Capstone Capstone and More Capstone!

     As I am completing my social media plan for Force Recruiting and Consulting, I am at the point where I am developing a calendar to follow for posting.  Although I have spent much time researching other organizations' social media uses and have developed different strategies, and tactics to achieve specific objectives, my Capstone director suggested that I develop a content calendar.  This calendar will give me a general idea of the type of content I will share each day.  This consistency will allow viewers to consciously or unconsciously realize the pattern I am following and it will give them expectations.  For instance, I want Monday to be a day for inspiration and Thursday to be a day for interviews.  Although inspiration may not always directly give my audience job finding advice, it can give someone encouragement and interesting information.  A story about fifty incredibly successful people who failed at first is a great example of the type of inspirational messages I want to share on Monday.  I will share stories on Thursday that involve different interview techniques, tips, advice, or anything else involving interviews.  Also, I decided to blog every first and third Wednesday of each month.  Although my content sharing calendar is mostly complete, I will spend the next couple of days creating a two month blog schedule.  My blog schedule is more difficult to complete because it is much more specific.  While I create this schedule, I need to focus on being creative and brainstorming potentially interesting and useful blog topics.  However, once I create this schedule, blogging for the next two months will be much easier!

     In addition to creating my schedules, I have been following my social media plan and implementing it.  Fortunately, I am gaining more and more followers on Twitter!  However, my Facebook likes have been at a standstill for several days now.  I have some great opportunities in the future to share the Facebook and Twitter pages with clients, though.  I am excited about these opportunities and am confident that they will yield results.  Overall, I am satisfied with the progress I have made this far.  Although it has been a lot of work and I have spent much time and energy into this project, it is a great experience to see my hard work pay off.  It is also exciting for me because even after I complete my Capstone project, I will be able to use my completed project to continue with Force Recruiting and Consulting's social media.  With the help of my director, I am even able to actually impress my boss! 

Capstone Advancements

Force's Website

     This past week has been a monumental one for my capstone project.  I have finally finished my social media plan for Force Recruiting and Consulting and have been implementing it.  In addition to completing my social media plan, I have successfully published Force's website and written the first blog post!  As part of my social media plan, I will be publishing the first post this upcoming week and sharing it on all forms of our social media, including Facebook and Twitter.  From this point forward, I plan on blogging every other week for Force Recruiting and Consulting.  Even though I want to blog more frequently, every other week is the most realistic approach to blogging.  If my blogging is successful, which I have no doubt that it will not be, I am hoping to blog once a week within the next several months.  Then, I hope to eventually blog two to three times a week.  So far, the Facebook and Twitter pages have been rather successful at obtaining a following.  However, I need to focus my attention on more interaction with our followers.  Following my social media plan will assist me in obtaining this interaction.
     Developing the social media plan was not an easy task, and it even seemed overwhelming for me, at times.  However, actually implementing the plan is incredibly exciting!  I have been patiently waiting this entire semester to actually implement my plan.  Although I did not always want to do the hard work of developing the plan, I have always understood the importance of it.  The research and written plan are essential portions of any social media plan.  I gained some incredibly important insights into successful social media for small businesses.  In addition, I have gained a lot of great knowledge about social media in general.  With the popularity of social media, this vital knowledge may even give me an edge in my job search some day.  Luckily, many of my initial ideas and thoughts I had about social media seem to coincide with the research I have conducted.  Overall, though, actually seeing my plan in action makes me proud.  I am excited to see the successfulness of my plan over the next several months and will be willing to make any necessary changes to improve it.

Capstone Progress!

Example of a SWOT analysis

     After working on my capstone project for several weeks, I am excited about the progress I have made.  In fact, I have almost completely put my social media plan together.  This next week I am focusing on fixing it up and making it as perfect as I can.  Since I have completed all of the separate parts of the media plan, including a company overview, competitor analysis, audience personas, SWOT analysis, key messages, communication analysis, and objectives, strategies, and tactics, I need to compile a consistent document.  Out of the entire social media plan, I enjoyed developing the SWOT analysis the most.  It allowed me to think about Force Recruiting and Consulting in a new and productive way.  I was able to analyze the many internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats of the company.  In fact, I believe that the SWOT analysis is one of the most important aspects of my social media plan.  It allows me to focus on specific aspects, either negative or positive and internal or external, of my company and strategize around them.  I decided to highlight the opportunities and weaknesses of Force Recruiting and Consulting in my social media plan.  Force has many external opportunities to explore, but also has some key weaknesses that has the potential to hinder the company.  Focusing the social media plan around the opportunities and weaknesses benefit Force the most.
     In addition to the SWOT analysis, developing the key messages and objectives was a new and rewarding experience.  With some help from my advisor, I was able to develop Force's key messages by deciding the company's most important parts.  These messages display the ideas in which Force stands.  The objectives were somewhat harder to develop than the key messages.  The objectives are the different things that I want to accomplish through social media.  Then, the strategies are more specific and the tactics are the ways in which I will accomplish my objectives.  Since I have already developed my social media plan, I am focusing on putting it together and doing more research to figure out the content for my social media.  I am really excited to finally start developing content and watching the results!

Capstone Progress

     As I am continuing to work on my capstone project, I am realizing just how much work and time I have to dedicate to it!  Thus far, I have completed some initial research that will really drive my social media plan to success.  I recently completed a social media competitor audit, an overview of my company, and  audience personas.  For the social media competitor audit, I spent a great deal of time reviewing and analyzing other recruiting firm's social media.  After careful consideration, I noticed several trends that seemed to be helping this field's social media, but I also noticed certain aspects that seemed to be detrimental.  For instance, the most successful company's on social media, like Aerotek, are developing their own content to share, sharing other's content, posting job openings, and interacting with others.  On the other hand, one company lacked in their branding by using different employees as their profile pictures instead of a logo.  I learned quickly that consistency is important for branding.  In addition to the social media competitor audit, the company overview consisted of a brief synopsis of the company and a brief history.  Finally, the audience personas consisted of information about the types of individuals who would be considered the audience of our social media sites.  For example, individuals with mid level specific technical skills interested in changing jobs would be considered as part of our audience.
     After compiling all of this information, I am close to developing my social media plan and then eventually implementing it.  Although I initially felt that this would be the most boring and monotonous part of my project, I am really starting to understand its importance and have learned so much.  Even though I am not quite at the point to develop my plan, I already have several ideas.  However, I need to do more research and find some more expert ideas in successfully using social media for a business.  I am currently working on developing an analysis of our current social media and goals for our social media.  Once I finish this aspect of my project, I will be able to create specific strategies and tactics to utilize those strategies.  So, I am extremely close to being able to start implementing my plan and see results, which is incredibly exciting!  Overall, I have a lot more work to do; however, I am well on my way to successfully completing my project.

Capstone Research, Writing, and Progressions

Content Rules

     As I am patiently waiting for my copy of "Content Rules" to come so I can really focus on the social media plan I will propose to my boss, I am working on creating a social media field analysis, a company overview, and an audience persona.  The social media field analysis will contain the information that I found from researching and examining other recruiting agencies utilizing social media.  The company overview will contain information about Force Recruiting and Consulting, including the mission and vision of the company, the background and history of the company, and a description of the company's services.  Finally the audience persona will include information about the individuals who will be the subject of the company's online presence.  For my company, our audience is generally middle to senior level professionals with technical skills who are interested in changing jobs.
     In addition to developing these crucial pieces of information for my project, I am also working on the company's website and blog.  Ultimately, I want to be able to share blog updates on the website and on all of the social media sites, too.  I have developed the majority of the content and am now focusing on the layout and structure of the website.  I even plan on publishing the website next week!  Also, over the next month I plan on publishing two blog posts.  I am very excited about writing blogs and using different resources to assist me in writing appropriate content.  Overall, I am looking forward to really delving into different resources to assist me in developing my social media plan.  However, I must begin my plan with the necessary elements to complete the social media plan.

Capstone Progressions

     As I delve deeper and deeper into my Capstone Project, I am actually becoming rather excited to start putting things together.  After establishing a basic idea for my project, I asked Dr. Matt Kushin to be my mentor because he has the experience with social media that I need.  After meeting two separate times, we determined a much more specific project.  This project will include most of the original ideas that I had, but is a bit more clear and defined.  Dr. Kushin and I decided that my first step for the social media campaign in which I will be developing should be to spend several weeks doing research to understand the concepts behind successful social media, specifically for a small recruiting firm.  By doing this research and creating a well thought out and established plan, I will be better prepared to launch a successful social media campaign for my company.  After I have completed my research and created a plan, I can start implementing it.  Dr. Kushin and I initially broke my project into two sections.  For the first month, I will be completing my research and developing my plan.  Then, during the second month,  I will actually be utilizing my plan and creating the content and using social media.
     Another issue that Dr. Kushin and I came to a conclusion on dealt with my project being somewhat too broad.  Although my job requires me to maintain a website, LinkedIn page, Facebook page, and Twitter page, we decided that the research I conduct should focus on figuring out which form of the social media will be the most beneficial to the company.  Thus, when I actually put the plan into action, I can focus on one source of social media and use the other two forms as just two more outlets for similar content.  Also, we determined that maintaining a blog on the website may be useful.  Since I am not an expert in the field of recruiting, I can work closely with my boss to develop a by-monthly (at least to start) blog that can give our audience helpful tips about finding a job, such as refreshing their resumes or having a successful interview.  Along with some other ideas, like creating a logo, mission statement, letterhead, business cards, and other miscellaneous things, I have completely finalized my project.  To wrap all this up, in the past week I determined my specific project and my deliverables I will be able to present.

Example of following thousands of people on Twitter

     Finally, after organizing all of my ideas, I began some brief research of other companies uses of social media.  Thus far I have found that there are many recruiting firms that appear to be doing very successful on social media.  One trend I noticed is that recruiting firms use Twitter by following thousands of people.  In return, though, they have thousands of followers.  Because I am not completely sold on this idea, I need to do more research to find out it's effectiveness.  Another trend I found is posting short blog posts or articles about human resources.  I need to remember to always give my audience something important to read or they may not read it.  Lastly, I noticed that these types of companies are updating once, twice, or maybe even three times a day with open positions.  This is a place that I would like my company's social media to get to one day.  Overall, I need to do much more in-depth research to discover the proper strategies to use for successful social media.

Initial Thoughts on My Capstone Project

After three and a half years at Shepherd University in the Mass Communications department, the time has finally come for me to start my Capstone project.  The Capstone project is something that all communication students must take in order to graduate from the university.  This project allows students to showcase the specific skills, interests, and expertise that the department has taught or developed over the course of their education.  Although there are some restrictions and qualifications, students choose an advisor/mentor to assist them in developing a project.  Over the course of my college career at Shepherd, I have considered doing several different projects.  I have many different interests, including public relations and video production, so picking one specific project was somewhat of a challenge for me.  However, since the time has finally come for me to pick a specialized project, I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do.

Social Media

     To begin, I recently was hired at a local recruiting and consulting firm for government agencies.  I am very interested in this type of work and am continuing to learn about the ins and outs of recruiting.  In addition, though, I am also in charge of their marketing, including social media, branding, and public relations.  I will be in charge of developing and maintain the company's Facebook and Twitter pages, branding the company by making logos and a website, and just helping to get the company on the map so others in the community are aware of this small business.  Even though I have learned a lot about those things throughout school, I do lack the kind of experience I wish I had.  Fortunately, I did intern at a public relations and marketing firm last semester so I have some ideas about the direction to go in.  However, I would like more help with developing the marketing for this small business.  Thus, I have decided that I would like to incorporate this into my Capstone project.  Not only will I be able to do a better job at my current position, I will gain crucial knowledge and experience from my mentor that I can use in the future.  Also, this will give me a portfolio that may give me a competitive advantage over others in the future.  Overall, I am very excited about working with a mentor that will help me develop and showcase my skills and teach me new things.