Blogging

This past fall semester I had to start this blog for my public relations in agriculture class at Missouri State University. I had never participated in blogging up until that point. It has been an overwhelming and inspiring experience. I have learned more about social media and the multiple outlets than I ever thought imaginable. Although sometimes frustrating I worked through the assignments and have learned a great deal about social media that will help me in the future. I really liked having the opportunity to listen to Dairy Carrie talk about her life and how she has used social media. It captured why we should all share our own stories and how telling our stories can show other people what really goes on in the agriculture industry. I also thought the point that all the agriculture people should not comment on all the negative things that get shared is also important. It just gets it available/easier accessible/easily seen for more people to see when it is the wrong message anyway. Blogging can be a very useful tool to tell our stories and make it where everybody can see. It allows us to market our products and show the true sides of our lifestyles. As Dairy Carrie mentioned, you do not just show all the good sides of farming… when you tell your story, you have to show all parts, even the bad. Social media tends to block stuff and shows what they think people want to see. I think blogging can help solve this problem and through Dairy Carrie it has obviously been proven to work. I also liked learning about the other media outlets that I did not really know much about, like twitter. I hear about other people having a twitter account, but have never ventured to try it. It helps when you learn about something that you had not known about. I thought it was challenging to keep having a blogging assignment due every week when there would be a ton of other stuff due. It definitely kept me on my toes to get it done. I also found it difficult at times to come up with a topic that I wanted to blog about. Another thing, having to comment on another blog every week gets challenging in itself… but I liked learning about other things that was happening in the agricultural industry. I appreciate the people that have chosen to follow my blog and liked or commented on my posts. Although I may be slower at blogging my next posts, I plan to continue blogging at a more relaxed pace.