ONU Social Media Workshop

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a social media workshop hosted here at ONU by the PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) chapter. Yes, the only reason I knew about it was because of my social media class which was my main motivator for signing up, but I left feeling glad I went and like I actually learned some valuable lessons.

            The workshop kicked off with the keynote speaker, Brandon Daniels. He is the communications specialist at Marathon Petroleum Corporation and came to talk about the push and pull of social media, its evolution, and what audiences want from it. At first I was wondering how much someone who works at such a huge corporation focuses on social media, but I actually got the most out of what he had to say. One of his first points was about how language has evolved through social media. We have gotten creative in the ways we text each other or post a status through emojis, capitalization, punctuation, and how we spell words. But he argued this isn’t ruining our language or grammar or making us dumber; instead we allow ourselves to be more “real” and put emotion into what we are saying by using language informally. For example, “OMG I am soooo SORRY!!!” seems much more full of genuine emotion than “I’m so sorry.” This really struck me as encouraging because I love being expressive in the way I type and I also consider myself to have relatively good grammar. It bothers me when people say our generation is lazy or dumb when it comes to our writing. Of course, there’s no excuse for things like using the wrong “your” or “you’re,” but it was nice to hear from an older person something unique to our generation on social media is actually positive. Along with this idea, he said social media allows us to connect with more people, not disconnect us. Our generation gets nagged for being on our phones all the time. I think there is a time where you need to put the phone away and be more present but when I’m communicating with my friends through my phone and social media I feel like I am being present with them and holding a connection. I wouldn’t be able to keep as strong of a connection to my friends if it wasn’t for social media. The last point of his which really resonated with me and made me recall what we are learning about in class was the idea that humans have an innate need and desire to share. He further explained this need to share occurs for four desires: the desire to feel heard, the desire to feel understood, the desire to feel like an individual, and the desire to feel valuable. This concept made so much sense to me! Social media is about sharing, something we are taught to do in kindergarten. As we grow up and as the idea of sharing evolves from sharing toys to sharing ideas, I think we begin to learn how sharing not only is “the right thing to do,” but it can benefit us and bring us happiness for these reasons. I think it is a positive and honest way to explain why we need and like social media. 

I can honestly say I was happy I went to ONU’s social media workshop. The keynote speaker, Brandon Daniels, kept me engaged the whole time and had ideas about social media which really rang true to me. I’ve been learning so much about social media this year, thinking about it in ways I never have before, and this workshop was a great supplement to the knowledge I feel like I’ve already gained.