Alex Goldschmidt talks social media trends, gives advice
Alex Goldschmidt came to speak at the University of Tennessee Wednesday as a part of Social Media Week with his lecture titled “The Science of Social Media”.
On Wednesday, Alex Goldschmidt gave a lecture entitled “The Science of Social Media” as a part of UT’s Social Media Week.
Goldschmidt, the social media coordinator for the digital strategy firm Tiny Horse, talked about his experiences after college graduation, going into public relations and finding his calling in life to become a social media coordinator.
His lecture, which took place on the third day of Social Media Week, focused more on how to present and represent oneself on social media. Topics that he discussed ranged from how to break into social media, how to maintain a following and how to deal with criticisms on various social media platforms.
Throughout the lecture, Goldschmidt offered a great deal of advice not only for people thinking about making a career out of social media but also for people who are majoring in advertising and public relations.
“How do you make mundane things sound interesting?” asked Goldschmidt. He went on to offer an example and used the film “American Hustle” and cited Jennifer Lawrence’s performance. He stated that if he wanted to reach his followers, he couldn’t just tweet something generic about Lawrence’s performance, rather it would be a better idea to connect her role in “American Hustle” to other popular roles she’s played in her career.
In his experience, Goldschmidt said that some of the biggest tips he can offer up are being up-to-date on the current trends so that you don’t embarrass yourself, being friendly to everyone and giving the followers what they want.
He gave tips on how to succeed on a variety of different social media networks, most notably Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Tumblr.
He compared and contrasted the platforms, stating that Twitter was the best platform for day-to-day operations; Instagram is the best platform for creativity; YouTube is the best platform to accurately express oneself, and Tumblr is the best platform for converging all of those other platforms. He also discussed other services such as Vine and Snapchat and added that they were also great ways to gain and maintain followers.
Although his advice was different for each platform, he said that cross-posting is a great way to become more successful.
His last topic was how to deal with online criticism. Perhaps his most profound statement regarding this topic was that haters can sometimes be beneficial because they unexpectedly promote you, although he admitted this was not ideal.
In his advice for dealing with criticism, he pointed out that ignoring hateful, angry comments is probably the best route to take, although it’s a good idea to learn from critics. He also said that not everyone is going to like or understand everyone else, and it’s important to just respect others no matter what.
As the lecture ended, he answered some questions and then proceeded to take a selfie with the people in the room, thus demonstrating exactly what he lectured about.
Edited by Maggie Jones
