Let Me Show You

It’s been awhile since I talked about video projects that I’ve been working on, so let’s recap.  Over the summer I had the awesome opportunity to work as an intern with VideoBranch in Lima. VideoBranch is a team of six talented employees who work to create video and photo marketing materials for a variety of clients. While at VideoBranch, I did a lot of editing, which I greatly enjoyed as that is what started my passion for videography. Most of my experience before the internship was with the Final Cut Pro X editing software, but at VideoBranch I was able to further my knowledge and use of Adobe Premiere. I learned how to build a variety of graphics from scratch with ease and the differences in voice between brands. Some of the projects I worked on were for General Steel, GROB, U.S. Plastic, EZ Concrete, Allen County Children’s Services and many more! It was great to diversify the types of videos I have created toward what I am hoping to do as a career. I also worked at ONU in my ...

It is the day before Welcome Weekend starts at Ohio Northern University. You’re frantically opening an Amazon package to find out what goodies you will using and how to set it up. You put a phone harness on your chest but the video isn’t stable! It’s bouncing all over the place and you can’t see faces! What’s next? There’s a harness that goes over your head? But the weight of the phone is too heavy! It’s grabbing your hair and falling! You think of an idea- “if it is falling because it has nothing to grab onto, why don’t we get a helmet to strap it to?” THAT’S IT!  You rush to Walmart with your coworker. You’re in the bikes and helmets section when… there’s so many choices. You were told to get a skater helmet, but you know it would move around— not stable enough. You see other adult helmets. This one has a gear on the back to fit the shape of your head! You put it on, desperately trying to figure out if this is the one! You fasten every strap and you mount the phone to the helmet....

Have you ever heard the phrase “You gotta pay to play?” Well, if you haven’t, essentially what it means is you have to literally pay in order to play a game- think an arcade. Well, the phrase is also used as a metaphor for competition that isn’t in the form of a game, but business. Meaning, it is commonly used in social media, especially as it refers to advertising.  Karen Freberg, author of  “Social Media for Strategic Communication,” lists four types of content media. You may have heard of them, but without the technical term. They are: paid, earned, shared and owned media.  Paid media tends to be paid advertising. This could be a post, video or campaign that a brand paid for you to see in your social media feed or on YouTube.  Earned media on the other hand is the reach you obtain through people (customers or influencers) talking about your brand with their audience. This can be integrated with paid media through use of influencers. Shared media is just that- medi...

  Every social media platform is a giant in its own way. Most of them have millions if not billions of users that log on daily and are actively engaging with the platform in some way. But each of them has a specific type of post or digital media that you will see the most. While the platforms may want to dominantly hold one form of media, it happens to be that users won’t always see what the platform wants them to. For example, I am going to describe my typical experience of what I interact with when logging on each social media site that I use.  To begin I should tell you that I am not personally a fan of Twitter, I rarely use Facebook and I’ve literally just created a LinkedIn account. I’d have to say that my experience using the platforms I enjoy the most is as similar to the first version of the site as it gets. I don’t tend to see what is trending unless it is in the form of a viral video or some form of activism, but I like it that way. The platforms that I use daily are...

  I feel like the six C’s of effective writing for social media listed in Karen Freberg’s “Social Media for Strategic Communication” are extraordinarily obvious. That is, if you know anything or have read anything about social media. Maybe if this was the first information on social media for someone with no experience using any platform who suddenly wants to gain a following. The six C’s are content, community, culture, conversation, creativity and connection. Content is about making sure what you are sharing is relevant and that people will care about the information you're sharing. But it is also about the writing.  Community is developed when people share common interests with the content you are creating. Which can create loyalty to you and maintain your image.  Culture is created by this community to develop standards of how people behave. This often leads to your community defending you from non-community member hate.  Conversation is ensuring that you aren’t ...

Society is all about trends and fitting in. Remember when suddenly every kid in the United States had to have silly bandz? Or when Claire’s came out with the roll on lip gloss? Did you get some too or did you feel left out? The truth is, we’ve all got a very serious case of what’s referred to as “fear of missing out” or FOMO. Even the term FOMO was once upon a time a trend that news anchors reported on and laughed at!  The term trending is used in reference to social media reports on a platform's most discussed topics connected by hashtags that are updated in real time. Now, the social media experts will tell you to use trending topics to gain followers or simply help get your name out there, but why else is it important?  Trends when properly investigated can keep you from looking clueless because, in a way, what’s trending is the latest news. Granted it may not be what happened on the corner of Douglas and Eighth street, but it is the news of the internet which is a world of...

  The funny thing about the textbook and my life as a current multimedia student specialist is that social media is a large part of what we do. Meaning a lot of the items the textbook states my reaction is “wait I do that now! I didn’t know that was a textbook element of social media.”  An example of this is in chapter 4 of Karen Freberg’s “Social Media for Strategic Communication” she mentions several definitions of key social media roles. A few examples being a social media strategist, content creator, multimedia/video producer and writer/editor which all happen to be aspects of my job. Oftentimes in the creation process for a person who wants to use our services, they will come to us either with an example video in hand or a general idea of the tone and goal of the video. Personally, my favorite is when they give us the general idea and tone as this allows us to be a little more creative.  For example, every year the Greek life sororities are required to create a video...

 Click here to listen. This week for a class assignment, I was tasked with creating a podcast on an issue with social media. I chose to discuss how social media is affecting our mental health with examples from Olivia Rodrigo’s new song “Jealousy, Jealousy,” actions being taken by well known brands such as Dove and what you can do to combat the mental effects you might be experiencing. This project was super fun! Personally, I wrote myself out a full script as I knew I would stumble on what I wanted to say. I’m now curious if podcaster’s script out what they say or if it comes more naturally to them.  What sparked discussion on this topic was actually Olivia Rodrigo’s song . The lyrics speak loudly and are highly relatable. The specific lyrics that I brought up in the podcast were:  “I kinda wanna throw my phone across the room 'Cause all I see are girls too good to be true With paper-white teeth and perfect bodies” While these were not the only lyrics that depicted the ...

Last week’s Principles of What I’m Reading blog touched on the Top 15 Social Media Tips from Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of Social Media” . This week is a different path as the new reading is “Social Media for Strategic Communication” by Karen Freberg- meaning this is the strategy and brand development aspect of social media. So let’s call social media a game of chess- funny because the front cover depicts the social media logos as chess pieces. It is, in fact, a competition all about strategy. A competition between users to gain the most followers and likes, and a competition between platforms for who can gain the most users and daily interaction. Everyone wants to be seen and more importantly- liked. Fortunately for you as a user trying to gain a following, each social media platform has a slightly different demographic, meaning you can find your truest audience and you may dominate on one platform, but not quite as much on another. This is good, it builds loyalty to you across all platf...

As the editor for the ONU Film Club, it is my responsibility to upload our content to YouTube with all necessary aspects added for exposure and search engine optimization. This includes editing the video, writing the description, adding tags, changing any settings and my personal favorite- creating the thumbnail.  If you think of YouTube as a video library, the thumbnail is the equivalent to a book cover. This means that no matter how frequently you hear the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover,” judging the thumbnail is exactly what you will do. It profoundly influences the decision on whether you watch or don’t watch a video. With a year of experience now under my belt, and many tips and tricks thrown at me, here are five tips to optimize your YouTube thumbnails. Take Advantage of Your Resources There are so many different ways to create a YouTube thumbnail, but there are some sites that make it easier, Canva.com is one of these resources. It even includes the right dimension...

  To preface, I am no social media expert, but for anyone starting out, I think these tips could get you somewhere. So without further ado, here are the top 15 social media tips from Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of Social Media” and what number they show up as in the book: Optimize your profile for 5 seconds (2).   As Kawasaki says, social media is all about snap judgments . So make sure your profile shows in 5 seconds that you are “likable, trustworthy, and competent.” Focus your avatar on your face (3)!  This does not mean like a mug shot. Think of a happy candid, and make sure that the image size is large, meaning it isn’t cropped from a larger photo where your face makes up only 2%. The last thing you want is poor image quality (unprofessional)! Also, make sure your profile image is the same across all platforms so that you are actually recognizable. Craft a mantra (5). I think this one is my personal favorite, and I definitely put it in practice (hint: Let Me Show You). ...

Since being in college, I’ve taken on a whole new view of what the experience is, and I’ve concluded that being a college student is character development . The popular social media platform TikTok has thousands of viral posts about being “the main character,” and “romanticizing your life” all with edgy voice-overs and building music. And I think that by the end of college, I could absolutely curate one of those viral posts that show how much I’ve changed and made myself the main character in my world.  I am now a junior at Ohio Northern University, and I can say with total confidence that I have dramatically changed within these past two years. My freshman year, I was still finding my groove, as most other freshmen are doing. I was independent already, but I was finally independent on my own, living in a space mostly my own, and navigating what I wanted to do next, on my own . At first, I had no clue how in the hell to do that. But then, the first semester passed, and I changed m...

Tomorrow night I will be live tweeting to the newest episode of “Grey’s Anatomy'' airing at 9 p.m. EST. It is hard to believe that this show has 17 seasons! Can you name another TV drama that has lasted that long? Boy have we gone through a roller coaster of emotions with this one. We’ve seen characters die tragically, suddenly, somewhat horrifically, and in heartbreaking ways. We’ve seen actors and their characters come and go. And we’ve watched individuals grow as doctors and as people. Dr. Meredith Grey, the main character of the show, was a legacy doctor in her mother’s shadow. She threw up after treating a patient for the first time and got lost in the hospital! Now she’s an award winning Chief of general surgery, a mother, and a strong leader. This show was born only four years after me. It’s crazy that it is nearly the length of my lifetime! While I only started watching it seven years ago- that is when I was the apparent appropriate age to view the content according t...