How my views on social networking have changed
On reflection, my experience using Social Media prior to starting the INF206 subject involved interactions between personal usage and work-related projects. The main platforms I had used before starting the Bachelor of Information Science revolved around the use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and WordPress. The main reasoning behind such a limited repertoire of platforms was to keep a contained online presence and profile. This was structured mostly around Facebook as being my personal presence while LinkedIn represented my professional online representation.
My most recent experience with social media platforms was my involvement in a work-based project looking to enhance the digital literacy skills of students coming into an academic environment for the first time. There is an inaccurate assumption the students coming into academic studies from high school are “Digital Natives” and have the capacity to thrive due to their enhanced online knowledge (Stevenson & Lindberg, 2010).
Since commencing the course I have begun to branch out into a variety of new experiences, the first of which was joining and using the INF206 202030 Facebook groups component for the subject.
I do not think I could have chosen a more interesting time to be doing the subject for personal exploration as well as assisting staff utilising new technology online for the first time and utilising tools outside the normal course related structure to engage and enhance student learning and communication.
Which tools and platforms you have engaged with over the session and their relevance to you as an information professional.
Initial my main consideration for investigating the use of social media tool usually falls into what falls into the reason for using the platform in the first place. This is usually based on an assumption and has limited my engagement in the past. Having ignored my usual caution and jumped into learning new experiences throughout the course has broadened my view on the usefulness of a variety of platforms for both my professional engagement within the library information industry, but with my more immediate workplace. Some of the platforms I have engaged with included:
Diigo
In general, my preference is to support startup programs and small business as opposed to large conglomerates. Research revealed Diigo was run by a 12-person team and the platform appeared to be clear and user friendly (Diigo.com, 2020a). However, my interest faulted, whilst perusing the information on joining and the limit on the free versus the Premium Paid Services (Diigo.com, 2020b). In addition, as a long-term investment tool for my studies, the limit of 500 bookmarks being saved on the cloud for the lifetime of the account was extremely restrictive. I am not against the use of advertising in the free platforms or software if it is not excessive. However, the additional fact that there were limitations to using the Web Page and PDF features only 100 times was extremely restrictive to my needs. Overall, I think the Diigo concept is sound and a platform I would consider if the Paid Service were cost effective.
KakaoTalk
Recently my daughter needed to communicate with a school friend who was away visiting family in Korea. I inadvertently came across the platform “KakaoTalk”. Although not specifically listed in the course profile, we selected this platform to be able to communicate with her friend. The ability to use the translation service tools was a positive factor as English was a second language for her friend. The functionality of the chat based service was straightforward to use (kakaocorp.com, n.d.). There are additional features that we will need to spend more time investigating and discussing as a family, but with the ongoing COVID-19 situation these are enough to keep them happy and in regular contact with each other.
Blogging platforms
As I have previously mentioned the COVID-19 situation has had a large impact on my learning both new software and platforms. As a parent with students in both primary and high school and with my own participation as a university student and a library technician working in an academic library there has been abundant opportunity to work with a variety of blogging platforms. My first experience with using a blogging platform was Word Press.
This is a platform I had previously seen used both within the workplace as well as within the industry but had not used. The limitation of characters per tweet was perplexing and intimidating to be honest. The ability to follow peers and other potentially useful organisations of professional interest is something that I will continue to monitor over time after the completion of the subject. One thing I have learnt quickly is that there is no edit feature in Twitter, mistakes are there for all the world to see (unless you delete the tweets).
YouTube
This is one platform I have had the opportunity to have some form of interaction with relating to my professional work. Personally, I find YouTube to be a useful tool to utilise for work primarily for giving visual instructions to our clients while also proving access to a much larger audience when required.
TikTok
Once Again this is not specifically listed in the course profile but having read an interesting article on the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University webpage, I was decided to investigate the Platform. It is similar to YouTube in that it focusses on video content, however the content is usually short and mostly aimed at having an entertaining focus. There is content to be found on Librarians per say, but like the author of the article it was a struggle to find relevant or informative content relating to the library information industry (Hargreaves, 2019). As Such I would not be finding this useful or be able to recommend it as a possible media platform for my workplace.
Understanding the issues in an online environment
Prior to commencing the subject, I was aware of the pitfalls of using Facebook in terms of presenting an online presence, but also regarding many concerns regarding personal privacy. To be fair the platform is a free to use medium, however the monetization of the data collected from posts, likes alone raises concern on where our information is being held and who is being given access to it. While examining the terms of service and privacy policies I encountered the “Off-Facebook” activity tracker which allows the platform to collect data on other applications you use on your mobile phone to customise the advertisements you see accordingly (Fowler, 2020). However, this is not something that can just be attributed to one platform alone, all platforms are engaging in some form of data collection or targeted advertising through such collections. As Albladi illustrates such focused social engineering will require more research into how individuals and organisations can better train themselves to protect their privacy and personal information (Albladi, 2020).
Constructing and contributing to my online journal
One of the challenges of the online journal experience was the initial involvement using the Thinkspace environment. I have previously used a blogging platform for collating personal experiences in a text-based environment. To set up my first site required extensive reading on CSU Thinkspace webpage utilising guides to customize and add resources (thinkspace.csu.edu.au, 2020). There was extensive trial and error, and on more than one occasion accidently losing information that I had not saved properly. Overall, the process of learning new information about social media platforms, researching literature for assignments, and perfecting my blogging and website development skills was challenging.
Conducting research and contribution to my understanding of working in a social environment
I had previous experience of working within a project that collaborated with students to enhance their effective use of using social media. Having exchanged roles and become the student seeking to better understand and utilise these platforms has been an thought-provoking learning curve.
Through my additional readings I have come to understand that not all members of our community are likely to engage with social media due to the digital divide, which can not only be caused by a lack of access to the internet or a connecting device. Access to platforms may also be adversely affected by a limitation to consistent or poor download speeds. Such differences can be seen in the download speeds between South Korea and an average speed of 81.39 Mbs and Lithuania 45.39Mbs (Speedtest, 2018).
As discussed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Professionals within the LIS industries all share a common goal of seeking to provide equitable access to information to ensure the educational, social and cultural values of the community or organisation it services (IFLA, 2019). Then equally we must provide access to digital content via YouTube or streaming service and potentially training for navigating social networking sites for self-educational purposes.
Conclusion
My experiences from participating in INF206 had led me to discover that in order be a successful information professional from what I have both observed and explored during my studies have led me to the following two conclusions. Firstly, that it is not important to have the latest and greatest video sharing TikTok account or similar social media platform to necessarily to have a successful online presence for yourself or your organisation. What is important is choosing and creating the right media accounts, creating a definitive social media marketing plan and policies to back it up and to have the right creative team, knowledge. Additionally, is important to have access to training, and to evaluate and maintain creative and useful content for your targeted audience. Once this is established, I believe you need to engage with your audience and enable them to give feedback (both positive and sometime negative) and use this to grow your idea or brand to fruition.
References
Albladi, S., & Weir, G. (2020). Predicting individuals’ vulnerability to social engineering in social networks. Cybersecurity, 3(1), 1-19.
Diigo.com. (2020a). About Diigo. Retrieved from https://www.diigo.com/about
Diigo.com. (2020b). Premium plans. Retrieved from https://www.diigo.com/premium
Fowler, G. (2020). Facebook will now show you exactly how it stalks you – even when you are not using Facebook. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/28/off-facebook-activity-page/
Hargreavee, A. (2019). 8 bookish TikTok accounts to follow. Retrieved from
Kakaocorp.com. (2020). KakaoTalk. Retrieved from https://www.kakaocorp.com/service/KakaoTalk?lang=en#tab1-1
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, (2019). More about IFLA. Retrieved from https://www.ifla.org/about/more
Speedtest. (2018). Speedtest global index. Retrieved from https://www.speedtest.net/global-index
Stevenson, A. & Lindberg, C. (2010). Digital native. In A. Stevenson (Ed.), New Oxford American dictionary. Retrieved from https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/view/10.1093/acref/9780195392883.001.0001/m_en_us1443774?rskey=nqU6Yu&result=1#
Thinkspace. (2020). CSU Thinkspace. Retrieved from http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/