The use of social media has evolved all things media. While social media is viewed negatively in many ways, there are many positives as well.
In any type of career someone is going into, they will need a social media presence, depending on their target audience. If someone’s target audience is an older clientele, Facebook is the place to build their presence. For younger clientele, it will be Instagram.
I personally enjoy social media. Owning my own photography business has shown me the importance of a social media presence. Since a lot of my target audience is high school students preparing for their senior photos, I create posts and reels targeted towards them.
I recently went to Stillwater for the Oklahoma Collegiate Media Association, with a few of the newspaper staff.
There, I was inspired by one of the speakers who spoke about the importance of social media, mainly in journalism, but even in growing your personal brand as well. He spoke about how the younger generations do not watch the news but get it from social media.
Social media should be a tool for you to create a community, grow your clientele, and build your personal brand. If people enjoy your content, they will follow you. If people follow you, you build community. When you build a community, you get people who are interested in your business, your career, and can even lead to more clientele.
Often, I feel silly posting a reel of myself. I ask myself if people will think I’m weird, or will they even care?
Instead, I tell myself who cares. Those who care are my targeted audience and if they do not care then the content I posted did not work.
I remember during one of my classes the professor was talking about how people post a photo of their breakfast and post what they are doing. The professor then said how those people who do that seem self-absorbed as if people care what they eat for breakfast.
Now that made me think. To a certain degree I could agree with him, but in another I disagree. It depends on your intentions, how and why you post. Many people are afraid to post on Instagram unless it is a very curated post.
When I post a reel, I do not feel self-absorbed, I feel humility. I am willing to put myself out there for my brand, for my business. Now perhaps my professor was only speaking about regular people on their personal Facebook page. Either way it opened my eyes to view it differently.
I do not post and expect people to enjoy it. I post because I love what I do, I love sharing my creations, I love engaging with my community.
People will be interested if you show the passion you have for what you do.
