Buckle Up with Brooke

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. This fact did not surprise me since I live with two boys who are obsessed with YouTube. I grew up seeing my brothers with their phones out during meals to watch YouTube videos. This seemed so annoying to me, but they were sucked into YouTube. It was a complete addiction, and honestly, I think they are still addicted to it. YouTube has grown way past simple videos posted online. My family subscribes to YouTube TV instead of paying for Spectrum. It has all the necessary channels at a fraction of the price. At one point, YouTube TV was in a contract disagreement with ESPN. This caused a two-day shutdown of all ESPN channels on the platform. I have never seen my dad more lost. He even considered dropping YouTube TV to find another platform. YouTube TV is a top competitor of Netflix as well. The problem with YouTube TV is that I don't have unlimited access to shows. I have to record the shows to watch previous episodes.  YouTube

It feels like yesterday my first collegiate basketball season ended, but I find myself with virtually a full schedule again. Spring basketball events are all optional, but my team truly loves being together in the gym. I was so excited to see everyone at our first open gym. I think it is funny how much we didn't realize that we missed each other. Basketball season is very long and demanding. Aside from class, we spend almost every hour of our days together. It felt weird to go to class and not have practice afterward. After our first open gym, we went to dinner together and took over an entire room in the engineering building. We had so much to tell one another. Personally, I missed laughing until my stomach hurt. My teammates are joys to be around. We started voluntary conditioning this week. We condition at 5:45 a.m., but I like working out early in the morning. There is no better satisfaction than completing an entire workout while everyone else is still asleep. My teammates and

LinkedIn is not the first platform you think of when someone mentions social media. Until this year, I had no clue that LinkedIn existed. Now I understand this is very bad, but I had never used to before. Actually, I still have not made my LinkedIn account. Today, I went to get my headshot done so I am planning on creating the account after I have the photo.  LinkedIn is considered the most effective platform for brand-to-brand lead generation. 51% of college students use LinkedIn, which was not a surprise to me. My professors preach using LinkedIn to connect with employers. Almost every speaker has told us that the best way to contact them is through their LinkedIn accounts. A huge staple of LinkedIn is trust. Most people find LinkedIn to be as trustable as publishers like the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. This is a vital aspect of LinkedIn since social media pages seem to be flooding with fake news.  I think the most important part of LinkedIn posts is the first sentence you write.

I struggled with thinking of a topic for this week's personal blog. My life has been wonderful lately, but nothing extraordinary has occurred. As I sat here pondering what to write about, my teammate, Peyton Warnecke, was dancing to her music. She then went on a spiel about how music helps make her homework more productive. My other teammate, Grace Dean, talked about how she listens to podcasts instead of music while doing homework. After all this great conversation, I decided to write about the effect music has on me. Music has a huge effect on my mood for the day. A good pump-up track before a workout makes me feel like I can conquer anything. On the other hand, a weak playlist full of ads puts me in the worst mood. While I hate listening to advertisements, I refuse to pay for Spotify Premium. Premium streaming services seem like a scam to me. I am afraid that they will raise the prices slowly, and I will be stuck overpaying for the service.  My taste in music is all over the pla

The first thing I think of when I hear about the app Pinterest is moms. Moms are all over Pinterest. Personally, my mom and grandmother cannot stay off it. They are always finding a new recipe or gadget for the family. When I was younger, my friends and I would find sleepover ideas on the app. We would look for the craziest Duct Tape craft ideas and try to tackle them. I don't know how well we succeeded, but we sure helped increase Duct Tape sales.  Pinterest allows businesses to market their products in a system called carousel. Carousel is a pin with multiple images that can show different angles, designs or uses of a product. It gives consumers a more in-depth analysis of the product before they go visit the website. I think carousel is a great marketing technique for businesses to use. Some consumers may not be impressed by the one image that is shown in their feed, but an array of images could catch their eye more. I find it easy to get caught up in scrolling aimlessly through

Breaks are a very unusual thing for winter sports athletes to go on. After fall break, we are in full swing in our seasons until spring break. By the time we get to spring break, we are dying for some time off, but if we make the NCAA Tournament, we lose our spring break. This obviously creates a huge conflict of interest. Everyone wants their sports to succeed, but it is a total grind to get through the middle part of the school year.  This year, we did not make the NCAA Tournament, so I went home for spring break. Some of my teammates had travel plans or people they were going to visit, but all I wanted to do was relax. I spent my spring break in the weight room and on my couch. The first half of break I worked out with my trainer from home, which was amazing. There is no better feeling than jamming to music at 5:30 a.m. while drinking an energy drink on the way to a lift. My mom and I went shopping for an entire day. It was great to have some girl time with my mom especially since I

Last Thursday, we traveled to John Carroll to compete in the OAC conference tournament semi-finals. Going into the game, we believed that we were going to win. John Carroll had beaten us twice before, but we knew that they hadn't seen our best effort yet. It is no secret that there is a great rivalry between us and JCU. As expected, the game was heated. Fouls were being called left and right. It is not uncommon for tournament games to be more physical than normal games. The referees try to call the games even, but conveniently in tournament time, the whistles go away. I actually prefer them not calling the little fouls. It lets the players play the game through pressure. Sadly, we lost to John Carroll by 12.  I don't think the score represented the effort that was given by every single player on the team. The bench was absolutely electric. The best yet worst feeling in the world is when you jump up screaming from a great play and sit down with a headache from being lightheaded.

Our first big assignment for our social media class was a live-tweeting assignment. Honestly, I was so confused and had no idea of what to cover when Dr. Aggie explained the assignment. My basketball team was traveling to the OAC semifinals on Thursday, so I couldn't do a Public Relations Student Society of America meeting. Somehow, I missed the email about National Polar Bear Day Celebration in front of the library. I was lost so I decided to look at all the collegiate sports schedules for Sunday. The games were going to bed great. Top 25 women's basketball matchups were being streamed all day, and I was thrilled. After playing basketball since I could walk, you would think the assignment was a piece of cake, no.  The top matchup I chose to cover was #8 ranked LSU vs #16 ranked Tennessee. This was a pivotal matchup because the winner of this game would be the second seed in the SEC tournament. The two teams fought tirelessly. My project only covered the first half of the game,