Me, a Social Media Beginner

 I am one of those people who it takes a solid two days to decide to post a selfie on Instagram. So, the fact that I have published three blog posts in the span of three days is honestly baffling to me.

Hi, my name is Adelyn Helms and I am a social media beginner. I didn’t get any form of social media until after I graduated high school, and have been going slowly in a game of catch-up ever since. I’m initially hesitant in putting myself out there, but I find that I enjoy it when I do, so I would like to be able to use social media as a tool of self expression as well as marketing and growing my personal brand and business. So, I’m taking a class on the principles of social media and its already proved to be helping me.

We are currently reading The Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick, and it has tons of tips and tricks when it comes to how to set up your social media and what content to post. Their goal is “to enable you to rock social media.” Surprisingly, some things in the beginning chapters are things I already knew or could figure on my own, but at least I know I’m on the right track.

The first thing that really caught my attention so far is the suggestion to make a mantra, a short and sweet phrase to sum up who you are and what you do to label all your social media.  I think this is a cool idea! But, I’m a wordy person. And I have trouble making decisions that are final, or overarching. What if I want to change it as I change? What if I want my blog to say one thing, my personal website to say another and my Instagram to say another? I understand the idea to keep your image and brand consistent across different forms of media, but you could market the same image and brand while having different mantras, right? They could all support your core mission and who you are, but still be slightly different. For example, I searched for mantras of big companies, and Nike came up with their mantra, “authentic athletic performance.” However, they also have another famous mantra, “just do it.” It seems like both work very well for them.

Another point that raised some questions in me was in a chapter about “feeding the content monster.” This was something that I really needed help with. I feel like in the first few days of having this blog, I’ve been able to think of things to talk about and I have some ideas for later as well. But this is me just getting started. What happens when I fall into a rut? Or how do I even know if I’m posting good content? This chapter gave some great resources that I think will help inspire my content and they also had some general tips. Their biggest tip about what to post was saying that you should find out what is making money/what people want to read and post that type of content. I could see how this would make a lot of sense for a business trying to increase their profit with social media, using it as a PR tool, so you need to play to your market. However, what about when your “business” that you’re putting on social media is you?

Quite literally as an actor and performer, my product that I’m “selling” is myself. In this business, there’s not really one singular model of a person that directors want that I could try to be. If everyone in the business was doing that, nothing would be cast, because everyone would be the same! There’s no point in trying to be anything but your most authentic, unique self. Everyone has a niche that they can dig into and create their personal brand. Though at times it is hard to believe, what I’ve been taught so far is that good directors want to work with an authentic YOU. So as far as personal content goes, I guess I have to work on how to balance between what people want to see and read and what I want to show as my personal brand.

What are some conflicts you have between trying to keep “up with the trends” in today’s culture, while also trying to put your best self out there?