Blog Carnival

Hey everyone! Since I’ve been working on this blog for class, I’m taking part in our blog carnival to showcase some of the excellent work of my classmates! Here are some of my favorite posts from the blogs of my classmates:

Mobile Marketing is a Must! I love this post from my classmate, Kate. I especially like how she included an infographic. In this infographic, it detailed some good points about why businesses should use mobile marketing, and Kate eased my worries about being addicted to my cell phone by admitting to being addicted herself.  

5 tips for writing a good blog post by Stacy is great. While I did a post myself on tips for blogging, she covered 5 different, yet equally important, tips for bloggers.  My favorite two were to use an engaging graphic and editing your post by printing it out and reading it aloud. I’ve never really used pictures in this blog, but I agree that it is a good way to quickly grab someone’s eye and break up a monotonous text post. As for editing, I always edited my papers this way in school but never thought of how much it would help with finding errors in my blog posts, too!

The Narrowing Gap Between Digital and Traditional Media by Ed is an incredibly thorough post that provides a lot of information. I love how he discusses the connection between traditional and digital mediums, including broadcast news stations using Twitter feeds. I was also very interested in how successful Publix is with their social media, because I never would have thought of following a grocery store on Facebook, but they seem to be incredibly successful through this target marketing.

Klout by Yusef is another great post detailing a much less familiar social media platform. Klout actually takes your social media influence and grades you on it, then rewards you based on how high that grade is. I think if you are trying to use social media as a business, or to develop your own personal brand, Klout is a great indicator of how successful you are without having to delve into complicated analytics.

Hopefully you enjoyed these posts as much as I did! I love getting to look at the blogs of my classmates and see how everyone has a different take on our blog assignments.

Until next time!

App Review: Foursquare

For my app review, I decided to choose Foursquare. With this app, you “check in” to locations. Like other social media platforms, you can have friends, “like” and comment on check-ins, and discover new places. You can make lists of places you want to go, or your favorite places that you have been, and share these lists with other users.

The app has been around since 2007 and has fluctuated in popularity since then. Foursquare is available for free download for both iOS and Android, and in addition to the app, Foursquare can also be accessed from the web.

Many businesses use Foursquare to promote themselves, sending out alerts when a Foursquare user is nearby, trying to lure them in with exclusive offers. Often, checking in to a location on Foursquare unlocks an offer such as a free appetizer, or a discount on merchandise. Many businesses put a Foursquare sticker in the window of their storefront to let users know that checking in will give them some sort of perk.

I’ve been using this app since about 2011 and I’m personally a big fan. It’s incredibly user friendly, and comes with nothing but benefits for the user. You can turn off the location alerts if they bother you, and set your privacy as strict as you want. The only concern that some users have is the fact that businesses and people connected with the app itself can know their physical location any time they check in. While I think that is a legitimate concern, no one HAS to use Foursquare, and these same privacy concerns are present with almost any type of social media.

For more information or to join Foursquare, you can get more information here: https://foursquare.com/