A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words…and Perhaps A Whole Lot More

A few months ago I watched a short documentary on Vimeo called Instagram Is.

The film was created by Paul Tellefson and features a number of Instagrammers.  The documentary project all started in a class when Paul was asked to create a trailer for  a mock film; after creating the short trailer, Paul realized there was an entire story right in front of him.  He ended up creating Instagram Is as part of his capstone project at the University of Texas at Dallas.

A year and half ago, I graduated from a college where I had an amazing four years with an amazing group of friends, and shortly after I picked up my life and moved from upstate New York to Portland, Oregon.  Before stumbling across the video on Instagram, I liked Instagram because it allowed me to quickly document my daily life and post a picture for my friends and family to see three thousand miles away.  And it’s reciprocal, so I got to see everything my best friends were up to even though we were now sprinkled across the country and not living on campus within five minutes of each other; it was a great way to keep in touch and to a certain extent made me feel like we were still physically a part of each of my friends’ lives.  Then I watched Instagram Is, and became obsessed with Instagram – as a mobile app, as a community, as a window into other worlds, as a way to document and change perspective.

After watching Instagram Is, I still see it as a window into other worlds and method by which to document a life story, but also a lot more.  It’s a way to meet and connect with other people from different states, different countries, and different worlds.  Through conversation on user photographs, users created Instameets to meet up with members of the Instagram community in cities all over the world.  Users crafted a community and took a uniform, digital community and infused it with creativity and physicality.  I hadn’t realized the strength and realness embedded in Instagram; most digital communities seem cold and lacking genuine sentiment.  Since watching, I’ve got to admit, I’ve become obsessed – to a certain extent – with Instagram.  I love being able to create and share photos with not only my friends, but also people around the world; being able to explore other worlds and different perspectives on my own world through photographs.

Instagram – and my obsession for it – gives me a little more faith in social media and makes me want to dive into new platforms to see what’s going on! What social media platforms are you obsessed with? What platform inspires you to create, share, and explore?

Social Media Goals: I Didn’t Even Know I Had Any

Over the last few years I’ve given a lot of thought to how I want my social media profiles to look and what message I want them to convey, on both a personal and professional level.  I want profiles to be inspirational, entertaining, and representative of my personality and myself.  Alternately, on a professional level I want my profiles to convey my skills, work ethic, creativity, and motivation.  Ideally I’d like my personal and professional goals to be accomplished on separate profiles; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all profiles I want to keep personal, whereas LinkedIn is ideal for helping me launch my professional development.  Realistically I know that rarely is any situation black and white; I expect that future employers might search for my Facebook to gauge who I am and how I might represent myself as a brand representative on my personal social media profiles.

My social media goals are to maintain social media profiles that are representative of my personal self and my professional self without becoming unbalanced in favor of one self or the other.  I want to be able to have a potential employer to look at my personal profiles and see not only who I am as a person, but who I am as an employee.  I think personality can play a lot into whether an individual fits into a certain firm; if a firm is very serious and buttoned up, someone exuberant and creative might not feel comfortable on a daily basis.  To achieve this, I’ll need a plan. What social media platforms will I use?  Facebook, LinkedIn, and my blog quickly come to mind as bi-purpose platforms.  Twitter, perhaps?  I find this particular platform less open to use as a dual role platform; my general feeling is that a Twitter account is either personal – and contains jokes or comments potentially not suited for work and potential employers – or used professionally as a vehicle for advertising, or to reference industry relevant news and articles.  Pinterest, Instagram, Vine? There’s potential there, although again, my sense is that these platforms may be harder to use to represent two separate, yet intertwined, identities.

There are dozens of other social media platforms out there; if I got creative I might be able to find a way to use each of them for both personal and professional aspirations.  I’m very interested in pursuing a career in either marketing or conflict management for organizations.  I know that any career in marketing will deal heavily in social media and digital advertising, given recent evolution of the marketing industry as part of the digital age; it’s probably about time I start exploring more social media platforms – learning about them, trying them out, and identifying their strengths and weaknesses.

My Online Identity

It was pretty interesting reviewing my social media walls, especially as I searched farther and farther in the past; my usage, habits, and shared identity have evolved pretty significantly. Out of all my current social media sites, I’ve used Facebook the longest. I used to post multiple times a day, typically about mundane daily events or articles I had come across.  Scrolling through my wall, I noticed a significant evolution in my Facebook habits about two years ago; I started posting less and less frequently as time went on.  My more recent posts were about bigger life events (although I still post and share articles or funny pictures) and less about how I’m feeling on a given day.  One thing that hasn’t really changed throughout my Facebook posts is that they typically don’t reveal anything overly personal; I don’t post ‘woe is me’ statuses or super negative statuses.  I always avoid sharing a post when a family member dies, or I experience a life roadblock, rather I try to focus on positive life events – things that I think are worth sharing.  I don’t want all of my Facebook friends to know when I’m going through a rough time because I feel like that’s what my close friends and family are for.

Looking at my other social media pages, I would say I have similar habits but there has been less of an evolution in my habits on these other sites.  On Twitter I’ve always had a ‘day in the life’ kind of posting habit; I tweet quick tidbits about what I’m thinking, where I am, or what I’m doing.  I don’t share many articles or websites on Twitter, instead using the platform as more of a soundboard for where I’m at in my day/life.  Looking through my Instagram and blog were probably the most interesting (a majority of my blog posts are pictures) because the posts on each platform revealed some themes.  Many of my Instagram photos are of nature/food/random weird things/my surroundings; I have very few ‘selfies’ because I prefer to document what’s around me. It got me thinking. I think the biggest reason I avoid ‘selfies’ is because I get to see myself every day; I get to see amazing sights or a delicious new food not as often.  Sharing my surroundings also gives my family and friends a more realistic picture of what I’m up to.  My blog had a slightly different theme.  Like Instagram, it contains many pictures of nature because I love to travel, but it also contains quotes and pictures that evoke emotion or make me think twice.  Overall I would say that I’ve used my blog as a hybrid means of self-development and inspiration.

In thinking about each my social media platforms, it seems that most of my postings convey who I am and who I want to be as a person; they convey my values, things I like to do, and my personality.  Comments on certain posts mean a lot to me, whereas comments on other posts are nice but mean less.  For example, if I post about a personal accomplishment or an interesting article, comments from my friends or family help reaffirm my success, my ability to overcome something, or the relevancy of things I find interesting.

In reviewing my social media postings, I think the main reason I post and share on these platforms is to connect with people I normally wouldn’t be able to connect with – family far away, friends back home, etc.  These platforms offer me a way to stay in touch and maintain a relationship similar to one I would have with them in person.  For example, now I might share a webpage with my college roommate on Facebook because we live on opposite sides of the country.  If she and I were still roommates, I would probably tell her about the same webpage while we were both lounging around; the ability to share it online allows to maintain the relationship we had when we were in the same state.