Reading Reflection: Art of Social Media 1-3

The reading for this week from The Art of Social Media was easy to follow and had some great points.  When I first started reading and realized that the authors were a part of Canva, I was ecstatic! I love to use Canva and am intrigued to hear more from the authors. The chapters this week were all about profiles, content, and posts. The overall theme was to stay consistent, stay interesting, and tell your story. The authors make a point even in their book to be concise and to the point.

In chapter one, the whole point is to optimize your profile. The authors advise to pick a neutral screen name, an avatar, a mantra and make it consistent.

• Profile Name: helen.heinig or helen_heinig
• Being that my name is kind of unique, my screen name on my social media is really easy: helen.heinig or helen_heinig, etc. It's supposed to be easy to identify the individual and be professional as your name stays with you.

• My avatar across platforms is consistent for the most part, but features me. I did not think that being consistent  would be so important before, but being consistent does verify my credibility and identity online. I need to take a look at the rest of my social media to see if my images and information is consistent. 

• Another thing from this chapter that I would like to improve on is my mantra. I don't really have a mantra for myself and as someone going into a career soon I need to have one. 

Here is a look at my profiles across different media platforms.

Chapter two was all about content development and topics that I did not know a lot about. Content can either be created or curated. Most content is curated because of the time it takes to make content for an individual. Lots of tools are available to use, but from this chapter the key to having a successful social media is to plan your content and update frequently. Keeping people interested in your story will keep your audience engaged and growing. 

Chapter three was all about perfecting posts. There is a different style and flair that goes with a site or media page, but perfecting posts is all about keeping the audience engaged, telling your story, and being active! Being organized and using tools that were talked about in chapter two aren't cheating! Use your resources to keep yourself organized and get value to your posts.  The best advice from this chapter was to post on the hour.  Everyone checks there phones on the hour or a little after because they are going to class or are in between meetings. You will be seen on the hour! 

This reading this week really made me think about what my mantra is and evaluate what things I want to change on my social media to best engage with the people I follow or follow me.  In the coming weeks I will definitely be updating some of my social media platforms for a better presence online!