This project was an opportunity for me to attempt to be more persuasive via the online social sphere. Usually I’m not a big user of online social platforms so it was interesting to be forced to be more active and to really think about the material I was posting so that it would gather as much interest from other people as possible. Despite the lack of actual “likes” the site and posts got I feel like the information presented was an honest attempt to engage the audience from different angles. Searching for relevant information to post was also enjoyable as this allowed for me not only the opportunity to see interesting information concerning mental illness, whether they be facts or personal stories, but it also gave me the chance to see how all this information connects communities within the online social sphere. The case study showed this the most as NAMI made it clear that the online campaign can be very effective in having real-life effects.
Overall I thought the group worked well enough. The information we presented had enough variety that we had multiple angles in which to engage the audience. The emblem activity was fun and I felt that there was a real opportunity for our group to create something that could be shared over a wide variety of networks. If we had more time I believe we could have a seen a couple examples of people using our template to create something original of their own. In fact I believe that given more time most of the content we were posting could have gotten more publicity and attracted more interest. Also if our group could have used a couple more social media platforms to represent our issue we could have been far more effective in gathering interest. This has been seen in the case study where based on the media platform, the organization was able to display information differently based on the media platform. Websites provided more structured and factual information while platforms like Facebook provided more social and personal community. No matter what kind of information you were looking for, NAMI attempted to satisfy all demands.
Overall the work put in by my group was sufficient in completing our task. The page gathered several “likes” so there was some interest in what we were presenting. The information itself tended to stay away from clicktivism so in that sense we were attempting to be engaging. If given another opportunity to keep working on the project, I would try to extend our influence to other social media platforms and to saturate a larger part of the online social sphere.
A Word To the Wise 