I feel awful about the Stark family, and I hope it was all a big dream and they are all still alive. I mean at this point it feels like they can't catch a break, but honestly they are way too trusting and in that world they really need to be more suspicious. If survival of the fittest holds true, then maybe it is best it's not a dream, because the Starks definitely keep having their hat handed to them! Every time they take two steps forward they take three steps back. Now all that is left of their family are children and of course John Snow, who doesn't have the Stark name so I am not sure how all of that works. But the young Stark boys have super natural power in Bran and he may have some tricks up his sleeve. 

Overall, if you are not watching GOT you really need to get on board - and LIKE them on Facebook! Ha, 

Still Shocked and Awed Hermonte!