These last two weeks of this class will mark the end of my path to my undergraduate degree. It felt fitting to end it with the Social Media Capstone Class. I would say I am probably not the typical college student. I have worked in the high tech industry and have changed professions 3 times in my life. I have completed my goal of getting my bachelor's degree before I turn 40. 15 days before I do, but I did it. In my career, I have had the opportunity to help build and develop a social media marketing campaign and have contributed to a few industry-related blogs for different companies. When I think of developing a campaign, I think of it as a creative and scientific process. The science is finding and building the audience in your target demographic. It is understanding where your company stands in the product ecosystem and how the brand is perceived. The largest part of the development of a campaign is the preparation of a SWOT and then building off of this. The creative part is utilizing the science to develop interactive promotional content that will draw in your audience. In the past, I have developed content on my journey to learning 3D Design Software, the use of navigational charts, installation guides for chart plotters, and now I write a bit for the lumber industry. All of it mixed with imagery and some screenshots of the process. I am not so much nervous about the campaign I am building now. I am more nervous about the time after graduation and where I should take my next career moves.
This class has opened my eyes to some new techniques and put the technical terms such as WOM, and metrics to the things I have already been practicing. This course has been a great refresher and a wonderful development of skills for future use. I am looking forward to utilizing Google Analytics moving forward in my own side business and in my professional career. I will also be looking to better understand the use of the metrics platforms give you to better target different demographics. I think the most important thing I took from this class is to make sure you have clear measurable goals and that these will determine the success of a social media campaign.
I look forward to completing my final project and moving on to the world outside of school again in my life.