What Happened to my Blog?

Traffic Before Social Media Use

Before posting the link to other social networking sites the overall page views of my blog were 69. Each individual post had no page views, which means the visitor only stayed on the main page and did not click on an individual post. There were no traffic sources, which means no referring URLs or sites.

What I Did

In order to cross post I used the social media sites that I use on a daily basis. I first posted the link to Facebook, with a plea to help me pass my class assignment. Next, I posted it to twitter saying it was for my college class. Then I posted an image from my blog to Pinterest under my Rocker board with the description "Every rocker needs an awesome phone case!" Finally, I posted a picture of me holding a sign asking for page views to Instagram.

Traffic After Social Media Use

After posting the link to those sites the overall page views of my blog were 212 and growing! My intro post had an 11 page view history, A Day without Technology had 5, and the Product Review had 98. The top two referring URLs were Facebook and Google. The top two referring sites were Facebook and Bobbim100 blog (a classmates blog).

How/If Cross Posting Increased Traffic

Obviously, cross posting increased traffic to my blog. The page views jumped from 69 to to 212! Facebook definitely worked the best. I think this is because I am friends with my family on Facebook and there willing to do whatever to help me with college. Also, I later found out that the link was shared multiple times, and emailed to family members who don't have Facebook. I even got a comment on my blog from my Aunt who lives in Maryland! I actually don't think the other sites helped all that much. When I checked my referring sites throughout the time, there was only ever Facebook. My tweet was not retweeted, and no one repined or liked it on Pinterest. The one that worked the least would have to be Instagram because I thought friends would be able to just click the link in the description, but it just turned out to be text and unclickable. If I ever wanted to increase traffic again, I would definitely use Facebook. I might try twitter or Pinterest again just to see if it was the description that held people from clicking on it.

Employee Media Policy

Susan Varney like many people of today has a Facebook. As she was scrolling through the statuses of friends, she commented on an online article. In her comment, she referred to her co-workers as "bobble heads", which means they just nod their heads to whatever management has to say. She also complained about the amount of hours she was allowed to work, and how she was treated disrespectfully in the workplace. A week later, Susan Verney was fired from her job at Lawrence Public Library due to her online posting.

How do these two incidents relate? At the time of her posting the Fairfield Town Council was drafting a Social Media Policy, which stated employees are subject to “discipline up to and including termination” if they break the policy. The policy itself said employees could not curse, undermine the town’s image, speak irresponsibly, or use sexually explicit language. In Susan’s case, she was breaking a yet to be known rule of not using words that could “impair working relationships” and “impair discipline and harmony among coworkers.”

After the scrutiny of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, which told the town the policy was in violation of the First Amendment, Fairfield suspended its social media policy. A clause in the policy requires town employees to throw their co-workers under the bus if they see them violating the policy. “The First Amendment does not permit this type of compelled speech,” said Amarasingham (ACLU’s public policy counsel) All in all, the Maine Municipal Association recommends that its members adopt a social media policy to limit risk, but Fairfield needs to take a better looks at their policy.

First, I think Susan Varney was wrongfully fired. The social media policy had yet to be released, so how was she supposed to know she was breaking any rules? I believe all Susan needed was a warning, and a small lesson on how to present herself and her employer. Second, the social media policy seems too broad to be easily understood. Employees should easily know if a posting violates the policy or not, and guessing should not be involved. The point made by Amarasingham, seems to be true in my opinion. Also, it may create a more hostile work environment if employees need to “tattle” on their colleagues. 

For a further in depth story click the link below:

 Fairfield Social Media Policy

Product Review

Ballistic MAXX phone case for the Galaxy S3.

I bought the SAMSUNG GALAXY S III BALLISTIC SG MAXX SERIES CASE about a year ago with the purchase of my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone. The case comes with four separate pieces, including a holster clip, screen protector, silicone skin, and a hard outer case. The case comes in a variety of colors, mine is grey and white. I opened the product while in the store, which turned out to be a good idea. It was a bit complicated to get the case on, and I did need the assistance of a sales employee the first time. I find it a bit annoying whenever I need to take the case off, but I rarely need to.

After a year, the case is still very durable. I have dropped the phone to many times to count. It has landed on sidewalk concrete, in toilet bowl water, and slid into a cup of soda. My phone and the case survived every time. I believe the tight fit of the screen protector and silicone skin protected it from the liquid. (not water proof, just water resistant) The extra padding on the corners allowed the phone to bounce a bit and prevent cracking. I would caution anyone cleaning the screen protector to do so gently. I pushed too hard and it ended up cracking in my hands. (you can buy just the screen protector online)

I don’t use the holster clip, because I never found it safe to have my phone on my hip. I always feared someone just bumping into me, my phone falls and they run off with it. Annie, a reviewer on the Ballistic website, says she loves the clip and uses it to clip it to her purse. Many reviews on the Amazon reviews page complain about the blur from the screen protector. Specifically, Sai Ko Man complains “It has a iridescent grainy look which is very distracting. Pictures look horrible and you have to zoom into websites more to be able to read the text.” I didn’t have this problem, before breaking it, and felt that there was no measurable difference. Overall, the case will last and is extremely durable. It’s a bit bulky, but the bulk is what adds the extra protection.

Below is a video demonstrating the drop protection that the case gives your Galaxy S3 phone.

If you would like to purchases the case, I recommend using Amazon. It's almost half the list price. Here's a quick link to the Amazon page for purchasing.

A Day in the Dark

I started my 24 hours of no technology on thursday night at 8pm watching XFactor. I usually watch this with my sister through text messaging, but this time I watched it alone. During the show, I found myself reaching for the non-exsistent cell phone on the coffee table every time I liked a contestant.
The next day I just slept till I woke up on my own, because I would usually use my cell phone as an alarm clock. I then did laundry, which was pretty annoying because I had to keep my eye on the microwave clock (only clock in my entire dorm room) to know when it would be done. I didn't do such a great job, but luckily someone put in the dryer for me. It was then at 12 noon I had lunch with Bobby, we had to plan a time because I wasn't able to just text him to eat.
The rest of the day was extremely boring. I figured I would take the time to do homework, but quickly realized I needed my laptop for all of it. I then decided to write letters to my friends at bootcamp, since I didn't need internet for that. I was wrong, I went to address the envelopes and realized I needed my cell phone because it had their addresses in it. Well, I had to mail them the next day. I then felt the need to get out of my dorm room so I walked to the library and sat outside to read. At 5pm, I had a meeting for the Wildcats Events Board Advertising panel (luckily I had the library clock to tell me the time). At the meeting everyone had there cell phone's out to take notes, type in dates, and look up the activities. Meanwhile, I just sat there with a pencil and paper taking notes. I ate dinner, and then went to bed early with nothing better to do.
I did not like hated this assignment, and hope to never have to go through a day of no technology again. I felt so out of reach from everybody. I couldn't tell people what I was up to or how I felt about the contestants. I couldn't text someone to see if they just wanted to hang out. I got behind on homework because I couldn't use my laptop to type up the essays. It was definitely an eye opener when I turned my phone  on that night and heard my ringtone about 30 times to tell me about all my social media apps. My cell phone is like my security blanket, and leaving the dorm with out it felt very wrong. It was almost like I was leaving apart of me behind. Definitely an eye opener to how much I rely on technology.

Introducing Me

     Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Brittany Terpstra. I am a first year student at Penn College, and I am majoring in Web & Interactive Media. Before beginning at Penn College, I attended Jim Thorpe Area High School, which is located in a small town called Jim Thorpe (shocking) in Pennsylvania. I also attended a few elementary/middle schools over the years, Bridgeport Elementary, Upper Merion, and L.B. Morris. I have moved a couple times, but the two towns I can remember most include West Conshohocken, and Jim Thorpe.

This is my dance trio in costume.

     I live with my mom, dad, younger brother Zachary, younger sister Natalie, and my puppy Rocky. My parents own a bar named Terpstra's Tavern, where I have both waitressed and bartended. Zachary is a junior in high school, and Natalie is in 7th grade. Rocky is a Chorkie, and I often refer to him as my baby. I talk to my family, on video chat everyday now that I am in college.

Rocky

     A few of my interests include dancing, Sims 3, reading, and drama television shows. I took dance lessons since I was 6 years old until I was 17 years old. I attended ballet, tap, hip-hop, lyrical, and jazz. I started competition dance, and had a blast with my teammates at Tricia's Dance Extreme. Sims 3 is a computer game that I could play nonstop, and I am highly anticipating the introduction of Sims 4. My favorite books are The Gemma Doyle Trilogy, and The Hunger Games. My favorite television shows are The Vampire Diaries, Twisted, and Baby Daddy.