Social media’s impact
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While social media has been around for years, the amount it has changed is drastic. The general definition of social media is “social media is understood as the different forms of online communication used by people to create networks, communities, and collectives to share information, ideas, messages, and other content” (1). Dating back to when it began, internet was big, but great advances hadn’t been made yet… we still needed dial up internet, it was slow, and we were focused more on what song we wanted playing on our Myspace and who we wanted in our Top 8, rather than the impact it had on our culture. It grew quickly because it gave us a way to communicate with others and meet new people. Over time people quickly learned we could use these applications to network for our careers and help build meaningful and lasting relationships.
The main social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are huge throughout many generations. Facebook is a great way to stay active with family and friends. You are able to share messages, memes, photos, etc. to anyone on your friends list. You are also able to set your privacy for who is allowed to view your information and the stuff you post. Twitter on the other hand, used to only allow 140-character messages. It was more a way to share random thoughts that popped into your head at any given time. LinkedIn is a great tool for networking in your career. Since its business focused, you are able to see followers work goals, promotions, and follow companies you like. It also works to match you with companies or jobs you are focused on. YouTube is probably to most different form of social media from this list because its main content comes from creating and watching videos. Any user is able to upload a video pertaining to whatever topic they wish and express themselves how they wish. They all have their own purpose, and while they have evolved over the years since their creation, they still fit into their mold of what they are most focused in.
A hashtag is simply a word or phrase used on social media to allow people to search for similar things. It’s a great tool for companies to use in marketing because it allows individuals to see different markets products might fit in. It allows content to reach far more people than the main group of followers. Say you are on Instagram and you want to see baby animals, going to the search bar and typing “#babyanimals” over 1.2 million posts will show up with baby animal pictures and videos for different users, along with other suggestions you may be interested in. The same concept applies when promoting a business, whether it is make-up or cars or anything. There is a make-up brand I found on social media a few years ago, they do not have a physical store. Instead they promote and sell everything through their social media accounts and post photos from other people’s accounts who use their products. They show results from others to inspire others and show off their product using hashtags and photo tagging.
While some may use social media as a gossip medium, others will use it to uplift and inspire others. Christian’s can use social media as a way to spread God’s message and encourage others to believe and help them find their way. Using hashtags can bring like-minded individuals together and help them focus on important issues in their lives. Social media should be utilized as a tool to help grow each other and companies.
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Post 2
Social Media
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Around the late 1990’s, a brand new trend known as, “blogging” became a pretty big deal. This was the launching point of social media. It was a big part of home computers becoming so popular as well. This would give people a platform to share their thoughts with people in a format that had never been seen before. Blogging, as a platform, would be the beggening of social media sites like, Myspace, Six Degrees, Friendster, Xanga, and more. People could have an identity, a place to share their lives, thoughts, and creativity. This would lead to its overwhelming popularity.
Popular sites today are Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, and YouTube. These are just a few of them. Facebook has changed a lot over the years. What was a essentially a blog site for college students has become a hot bed for misinformation (fake news, false articles, etc…), pictures, and people sharing their thoughts on topical subjects. Facebook can also be used as a nice way to have a free website for a buisness. Instead of paying a monthly fee for a web page, you can create a business page on Facebook for free. In comparison to twitter, it is vastly different. Yes, you can share pictures and news, but twitter is mostly for celebrities, millennialis, and customer service for businesses at this point. It has proven to be a great networking tool. The format is different from that of facebook. Facebook seems to have been created for the laptop and desktop whereas Twitter was created for the phone. Linkedln has become increasingly popular over the years for those who desire a digital resume. It is for those who want or need to network in a strictly business format. Where twitter and facebook are somewhat similar in that they are essentially for leisure purposes, Linkedln is more for the business world. Lastly, different from all of these is YoutTube. YouTube is a video posting site. Millions of videos are uploaded daily. What use to be a place for people to simply place videos from their lives has transformed into extremely frugal financial and fame opportunities. The term “YoutTuber” has become an aspiration for younger generations.
The use of a #hashtag in a post in valuable for one thing, driving traffic to that particular post to get it trending or to just make as many people as possible aware.
If I had a business that put on big events, I would absolutely have a hash tag in mind to boost any online traffic towards my advertisements. For example, I know that the #ILoveAtl hash tag is popular in the Atlanta area. If were to host an event in Atlanta, I would this hash tag to drive traffic to that post so that they could see whatever advertisement I have out. Or, another example, if my event was called something like, “Atlanta Worship Conference” I would create the hash tag, #AtlWorshipConf to get as many people at this conference to post about it. Hopefully, the hash tag would start trending in the surrounding area and would create a buzz about the event. People online will click on the hash tag to find out more about its meaning.
One very simple way of checking out the effectiveness that social media advertising is having on your business is by looking over the analytics. You can see your post’s engagement this way. How many people interacted with your advertisement? Did they click on any links offered? You can also compare how your business stacks up to other businesses that are like yours. See what works for them and what works for you. Analytics and business insights are great tools to track your social media advertisement effectiveness.
Social media is a tool. I have always said this. More specifically, it is like a hammer. You can only do two things with a hammer, break or build. At the end of the day, you cannot blame the hammer, only the one wielding it. How you utilize social media, your experience with it, is 100% up to you. Social media, in and of itself, is not a form for gossiping. People do that anyways. People gossiped before social media and they will after it. Marketing guru and author, Gary Vaynerchuk, wrote, “Technology exposes who you are. It doesn’t change you.1” Christian men and women simply have to lean into biblical principles like 1 Timothy 5:13 and apply them to their lives. If you have a clean heart, a heart filled with Jesus, it should not matter what social media platform you are on. Being like Jesus is still applicable no matter where you are. In the real word or in the digital one.
1Vaynerchuk, Gary. Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence – and How You Can, Too. HarperBusiness, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018.
POST 3
pot stores closing
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The article I chose is called “Some Oregon pot stores consolidating to weather weak market”. In this article, the authors explain the current condition of the legal marijuana market in Oregon. One of the focus points on the article is how the saturation of the marijuana market (due to people thinking it is a great investment) is causing many marijuana retailers to either go out of business, consolidate, or merge with other retailers. The second major focus of the article is how the regulations (or barriers of entrance) were originally low when marijuana first became legal, but now the government is becoming stricter with the laws. The one exception is one law that was recently rolled back that required the marijuana store to be more than half-owned by a resident of Oregon.
This article and situation deal with the idea of supply and demand. Most of the problem presented in the article is due to market saturation, and this is because there were so many different marijuana stores/ retailers that opened in such a short amount of time. Because there was an initial rush of stores and retailers that came into the market there was a surplus of marijuana in the market driving the price down. It seems to be implied in the article that the lower prices of marijuana is making it so that smaller stores are having to exit the market because they are losing too much money and don’t have extra capital coming in to help them, however, the larger stores that have extra capital coming in can stay in the market even if they are running at a loss and when the market reaches a more sustainable equilibrium (due to many of the retailers exiting the market) they can start to make a profit.
My thoughts on the economic aspect of this article are that while this is kind of an interesting discussion because marijuana was illegal and then became legal meaning the market for it opened abruptly, I think that it is a relatively normal “free market” situation. I think that with the market for marijuana being the way it is currently the most logical outcome would be that many of the retailers will exit the market and a few large stores/retailers will become the major suppliers. While it is sad that the small stores are having to close as mentioned above, they also should have known the risks of pursuing this market. My views on marijuana as a product are kind of in the middle of the road, I think that if marijuana is being used for legitimate medical reasons then it can be a good thing, but I honestly do not know where I stand in the recreational use of marijuana.
I think that the Cristian response to this article has a lot less to do with the economic aspect of this article and more about the moral part of marijuana. The only economic impact I can see would relate to the Christian response would be the owners of the small marijuana stores that may have to shut down losing a lot of money and possibly needing help from Christians or the Church. I mostly think that the Christian response is based on whether using marijuana is moral or not. Without doing a ton of research it seems that marijuana has some similar effects to alcohol, and therefore I think that alcohol would be the best thing to compare it to in the Bible as there is no mention of the use of marijuana in the Bible. The two Bible verses I think would apply to this would be Ephesians 5:18 NIV “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,” and Provers 20:1 NIV “Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.”. Many verses in the Bible say that it is okay to drink (there is even a verse that mentions the health benefits of drinking wine), but there are also many verses like the two mentioned that explain that you should not let alcohol lead you and instead should be led by the spirit. I think that while marijuana is a different substance the same guidelines would apply, and therefore if you are using it for a legitimate reason or you use it reasonably there is not necessarily a moral issue with it.
Mateer, D., & Coppock, L. (n.d.). Principles of Microeconomics (2nd ed.).
Associated Press. “Some Oregon Pot Stores Consolidating to Weather Weak Market.” The Columbian, 18 Nov. 2018, 9:24, www.columbian.com/news/2018/nov/18/some-oregon-pot-stores-consolidating-to-weather-weak-market/.
POST 4
Should the NCAA pay players?
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The NCAA prohibits its athletes to receive money beyond their scholarship and to cover small expenses; this has been the rule since the NCAA was formed in 1910. In the past, there have been none to few issues with this rule, but in the past decade, many athletes and lawyers are taking a stand against the NCAA on this rule. Athletes are wondering why schools are making money from their name, but they are not receiving anything. People are questioning the legality of the NCAA to not pay its players money from sales of tickets, jerseys, video games, etc.
In 2009, Ed O’Bannon filed a lawsuit against the NCAA that challenged their amateurism rules. The year after it was tried, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals made a ruling that left both sides unhappy (Nocera, 2016). The The court ruled that by Trust Law, it is illegal not to pay players and that the NCAA’s pay rules were an unlawful restraint to trade. By definition, “When two or more firms act in unison, economists refer to them as a cartel. Many countries prohibit cartels. In the United States, antitrust laws prohibit collusion (Dirk Mateer, p.396).” Trust laws are intact to protect both the producers and consumers. In the case of the NCAA, players not getting paid might be unfair to them through the definition of antitrust law, but for the consumer, it protects their ability to enjoy the product that is college sports. Moving forward, the court will continue to evaluate the NCAA’s corporation with the antitrust law and that will determine their legitimacy to pay or not pay its players.
As a college athlete myself this is a compelling topic for me to learn about. My personal opinion is that players, in all college sports, should not be paid for their play. This is what makes collegiate and amateur sports so great, the passion and desire are unmatched at this level. College Athletics is best as a proving ground to see who is ready to play at the next level. However, I do think that athletes should be compensated for products sold with their names or image attached to it. It is not fair for the NCAA to make money off of a person and not to compensate them. In First Timothy 4:12 it says “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” To me, this verse says that just because someone is of youth in age does not mean they are of youth in character and should be treated like everyone else; NCAA athletes should have the same opportunities as older professionals.