Dr. Karen Freberg, Associate Professor at University of Louisville
By Cheval John
November 15th, 2017
Today’s episode features Dr. Karen Freberg, associate professor at the University of Louisville.
She is one of the most innovative professors in higher education due to being a pioneer in the teaching of social media.
Dr. Freberg has spoken at conferences around the world.
She has build her online presence via social media which gave her insights into preparing her students for the real world.
Her #freberg17 class created and implemented a social media marketing plan for the Louisville Bats.
This episode was recorded on Facebook Live via Blue Jeans Network.
Snippet on Vallano Media TV
Full episode on BlogTalkRadio
Website: www.karenfreberg.com
Twitter: @kfreberg
Quotes from Dr. Karen Freberg on:
Being Active On Social Media
I feel like social media is a passion of mine and I absolutely love it.
I also feel like for college students, if I am asking them to do certain strategies on social media, I have to do them as well just to kind of show them like, “okay, here’s kind of the strategies that I have been able to learn through the process.
I feel like instead of being like a top-down model for my classes, I am more of a participant too.
So there is definitely strategies I can definitely articulate, share and teach my students.
I am constantly learning each and everyday new things, new trends, new ways of approaching certain softwares for social media.
ON CREATING THE SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNITY PROFESSORS FACEBOOK GROUP
I would say it actually came from a research project I was working on this past year.
I was talking to one professor who was teaching social media at a university in Utah.
He was talking about how he really wish there was a place where professors who were teaching social media could come together and share some ideas.
He said, “I go to these other conferences, but they are really just advertising conferences or public relations conferences.”
“There was really no central place where we could all share our thoughts on certain trends in social or what are things that we are facing in terms of expectations from employers about our students skills and books we were using to teach social media.”
So I got the idea of creating a group where we just came together and share our ideas.
The group started last year in October and we have over 360 members (my update: the group is now over 450 members) from around the world.
We are all struggling with some of the same questions and same concepts.
We talked earlier before the show about this perception of professors who teach social media.
We get criticized all the time with “We don’t know what we are talking about, higher education is a waste of time. We are not ahead of the trends or we don’t know what we are doing.”
So it is nice to come together as a group and say, “Okay, here’s what we are doing. Here’s how we are going to show future employers our students are getting the necessary skills and education.”
It is a very great community and I have been really happy to see everyone sharing their ideas.
I also wanted to create a place I wish I had when I started out as a professor.
ON COVERING THE BEHIND THE SCENES OF COLLEGE GAMEDAY IN LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
I got approached from Front Office Sports about taking over their instagram account for college gameday.
I’m like, “Great, this is so exciting”
I realized, “Oh, I have to do what I have been preaching to my students and making sure I was basically following the same guidelines and best practices.
It was a lot of fun.
It was a different mindset where you have to think about what would the audience for front office sports want to see.
I had a lot of people that were really excited to see the clemson social media team.
So I made sure I got some coverage there and then the behind the scenes of college gameday.
Always make sure you have extra battery backs for your phone.
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Newsletter On April Fool’s Day
By Cheval John
Today on April Fool’s, I will be launching my first company newsletter that will have articles from different professionals in business and social media.
The newsletter will be published once a month.
You will also see links of upcoming podcast recordings on Blue Jeans Network for this month.
The room for each of the recordings on Blue Jeans Network will hold up to 50 people.
If you can’t make it to the Blue Jeans Network Room, the shows will be simulcast to Facebook Live on my business page.
You can subscribe on the top right button for blog posts that will be out on Wednesdays.
So without further ado, here are the articles to check out:
The Dos and Don’ts Of A Strategic Company Blog– Kelsey Meyer, President of Influence and Co
Move Over Shark Tank, There’s A New Show In Town-Shama Hyder, Founder and CEO of The Marketing Zen Group
Social Media Marketing World Key Takeaways #SMMW17-Katie Lance, Owner of Katie Lance Consulting
No — I Won’t Supply My References Before The First Interview-Liz Ryan, Owner of The Human Workplace
The [Truth] about Influencers: Where we are + where we need to go–Dr. Karen Freberg, Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville
The 300th Episode of What’s The Word? will be on April 25th featuring special guest Heather Havenwood, CEO of Havenwood Worldwide, LLC on BlogTalkRadio.
Upcoming Podcast Recordings on Blue Jeans Network:
Thomas Mulliez, Owner of Trekkers-April 4th, 2017
Jeremie Piette, Former Professional Soccer Player-April 13th, 2017
Christine Clifton, Author of “You Don’t Have To Shout To Stand Out-April 18th, 2017
Quality Is Much Better Than Quantity
By Cheval John
You know that you are great at a skill that can help your industry(social media, business, etc.) to thrive.
You put on your website of the skills and services you offer to gain potential customers.
Though you promote yourself until you turn blue, your hear crickets.
The prospective customers are hesistant to buy from you because they probably were tricked into buying from someone else with their self-promotion.
If you have a third party endorsement, there is a better chance of making a sale.
The third party endorsement is much more powerful because the message of your greatness is being told by someone else.
Third party endorsements can come from national or regional (traditional) media organizations in the form of television, radio or newspapers.
If you get in front of a national or regional media, you have achieved your ultimate endorsement of your business.
That is why sports professionals are getting a boat load of money to compete in their respective leagues because they are being covered on a daily basis by national, international or regional media.
And some collegiate athletes are getting their training in university sports because professional leagues are watching them compete on major media outlets.
In this day and age, everyone are considered media due to blogs (about 450 million), podcasts (250,000), live streaming shows on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, etc.
And each blogger, podcaster or live streamer will probably have some sort of lists of the top influencers in social media, technology, or even the best interior designer.
I definitely have put together lists here regarding to social media on many occasions.
Which leads me to chat about the recent blog post by Brand 24 on their “Top 100 Social Media Influencers”
That list featured the well known influencers in social media.
I believed that they earned the recognition for their hard work in social media.
However, one of the influencers on that list said “they” believed the influencers ahead of them had cheated to get there.
Cheating means buying followers.
I know for a fact that the majority of the people who are on the Brand 24 list have earned that recognition because I have seen them put in the hard work with sharing valuable content and interacting with their audience on a daily basis.
So I was thinking I should create my own list of those influencers who have earned their audience the correct way.
I was convinced by friends on social media that it would be a waste of time.
So I was going to write a post for today related to social media.
Until I saw an excellent article by Dr. Karen Freberg regarding Brand 24’s list.
Then on the first day of spring, the topic of true influencers came up in a meeting with a fellow entrepreneur at Toutsuite that made me realized I had to address this topic.
So I will tell you about what I believe about true influencers.
-People who buy followers don’t deserve to be regarded as authorities in any industry because it shows that they don’t truly understand the meaning of social media.
-Everyone are influencers whether they have 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 10,000 or even 20,000 followers because they have an active audience.
To think more about it, an engaged audience is much better than a casual audience with millions of followers.
So if you cheating your way to gaining influence by buying followers, I would warn you that you are deceiving the masses and even robbing the brands of their money due to them wanting to work with you.
They will find out on their own that you are using deception to make a living and will warn their colleagues to stay away from you.
The true influencers who have put in the hard work consistently and correctly to build a loyal audience will overtime be rewarded for life.
In fact, they have already achieved their reward because they are doing the work they love and also understand that quality is much better than quantity.
Have anything to add to this blog post? You can leave your comment below
Don’t Write Off Social Media
By Cheval John
The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who are willing to learn new skills that will help them to expand their business.
The above statement is true for the business professionals, professors and anyone else who are making a living for the better.
The ones who believes that they know everything are doomed to fail.
The reason is that the “know it alls” are blind to the ever changing world of technology and the changes that are happening in their respective industries.
Take the example of a statement from many professionals who “believed” that “social media is just a fad and it will go away.”
They are now losing out on quality business because they fail to see the importance of social media.
They also fail to realize that the millennial generation will not purchase a product or service if they don’t trust a particular brand.
For example, the Sacramento Kings are dominating the NBA due to their willingness to engage with their fans.
D.J. Ramirez shared her experience about taking over Sacramento’s snapchat account
Dr. Karen Freberg and Dr. Ai Zhang are leading their universities students by example by building their own audience on social media.
Dr. Zhang in particular has built her Twitter audience to over 3,000 due to her hard work and willingness to interact with their audience.
So if you still believe that social is still a fad, then I wish you luck because you will one day end up like Nokia, who end up getting acquired by Microsoft due to their failure to adapt to the changing world of technology.
Using Influence Responsibly
By Cheval John
I do not have an “official” blog post for this week.
However, I will mention it is important to know everyone are influencers in their respective space.
Just because you are not recognized by a major publication does not mean you do not have influence.
People always do great work in making their friend’s life better by sending an encouraging note or message with social media.
Especially with 19 million plus blogs in the world, you have a voice.
The only thing I would tell you is use your voice responsibly because you have an impact on everyone.
And to sum up this post, I want to recognize Dr. Karen Freberg and Dr. Ai Zhang on their research on teaching social media education in universities, which was recognized as a top paper at a major conference in Chicago.
Both of them are walking the talk about being social on social media and are influencing their university students to use social correctly.
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