Steel Solid in Home Opener

Since this is an attempt at a sports blog, I am going to bring up how well my Steelers played this Sunday at home in their 2015 home opener at Heinz Field. The Steelers were the favorite with a 6.5 point spread and the Steelers won 43-18, so the spread was well covered. In the game, the Steelers were without 3 of their best players, 2 of them to suspension. Ben Roethlisberger looked good as ever completing 21/27 passes for a completion percentage of 77%. I won't go on the stats spiel as much as I will about how good the Steelers played against a team that was hot last Monday Night on ESPN in front of the whole nation. The Steelers opened up at New England against the defending super bowl champs and were without 3 of their star players and only lost 21-28. They come home against San Francisco, who beat up on Adrian Peterson last week and had a good running game in former Ohio State running back, Carlos Hyde. Apparently Pittsburgh likes a challenge because they rose to the occasion like no other. I was at baseball during the game so I had to constantly check my teammates for updates on the scores. I asked first and it was 8-3 Steelers. I came back to the dugout in 2 minutes and it was 16-3 Steelers. Then I went on a run for conditioning that took a little less than 5 minutes and my teammates yells, "Case, its 22-3 now!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My Steelers were beating up on those sorry 49ers. The Steelers have been my favorite team ever since I was a little kid, so when they win my day immediately improves. Antonio Brown, who is arguably the best receiver in the NFL, had 9 catches for 195 yards and 1 Touchdown. Antonio Brown has 34 consecutive games with 5+ catches for 50+ yards or more. The Steelers will be returning All-Pro running back, Le'Veon Bell this week when they take on a tough St. Louis Rams team on the road. Seeing my team succeed and execute, as a sports fan, is very exciting feeling. Why do we get so into the world of sports and invest so much of our time and emotions into it? Because it is a passion that either you have, or you do not have. I certainly have a passion for sports and any opportunity I have to watch sports, especially the Steelers or Notre Dame football, you will find me in front of the closest TV.

Dislike the Dislike

It has been in the works for a while now, but Facebook is finally coming out with a "dislike" button. In an article on Gizmodo, the pros and cons of the dislike button are explained and it makes me wonder what the reason was for Facebook to change their mind about adding the feature. Facebook has always said they don't want a dislike button because it promotes too much of a negative image. "You don't want to go through the process of sharing a moment that's important to you.. and then have someone down-vote it. That isn't what we're here to build in the world" said Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. I agree with Zuckerberg here because adding in that "like/dislike" element sort of copies the app, YikYak. YikYak is an app with anonymous posts and when you post something, people that see will either up-voted on it and promote that post to other users, or it can be down-voted and be less popular among the media. Facebook pretty much invented the "like" button and with it, its popularity took off. The Gizmodo article credits the changing age demographic for the acceptance of the dislike button. The majority of the traffic and audience on Facebook today are adults. The chart below is a from the article on Gizmodo. It shows a large portion of the adults online use Facebook, as opposed to the other mediums such as Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. So even though all these old people are using Facebook, what does this have to do with the dislike button. Zuckerberg notes that times are changing for Facebook and the general audience and users of Facebook are parents and grandparents, not vulnerable teens talking about high school gossip. I would agree, more news related posts and current events is what I see on my Facebook Timeline than the social media content I find on Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram.

Social Media: Perfect or Poison?

Social Media seems to be a controversial topic today. Some people see the good in it and how it has to potential to revolutionize communication and networking. Others see social media as being sleazy with your resources and that it is not a professional way to network. In David Meerman Scott's book, "Real-Time Marketing & PR", chapter 13 covers the topic of companies social media policies. In the forum this week, I posted two companies social media policies; Adidas' and the Los Angeles Times. Those two companies are pretty successful and have been towards the top of the food chain in their respective fields. One reason could be they have adapted to the world we live in and have advanced their marketing, public relations, and publicity. The book states,"engage your marketplace right now, free your people to communicate in real-time." This made me think of the "United Breaks Guitars" incident and how they're social media policy came into play with the YouTube storm swirling around them. The social media policy in play was obviously not a strong or sensible policy because United did not react in real-time. In that situation, social media and a real-time reaction would have been so greta for United. I feel as though social media gives us an opportunity as an organization or company to try and level with our audience. When people see a large corporation or someone with a large platform make an effort to connect with them, it has more magnitude than just 140 characters. It creates a good image, it builds trust and allows the audience to have a closer connection with the said organization or company. I do admit social media can be abused, but that is why the policies are made. To prevent people from abusing it or using it inappropriately. I personally believe social media will do nothing but improve the nature of business, PR, and almost any aspect of the business professional world.