Pepsi and the New England Revolution

Help support the training of youth soccer coaches about CPR and AED training! This could save thousands of children’s lives!

Responsibility and Soccer

Here is a short video I found promoting respect from the youth players toward referees. Often times calls are made in sports which are incorrect. We see this everywhere from the high school to the professional level. This is one the many valuable lessons we can pass on to the next generation of American soccer players.

Group Project Reflection

I learned a few things from this project.  Firstly, how to set up a website pre-design wire map.  This is a valuable skill to have seeing as it can help me inside and outside this class.  Secondly, I now am more familiar with using a business memo format.  This will help me moving forward in my major of Writing and Rhetoric.  Not only did I pick up these skills but I also realized how vital communication is in group projects.  Since we went on break towards the end of the project, my group and I used social media outlets to be in contact with each other.

I was not a massive fan of this style of a project.  I am not very strong in web design but by doing a project which made me go out of my comfort zone it forced me to adapt.  I believe that this project could improved if we made it more so like the social media bundle one.  By using the screen capture program we could have gone over each flaw and improvement we decided on.  By making it in screen capture it would have been easier to present the changes by comparing them with visuals. 

Sit Design

1. Pick A Site – 

2. Ethos

    Pathos

    Logos

3. Claims

4.Report

Talk is cheap.  Sitting around and promoting a cause only goes so far.  Getting involved in your local youth soccer clubs or coaching boards is worth a thousand blog posts.  I have been volunteering as coach since I was in high school.  Being able to help teach kids how to play is only the tip of the iceberg.  Promoting sportsmanship, team work and physical exercise are all corner stones of living a healthy life.

Volunteering is one of the easiest ways to contribute.  It can be as simple as being a part time, weekend coach or as much as being a sport team booster.  Either way the more you put in, the greater the reward.  Here are some links to places you can get involved.

Redding/Easton, CT – http://www.erunited.org

Kingston, RI – http://www.nksoccer.org

USA Youth Soccer Association –http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/coaches/Help_Volunteered/

Strong 

– 6 tweets

– 2 links to websites

– A brief description of your twitter

– All posts addressing your topic

Adequate 

– 4 tweets 

– 1 link to a website

– General description 

– Lacks strong connection to topic

Weak 

– 0-3 tweets

– No website links

– Off topic

– Fails to connect twitter to activist blog 

Friday Work

I found the Social Media Marketing with Facebook and Twitter tutorial videos from Lynda to be surprisingly helpful.  The video I learned the most from was the one on the “New Feed.”  I was not aware of all the customizable options the new feed allows you to do.  I can take away vital information from this seeing new ways to target my audiences through Facebook.  Another video I gained information and tools from was the “Adding Your Twitter Feed To Your Blog Page.”  By doing this you incorporate the quicker, snapshot of possible articles or information without forcing a reader to search for your twitter.  This makes it easier and more convenient for your readers.  Making things easier for your readers is an aspect of the blog which needs to be done well.  If it is organized and easily accessible then your reader return rate should be positive.

A large piece of useful knowledge I gained from these videos was how much social networking power you can have at your disposal.  Between Twitter, Facebook and Instagram you can assemble a large following without much work at it.  The key I picked up on is all presentation and WHO gets a hold of the message.  Tweeting at a well known person can actually gather interest.  In the height of the media age, now is the perfect time to create a following for anything you want to promote.

I believe gearing these tutorials more towards people who have never touched Facebook or Twitter would be better.  I found myself already knowing most of the information or already able to do these skills.  Some was helpful but the majority of skills I have already mastered.  A video which would help would be more geared towards helping me be the mastering of creating revenue for a blog.    

Project 2 – Social Media

Organization – United States Youth Soccer (US Youth Soccer)

1. Media Tools – Twitter, Facebook

2. Preferred Tool – Facebook, they post almost everyday anything from articles to adds about youth soccer camps.  They have over 15,000 likes as well direct links to there website and twitter account.

3.  They use Facebook and Twitter about the same rate.  Twitter is focused on posting links to articles or content on the Facebook group or website.  This is a good way to put information on into an area for the public to reach.  Most of the writing they use is informative.

4.  Most of the posts are promotional.  For example, a recent one was promoting youth camps in Texas and how multiple professional players would be attending.  Another post I saw was stating the importance of youth physical activity and how it is good children to stay healthy.  The overall goal of the foundation is the same as mine with my activist blog: promote youth soccer in the USA.

5.  The audience ranges from youth players to parents all the way to professional soccer players and soccer enthusiast.

Post Write

Blogs differ from mas social media sites in multiple ways.  Firstly being that they are interactive, the writer can receive feedback and input via comments from all readers.  Also the information comes from a persons ideological point of view meaning that it is a “fresh source.”  The ability to show your genre is very important.  Usually this is done in the title or header of the blog.  This way everyone who searches your blog will get it in the immediate search result.

A great example of a blog is pitch-360.  The author displays in the opening of the page a background stating its a soccer blog.  The header reads “Football Coverage At All Angles,” referring to soccer in Europe.  The background picture is of George Best, a famous English footballer who played for Manchester United.  He along has few followers but the views are over 2,000.  Things he could do better is post more constantly well having interactive polls.

The visual aspect of a blog is what keeps a viewer coming back to the page.  This creates a constant influx of readers while boosting the popularity.  Things from pictures to text alignment, the little things are what matter.  If the blog is distracting or lacking in this category, it is a problem. 

The hardest part of maintaining a blog is staying on task.  This is a problem that pitch-360 has.  To crank out more blog posts while engaging the readers is sometimes hard.  This is something that can be taught by viewing other blog.  

http://pitch-360.blogspot.com/

Be sure to checkout my other blog

http://pitch-360.blogspot.com/