Social Media and ONU

The ONU Twitter account was barely used during the homecoming festivities. Throughout homecoming there was one tweet containing the link to the schedule, one retweet from an alum and a tweet containing the link to pictures taken during the events. Those are the only tweets about homecoming on the Twitter page for Ohio Northern University. The university missed an opportunity to connect with alumni who were unable to attend homecoming.

The ONU Facebook was about the same with a post containing pictures, a video of the ONU marching band and a link to the days schedule. In addition they also didn't really post about homecoming the day beforehand. I have to assume that the University has alumni pages or something or else there is no real-time social media effort at all by the University.

My Storify recap of my first ONU homecoming experience.

Social Media and Lies

In my previous post I talked about the fact that many friendships and relationships are made over social media. Which is true, but this aspect of social media also brings up another point. Social media allows people to lie about who they are more readily then if you are in person.

Many times all you know about a person on social media is what their profile says. There are times where the person posting is nothing like what is posted on their profile or they hide certain things. Some individuals even steal others pictures and use them to create fake profiles.

When you are making friends on social media it is important to be cautious especially when giving out personal information. Always make sure that the person you are talking to is actually who they say they are. To be fair, many times they may be who they say they are but you just don't know certain things about them yet. And that's fine. The concern is people who purposefully try to deceive you.

Social media can be a great resource for many different things. But it requires a certain amount of common sense. Think before you post and you life will be so much easier in the future.

Social Media and Friendships

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Social media has many different uses. It has changed the way people communicate. Many people use Facebook to connect with people they already know. But many people use social media to make new friends and many times those friendships are primarily online. Through social media there are now couples who meet online and proceed to meet up and have a wonderful relationship.

My best friend met her long time boyfriend on Tumblr. They started talking and eventually met up. They've been together for several years now and are planning on getting married once he can move closer to her. None of this would have been possible without social media.

This past summer a friend we met via Twitter was able to fly in from Missouri to visit for a weekend. My sister and I were able to meet her for the first time and spend a few days together. Along with her are a group of others who are all friend via Twitter. Many of them have met each other but that's only a few. Most of them have never met each other. Yet they still consider each other to be a support group and talk about anything friends that know each other in person would talk about. Many of them are even in long distance relationships.

Social media has created a way for friendships to form that never would have had a chance before. Opportunities that never would have occurred before are enabled by social media. Friendships, relationships, and other connections are made via Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Those relationships provide support and cultural sharing as well that wouldn't have been possible without social media.