A Social Media Thanksgiving

At the beginning of this week of Thanksgiving 2013, I thought it appropriate to share with my blog readers and social media connections my thanks for the many social media platforms and tools that have supported my digital life.

 1. I am thankful for my career as a Digital Marketing Professor.  

I now use social media for course management and for professional skills development in all of my courses.  With my new Social Media Marketing course, my career in higher education has never been so challenging, exciting, technical, digital, and self-educational.

 2. I am thankful for Amazon.

Whenever I visit my favorite physical stores, your iPhone app makes it easy for me to scan a product, read reviews from other customers, and compare prices. You make showrooming fun for as I regularly order products while standing in your competitors’ store.  Unexpectedly, your Kindle app has progressed the majority of my book reading to digital.

3. I am thankful for the Buffer App.  

Your app takes my digital life mobile.  Social sharing across multiple social media platforms while on the go is quicker and easier than previously imagined.  Amazingly, I can continue my insomniac Tweeting schedule and leave the optimization of post time scheduling for you.  Though the temptation for a quick and easy duplicate posting across multiple platforms is strong, your app also makes it easy for me to add relevant comment or social share annotation.

4. I am thankful for Zite.  

Your iPhone app is my go-to app for social consumption.  Your simple interface provides me with hard-to-find and at-the-moment content on all my favorite professional and personal topics of interest.  You surprise me with content.

5. I am thankful for Flipboard.  

Honestly, with the connected feeds from my Facebook and my Twitter Lists, your magazine style format makes reading on my iPhone or iPad a delightful experience.

6. I am thankful for Apple.  

With my iPhone, iPad, iMac, and MacBook Air, you provide the hardware needed for everything social.  You complete me, digitally. Assuming that AT&T will continue to allow me to upgrade every two years, I have expectations to live long enough to experience your iPhone 15.

7. I am thankful for Google.  

Your marvelous and free web tools make a digital life easier for my Marketing students and me.  My favorites are: Google Search, Gmail, Picasa, Google+, Google Analytics, YouTube, and more.  Though still a bit upset that you bailed on my longtime friendship with Google Reader, I thank you for leading me to Feedly.

8. I am thankful for Feedly.  

Thanks for not abandoning those of us that continue to collect the best RSS feeds on our favorite topics in support of a personal learning network (PLN).  With a quick browse, read, and click through, I can social share the best of my collective content through my Buffer App.

9. I am thankful for Twitter.  

Twitter, while you had me @Mention, you sometimes overwhelm me with your real-time never ending feed of serendipitous inspiration.  Thankfully you gave us Twitter Lists for the ability to follow and organize the tweets from our favorites that repeatedly share great content.

10. I am thankful for LinkedIn.

My resume and professional experiences have never looked so good, so focused, so SEO, so branded.  As an added bonus, your LinkedIn Pulse, groups, news, and influencers make for an excellent personal learning network (PLN) and outstanding place for professional discussion.

11. I am thankful for WordPress.

You are the content hub of all things social.  Of all the social media, you give me the greatest opportunity for creativity, self-reflection, self-learning, and content creation.  Gratefully, you also provide support for the many other bloggers that I read and learn from on a regular basis.  Rest in peace (RIP) my formerly favorite print magazines and newspapers for as I now get my news from Twitter and Flipboard and my how-to and inspiration from e-books and blogs.

12. Lastly, I am thankful for Facebook.  

Though mostly used for personal rather than professional reasons, my Facebook feed keeps me connected with the most important significant others of my life, my friends, and family.  While I don’t always understand why that girl from 5th grade or that guy from my junior year at college remembered us as friends, I am thankful you allow me to hide their feeds without letting them know I have done so.

In Summary

My digital life is made possible by the social media platforms and tools mentioned above and the wonderful and socially insightful friends, family, and acquaintances that use them for connection, comment, and social sharing.

Thank you social media.  I hope your week is as digitally blessed as mine.

Image credit: adapted from photo by Nate Grigg on Flickr.

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Denny McCorkle @DennyMcCorkle

Professor of Marketing, Monfort College of Business at University of Northern Colorado

As a nationally recognized and award winning Marketing Professor in the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado, I help students, professors, and professionals to gain a Digital Self Marketing Advantage through the use of social media marketing for personal branding, job search, skills development, career advancement, and life-long learning.

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