"It's like a chapter of my life is dead..."

So the other day I was thinking about what I used to do before wireless internet and the invention of social media. I used to sit on the internet, tying up the phone line for hours using AOL Instant Messenger to talk to my friends and join the AOL Chat Rooms to make new friends. If you are around my age, 22, you will remember lying about your age and location to people you would meet online to make yourself seem more appealing. Part of going in these chat rooms, for me, was defying your parents because if your mom was anything like my mom, you knew you were going to get into trouble if you were caught "IMing" people you didn't know.

After reminiscing about the "good ol' days" I decided to find a chat room. When I clicked on the room I had visited as a child, a message popped up saying that due to the decline in traffic that all AOL Chat Rooms had been closed. WHAT?!?!?! What has happened in America that I cannot get in a chat room and meet some strangers? I know this doesn't sound safe, and it's probably not, but I was kind of disappointed when I got word that something in my past was dead and future generations wouldn't get to feel what I felt when I had been apart of these rooms.

Along with finding out that chat rooms had died, I was talking to a friend of mine about AOL Instant Messenger the other day because it popped up when I restarted my computer. I noticed for the first time that absolutely no one was online except for SmarterChild. SmarterChild was a screen name on AOL that you could "IM" and they would play games with you. I decided to see if this was still the case and got the message "My brain is retired but watch some cool videos! Send an IM to GossipinGabby and Type VIDEO!" Turns out that SmarterChild has been offline since May 2009. I loved playing the games and especially just messing with the computer on the other end. Here is an example I found online of people messing with SmarterChild:

courtjester5000: I hate it when people use up all my printer paper.

SmarterChild: Oh yeah?

courtjester5000: They think paper just grows on trees or something.

SmarterChild: They think paper just grows on trees or something? I dunno.

courtjester5000: Do you have any of those trees growing in YOUR backyard?

SmarterChild: Have any of those trees growing in your backyard? I'm pretty sure I don't.

courtjester5000: Me either.

Now we have Facebook Chat instead of AOL and wireless instead of dial-up. I don't know about you, but I kind of miss the opportunity to make a sandwich while my computer connected to the internet. Not really, but you get the idea.

Social media experience?

I have been racking my brain for a topic to blog about this morning and I have decided to share with all of you something that I have come across recently; when looking for a job as a recent college graduate you are faced with a dilemma. You can't get a job without experience, but at the same time you cannot gain experience without a job. This is also true in the Social Media Marketing field, but I wonder what they consider experience considering it is such a new field.

Do they mean general marketing experience?:

       In that case, I have written several plans that I could provide them. 

Do they mean in working with social media?:

       I have a Twitter, Facebook, and a Linked In account. On top of that I blog about social media and this account is tied to Technorati. I have been actively involved in social media since middle school with the creation of MySpace.

Most of the jobs I have been looking at in the Social Media Marketing field require around 3-7 years experience. I believe that I am well versed in social media, I mean my entire generation has gotten on the social media bandwagon. If you are looking for experience, I have it in spades! I blog about it as well as use it in my day to day life, which you will understand if you have read any of my other blog posts.

Hopefully in the next several months when I am applying for jobs potential employers will see my dedication to social media through this blog and my other social media profiles.

My two cents about Social Media Marketing

By now I guess you have gathered from my blog that I am a Senior at WKU and am majoring in Marketing with a concentration in Social Media. I love seeing social media being used for the greater good of an organization and I am sickened when companies like Motorola ignore it.

My best friend is abroad in Ireland and she had found an international sim card to put in her Motorola Backflip and she didn't know what to do with it. Being confused myself, I decided to get on my new favorite site, Twitter, and mention Motorola in a tweet asking for help. Well, as you can see I posted this on January 6th and as of today, January 13th, I have not heard anything. This bothers me because 30 minutes after I posted this @MotoMobile had tweeted again. Going back to January 6th, they tweeted 11 times and they have tweeted 25 times since then. Going back and looking at the content of these tweets they have mentioned other people and thanked them for support or for mentioning they positively.

All I wanted was some help for my friend and I couldn't even get that. This is some really bad news for Motorola because not only did I send out another tweet discouraging my friends from buying a Motorola phone, but now I am writing about their very poor customer service in my blog! If they had taken about 5 minutes out of their day to get in contact with me all of this would have been solved, but I guess not everyone is a Social Media Marketing major.

Some of my favorite things

One of my favorite things to do is go to Lowe's and look at appliances, home decor, paint, lights, cabinets, and other household fixtures. It makes me feel better and takes my mind off of things. I typically go by myself because I could spend days looking at everything. People have called what I like to do weird or strange, but I don't see the harm in doing something that cheers me up. One of my new favorite things is Twitter. In my previous blog post I shared with you my morning routine with the addition of Twitter, and I'm getting the hang of things quickly.

I recently watched a news story on CNN about a new refrigerator that has a touch pad on the front that allows you to keep virtual sticky notes and other online applications such as Pandora, the local weather, and Twitter. You can now send out a tweet about what you are cooking for dinner, or you could even mention your kids in the tweet so that they will know what time to be home.

I think this is a very cool item that I will definitely be purchasing in the future. I think this will catch on because it allows the user the customization aspect without cluttering up the fridge. My favorite thing about this new appliance is that you can have Pandora right there on your fridge so you can listen to music without having to drag your computer into the kitchen and risk it getting dirty while you are cooking dinner.

Social media and the news

7:00- First alarm goes off and I hit the snooze
7:10- Hit the snooze for the second time and turn on the Today show
7:15- Still haven't seen the local weather, switch to The Weather Channel
7:20- Switch from The Weather Channel to CNN to get the headlines
7:25- Finally get out of bed to make coffee and get ready

I am a self proclaimed hater of mornings. I do not like the process of getting out of bed and starting my day, unless that particular day begins at 10am. With that being said, if I get a job where I have to be there at 8am I will make it work and probably drink a lot of coffee before I get there.

So I bet you are wondering what my love of coffee, my dislike of mornings, and my wake up schedule have to do with getting the news through a social media channel. Well, let me just say that was the old way I used to get up and get my news. The new way is something like this:

7:00- First alarm goes off and I hit the snooze

7:10- Hit the snooze for the second time and turn on the Today show

7:15- Get out of bed and log on to Twitter and make coffee

7:25- Start getting ready

I can get all of my news to start the day just by the people I follow on Twitter. I get the CNN headlines, the local weather, sports, and even whats going on in Bowling Green just by logging into one source. Instead of flipping the channels to see what is going on, I save time in the morning by going to one social media source. One real life example pulls it into perspective to me. The guy I am seeing has an iPhone and he came over and mentioned that the alarm on his phone still wasn't working. I had remembered seeing something on my top tweets where Steve Jobs had posted something about the alarm having a glitch. So I turned to my computer and got on Steve Job's Twitter account and showed my guest his most current tweet that said,"Until Apple issues an official fix for the iPhone alarm glitch, please do not open your iPhone's clock app. Doing so may void the warranty." When he learned this he posted it on his Facebook where it was lost among all of the other posts. Bottom line, Twitter is an awesome news source.