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Owned Media

With Christmas right around the corner, I find my mind wandering to my family’s holiday traditions. They’re filled with decorating for Christmas, secret Santa with siblings, special breakfasts, and more. These family traditions are extremely important to me. My favorite tradition is making a warm Christmas treat and snuggling up on the couch with my mom to watch a Hallmark movie. We love to do this as often as we can during the holiday break.

One thing that I’ve noticed over the years of this tradition is during every commercial break the first advertisement to come up is for Hallmark itself. I realized this is an example of owned media. Owned media is when a company advertises its own products on their platforms. As Hallmark continues to advertise their movies, shows and products on their own channel, they are participating in owned media. This is a great advertising plan for Hallmark as it holds the audience’s attention and keeps them coming back to view more of their movies. I can remember multiple times that I was going to skip the commercials and my mom would shout to wait for the Hallmark ads to finish so she would know what upcoming movies to record. Hallmark knows the power of owned media.

Connector/Hub

As I’ve learned about social networks, I have thought a lot about how we are each connected to one another through various ways. Certain people play a vital role in linking others together; they are connectors. A connector, also known as a hub, is a person with numerous relationships that works to bring others together in a network.

A great example in my life of a connector is my roommate. She is an extremely charismatic person and loves to meet new people. One day she came up to me and told me about a photographer friend that she had who was looking for models for one of her photoshoots. My roommate said that it would be a wonderful opportunity to get professional photographs and continued to list more friends who had gotten their wedding photos done by her. I decided to give it a shot and messaged the photographer on Instagram about the model call. The next day she messaged me and said that she would love to have me model for her. Because of the connections that my roommate had I was able to have this wonderful opportunity to meet new people and build relationships that I wouldn’t have on my own.

Self-Presentation

Self-presentation is a theory that discusses that we are always putting our best foot forward and presenting our best selves to our audiences. This can be done in many instances online and in person. A person can scroll through Instagram, twitter, or Facebook and see different influencers showing people what they should look like, or what activities they should be invested in. This quickly creates an idea of what the “ideal person” should be. People mold so quickly into what they believe their audience wants them to be.

A great example in my life is this blog post. I’m writing this with Professor Richards and other communication board members in mind. As I write this, I want to make sure that I am being professional, interesting, and fitting into what they believe would be a “good” communications graduate. Do I have to be exactly like everyone else? No. Am I still trying to achieve presenting my best self? Absolutely! I believe that it is important to remember that self-presentation is not always a negative thing. It is easy to see things on social media that can cause thoughts of comparison and feelings of self-doubt. However, when self-presentation is done gracefully and truthfully, others can see it and use it to their benefit and individual growth.  

Synchronous Communication

Synchronous communication is when two users communicate together through social media at the same time. This type of communication creates a conversation for the users and instantaneous responses between them. An example of synchronous communication is Facetime, a video calling ability on an iPhone, similar to Skype or Facebook messenger’s video option. Once two or more people connect the immediate communication begins. Quick conversations and instant replies make Facetime a great synchronous communication tool. Many people can be seen using Facetime as they’re walking home from school, going grocery shopping, or catching up with their family in a different state. This creates an easy and instantaneous way to connect and show others what they are seeing when they are seeing it.