4 Times This Week's Reading Made Me Go 'Huh"

Me while doing the reading multiple times this week.

This week I had to read Chapters 7-10 in Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick's "The Art of Social Media" for my social media principles course at Ohio Northern University. I had to read Chapters 1-6 last week and I wrote a post about them, but never formally talked about the purpose of posts like these on my blog. As a part of this class I have to make three posts over the course of each week (measured Wednesday-Tuesday for the purpose of this class as we meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays), and one post every week has to deal with analyzing each week's required reading.

When looking at the book, the chapter titles excellently provide a very short and concise summary as to what that chapter is about in the form of a "How to..." sentence. Because of this, I will list the chapter titles to provide a brief explanation of what the chapters are about. In order, the chapter titles are how to: socialize events, run Google+ hangouts on air, rock a Twitter chat and avoid looking clueless.

Throughout these four chapters I found myself saying, "Huh..." multiple times. Now this little word can carry many different connotations. You'll see what I mean by this down on the list below where I describe four different times that made me go, "Huh..." during the reading this week.

1) The Entirety of Chapter 9

Never in my 19 modern years of living have I ever seen a company Twitter chat with an audience in the way that Kawasaki describes it. That is why this entire chapter made me think, "Huh?" He makes it seem like companies are sitting there waiting to actively reply to every single question and comment within five minutes and that just isn't reasonable. I know he said in the chapter that not every single post is important, but he also suggest using extra tools to track the tweets your brand is receiving. For me, that is just too much effort for something that is out of date now. This is a day and age in which we see fast food restaurants have a rap battle over Twitter to get attention from today's young adults on social media channels. I'm just saying sometimes people respect a company for its lightheartedness.  There was however a redeeming part of this chapter, which leads me to the next instance on my list.

2) The Epiphany on Page 126

Near the bottom of page 126 is a bold print phrase that read, "Be Audience Driven." I took a presentational speaking course here last semester with the incomparable Katie Kuhn. On a side note, if you ever have to take a presentational speaking course please take it with her. She is amazing and will make it fun. That being said, Kuhn taught me that the most effective way to communicate is by being an audience driven speaker. This essentially means that in order to succeed in communicating you must tailor how you speak based on who you are speaking to. This connection, small as it may be, made me realize that social media is used for the same reason. Some people may have realized this earlier than me, but I realized it nonetheless and I am of myself. It is for this reason that the small phrase at the bottom of page 126 made me say, "Huh!" in wonder.

3) The Authors Reminding People Not to Buy Followers, Likes or +1s

When I read this tip from Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick I thought to myself, "Huh... I figured that anyone who cares enough about social media to read a book about it should probably know that buying followers is sad and pointless." That pretty much sums up my feelings on reading that section.

4) Set up a Place to Take Pictures

This was probably one of the most simple pieces of advice in Chapter 7, but it made me go, "Huh..." because it prompted me to think of how easy it is to do something so effective with brand awareness. If there is a iconic place to take a picture or a background set up for pictures during a conference, event or visit somewhere then people will be able to share these pictures with their friends that they had fun attending a certain event. The place to take pictures will either be so synonymous with a location or  consist of a background with a brand logo on it in some way that those who see their friends pictures will become more familiar with it and gain knowledge about it