I look forward to Mass Comm Week every year. There are always great speakers and I always get a lot out of the panels. This year, my schedule is a bit more busy than I would like, so I only got to go to two panels. Luckily, they were great! I made it to the #BetterOutside panel with two representatives from Texas Parks and Wildlife, Whitney Bishop (the social media manager) and Earl Nottingham (the chief photographer). They both try very hard to make their social content and videos interesting and exciting. They mentioned how they are trying to gear their content towards more younger people, because that’s the generation that will be around to protect the parks and wildlife of Texas. As they were naming all of these parks around Texas, I realized that I have seriously lost out on all these beautiful places, and I want to try and visit as many as I can. Near the end of the panel, the moderator Dale Blasingame, had a small drone demonstration. Here’s how it went…
Just playing with drones in OM 320 #headsup #mcweek pic.twitter.com/2l9tittsgh
— Jamie Hooker (@jamieehooker) October 21, 2015
I also made it to the panel, Crisis coverage: The Memorial Day flood. I really enjoyed this panel because it had great speakers. One in particular was Kristi Wyatt, director of communications for the City of San Marcos. She was honestly like a real-life Olivia Pope and after hearing her talk about what she does, it might be something I would be interested in pursuing after graduation. Each of the panelists first talked about their first 24 hours of the Memorial Day flood. As we would expect as mass comm majors, they were all very hectic. PR and communication is not a 9 to 5 job, and that was made clear at the panel. A point that really stood out to me was how they couldn’t just report on this crisis as it was happening, but they should keep writing stories about it so we don’t forget about the tragedy that took eleven people’s lives. After attending this year’s Mass Comm Week, I gained even more respect for the industry I hope to thrive in post-graduation.
The strongest thing about #TXST is the community we have here #mcweek
— Jamie Hooker (@jamieehooker) October 22, 2015
Communication is very much a 24/7 job. Social media is becoming more and more important in the mass comm industry, and I think it’s important to remember that audiences like to be involved in their media. The more integrative you can be with your audience, the more they’ll want to interact with you.