In recent years I haven’t been that active on social media it was never something I personally liked to be on. Recently I have made a twitter account in my journaling class and really seemed to enjoy it. Finding the right username seemed a little tough but I just kept it as simple as zeinabdaher11.
In my journaling class, I learned a lot about TweetDeck. This is a great source I have been using for aggregation and I discovered it while getting the hang of twitter.
Another social media account I have created was my LinkedIn account. Having this social media account helped me connect with people that have the same career interest as me. Also, it’s a great place for job offerings, whether it’s you looking for a job or the job is looking for you.
As a student at the University of Michigan Dearborn being updated about all of the schools, information and events are very important to me. Being new to Twitter I wanted to follow accounts that were organizations that I could benefit from my everyday life.
An account that I found on Twitter was the UM-Dearborn PRSSA organization account. PRSAA stands for Public Relations Student Society of America. This account is worth following for me because I’m a student at the university and this account updates you about all of the events happening at the school.
As a busy college student, it’s always hard to keep up with all the clubs and events that are happening even though they are very beneficial in our future careers. So following organizations like this one really help’s you get updated about the events happening at the school.
An example of a good reason to follow this account is that it reminds you of the location and time of the event. Just like when there was an opportunity to get your professional headshot taken, the school has you covered by reminding you on Twitter. When being a student it’s hard to keep up, but with social media where most college students spend a lot of time on, there are ways to make it beneficial.
I’ve been posting online and aggregating for a long time, so I do have quite a few “aggregation sources” and other links about myself. The one place where you can find me is my own website, NancyHanus.com.
But my Twitter Feed (@nhanus) and my Instagram account have also been around for more than 10 years. I use YouTube and Vimeo to upload video, and SoundCloud for audio, although must of the things I’ve uploaded have been on publication sites, so what you’ll find on my personal profiles are videos of my family (mostly my daughter doing gymnastics!)
One YouTube channel you might find interesting, though, is this one called JournalismVideo, which I created for my MSU journalism classes and study abroad trips in 2010-2011. I had actually forgotten all about it until I dug it up for this blog. If any of you want to upload a video for this class on this site, let me know!
A journalism video account on YouTube for student videos.
I use Nuzzel for aggregation, as well as Feedly and Google Alerts. Feedly has been ticking me off a bit lately because the service keeps trying to upgrade me — and really restricts what I can do and have access for free. As a result I don’t use it much anymore. I love Tweetdeck for aggregating tweets and seeing Twitter lists.
There are a couple of really cool sites that allow you to aggregate in fun ways, such as StumbleUpon, which let’s you “stumble” into really cool stories based on your interests. I suggest you give it a try! I also like Flipboard, which I use on my iPhone and iPad.
For my professional profile, I use LinkedIn. I also have a profile at Muckrack.com. I have a Google+ account, but there’s not much there. It’s a good idea to have one because it gives you good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but it’s just not something I keep up with.
Verification is very important when it comes to journalism. One of the most important things is that all your information should be verified to make sure your facts, images, or videos are correct.
These days on social media such as Instagram or Twitter people could easily know if a person or news source is verified by looking for the blue check next to the accounts name.
While doing my dataset research, there were many websites I needed to make sure that the information I took was correct. The two websites I used to verify my information was factcheck.org and also snopes.com . I use these two websites to put my facts that I want to verify and they would confirm to me how true a fact is.
There were websites I was using to check the cost of tuition at different colleges in Michigan. When coming along to the facts I was getting certain prices and I wanted to make sure the price is accurate. Snopes and FactCheck let me know if it was true, false, or in the middle.
Verifying everything you put online and making sure it is accurate is very important for reporting.
Looking for a job can be very stressful even for people that do have degrees and great experience on their resume. Linkedin is great social media platform for people to upload everything about themselves and to interact with people to find the job that best fits them.
The virtual professional network allows people to upload their resume, education, volunteer experience, skills, accomplishments, and interests. That way while you are looking for a job, people can view your profile and contact you if they are interested in you for a job. You could pick and choose whom you connect with, and also connect with the people you have things in common with.
Over the years Linkedin has become an essential personal branding tool. Its the ultimate personal platform to give you the best opportunities to increase your visibility to people and the community around you.
I have made an account to try it out; here’s a look at my profile.
Online Reporting, Research & Writing 