Utilizing and Enhancing City Year Social Media - Research Paper Example

?How to Utilize and Enhance Year Social Media INTRODUCTION San Antonio Year can be considered as one of the effective full-time and well-built team-based programs of AmeriCorps. The program can also be regarded as one of the most effective and well-known initiatives, which is highly committed towards providing adequate human capital support in order to address various types of educational crisis in different educational institutions. The program has incorporated 1,772 AmeriCorps members who are highly focused on delivering adequate educational and behavioral improvement services to the children as well as young adults in around 170 urban educational institutions across 20 major cities within Texas (City Year Inc “National Service Provides a Strategy to Impact the Education Crisis”). The paper tends to briefly analyze the role and significance of social media in terms of creating considerable awareness through developing adequate planning for San Antonio City Year which can protect students from rising dropout crisis within the state. The discussion in this essay will also focus on demonstrating effective communication and customer service facilities which can enable San Antonio City Year to efficiently increase its number of members from both students at the risks of dropout and AmeriCorps members. RECOMMENDATIONS Demographic Analysis Of Social Media In San Antonio. According to the present day context, the association with social media has been witnessed to significantly increase amid the young adult population within the age group of 16-24 years. In relation to the observation of present usage of social media, it can be identified that a few of the major social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube among others are widely used by the young adults in San Antonio. Facebook. By providing exceptional experience of social media service to the millions of global users, Facebook has established itself as one of the leading and dominant organizations around the world. In accordance with the present day context, Facebook has been able to accumulate around 1.1 billion of Monthly Active Users (MAUs) across the different regions of the world (Facebook “Investor Relations”). Moreover, Facebook has also been identified to be one of the leading social media sites, which has established a follower base of young adults within the age group of 16-24 (Fuller 19-21). Twitter. Twitter can also be considered as an effective social media resource for San Antonio City Year in order to build a strong community. In accordance with the observation of the global social media environment, Twitter has been able to amass almost 500 millions of global users across the different geographical locations. This social networking site incorporates a large number of active female user accounts as compared to male and it is highly used for higher educational purposes. Twitter generally incorporates a large number of users within the age group of 25-54 years (PanARMENIAN Network, “Twitter Approaching 500 Million Users Milestone”). YouTube. YouTube can also be stated as an effective source of social media which is widely used to share videos to a number of users. The site has been able to obtain almost 1biilion of active users from diverse age groups. In relation to the age-demographic view of YouTube, it can apparently be observed that the site mostly incorporates the users within the age group of 25-54 years (Laura and Wankel 16-19). In relation to the aforesaid observations of the different social media sites, it has been determined that the integration of Facebook within the awareness activities will be a major and beneficial selection for San Antonio City Year to reduce the potential dropout rates within San Antonio. Moreover, the integration process can also provide adequate support to the San Antonio City Year to build an effective relationship with the students at higher risk of dropout along with facilitating to mitigate such risks. SOCIAL MEDIA ON SMARTPHONE The rapid technological development in the computing facilities has enabled the social media sites to broadcast their range of social media activities through the usage of Smartphone. In relation to the present day context, the social media sites are mostly operated by the users through the Smartphone which enables them to communicate and share information. Moreover, it has been found from the observation of various web sources that the social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn among others tend to provide services to the users through compatible apps on the Smartphone. The process significantly enables the users to efficiently conduct their communication activities with other users via internet services (Dube, “State of the News Media 2012: Tech Companies 'Control the Future of News'”). The following statistical figure illustrates the total number of visitors and their average minutes that consume social media services through Smartphone. Figure: Number of Visitors in terms of Acquiring Social Media Services via Smartphone Source: (Dube, “State of the News Media 2012: Tech Companies 'Control the Future of News'”) Due to the increasing use of social media by the users within the age group of 15-24 years, the development of organizational social media apps can also increase the efficiency of San Antonio City Year in terms of reducing the potential dropout crisis within the region. The students of the region generally prefer Smartphones to get connected with the social media for sharing information with peers or communities. Therefore, the integration of developing social media apps especially for the Smartphone users can enable City Year to efficiently meet its postulated target of reducing potential dropout from the schools. BLOG ANALYSIS OF THE MARKET In relation to the modern business strategies of the organizations, organizational blogs play a crucial role in terms of building effective relationship with the different groups of users from various communities. The organizations in the present business world tend to incorporate adequate measures on developing organizational blogs in order to transmit different information which further enables them to amass a large group of potential users from different demographic backgrounds. In this regard, the strategy of building organizational blogs further facilitates to strengthen the business activities and helps to attain the desired goals (Maheridou). In relation to the present social media initiatives of San Antonio City Year, the integration of developing organizational blogs can enable the organization to efficiently conduct its range of awareness programs by involving different users. Additionally, the process can also improve the communication processes and customer services through gathering different opinions as well as comments from diverse range of users belonging to various locations. Thus, it can help San Antonio City Year to raise awareness towards reducing the annual dropout of the students within the age group of 16-24 years through enabling an effective communication as well as pertinent customer service practices (Maheridou). COMMUNICATION AND CUSTOMER SERVICE WITH AMERICORPS MEMBERS The incorporation of social media can be considered as an effective practice which can reduce the potential crisis of dropout of students within the age group of 16-24. Moreover, the process can also enable San Antonio City Year to strengthen the communication process with its AmeriCorps members. In this regard, the aforesaid strategy of developing social media and adequate customer care services of the organization can facilitate San Antonio City Year to maintain effective relationship with the AmeriCorps members. The integration or development of social media in terms of minimizing school dropout practice will help the organization to accumulate an adequate number of students along with ascertaining its community involvement. In this context, the organization should highly emphasize upon incorporating social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter among others in order to augment the involvement of the young adult members from different geographical areas. In keeping with the present day context, it is often observed that the young adult population tends to become highly involved with Facebook and Twitter in terms of sharing knowledge, experience along with obtaining various information for improving their educational skills and competences. Therefore, the practice of incorporating social media in the awareness program can further facilitate to improve human capital structure and enable San Antonio City Year to gain a feasible growth in terms of acquiring full-time AmeriCorps members (Balit 346-350). Moreover, an effective communication and customer service initiative through social media can enable the City Year AmeriCorps members to ensure adequate support to the students and prevent certain educational crises within the state. The communication and customer service activities through social media can further aid San Antonio City Year to efficiently execute AmeriCorps members to provide intensive academic as well as behavioral supports. The inclusion of effective communication process within the City Year and the crucial activities of AmeriCorps members can further strengthen the pathway of generating employment along with leadership capabilities. In this regard, the practice of effective communication and customer services measures can further support the AmeriCorps members to provide opportunities concerning the development of students’ professional skills, attitude and behavioral aspects and make them more competent for future employment (Balit 346-350). CONCLUSION The association of social media has been witnessed as a rapidly growing phenomenon that is significantly generating various ramifications for the young population across the different geographical locations. In accordance with the present unabated use of social media, the young population within the age group of 16-24 years is highly influenced by the involvement of social media in their standard of living. Moreover, the usage of social media has also been observed to build a strong attachment especially with this group of young population resulting in alleviating various constraints in their academic careers. Therefore, the incorporation of social media within the strategic process of San Antonio City Year can enable the organization to create significant awareness to the respective group of young adults and also help to strengthen the number of AmeriCorps members. Works Cited Balit, Silvia. Communication for Social Change Anthology: Historical and Contemporary Readings. United States: CFSC Consortium, Inc, 2006. Print. “National Service Provides a Strategy to Impact the Education Crisis.” HR 1 Eliminates AmeriCorps Funding in Texas. City Year Inc, 2013. Web. 16 Jun. 2013. . Dube, Jon. State of the News Media 2012: Tech Companies 'Control the Future of News'. Forbes.Com LLC, 2013. Web. 16 Jun. 2013. . Fuller, Carol. Sociology, Gender and Educational Aspirations: Girls and Their Ambitions. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011. Print. “Investor Relations.” Facebook. Facebook Inc, 2013. Web. 16 Jun. 2013. Laura, A. & Charles Wankel. Higher Education Administration with Social Media: Including Applications in Student Affairs, Enrollment Management, Alumni Relations, and Career Centers. UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2011. Print. Maheridou, Maria. “Network and Content Analysis in a Blog Training Course.” International J. Soc. Sci. & Education 2.2 (2012). Print. “Twitter Approaching 500 Million Users Milestone.” News. PanARMENIAN Network, 2013. Web. 16 Jun. 2013. . APPENDICES City Year San Antonio Present Social Media (Twitter and Blog) City Year San Antonia Twitter Read More