Marissa's Blog

This weekend, I was able to go home for one last relaxing weekend before dead week and finals week began. One of my classes was cancelled on Friday, so I decided to skip my other class and go home a day early. I had class until 4:15 on Thursday and I left right after it was over. My younger brother had a basketball game, so I went straight to his game. They ended up losing but it was still nice to watch him play. Friday, I slept in until 10:30 a.m. which was so nice. For lunch, I went out to eat with my parents at one of our favorite restaurants, Mom's Diner. I ordered a club sub and a cup of chicken rivel soup and they were both very good. When I got back home, I did laundry that I had brought from my dorm because I did not want to do it earlier in the week. Friday night my parents and I went to my high school's girls' basketball game. It was a close game but they also ended up losing. Saturday morning, I slept in again. I then picked up my friend and we went to our favori...

Over the course of this semester, my classmates and I completed an online simulation of a social media internship for our Principles of Social Media class. While it was a time-consuming assignment, it was a very fun and unique experience where I learned a lot. Throughout the simternship, we created organic social media posts, paid social media posts and scheduled influencers for the brand Buhi. The first content we created was organic social media posts, which is content that is free to post, although certain types of media cost money. The content you posted could be anything from pictures, videos or memes to user generated content. Acting as the social media manager, I had to work with a budget to create posts on different social media platforms and decide what days and times to post them. At times, it took a while to come up with captions, or just figure out what I should post in general, but I kept getting better as the simternship went on. The next content that I learned to create ...

I feel like I have been going nonstop since the start of the semester, so Thanksgiving break was a much-needed time to relax and not worry about classes or work for a while! Over the break, I was able to travel to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina with my friend, Kennedy, and her dad, Tim, to visit Tim's aunt and uncle, Joyce and Jerry. I also went to Hilton Head with her over spring break last semester, so it was nice to go back! Tuesday, we spent the whole day driving. We left at 6 a.m. and didn't get to their house until 9 p.m. because there was a lot of traffic. When we got there, Joyce had made us chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese, so we caught up with them while we were eating. Since we woke up early that morning and had spent all day in the car, I slept so good that night and didn't wake up until 10:30 Wednesday morning. Wednesday after we got ready, we rode their bikes to Duck Donuts, which has the best donuts I've ever had. I'm not a huge fan of donut...

  The Social Dilemma is a documentary about the impact of social media on users and how technology companies manipulate society and human psychology. As someone who did not have social media, or even a phone, until high school, I can definitely tell it has made a difference in my life.  Many people, especially younger kids, can easily get addicted to social media if that is all they have known. My generation was the first group of kids that had social media available to them in elementary school and middle school, and it shows. Rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and suicide have gone up tremendously, starting when social media was initially available to the public. Many people, especially girls, around my age and younger have developed severe anxiety, which may, in some way, be related to social media usage. For many people my age, it is also hard for them to go without their phones for an extended period of time. While there are times I can't seem to put down my ...

Now that the temperature is starting to cool down, it is really starting to feel like the holiday season! Although summer is my favorite season, November and December are two of the best months because they have the best holidays. Christmas is hands down the best holiday and Thanksgiving is definitely a close second. It is also the start of basketball season, which has always been my favorite sport. Christmas is my favorite holiday for many different reasons. When I was younger, it was always exciting to get a couple weeks off of school. I loved getting to stay home and help my mom decorate the house for Christmas and to just hang out with my siblings and watch Christmas movies. I also loved looking through Christmas catalogs to make my Christmas list, as well as going Christmas shopping to buy my siblings and parents their Christmas gifts. Looking back, Christmas was always more fun as a kid and I wish it would still feel like it did back then. There is still a lot to look forward to ...

TikTok is one of the newest social media platforms and has really taken off in the past couple of years. TikTok was originally released in China in 2016 and was later available worldwide after it merged with the social media platform Musical.ly in 2018. From 2019-2023, TikTok was the most downloaded app and has been one of the fastest-growing social media platforms globally. With TikTok growing in popularity, it is important to implement successful marketing strategies in order to take full advantage of the platform. Here are three examples of companies who successfully marketed their brands on TikTok. The first company who has implemented a successful marketing campaign on TikTok was McDonald's. McDonald's collaborated with notable hip-hop stars, including Travis Scott and Saweetie, to launch the National Menu Hacks campaign. McDonald's added personalized menu customization beyond these celebrity endorsements to tap into the cultural truth that everyone can make their meal...