Facebook Campaign

When the semester began, the independent game development company I started with my brother, father and our artist: Triple Pew Studios, already had a Facebook page. The intention, to reach our target audience more effectively and in conjunction with other Social Media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. We soon learned that simply posting on these outlets was not enough. We needed a way to increase the number of likes and views our page receives.

Our first thought, was to boost specific posts as the screenshot below indicates.

We paid Facebook to boost four of our posts and the results were mixed. Our first boosted post seemed promising, because the number of people reached was within the range we hoped for. The exception being that only seventy-six people actually engaged with the post.

We decided that doing a poll would create the level of engagement we expected. The next two images show that our post informing people of the poll got lower results than the post showing the result of the poll.

We noticed that individuals visiting the page were simply liking the post advertising the poll, rather than taking the poll itself. As a result of that, the image we used in that post became the winning image. Still, our Facebook page was not getting anymore likes than it had prior to any of our boosted posts. We needed another strategy. It was at that time we discussed promoting the page itself rather than individual posts. The image below shows that creating an ad promoting the page had far better results than any of our boosts.

Why was promoting our page more successful? When I looked at the data, I immediately realized that our boosted posts were targeted at too broad a market and our page promotion was created to reach a smaller, more specific group. Specifically, males between the ages of thirteen and forty-five, in the United States, Canada and Japan. Still a relatively broad demographic, given the international reach, though the promotion resulted in our Facebook page gaining over two hundred likes.

In conclusion, it is evident that the more effective course of action as our company continues forward, is to promote the Triple Pew Studios page itself and not be so ambitious as to try and reach the entire world, but rather start with a smaller area of influence, such as just Utah and its neighboring states, or just Saint George and Las Vegas for starters, then as the company's influence grows, target a broader market. Social media can surely aid us in that endeavor, though it is a tool that we need to learn to use more correctly and effectively to gain the results we seek.

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Recognizing Additudinal Responses

In going through my OTM posts, I instantly recognized the glaring attitudinal response that I have and it was staring me right in the face all semester. All four of my OTM posts weren't about any hard hitting topics like race, politics, or religion. I literally avoided those topics all together. The exception being my Well Informed posts.

In and of itself, avoiding heavier topics is an attitudinal response and the reason is not entirely lost on me. I did not want to post about the same things as the rest of the class. I wanted to be different.

Wanting to be different, not going along with the norm, or what everyone else is doing has been an attitude of mine for as long as I can remember and every single time I have tried to fit myself within the confines of a specific point of view, or lifestyle; I have always felt constricted and have automatically rebelled against those constraints.

Said another way, I have always had the notion, or attitude that society is full of either sheep, or wolves and if I'm going to stand out of the crowd, I can't be a sheep or a wolf. I have to be something else entirely, because simply being a black sheep, or a white wolf is not enough. Being a lion, a dragon or even a unicorn is more my style.

On The Media: Under The Wall

I listened to "Under The Wall" one of the recordings included in "Race To The Bottom". In Under The Wall, Greg Mitchell; author of the new non-fiction book, The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill, speaks about his book and how NBC and CBS both ventured to document the heroic escape of refugees from East Berlin into West Berlin. With only NBC succeeding.

This recording interested me, for a couple of reasons. The first, being that it was about the Berlin Wall and refugees escaping from behind it. The second is because the Kennedy Administration tried to shut down any media coverage of refugees escaping from East Berlin.

The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 and became the symbol of the Cold War. Beyond that, it was a physical representation of the Communist agenda: Peace through oppression. When the wall was built, it literally trapped people behind it, separating entire families, because citizens in East Berlin were not free to travel in and out at will. Neither were those in West Berlin able to cross over to the East. Imagine if a wall was built through the middle of the United States and you weren't allowed to go to the other side to visit family on the other side of it, or move to a state located on the East side of the wall. For nearly thirty years this symbol of oppression, of imprisonment stood. Until, on November 9, 1989 it was torn down.

I was a bit shocked at first to learn that JFK and his administration tried to keep the media from covering the refugees escaping from East Berlin by tunneling under the wall. I had thought that this was something the government would have wanted and even supported. Yet considering the tensions of the Cold War and the looming threat of nuclear war, it's reasonable that the government would be fearful of retaliation from the Soviet Union. Ironically, NBC was able to accomplish their goal and released a ninety minute documentary covering the event...and retaliation never came. Perhaps due to the fact that the film "The Tunnel" went "viral" worldwide. At least the 1960's version of going viral, which would be called going global.

What this really brings to my mind is the governments love hate relationship with the media. When it comes to things like the current run for President, the government can't get enough coverage. But, when there's something that the government deems as unnecessary for the public to be aware of, they go as far as undermining the second amendment to keep it from the public. Even in the days of the Cold War, there were things the government went to great lengths to keep hidden. In my mind, it's a different form of oppression, a wall if you will, preventing America from knowing the truth, or even hearing about it.

On The Media: A Face In The Crowd

I listened to A Face In The Crowd. A podcast about the recent interest in the 1957 film, A Face In The Crowd. A film about a man named Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes who rises from obscurity to radio/television star, to powerful politician and his eventual ruin. Though the podcast was short-only eight minutes-it really got me thinking about politics today and how a business mogul like Trump can become a candidate for the Presidency of The United States, with out ever being a Senator, or Governor.

In a way, it is a reflection of our current society, where status and popularity seem to be the most important things. After all, Trump is a celebrity of sorts since he has become a very famous and powerful business man, with his own empire and he has been on television.

In 1957, when A Face In The Crowd was released, the idea of a celebrity becoming a politician was unheard of and the film did not do well.

Perhaps that is one of the things that has changed in the last sixty years. A person with celebrity status can be a politician and run for office, relying on the fact that they are in the public eye to gain popularity. Though that might not be the message being conveyed in the pod cast.

Instead I think another question is being asked. And that question, is whether or not a public figure can become a political giant and be successful, or as the film illustrates, will that person fall from that high pedastal they are on and lose everything?

Presidential Debate 2016

I only watched a total of fifteen minutes of the debate. I hoped that for once, Clinton and Trump would really address the issues and answer the questions in an intelligent and well thought out manner. However, that did not happen. In the few minutes that I watched, the debate quickly turned into something of a farce.

That may be my opinion, but there is a reason behind it. At first, both candidates did their best to answer the questions asked, except that it was clear that Clinton was intentionally manipulating things to put Trump on the defensive. Her strategy worked and Trump, though he tried his best to not take the bait, ended up attempting to explain himself and attacking Hillary.  Once that happened, it was no longer a debate, but a contest to see who had the most dirt on who.

After I stopped watching, I checked my Twitter feed as well as my Facebook. Unfortunately for me, the majority of those I follow on Twitter and a few friends on Facebook are HRC supporters and it showed. A Tweet from Katy Perry: "I literally just did a dance around the room in my pj's!" in response to Hillary Clinton saying :" Yeah, I prepared for this debate AND i'm prepared to be President!"

Support for either candidate aside, the consensus on both of those social media outlets was that this wasn't a debate as much as it was an opportunity for Hillary to flex her muscle and for both candidates to sling mud at each other. Clinton was making Trump look bad and Trump was defending himself as well as making every attempt to make Hillary look bad.

From my point of view, there is a considerable amount of bias toward Trump and a plethora of support for Clinton in the media and among artists and entertainers, so it was difficult for me to get an assessment on what the medias views were concerning the debate and whether or not actual issues were addressed. Hence my conclusion that the whole thing was a farce.

On The Media #2

I listened to the broadcast titled After 9/11, Nothing Was Funny. It was a recap of interviews with comedians Will Ferrel and Marc Maron, following the events of 9/11 asking about the future of humor after the tragedy in New York.

Now, ten days after the fifteenth anniversary of September 11, this brought back some interesting memories and feelings.

I had watched the fall of the Twin Towers on television and I remember wondering if it was appropriate to find humor in anything, because how could I laugh, when thousands of people had died and the security of our country was in question?

When I look back at those feelings and realize that at some point, I had realized that it was okay to laugh at things, because humor, at its core, comes from happiness and often times laughter can dissipate even the darkest of moods.

That said, I think we as a society never gave much thought about what was considered comedy prior to 9/11. It seems that nothing was really off limits at the time and after that day, there are definitely things that are not cool to joke about.

One has to wonder why it took such a devastating thing to make Americans take a step back and think about whether or not a certain joke is funny.

Learning and Thinking

Learning and thinking is an interesting topic to reflect on, especially considering that the two supposedly go hand in hand. Typically, an educated or "learn ed" person has the ability to think critically. This means they can take a situation and examine two sides and determine the correct course of action.

To me, this doesn't necessarily mean that an uneducated-or rather-under educated person does not have the ability to think things through. Instead, i think it all comes down to choice. There are those in society who literally choose to let someone else do their thinking for them. Perhaps that is one reason we have some of the problems we have in our current society. People do not take the time to think about how their actions, or lack of it, will affect another.

The question I find myself asking is, " What does learning have to do with thinking?"

I think the answer lies in the current state of our education system. An 2014 article from the Huffington Post by Eric Cooper talks about how schools were beginning to focus more on students testing ability rather than their ability to solve problems. In it he states "...teaching students to take a test is not the same as teaching them to think critically."

This begs the question: Are students in American schools being challenged to come up with their own views and opinions, or are they being told how to think?

I am of the opinion that the future of society is a scary thing if the answer to that question is the latter. Imagine what the world will be like in twenty years, when today's high school students are closing in on their forties having gone through their twenties expecting to be told the answers and not being able to figure things out on their own. Terrifying. A society without creative or critical thinking is a society that has lost its way.

Radicalization and Religion

I find myself  in the middle when it comes to radicalization and religion. This is mainly due to the fact that I've grown up in a religious family and from my point of view, I don't consider religion to be radical.

Consider this: When one is taught a religion from birth to adulthood, that religion becomes a part of their life-a way of living to be more precise. Your actions towards others and the way you view the world as a whole is part of that way of life. This is especially true for Christians and Latter Day Saints. It isn't any less true for Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, Islamics; or Pagans . All of these groups approach life according to their beliefs.

So where does the radical part come in?

One definition of the word radical, is something that relates to or affects the fundamental nature of something, far-reaching or thorough. By that definition, religion is radical because it is often far-reaching. There isn't one place in the world that is without some kind of religion.

Perhaps we should consider the definition of religion itself, which is: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. By that definition alone, Atheists and those who are not part of a religion are the only ones who can truly consider religion to be radical, because for them, religion is so far removed from what they believe.

In my opinion, the radicalization of religion is due to the idea that religion itself-the belief in God, a god, or gods is extreme. After all, Christianity is the largest religion in the world, accounting for 32 percent of the worlds population according to an Washington Times article titled " 84 Percent of the World Population Has Faith; a Third Are Christian" posted on December 23, 2012.

In today's society and mainly due to social media trends, it isn't just religion as a whole that is radicalized. Specific religions are considered to be radical simply because those religions are considered to be extreme compared to the mainstream. In fact, the two most radicalized religions are Mormonism and Islam. Islam being the more recent of the two that has received that label because of the actions of an extremist group affiliated with that religion, though it was not the religion itself that committed those atrocities.

I could go on and on, perhaps for pages. A book even.

Let me conclude on this thought: As a society we continually seek for some place to fit in, where we feel accepted and comfortable. Often times that isn't very hard to do, since there are always going to be individuals who believe as we do and who enjoy the same things. When we discover something that is outside of that comfort zone, we tend to feel threatened by it, because there is the possibility that it will change the status quo that we have become so comfortable living in. Religion is that catalyst. It is that thing that is far reaching and affects the fundamental nature of human kinds way of life. Instead of labeling it under the aforementioned definition of radical, perhaps we should consider it to be another definition of the word: very good, excellent.

Law Enforcement and Racism

An interesting thing occurred while I researched this topic. My internet search using Bing turned up next to nothing on this topic. As a matter of fact, I was linked to a number of articles that were either about racism, or law enforcement and its use of social media, not one of the articles I was lead to had anything to do with law enforcement and racism, or racism among law enforcement officials.

I decided to attempt a different search using Twitter as my tool. By simply searching Twitter for the hashtags: #lawenforcement #racism. I found a long list of tweets that were reactions to incidents involving the police and someone of color, as well as tweets sharing articles addressing the issue of racism and the law. It begs the question: Why is it easier to find articles covering Law enforcement and racism on Twitter than it is through an internet search engine? Is there some kind of bias at work here?

During my search, an article from The Root peaked my interest. "The 7 Most Outrageous and Racist Acts Found in DOJ's report on Baltimore Police Department".  which pinpoints seven egregious and unlawful acts committed by the Baltimore Police Department.

One of the acts cited in the article, reports that a police Sergeant instructed another officer to make up a reason for stopping a group of black men, who were not breaking the law; all while investigators from the DOJ were riding in the squad car.

The thing that stands out to me the most in that incident is the apparent disregard that the Sergeant had, not only for the rights of the black men-who had done nothing wrong-but also for the officials riding in the car. He must have assumed the DOJ investigators were already on his side. His blatant attitude is staggeringly mind boggling. Surely, this kind of attitude is at the center of the controversy.

On the Media #1

I listened to "Covering the First Atomic Bombs" which is an account of two journalists; George Weller and William L Laurence, who each reported on very different aspects of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and how, in George Weller's case, his report was covered up and lost for sixty years, until his son found old carbon copies of Weller's initial reports in 2005. The latter being eventually published.

This podcast talks about how George Weller, disobeyed government instructions to stay away from both Nagasaki and Hiroshima, to report on the effects of what he considered to be a bigger bomb, upon seeing the devastation caused by the explosion. Until he went to one of the local hospitals and saw what he coined as "Disease X" knowing nothing of radiation.

Brooke Gladstone, in an interview with Author Greg Mitchell, speculates that the government did not publish Weller's articles and allowed them to become lost, because they knew about the effects of the radiation on human beings.

The podcast goes on to suggest that this could have been the reason journalists were, in fact barred from even approaching the affected areas.

Another interview included in the podcast speaks of William L Laurence, who was commissioned by the government to report on the bombing, which he witnessed from high above the island of Hiroshima in the B-52 that dropped the bomb. He essentially described the explosion as something beautiful in its power and destructiveness.

As the podcast continues, it becomes apparent that the government did take precautions to keep the truth of just how devastating and destructive the atomic bomb was, not wanting the American to know that the radiation caused by the bomb could cause such a horrific disease, but also spread, unseen for miles.

The knowledge that there was a cover up of this magnitude seventy one years ago, does not necessarily sway my opinion on whether or not America should have dropped the A bomb or not. For the record, millions of lives would have been lost, had the war with the Japanese continued and the Japanese people very nearly made extinct. Thus, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though terrible and horrific the affects were, was necessary to save those millions of lives in my opinion.

Additionally, it is my feeling that the government felt that covering up the truth was necessary in order to maintain the idea that bombing Japan was the only option they had to end the war, which it eventually did, because once Japan realized that the America had such immense destructive power at their disposal, it became more important to preserve the existence of the Japanese people and culture.

Social Media Campaign Plan

My Facebook page is the Facebook page for new game development company Triple Pew Studios LLC, of which I a am a co founder, along with my brother and our artist, Will Bryant. Our Facebook page is being used to promote our company and more importantly, our first game: Void Slayer. Our target audience are individuals between 14 and 47 years of age, of  diverse backgrounds.  The goal is to spread the word about our company's mission and the games we have developed and will develop. The ultimate goal, is to gain interest in our games, especially our first.

Personas

Danny is 14 and a Freshman in high school. He loves video games so much, that he saves  most of his allowance, so he has money for video games. Setting aside his allowance frequently has allowed him to purchase a  Wii, XBox One and a Playstation 4. However, he does not only play video games on those platforms, but also has a number of different games on his smart phone. For Danny, playing video games is a way of life.

Lisa is a 45 year old mother of four children, one of whom has graduated high school and attends the local University. With three children still in high school, Lisa does many activities to relieve stress. She takes a yoga class, exercises often and enjoys playing a game or two on her iPhone. While she isn't the quintessential "gamer" she does appreciate finding exciting and fun games to add to her collection of mobile apps, or to replace games she has become tired of.

Russell, 20, is a college student and athlete, who spends most of his free time maintaining his health and physical prowess, or with his girlfriend. He doesn't have much time for video games, but finds that having a good game on his phone helps keep him from getting bored when his girl is talking on the phone, or shopping. 

Tactics

Use Facebook , Twitter and Instagram to communicate with and involve our target audience by sharing updates, art and ads across all three social media platforms. One that has already been utilized was to create a poll showing new title art concepts and giving visitors an opportunity to vote on their favorite and sharing that poll on all three social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will also be used as a means to inform our audience and the general public of updates to the current game and sharing with them the process of developing upcoming games.