By MEKITA RIVAS
J Alumni News staff
It’s time to socialize.
As daily life becomes increasingly packed with status updates and tweets, Social Media Club, a national organization encouraging user of all social media to connect, has arrived at CoJMC. The idea is to help students make sense of the online phenomenon.
“The world is changing because of social media,” said Phil Willet, an advertising professor who serves as the Social Media Club faculty adviser. “If our students don’t understand that — and know how to put it to good use — they will fall behind other students.”
Considering the popularity level of social networking Web sites like Facebook and Twitter among students, it seemed essential to establish a UNL chapter of the Social Media Club, said Andrew Ciaccio, a senior advertising major and the club’s founding president.
Ciaccio met with members of the Lincoln chapter of Social Media Club — freshly founded in June 2009 — who wanted to get students involved with the organization.
“We talked about the overwhelming number of students who use social media on a daily basis and how it’s taking e-mail’s place as our primary form of online communication,” he said. “We knew there would be a demand for an organization that helped students understand this fundamental shift in everyday communication. After all, where better to start than with the generation leading the shift.”
With both communication methods and the journalism industry undergoing massive changes, the UNL chapter of Social Media Club seeks to aid students with their postgraduate job searches through networking and workshops.
“The club has great potential as an online learning experience with chats on pertinent topics, presentations from leading experts from around the world through Skype, workshops and potential benefits from both the national and local chapter,” Willet said. “Eventually, members will be involved with the school’s first totally online club.”
For now, meetings are being held on the last Wednesday of the month at nuVibe, a local coffee and smoothie shop located just a few blocks from Andersen Hall on 14th and P streets. The laid-back environment of nuVibe is meant to foster a sense of approachability among members when they aren’t chatting or exchanging ideas online.
Once the club’s online arena is fully developed within the J School, Willet said he aims to involve the rest of campus for support and membership growth.
Ciaccio agreed with the idea of expansion.
“I would like Social Media Club to spread across multiple majors,” he said. “The organization is relevant to everybody — we are all on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or all three all the time.”
Considering the club’s ambitions to be completely online, convenience and flexibility are two elements that could make this group more appealing to join than traditional campus organizations.
“Since we replicate social media, becoming a member of an RSO (registered student organization) has never been easier: Go to unlsmc.ning.com, create your own profile, join the UNL SMC network and, boom, you are that much closer to getting hired,” Ciaccio said.
“It’s as easy as creating a profile on Facebook, but here you actually want people to stalk you because they are probably employers.”
More information about the Social Media Club of UNL can be found on Facebook.
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