When proposed the question “what have you learned this semester from my blog reading and writing?” as well as “what is going on in this part of the field, how does it relate to class, and how will it affect me in the future as I look for a first or second job?,” I felt a bit lost. At first, I thought, well I've learned that there are a lot of people out there online, talking about stuff. And, as one of those people talking, just because I'm talking doesn't mean anyone's listening.
However, from reading blogs and getting immersed in blogging by doing it myself, I suspect I have learned more than can be seen at first glance. For instance, I have learned a great deal about the integration of marketing into new technologies.
The marketing world is ever-changing and unique. New concepts, ideas, programs, techniques and models are constantly being created and used, critiqued and evaluated, implemented and discarded. It's the nature of the beast, so to speak. This could be considered a reflection of the communications world itself, as well.
From a students perspective, an ever-evolving field of study is perplexing. Why? Because what I learn today will not be what is used tomorrow. But it's the basics that students are learning, right? And, since new concepts are constantly coming out, students need not only the resources to be “in the know,” but they need to know how these new concepts came about. The new ideas are only based off older ones that have been successful, or in some cases- tweak some that haven't.
Similar to the continually changing marketing world, technology is not a static entity. Marketing and communication are dynamic in the same way, perhaps because of their dependency on technology as a progressive vessel for media. With new technologies, new media form and new ways to use “old” media are created.
The emergence and popularity of social networks is only a natural step. Considering our move towards this over-arching idea of convergence of media, using media and new technologies to communicate in a more personalized, simplistic and direct way is what marketers strive to do best.
Social networking solidifies three major entities with the mass public- technology, communications and marketing. With the public’s growing interest, experience and general knowledge of new technologies, integrating these other worlds with advances in technology is a good way to reach the mass public. If we could call technology the platform for which communication and marketing emerge, then communication is definitely the cornerstone. Though communication infiltrates every aspect of daily life, its the communications professionals who are thinking about it, talking about it, working to improve it, studying it and making progress for better communication for all. Therefore, marketing...it's like the new coat of paint. You might think you don't need it, but you do. It is a necessity that people think they don't need. It's the last part of this equation; marketing uses both technology and communication to better reach publics.
Now that we've established that these three worlds are interdependent on each other, at least in the social networking sense, what has social networking done for these three worlds?
Well, social networks utilizes technology and communication to a great degree, but it's the marketing that's different. It's a little backwards in this sense- with marketers using social networks to better understand and reach target and niche markets. It's a good combination, too, because social networks inherently provide target markets. Specialty social networks also provide niche markets, whereas the bigger more “conglomerate” type social networks generally reach....well everyone. If marketing, communications and technology were little kids, then social networks are the public playgrounds.
