New Netflix Watches For You

Throughout my college career I have watched a ton of Netflix including movies, shows, documentaries, you name it. So for my final blog I wanted to talk about a few of them that I have watched to maybe spark your interest in finding a new watch or maybe make you re-watch your favorites.

Most recently, I have been watching "How To Get Away With Murder", and let me tell you this show is awesome. I had already heard great reviews from social media and friends but never really took the time to start it. Well this past weekend one of my roommates and I were bored on a weekend night and decided to look for a new show to start when we stumbled upon the show. We immediately were hooked as the show throws a curve ball at you around every corner and keeps you coming back for more.

Another great show that I have seen all the way through multiple times is "New Girl". The show provides countless hours of laughs, emotional moments, and plenty of entertainment. Recently the came out with a final season to give closure to their previous seasons cliff hanger and I am glad they did. No more wondering what might have happened.

The "Good Place" is also an interesting show that received good reviews and I had several friend recommend it to me and I am glad I watched. It is a shorter show with only a couple season but is packed with plenty of great moments to make you laugh. Due to it being a shorter watch it makes for a good filler show until you find another.

Honestly, there are so many shows on Netflix that you should have no problem with finding one for you. I found that just watching an episode of something is a good way to tell if you will be interested or not and often times is well worth the time.

Senior is coming to an end

The past four years have been long and strenuous and they are quickly coming to an end. There has been many ups and many downs but in the end I would not trade it for the world. We are not done yet though. Finals week is right around the corner and now is not the time to check out. I want to give a few help tips to surviving college to those who have a few years left.

The first and foremost tip I want to give is to find a good group of friends. Coming into college most of us do not know many people and are forced to make new friends. These friends may become the most important part of your success and you must pick them wisely.

Another great tip is to be ready to try new things. There are several times where you will come across new opportunities and this is a great time to jump on those opportunities. They may create a path that you never thought of taking and open your life to a new experience.

Do not be afraid to branch out. Try new things while at college. This is a great time to figure out who you are and the best way to do so is by having new experiences. This class is a great example for me. I would have never thought of myself having to write blogs but here I am and it has taught many great things.

College is a time to be yourself so go out there and have fun. Do not be afraid to try new things, meet new people, and explore new possibilities, but the most important tip I can give you is to just have some fun!

Recap of Social Media Strategies

Social Media Strategies was a book that taught many new things about how the social media world works. The book itself appears to be full of useless information on the outside but is full of a surplus of useful information. Typically I am not a fan of read books full of long text which made me dread having to read this book. However, due to the relevance of social media to my major I ended up enjoying the read quite a bit. Though there were a few chapters about metrics and math that we long and boring, most chapters were every enlightening.

One of the most interesting parts of the book came before even starting the reading. Each chapter include a reading from a social media expert that gave some insight to what the chapter would be covering. I found this to be an interesting and helpful way to transition readers into the information. It showed how great having a life in the social media world could be.

Social media is growing every day and it is important that we understand as much of it as possible before we enter the real world after college and this book is an amazing resource to do so. I am extremely thankful to have this book as a resource and be able to use this in my future career.

The Comeback Story of the Decade

I am not sure if you missed the news, but something in the sports world has been blowing up social media. Something no one was predicting to happen again. A 43 year old man who has had countless injuries, career crippling scandal, and a lot of doubt from fans has won on the biggest stage in their sport. If you have not guess it yet, Tiger Woods won his fifth masters!



Tiger has always been an amazing golfer and one of the world's best if not the best. However, for 11 years he has gone without a big win and many believed he would never achieve one again. Growing up I remember watching Tiger golf and thought to myself this man will never lose. So, for the past several years I have been waiting for his comeback, and boy did he deliver.

Winning the Master's is as big as it gets in the golf world, but this was not Tiger's biggest win of the weekend. He proved something with that win. He showed the world that he was not going to back down from all the criticism he has received in the past. He showed us the meaning of getting back up no matter how many times you get knocked down.

With his win social media exploded. Pictures of him were everywhere, fans were coming out of nowhere and critics were fast to change this side. It is truly remarkable how much of an impact sports have on our social media. One man brought life to social media for millions of people by winning one tournament. It goes to show how fast the word travels through the web.

My New Job

As a sport management major, I am required to have a internship at some form of sports facility, company, or team. Having a home town of Columbus, Ohio you would think finding a internship to fit that category to be easy. Well, you would be wrong. I spent hours in front of my laptop searching for internships, filling out applications and then repeating the process. I made calls, had interviews and spent a lot of gas doing so. One thing I never expected in how particular sports internships in Columbus were.

Finally, I decided to outsource my efforts to other cities including: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo and Lima. Within one week I got an email from a friend and old teammate, DJ. He was the general manager at Apex Sports Zone in Lima, Ohio and he told me to come in and talk with him. Now Apex is a sports facility that does everything from sports leagues to birthday parties. It is also owned by an ONU facility member and one of my professors, which is really cool.



Long story short, DJ offered me the internship for the summer but he also offered me a side job for the rest of the year which was really nice. Every Saturday they host a youth flag football league and I have the privilege to referee the games.

It is not a hard job, besides dealing with grumpy parents and the occasionally rowdy kid. Other than that it is a great way to keep active for myself, be a part of the game I love and make some money.

My internship itself is really interesting. Basically I am a facility manager and run multiple things at once. One minute I am helping work the concession stand and help around the facility with guest needs and the next I am secluding customers and getting sponsorship's or helping with youth players practices. Personally, I believe it is going to be a great experience and I am really excited to see what I learn. 

Creating Content

As week 12 rolls around the corner I find myself digging deeper and deeper to find fresh content to write about. Ironically enough, one of the chapters we were required to read was about content creation. So without further ado, let us jump into chapter nines content.  This chapter gives us four key types of content used on social media.

Written:
This form of content is the first for foremost thought of content. There are several types of writing tools and ways to improve your writing, however the best way is to always be writing. Often times putting your ideas into words and bringing them full circle with our brand is a great way to improve your writing

Audio:
Audio is one of the easiest pieces of content to engage your audience. One of the most popular forms of audio in our world today is podcasting. Other forms of audio content is radio, talk shows, recorded interviews, etc.

Visuals:
Visual content is a very broad spectrum of content. From presentations to statics, visual content may not seem important but without visuals a large part of a content creator's story may be missing.

Graphics:
This form of content is the glue to content creation. It holds everything together in a content creators work and is important to helping your audience get the whole story.

These past few weeks, I have found creating content to be a tough task. By using these four forms of content creation we find new ways to be creative and diverse in our content. Mastering all four forms into a single content use provides the most effective use of content on a channel.

Dublin Irish Festival Infographic

This past week I took the time to work on a infographic for the City of Dublin, Ohio. More specifically the Dublin Irish Festival. The reason I choose this organization is because I am from Columbus and only live 10 minutes from the festival. I have been there on several occasions and always have a good time, so I figured that writing about this organization would be a lot of fun and I would have a better respect for the festival.

Making an infographic was a new experience for me and though I did learn a great amount from the experience, it was not an easy task for me. First of all, I want to say infographic are an extremely useful tool and images are a great way to show information in a fun and creative way. However, I quickly learned that I am not a very creative person when it comes down to doing infographics and that made this assignment difficult for me. I found it to be very confusing and I struggled to get the site we used to work properly for me.

I would like to make more infographic in my field in the future, but I will definitely need more practice before I am ready to make a professional infographic for a company I am working with.

Math in Social Media

One of my least favorite subjects is math. Luckily for me, chapter 10 of our book is about all things math! Outside of a few financials and numbers I choose a sport management major to avoid the dread of using numbers. Yet, here I am talking about them again. However, chapter 10 is still an extremely important part of social media and math is a big part of this.

The chapter explains how social media needs to be evaluated and measured in order to ensure the success of some content. First, we have measurement, which is the focus on specific amounts of reflecting change and then evaluation focuses on results of these specifics. Measurement and evaluation are both important to a companies planning, programs and campaigns in social media. Measurement provides statistics on a social media's target audiences and how they should be focusing their content. This allows social media content creators to write the correct material at the right time to the right audiences to get the best viewership.

Next is evaluation. Evaluation allows professionals to see what types of content have the greatest impact on their audiences. After the find this information out they can then go back and reassess how to create this content to be more effective in the future. Another key factor is evaluation is how the content spreads through the channels. In other words professionals are able to which ways their content is being passed around and how the viewers are taking the information.

As bad as numbers are, I still learned a lot from this chapter. It taught me a lot about how important numbers and statistics are when it comes to social media and there is no hiding from math.

Embracing Change

Change is a concept that most people are quick to run away from. The thought of change scares us, not knowing the outcome and moving away from the norm. One of the most difficult things to do is to get a large group to embrace change. Edith Onderick-Harvey gives us some ways to motivate a group to be willing to change in her article “5 Ways to Help Your Team Be Open to Change”.

Edith claims that leadership and engagement is not the key to this change, but instead being able to inspire others to adopt the idea of change through creativity and innovation is the key to change.

Edith’s five ways to help change are:

1.       Tell stories about others who moved beyond the status quo.

2.       Create dialogue, inviting others to ask questions and share emotions, experiences, and insights.

3.       Ask “what if?” questions in one-on-one and team meetings.

4.       Set expectations that everyone (including yourself) should acknowledge, and take responsibilities for mistakes. And then, treat mistakes as opportunities for learning and growth.

5.       Champion cross-boundary collaboration and networks to open up thinking and gain new perspectives.

Together these five ways to help with change allow for new ideas and food for thought to enter the team. Telling stories about others succeeding motivates others to go out of their comfort zone to achieve new goals. Creating dialogue brings new ideas and begins innovation. Asking “what if?” brings in new possibilities of where they could be. Expectations provide sets standards and helps the team work in an efficient and structured way to achieve their goals. Cross-boundary collaboration and networking brings in fresh ideas and possibilities that they may not have thought of before.

Change for me always was a scary thought and I never wanted to explore the possibilities that come with that change. However, once I realized that change is literally life changing then I realized the potential that comes with that change. Being able to grow as a person, as student, a worker or whatever you are doing allows us to be not only a better leader but a better follower as well.

These five way are just a few things to easing the idea of change into others but they are not all the ways. Everyone has their own way of embracing change so what is yours?

Staying Active

Staying active for me has never been a problem because I always had football to do it for me. However, now that I no longer play the sport I have found it increasingly difficult to stay active. I was so used to being forced to wake up to go lift, run or practice. I was obligated to a group of people to get things done and to be accountable so being active was not an issue for me at all. Anymore I just want to sit around and watch television or play video games and it can be very difficult to find motivation to get up and do something active.

College does not help this at all. Staying up late doing homework, being mentally drained after a long day of writing notes, or even just having to take care of yourself because your parents are not here to do so. Well I want to give you a few ways you can keep active at school.

• Find a workout buddy.

Finding a good workout buddy is an easy way to keep yourself active. When we have someone to go to the gym, run, or play a casual sport with we are more likely to do so. We feel more obligated to go and it usually is more enjoyable as well.

• Play intramural sports.

Find an intramural sport is an easy way to get up and moving. Being on a team is a great reason to get up and play because you will have more fun doing something with all of your friends, plus you’ll get a good exercise while you are doing it. There are a few intramural sports here on campus and even if you are not good at that particular sport, it is still a great way to have fun.

• Do something you enjoy

If you find an exercise you love doing, then do it! Personally, I hate to run but if running is your thing then do not be afraid to jump on the treadmill. The sports center is full of rooms with fun activities and sports you can play so we have no excuse not to partake.

Chapter Eight of Social Media and Strategic Communication: Audience Segmentation

Chapter eight of “Social Media and Strategic Communication” was all about audience segmentation and analysis. A simple way of putting it, social media is not meant to reach every person who uses it, but to focus on individual audiences. This is done by understanding their needs, expectations, services, relationships, products, etc. It is very common for a social media account to focus on a specific location or interest rather than a broad topic.

Audience segmentation is the process of categorizing people into specific groups based on different factors. These factors include demographics, characteristics, populations and more. The reason audience segmentation is so important in today’s social media is because this is how companies and businesses sell to an audience. Audience segmentation allows them to reach a certain group that will be most interested in conducting business.

Understand a target audience can be tricky but luckily we know have demographics and psychographics to make things easier for us. Demographics is population statistics such as age and gender, while psychographics are opinions, attitudes and interests. These help content creators understand the type of content to create in order to reach their audience effectively.

A big part of all this is understand the two types of audience that we want to reach. First we have a primary audience. This audience is made of individuals whom is your first priority to reach, this is where most of your energy goes into. Next, we have the secondary audience which are people like your primary audience but are less of a priority.

Energy Is Everything

When we think of the word “work”, we think of stressful situations and task. When we work think about work we think about how we can manage out time to get the job done. Well, according to Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy, we should be managing our energy, not our time. Energy is a precious resource, and we have all had days where we have lacked sufficient energy to get work done. However, thanks to Schwartz and McCarthy, we have an inside look on how and what energy we should be managing.

The most obvious type of energy we think about is our physical energy. We all know that they key to keeping up on this energy is exercise, sleep, rest and nutrition, but are we actually reaching are needs in these categories? Sometimes we forget how important it is to get a good nights rest or to eat some vegetables every now and then and this can be important to keeping our physical energy at maximum.

The next energy type is emotional energy. Emotional energy is all about being able to control our emotions throughout the day. Being able to keep positive, despite any external factors and not let yourself become overwhelm with emotions will increase the productivity and performance of our work.

The last two energy types to manage is our mind and spirit energies. Personally I believe these two are very much connected but are both equally as important in their own way. Our mind energy is being able to stay focused and disregard distractions. When distracted we tend to loss the amount of efficiently we have in our work. Our spirit energy is the passion in which we have for our work. Without passion, meaning and purpose in what we are doing, it may prove to be harder to complete our jobs in a positive way. Together the mind and spirit can increase the amount of work a person can accomplish in a given day. They provide the want and time to get things done.

Managing these emotions is no easy task however, we must be willing to accept and practices their energies in order to full master them. Once you do, works become less stressful and more enjoyable.

The six Cs of Social Media Writing

The most previous chapter of our book is all about the six Cs of effective writing for social media. These are used to improve your brand and build up your company image by improving how your write on social media. Professional writing is never easy in social media but these are here to help. The six Cs include:

1. Content.
2. Community
3. Culture
4. Conversation
5. Creativity
6. Connection



Content being the first of the six Cs stands out to me the most. I believe that writing for social media is all about the content you are writing about. Having good content is what drawing your readers in and keeps them coming back for more. Without good content in your writing, you will lose your readers. Content is also important to your brand and the voice you have with your brand. Depend on what you are writing about will determine the type of brand and voice you are wanting to have for your company. A company based around sports is not going to spend much time writing about politics, and vice versa.

The key thing to know about content is who your audience is and the channels you are using. You are not going to post the same content on Facebook that you will be posting on Instagram or LinkedIn. Most of the time your audiences will not be the same on each of these account. This is why you must keep the content for each fresh and different. Without content we have no social media.

ONU Social Media Workshop 2019

This past Friday, I attend the 4th annual social media workshop, and it was really enlightening for myself. With around 100 people in attendance it was a extremely popular event on campus. The workshop include a total of 11 presentation including the keynote speaker, Amanda Todorovich and the Cleveland Clinic. The following ten presentations where split up into five different blocks in which those in attendance were able to choose which they wanted to listen.

The first presentation that I attended was "From Typewriter to Twitter: How the Dublin Irish Festival Grew From a Tennis Court to Nearly 40 Acres". The interesting thing about this presentation is that I have been to the Irish Festival many times which gave me a connection to the presentation itself. I never would have known the work that they have put into their operation in order to expand the way they did and how import their publicity was to this growth.

Probably my favorite presentation of the day was Dan Farkas's presentation on multimedia in social media. Farkas, a professor at Ohio State showed a lot of enthusiasm in his presentation and showed me that social media is not something we should take advantage of as it plays a key role in social media.

I highly suggest anyone reading this to attend next year's social media workshop if able. Not only will you learn about key things to incorporate into your social media use, but you will have a great time listening to experts on the topic. Social media is no longer a small part of the world we live in, ithas become a part of our everyday life.

Coaching Matters

Managing people is never an easy task, and coaching them can prove to be even more difficult. Julia Milner and Trenton Milner, authors of the article “Most Managers Don’t Know How to Coach People. But They Can Learn” discuss that when it comes to most managers, they are not teaching their employees. Instead, they are just simply telling them what to do.

Managers come in all different forms. From managers who are there to help you step by step to those who sit in their offices all day without interaction. They all have their own sense of “what helps”. I wish to discuss why coaching up employees and followers is the more efficient managerial technique.

As used in the Milners’ article, Sir John Whitmore, an expert executive coaching figure, says that the definition of coaching is “unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them”. To me, this definition of coaching is perfect. There is a huge difference between learning and teaching and I do not think enough leaders understand this difference.

Personally, I think that the nine leadership coaching skills that the Milner’s researched are perfect in order to determine what managers should work on to increase their coaching. In my own experience with past leaders and managers, I have found that the ones who possess the most of these skills tend to be the best. Unfortunately, I do not think I fully possess all of these skills as I have not had enough experience in leading yet.

The reason that these nine techniques are so important and why coaching employees is so pivotal to being a manager is due to the interaction they provide with your employees. People enjoy the reassurance that their leader or boss is there to help them, listen to them, and care about them. Sometimes it may not be the easiest for someone to be an interactive manager, but that is okay.

With enough practice and hard work anyone can become a great coach, manager, and leader. Maybe you just need to work on listening to others a little better, or showing people a little more empathy. Either way, everyone has the ability to lead. It is up to us to access and master that ability.

Europe Round Two

Coming up here in a few months I will be making my return to Europe. More Specifically I will be heading to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. My freshman year, I took a trip to Greece and Italy with the Ohio Northern football team and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. We were able to tour the cities, eat a unique cuisine and tough young kids how to player American football.

So, one last time I will be getting to experience it again in new countries. The first trip I made some of my best friend that I have today and they are going back with me!

One of the things I am most excited for is the city of Interlaken. It is a city for tourist and is full of fun activities and adventures to go on. The activity I want to partake in is canyoning. Canyoning is propelling through canyons full of water slides, waterfalls and water-pools. All of which you can slide down, jump off and jump in.

The trip involves much more than canyoning though, we have the opportunity to teach others how to play the sport we loves and the current players get a chance to compete against another European team. The Allgau Comets. Overall I am extremely excited to explore a new place to myself, surrounded by good friends.

Becoming Your Own Writer

The most recent chapter of our book is all about strategic writing. Now I know what you may be thinking because I thought the same thing. You need a strategy to write on social media? Well, yes we do. Social media is more than just a means for communication. It is a place where you can become the writer you want to be. If you are interested seeing the guide to strategic plan in which I read, it can be found in our book Social Media for Strategic Communication.

The first step of is knowing what type of content in which you want to use. If you are not sure about what you are talking about how will your readers know what you are trying to tell them? However, having good content is not all that goes into being a good writer.


You must possess a good brand voice. Brand voice does not come from your own perspective, but it should be unique, authentic, and memorable. It should connect you to your audience and draw them in.

The last step of this all is having a good vision. The purpose of a vision is to where you see your organization or profile on being. Once you complete your vision you make your mission which how you intend on accomplishing your vision and getting where you want to be.

Social media is all about being your own person. Creating your own vision and your own mission is up to you. Eventually it will determine what type of writer you are and you can make your profile from there.

Overcoming A Motivation Vacuum

When it comes down to it, we all have times where we have a lack of motivation to do our jobs. There are various reasons for this to happen, but a few stick out more than others. Richard E. Clark and Bror Saxberg wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review which highlights four reasons and how you can address them.

The first reason in which they talk about is “I don’t care enough to do this”. This is often found in work environments where the manager only thinks about what interest themselves and not their employees. This results in the employees having a lack of interest to keep them motivated to work. As a Sport Management major I have a high interest in sport related jobs, this gives me confidence that I will never lose motivation in my field. However, this does not apply for everyone. Clark and Saxberg explain that in order to help combat this issue, a manager should be able to show value in the task and to find out what interest the employees.

The next reason is “I don’t think I’m able to do this”. This lack of motivation comes from ones low confidence in themselves and their work. As a leader it is extremely important to support your follows and provide them with help if they need it. Doing so may give them the confidence boost they need in order to accomplish their task.

Clark and Saxberg’s third reason is “I’m too upset to do this”. A large reason for this absent of motivation comes from an employee’s emotions. Often we let our own emotions alter our effort and work. I believe that one of my greatest tools is my ability to listen to a person without showing any sign of judgement. Sometimes all we need is to get things off our chest without being critiqued, however it is also helpful to know someone is there to help if you need any. This is why I believe being a good listen as well as providing help to employees is a great way to avoid this type of motivation vacuum.

The last reason is “I don’t know what went wrong with this”. This is probably one of the biggest reason I have found myself finding a loss of motivation. I cannot remember how many times I have found myself being stuck on a particular assignment or problem and not knowing what happened to get there. A good leader should be able to offer a hand to find the problem and think of a way to overcome it.

Like I said earlier these are not the only reasons that we lose motivation, but there is always a way to overcome the problem and regain our motivation to complete our task.

My Spring Break

This past week I had the privilege to travel to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for my spring break. It turned out to be one of the most exciting weeks of my life and I am glad I had the chance to experience it.

To start things off me and my friends left Ada around 5 PM on Friday and did not arrive until around 2 PM on Saturday. That's right, it was a 21 hour drive when it was all said and done. We only had an idea of what our house really looked like so when we walked in we were all taken back. White marble flooring, white walls, black electric piano, even a signed Dwayne Wade jersey framed on the wall, and that was just the foyer! The back yard had a canal with a pontoon boat, a hot tube, plenty of chair and even a hammock help up by two palm trees.

With how nice our house was we could have just stayed there the whole time, but this was spring break and we all came for the beach. The first day on the beach the temperatures reached upper 89 degrees. It truly felt like we were in paradise! We all met up with friends while on the beach and had a Ohio Northern beach takeover of sorts.

Later that night we all got dressed up and took our "spring break" pictures. Following that we got a nice dinner and headed into town to enjoy ourselves.

These events would repeat themselves for most of the days we were there besides a few minor details changing, such as our beach location, who we were with or where we went to eat. At the end of the day it did not bother us because it was all truly about having fun and enjoying the company of good friends. By the end of the week we were all exhausted, out of money and did not want to go home. However, we all had to face reality and make the long journey home.

Overall I would do it again in a heartbeat and I was sad to have it end. I'm glad I got to enjoy my time there and make many memories with my friends. I am sure I will never forget spring break of 2019.

Monitoring and Listening on your Social Media

The most recent chapter of our book "Social Media for Strategic Communication" was Chapter 5, and this chapter was all about researching in social media. In this chapter I learned how important it is in social media that researching actually is, as well as strategic communication. Two of the biggest tools to do research in social media is monitoring and listening.

Karen Fregerg, author of the book, describes monitoring as a systematic process of better understanding different social media sources. She then defines listening as a way to explore different aspects that could impact a company negatively or positively. These together give research a way to provide us with evidence in which influences a specific part of our communication and dialogue.

There are many ways that we can use monitoring and listening to preform research. A good thing to start with is looking for key words which usually comes in hashtags or phrases. These can be used to narrow down what type of data you are looking for and make your research easier on yourself. Another great way is to follow popular accounts or trends. Following these will keep your feed up-to-date and never let you fall behind.

These are not the only uses of monitoring and listening that you can use on social media, but they are some basic ways to get you moving. Social media is slowly taking over how our world functions so it is important that we learn ways to stay on top of it to ensure our success.

Live-Tweet Assignment

This past weekend I did a live-tweet event at the Indoor Track & Field OAC championship meet. If you wish to take a look my twitter is @alex_eblin and follow me if you wish. I am not a very big track and field fan due to hatred of having to run nor do I know much about it but, overall it was a very interesting event to watch. There were people of from all the OAC schools there and it had a atmosphere that screamed excitement.

The live-tweeting itself proved to be very difficult for me. Not because it was a lot of work or boring to do, rather it was due from my lack of knowledge of the spot. Trying to figure out what the terms mean in a high speed event is a difficult task to handle.

Overall it was a learning experience and I am actually glad I choose this event over one I would be more comfortable with. It proved to teach me a lot of new things and gave me a new amount of respect for the people who play the sport.

How To Be A Trustworthy Leader

Trust is something that all people value and this is no different in a leadership position. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review, The 3 Elements of Trust, in which they explain how leaders are more reliable when their followers trust them.

When I first saw the articles title I figured it was about having followers that you can trust. To my surprise, it is more about seeing how a follower views their leader and what impact that has. Its focal point is about the qualities a leader should have in order to be a more trustworthy person.

Zenger and Folkman give us three elements, these elements are positive relationships, good judgment and consistency.

The first element of positive relationships is one of the hardest qualities to pick up. Being able to balance work and relationships with others has always been an issue. A good leader should be able to find the mid-ground to find what brings the best results and prevents conflict within. Allowing the use of helpful advice for followers is a good way to practice this quality.

The seconded quality mention is good judgement. The most important part of this quality for a leader to know what they stand for and believe in. If they are uncertain in their own belief then their followers will begin to doubt them, which will result in a loss of trust. Using your past knowledge allows you to be prepared for all situations that come up and ensure that they are handled within your beliefs.

The final quality is consistency. Consistency is key and that is no difference when it comes to trust. A leader being able to stick to their beliefs. Doing so places a sense of comfort and familiarity into followers which strengthens their trust.

These qualities however are not the only ones that make a leader trustworthy. Everyone has their own strength and weaknesses and all followers have their own view of trust. This is the reason why positive relationships is the most important one as it allows you to get to know what makes this trust form.

With how wide spread our world has become this task seems to have become a lot easier though. Being able to communicate using social media and other networking abilities has made it far similar to connect out of the work place.

Being a trustworthy leader is about being able to back up their ways and be consistent in doing so, but also about connecting with their followers to provide a bond between the two parties.

Abundance of Social Media Jobs

The next chapter in our book, "Social Media for Strategic Communication" is all about social media professionals. Social media is a rapidly growing industry and with its growth comes the need for more people to fill its roles. The unique thing about the social media industry according to Karen Freberg, author of the book, is that it is hard to define a social media expert. With how fast platforms evolve and advance industry workers are always having to learn new things and adapt to updates to the platforms.

Just because there is no "expert" in social media, does not mean every role is important. When it comes down to a social media job, it is more beneficial to be a part of multiple platforms include blogs and multiple channels. This increases the odds of acquiring a job, as you are a more versatile worker.

When looking for a job in the social media world it is important to think about where you might want to work. Are you a more structured type of worker that is a large business, or would you rather work for a smaller business or just for yourself? Either way, there is a job out there for you. The best thing about this industry is that there are jobs everywhere due to how new social media is.

Freberg gives a list of multiple different fields you can go into. Being a sport management major the field that stood out the most to myself is the sports field. I always knew that social media is important to the world of sports, but never did I think it was so pivotal to the industry. Every part of the field requires social media. From stories about the game and content creation to fan engagement and social media account management, everything has a role to be filled.

Managing College

Being a senior in college has taught me a thing or two about how to manage my time and energy to avoid being overwhelmed. Finding yourself loaded with papers, projects, and homework is one thing, but trying to balance all that while playing a sport or being a part of a time consuming club is another thing. There are however some ways to take pressure off your shoulder to make this all manageable. These are some of things I found to be useful in stressful situations.


Do not wait
Everyone has heard from someone that you'll regret waiting until the last minute to do everything, but if you are like me, you have had your fair share of procrastination. If there is one thing I wish I could have done better in college, it would be to split up my work and slowly take chunks of it out every day. I could not tell you how many times I have waited until the day before to finish a paper or project, and sometimes that effected my grade.

Make sure your getting your sleep
Many people will shove sleep aside and believe that stay up late to study is more beneficial. I on the other hand find this to be more damaging to my performance in school. Your body needs its rest to be on top of its game, so give it some down time.

Find something fun
I believe that this is one of the best things to make school a little bit easier. It could be anything from going to see a movie, playing an instrument, or a sport. Finding something fun will not only relieve you of some stress, but will also give you some needed time away from your studies. So do not be afraid to put the book down for a little bit, grab some friends and go have fun.

These are just the things that I have found useful in my time at school, but everyone has their own ways to manage their work. So remember, stay on top of your work, get some sleep, and have fun while at school. You'll find that school is not so bad when you do so.

My Top 5 Blogs I Found

Blogging has quickly become a staple for social media strategy and there is blogs everywhere that provide advice for those in the industry or just an interesting in blogging. If you are tired of seeing what people are eating for dinner and what to learn some new things about social media, check out these five blog spots.

1. TechCrunch

TechCrunch is an international site that provides viewers with all kinds of different resources to use. One of their best resources is a section that is constantly being updated in order to provide the most accurate social media help.

2. Inc.com

This is a great site that much like TechCrunch, offers a large diversity of topics, however, Inc.com focuses more on the business side of things. If you are interested in a blog that gives great social media marketing advice and has some interesting information. This is the blog for you!

3. Social Media Today

Social Media Today is a blog platform that takes everything there is about social media and places it onto one site for our viewing. They cover anything from news all the way to popular topics on the hottest social media sites. Great for those who are just trying to find something to catch their eye.

4. SocialMouths

Out of all the blog sites I have seen, this has to be the most interesting to me.  This blog is independently owned and purpose to help smaller companies and individuals grow their social media presence. They provide a great amount of knowledge on how to expand already existing social media accounts into successful business resource. Although with it being a privately owned blog spot he is currently have technological issues, which can be an issue with smaller blog sites.

5. Rebekah Radice

The final blog that I think is worth a follow is Rebekah Radice. She is a very talented digital marketer. She provides her followers with in-depth guides on how to sell product and promote a brand through social media. With how fast our society is moving to this style of business I believe she is provide a very unique and informative blog.

Those are five blogs that I found to be very insightful and entertaining to me. What are some of your favorite blog sites? Comment below and let me know!

Social Media - A Positive or a Negative?

Social Media has changed how we interact across the world. It seems to be that our planet is getting smaller due to how easy it has become to communicate with other countries. The fact that people are able to send media picture or messages across miles of ocean to another person in mere seconds is incredible.

There is so many platforms that make this easier of a process however. Twitter is capable of sending news out faster than ever. Snapchat allows us to show people what we are currently doing in a instant. Facebook has the ability to reunite friends old or new across the world.

Put all of these platforms together and we have a world that is quickly evolving to a fast paced media.

This is not to say that this is all a good thing however. With all this evolving media sometimes people get their selves consumed in its speed. How often do we see people walking down the street with their heads deep in their phone?

Society has made it acceptable for people to use their phones whenever and where ever they desire, creating a new norm. The question is, is this new and ever enhancing use of social media beneficial to our society or is it hindering us from some potential?

I believe social media can be a great tool and used the right way can change our lives for the better. The key is to knowing how to use said tool the right way to do so, not abusing its power. If used incorrectly it can keep a person from really standing out and can bring a negative light on them.

Two Weeks, Four Seasons

The past two weeks in Ada have been the most unpredictable and extreme weather I have ever seen. You might actually have a better chance of being struck by lightning than predicting the temperature outside.The past two weeks in Ada have been the most unpredictable and extreme weather I have ever seen. You might actually have a better chance of being struck by lightning than predicting the temperature outside.

It all started two weeks ago. A polar vortex made its way through Ada and brought a bone chilling wind chill of -40 degrees and lower. The arctic like weather was not the only thing that came with the cold however. We have also received a large amount of snow which even caused Ohio northern to close two back to back days.

This was the first time in years that I truly felt as if we had serious winter weather. However, this would not last for long. The next week the weather rose to 45 degrees, which felt amazing given the deep free that we had.

People were outside walking, running, and moving about. It almost felt like everyone was getting into spring mode. Now, you might be thinking that 45 degrees is not spring weather, but when the temperature is an 80 degrees difference you would think otherwise.

The craziest part was that this weather was not the warmest we would get. We eventually hit the upper fifties. The multiple feet of snow drifts began to melt, squirrels were out and moving, and we even got a few days of rain.

People were walking to class in shorts and t-shirt. The car wash was packed with people trying to remove salt from their cars. You would think that summer was upon us and that the cold times were a thing of our past. However, you would be mistaken.

We dropped from nearly 60 degrees to high 30s within hours. It was like fall came and went without a single leaf hitting the ground.

We are currently sitting at a whopping 28 degrees with another heavy snowfall coming down. It makes me wonder if we are going to get another heat wave to melt this snow again or a deep freeze that forces us inside.

I personally would rather be done with these cold temperatures and deep snow. Unless it involves us not having class again. 

Podcast Interview with Dean Paul

On the 1^st of February, Trevor McConnell and I conducted a Podcast with Ohio Northern’s head football coach and social media expert, Dean Paul. The purpose of the interview was to get an understanding of how social media is run on a professional level and the importance behind it. Paul provided us with a surplus of insight on how he runs the social media accounts and the benefits behind it. Overall he told us valid reasons on how it helps with informing different demographics depending on the platform and that it even helps with the recruiting process. The podcast proved very informational and provided a great amount of information on how important social media can be.

Some of the questions that we asked Dean Paul Include:
1. How long have you been using social media?
2. Which social media platforms do you use personally and for the program?
3. How do the benefit the program?
4. Have you ever notices any easier task such as recruiting with social media?
5. Do you look for specific post to comment or share?
6. Have you ever had negatives comment or feedback on a post and if so how did you deal with it?
7. Which platform do you find the easiest or most effective to use?
8. Where do you see the future of social media in college football?

The Differences in Platforms

Social media is a popular and large part of everyone's daily life. We use many different kinds of s platforms in order to do preform different tasks. Guy Kawasaki gives a few tips on social media in his last chapter of the book. This gave me the idea of naming some pros and cons I find in social media ranging from Facebook to LinkedIn.

The first platform I wish to discuss is Facebook. Facebook is what really started it all and quickly became a largely popular tool. A big pro to the platform is that it automatically sorts out posts for your viewing. This allows users not to be swarmed with spam accounts and unwanted post and instead only shows relative post. A con to Facebook is that it is no longer used as often by younger generations which makes it more of a formal and business platform which brought down its popularity.

Twitter is the next to be talked about. This platform is immensely popular to the younger generations and has many different uses. A pro to Twitter is it easy to keep in touch and see what your friends and accounts that you follow are doing and posting. There is also a limit to characters which prevents large post taking up a large amount of your feed. A con to Twitter is that there is often unprofessional post on the feed which makes people be careful on what content they follow.

The final one I wish to discuss is LinkedIn. This platform differs greatly from the previous two as its primary use is for business. The pro to LinkedIn is that business can easily find job candidates, communicate with other businesses and post professional content. The con is that the platform is not used for casual content which prevent it from acquiring a younger generation of users.

Social media is an invaluable resource for people of all ages and is continuously evolving. Social media keeps people connected and allows the exchanging of content and business a breeze.