From the Ice Bucket Challenge to mass protests in the Middle East, people around the world have used online social media to popularize their own projects and campaigns. Binghamton University organizers are encouraging students to take advantage of the technology too.
The Hillel-Jewish Student Union held the interactive workshop, #Activism, on Wednesday in the Old University Union. The goal of the event was to teach students how to use social media effectively in promoting businesses and raising awareness about world issues.
Ali Yayla, associate professor in the School of Management, presented different ways to make a message go viral. He highlighted strategies for using social media, as well as specific websites and apps that could further a campaign.
He said websites like WordPress, which provides a template to create a user’s own website, and MailChimp, which sends out newsletters to a large group of people and then helps the creator analyze how the newsletter was received, could make larger projects more feasible.
“Creating the email and checking the email links, that’s almost impossible for one person to do,” Yayla said. “It pays off.”
He also stressed the necessity of having a community or a network to help messages spread across the Internet.
“Even if you have a very good message, if you have a very small network of people … it’s gonna take a while for it to go viral,” Yayla said.
Scott Wisotsky, a senior majoring in political science, said social media helped expand his app, Campus Pursuit, which gives students clues to find hidden prizes around campus. He explained that students would tweet pictures of themselves with their winnings, which promoted the businesses that those prizes came from.
He said that he and his partner used it for practical purposes as well.
“We get to see glitches that people are having because they’re posting them on social media and we’re able to address these glitches in a more timely manner,” Wisotsky said.
The organizer of the event, Naomi Barnett, a junior double-majoring in management and English, said she had several social media internships and wanted to show students how to utilize social media to their advantage.
“I hope they realize they really have so many things at their disposal for social media and campaigning and how simple and easy it can be to create a social media campaign,” Barnett said. “As well as getting the inspiration to really start going with their ideas because anything is possible.”
Carly Freeman, a junior majoring in psychology, said that she attended to learn more about the uses of social media and was eager to try some of the applications.
“I didn’t realize how many platforms there were for social media that are easy to use,” Freeman said.
Barnett challenged attendees to start online campaigns about issues they found important, and that based on reposts and tweets she would announce a winner after one week.