Building a career in the creative industries can take a long time, even with the many tools available to help with this. Social media is one tool that can help to advance your career quicker if used correctly, which requires changing your approach from a casual social media user to a serious one. This requires many different skillsets.
Different platforms like Facebook and Twitter have particular ways of engaging people. One analogy that sums up the differences comes from Jeff Glasson in a blog from 2008 “Twitter has been likened to a giant party where you know no one but wish to make many friends. In contrast, Facebook would be a wedding reception filled with family and friends” (Tagtmeier, 2015).
With the variety of choices of social media outlets, choosing the platform that is best suited to your purpose requires careful planning. Obviously there is no point directing your valuable time and effort into something that’s not going to reach the right audience. Using the right platform that delivers your content to a large group of the right audience is the best one for you.
There are many different techniques available to deliver content on social media. By trying different methods like videos, blogs and photos you can begin to see the bigger picture by analysing the data generated. This can help determine the demographics, best time of day and what form of medium is most popular with your audience thus helping you to target them better.
Another technique for engaging more people is to broadcast updates on your progress throughout your career. People like to see that you are human and enjoy watching you grow, sometimes even making fool of yourself. Just be careful not to over endorse yourself, constantly reminding people how good you are can be a real turn off. A technique to avoid is to take more time and interest in other peoples careers, offering to help and getting involved in the community projects regardless of whether it pays the bills. The more involved you get the better off you are in the long run, you never know where a lead from networking might take you.
When it comes to my personal situation there is no question that I will be using social media to engage my audience. Starting as soon as possible on social media is essential in learning the intricacies of platforms and how they integrate and interact with each other. In addition, you need a lot of practice and mini skills with social media like photography, photoshop, editing and recording videos.
At a glance social media it not always what it seems. Before this blog I was oblivious to the fact that I had been subject of targeted advertising. I have come to learn that in reality some social media broadcasts are strategically put in place, formed from a data trail left behind. Learning this makes me value analytic tools much more as I know they provide valuable insight.
Before I can start using data analysis more effectively I need to decide what I want to gain from using social media, the top 3 reasons at the moment would be:
To establish and build my organisation and profile;
To update my community with news; and
To get valuable feedback.
To implement these goals I have decided to use; Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Soundcloud, LinkedIn and my personal website . Building up a solid foundation of followers across all platforms takes time and effort but I will be looking at ways of integrating these platforms for future ease. With the reasons and platforms decided upon only the real question remains: Who will be my target audience?
References
Dena, Christy. (2015, March 9). Week 6: Social Media and Your Career. Retrieved from https://medium.com/self-directed-practitioners/week-6-social-media-and-your-career-21ec52b2b003
Tagtmeier, Curt. (2015). Facebook vs. Twitter: Battle of the Social Network Stars. Retrieved from http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/sep10/Tagtmeier.shtml