There are only a few
forms of new media that I find myself using every day. One of which
is, of course, is the Internet. In fact, since receiving my first iPhone
in the beginning of 2011, I don’t remember going a day without the
Internet. I am not a very active user when it comes to Social
Networking Sites (SNS) though. For my first class at SNHU I made it
one of my goals to get more involved with SNS. Since then, I have
joined the main SNS such as Pinterst and Instagram and have learned how to use
them. However, I do not use them on a
daily basis. The one SNS that I can say I may come close to using
daily is Facebook and it is mostly due to boredom.
New
social media has changed my perspective of events somewhat. People
are able to use SNS such as Facebook to invite others to events. I
have gotten invitations from people trying to promote their companies by
inviting me to sales events, friends sending me invitations to parties, and I
have also received general notifications regarding festivals in my county (ie.
Greek Festival, local carnivals, wine tasting events etc.). I still
feel that a personal invitation sent to my home will catch my attention better
than the Internet, especially since there are so many advertisements competing
for my attention.
I
suppose I would count this change in Events more as a positive effect than a
negative. It is easier for the event coordinators to send
invitations and keep track of their guest list online. By posting
about the events on a forum such as Facebook, the other guests can check the
guest list and itinerary. It helps as well because the invites go
out almost instantaneously whereas invites via mail may take a week or
more. Although convenient, invites via the internet are not always
appropriate (ie. wedding invitations).
It is much easier to keep up with invites and rsvps through a Facebook events page. However, what I've found is that people will check attending or maybe, but then they don't actually follow through and attend. So in that respect there is little difference between SNS invites and traditional in the mail invites.
ReplyDeleteTracy-- You're absolutely right! I find that when my friends send out an invite via Facebook and I hit accept they wind up sending a text message or calling to confirm. Often those event pages are inaccurate indicators of who is or is not attending.
ReplyDeleteA word of advice: Stay away from Pinterest! It is so evil! I will spend hours on there and then I will go shopping inspired to do a project and will spend so much money! I love that site.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and I prefer a personal invite or mailed invite over Facebook invites and email evites! I feel like they are more personal. I had a friend who just messages me on Facebook about his wedding, as a form of the 'Save The Date' card. It was definitely not something I would do, but that is the world we currently live in, so he probably did not think anything of it.
I also use Facebook more often than anything else because of boredom. I can get on there are read status' or look at funny videos. I do not like the invitations because most of the time I am ignoring them. From time to time, I do say that I will be going, but do not show up. I also don't like to always get game request all the time. I do not think that an event like a wedding or any other event that you would have to RSVP to would need to post it on Facebook because they are obviously paying per person.
ReplyDeleteErin
Facebook is the #1 go to when faced with boredom. It is also a great tool to use when a person really just wants to procrastinate a little bit longer. I utilize online invitations all the time for my current position and previous position. I used to work in the Real Estate world and realtors never had the time to properly RSVP to an Open House event or Builder Showcase so we resorted to Facebook events and our number of participants grew tremendously. Realtors would share our events on their pages and in return it put our company in hundreds of peoples news feeds for FREE!
ReplyDeleteThe cost saving benefits of utilizing new media, especially in the real estate world, is huge and a reason why there are so many businesses that flock to it.
What do you think about the events showing up in your news feed and that other people can see what events you are attending? That part drives me crazy. I find it interesting that you are not a heavy user of social media like many of your classmates. Why do you think this is? Do you just not enjoy staring at the screen all of the time? Just curious. Also, how has social media influenced your perspective of events?
ReplyDelete