It has been a great week in my UofL Social Media class.  This week, we had students write about a variety of topics on their blogs, mostly surrounding around infographics as well as other topics like the viral video sensation Harlem Shake as well as other topics like Valentine’s Day, Health and Infographics, Social Media Webinars, and Disney. We also had a busy week with two great guest speakers, Lisa Sands of Whole Foods and Robert Young of the Kentucky Derby Festival.

Lisa Sands of Whole Foods speaking to class about their social media efforts via Skype

 

Lisa discussed the role and power of social consumers and what Whole Foods was doing in terms of their social media efforts.  Lisa was one of my former students in the WVU IMC program, and is one of the most hard working, dedicated, and innovative IMC professionals I know. I really appreciated the fact Lisa came and spoke to our class via Skype – she did an amazing job and provided some great advice and points related to social media best practices with the students.

Robert Young (VP of PR for Kentucky Derby Festival) sharing insights on what they are doing with social media for class.

Robert is the VP of Public Relations for the Kentucky Derby Festival and shared with the class insights about what they are doing for the festival involving social media.  It was great hearing the various strategies and insights he was willing to share with the students, including a huge list of hashtags they have to monitor for the event.  It was an entire page – amazing! Robert also shared with the students what they are doing with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and mobile media as well. It was very informative to the students and to me – wonderful presentation!  Lizelle wrote a very nice post on the analysis of both of these speakers on her blog and Heather provided a very detailed and insightful post about Robert’s presentation to our class.

As I mentioned before, several students wrote about infographics this semester in class this week, which Brittni provided a nice overview of what infographics are and their main characteristics. Jessica was very enthusiastic about learning about infographics because it is right up her alley.  Heather really got into the rationale on why she particularly likes infographics from a statistics and visual point of view while Jessica and Caitlin discussed the main characteristics that go into creating one of these graphics from a strategic point of view.

Elle shared in her blog post about how infographics are good to look at in case you have to present research, statistics, and other complex information to your key audiences. The visual component is what a lot of students mentioned in their blogs this week, including Sarah and Ashley. While the students were all asked to share visuals in their blog posts, Hunter provided a good video about infographics in his post.

Kara’s post on Harlem Shake was great because it not only provided a brief history of the viral sensation sweeping the nation, but featured the Men’s BB version of the sensation as well. Lizelle also wrote about the Harlem Shake as well, but she also showcased her favorite videos from UGA and Florida along with the one made at the basketball game this week.

Overall, it has been another great week in my social media class here at the University of Louisville.  The students are working on their social media campaign proposals for their clients as well as preparing for other assignments for the class.  These are a great group of students and they are doing a wonderful job with their blogs.  Definitely check them out and feel free to follow the class hashtag #Freberg13 on Twitter for all class discussions and topics.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen