What Kind of Content are you Abosorbing Online?

    If you’re like most people, you’ve joined a social media network. You found the platform that you connect to the most. Whether this is because you and your closest friends use the same platform or maybe because you are geared more towards visual stimulation and enjoy videos posted online. If you’ve been online for quite some time now, it may be time to consider what kind of content you are absorbing online. Your homepage feed is your direct connection to how you feel about the platform you use. It’s where you get the most up-to-date posts from the people you follow and suggestions from the algorithm that is also getting to know you. But did you know that you also have control over what kind of content is being presented to you?

    The friends and public profiles you follow are automatically presented on your home feed page. In addition, social media platforms have also started to create their own suggestions of posts they think you will like. These suggested articles are based on all the other posts you have liked and commented on. With their artificial intelligence, they have conjured up new posts for you to see that otherwise, you may not have seen if you weren’t following that profile already. (Malik, 2022) While you’re scrolling your homepage, you may notice that sometimes the things that come up on your feed are not actually pleasing to see. That’s because not everything that happens online aligns with your personal views and values. It may be time for you to take more control over what appears on your timeline.

    While artificial intelligence and the people surrounding you are closely related to what happens in your life, their alignments may not be exactly in tune with your liking. In this case, it may be time for you to redefine what kind of content you are taking in. Are you noticing that as a new post scrolls up on your screen you are already cringing because of the person who posted it? As you’re watching a video play in your suggested post features, do you think to yourself, “I don’t know why this is on my feed?” Or maybe you were just coming to realize that you don’t need to take in all of the different aspects of a social media tyrant from a friend. If these thoughts have come to you, I believe it is time for you to start cleaning up your social media feed on your own.

    There are many ways to help social media platforms dictate what kind of new posts come up on your timeline. If you and a friend, just don’t see eye to eye on politics it may be best to ultimately block this person. If you’re not ready to take those steps, you can “mute” or regulate what kind of posts you see from them. If these kinds of posts are coming up in your suggested post feature, there are ways for you to help the platform understand that you are not interested in that type of suggestion. In the settings of the suggested post, you should be able to select features like “show less of this”, or “I don’t wanna see this in my feed.” (Schwartz, 2022) While not all social media platforms are up to par with this kind of technology it is worth exploring and seeing how it may be helpful to what kind of information you were taking in on your feed on a daily basis.

    If this kind of information is affecting you right now, please comment on the text below and let me know how this goes for you. If there’s a better way to do this on certain platforms, that information is very helpful and possibly could help somebody else as they scroll through their timeline. I wish you happy scrolling and gift you the ability to take more control over what information comes your way.

References

Malik, A. (2022, December 20). TechCrunch is part of the Yahoo family of brands. Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/20/tiktoks-tell-you-why-a-particular-video-appeared-in-for-you-feed/

Schwartz, D. (2022, July 27). Access Denied. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/27/1113932670/instagram-changes-suggested-posts

Our World is Becoming more Digitalized

Nowadays, it is very common to be able to look anything up online. There used to be a time when if you had a question about something or just wondered about a specific topic, you were limited by how you could find out information. I remember growing up and getting knocks on the door to buy the full almanac of yearly information. These door-to-door solicitors were selling brand-name dictionaries so that if your family or friends had a question about, or wanted to learn more in-depth knowledge about a certain topic they could find out easily with these books. It wasn’t but a few years later that these almanacs became obsolete in internet research. (Hui, 2010)

Things have changed, if you have a question or want to look up certain facts about a topic, you can go to an online search engine extremely easily. Here you’ll be able to look up all sorts of information about your wildest fantasies. Any celebrity or world topic will be thoroughly discussed by a multitude of different outlets. While it can seem extremely overwhelming and thoroughly confusing how these groups can keep up so diligently with up-to-date information, news organizations have figured out how to make money and sustain off of this new information. (The Rise of Digital Journalism: Past, Present, and Future, 2021) With the help of advertising and news organizations, they stay diligent on the cultural phenomenon, so that you can get all of the pertinent information you need every day.

 

While it may seem better to sit out it is in your best interest to join this revolution. Posting and publishing your own information online today can eventually one day bring you to finding your own business in what new knowledge is present online. Even if that information is pop cultural reference And specific to a niche category, there is an audience that is seeking your ideas. Everything and anything can be researched online. It is time right now to contribute to the digitalization of new information. So don’t hold back, contribute what you know and add to the development of our collective knowledge.

References

Hui, S. (2010, August 30). Internet may phase out printed Oxford Dictionary. Mint. https://www.livemint.com/Industry/PodIQVreFLnt7HTfQkPwUJ/Internet-may-phase-out-printed-Oxford-Dictionary.html

The Rise of Digital Journalism: Past, Present, and Future. (2021, March 16). Maryville Online. https://online.maryville.edu/blog/digital-journalism/

How to be More Interactive on your Social Media Stories

    So you’ve got your profile completely set up and you figured out how to post on the main feed. Now it’s time to officially utilize the stories feature. This feature was created by the Snapchat team and has been adopted by many other platforms.  This mini post created a way to share “side posts” or “sub posts” with relevant information of your liking. Instead of making a completely public and permanent post, this new feature allowed users to share information that was only obtainable for 24 hours. This kind of feature is now utilized by many different profiles. (Kraus, 2021) Whether you are a huge brand or just a personal profile, this feature can help connect you in a more personal way to your followers.

    For example, the Disney Broadway show Frozen the Musical utilizes the stories feature to give a behind-the-scenes look at backstage views of what is happening at each show. While on the main profile feed, you will find the most polished and branded posts, on the stories feature, you can find a silly video of Backstage’s shenanigans that only happens ever so often and is captured for a short period of time.  (Frozen, 2023) Thinking about the stories in this way shows you how they can be utilized in a more personal fashion.

    If you have already found out the best way to incorporate stories into your profile, then let me help you grow even more. The algorithm that is targeted with the main page is different from the way these stories are promoted. This algorithm is more about how you touch and interact with each story post. (Smith, 2022) If a user holds down the post so that they can read more of the information or to better see the picture posted than the algorithm is triggered to understand that people are interacting with the stories post more often. There are also stickers that can be utilized in poll functions or even a slider option so that an algorithm can understand that people are interested in this post. The more interest a post has than the more the algorithm will promote it to other followers. It may seem silly, but this is how technology on social media platforms works. Instead of getting frustrated by these dumb-down insights, how about leaning into how you can use this information to your advantage? Try adding an interactive sticker to your next story post and see what kind of traction you get. Keep trying different things and eventually, you may find that your post is being interacted with more and then promoted even further.

References

Frozen the Broadway Musical [@frozenbroadway]. (2023, Jan 13). BTS in SAC “Behind the Scenes in Sacramento”. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/CnXsTC6yF1-/

Kraus, R. (2021, October 29). Instagram co-founder admits he took the idea of Stories from Snapchat. Mashable. https://mashable.com/article/kevin-systrom-instagram-stories-snapchat

Smith, M. (2022, March 3). 7 Ways To Use Instagram Stories To Outsmart The Instagram Algorithm. Blogging Wizard. https://bloggingwizard.com/instagram-stories/

"Just Google it"

During the rise of the Internet, many search engines fought it out to be the best search outlet online. They used simple and noticeable branding. For instance "Ask Jeeves" was a popular competitor early on. With its advanced search abilities Google has definitely outlasted the likes of Yahoo and AOL. For these reasons, it’s of best interest to get acquainted with how Google searches work.

(Digital Garage, 2019)

When you develop your webpage or Google listing, be sure to add as much information and details into the SEO (search engine optimization) categories. This is how Google decides which websites and companies will be populated in numerical order on their lists. If someone is searching for something similar to your company and your SEO tags and information match perfectly, then you will populate in a Google search. Google knows that with accurate technology and updated information comes the knowledge that people will come back to their technology again and again. So much so that they have allowed their users to update Google listings as being closed or of able to change the actual work hours of a company. (Suggest Edits to a Place in Search Results - Computer - Google Search Help, n.d.) If you haven’t already, it’s time to update your SEO. Include as much relevant information as you can think of this information as tags or hashtags that seem relevant to your company. Get as specific as possible and add as much information as you can. If your site becomes readily available on Google, you will see an increased volume of traffic to your website. You may even receive new calls and inquiries about your business.

References

Digital Garage. (2019, January 14). Intro to search engine optimisation (SEO). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stHBZGm_hMo

Suggest edits to a place in search results - Computer - Google Search Help. (n.d.). https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9879130?hl=en

 

Your Company Should Be Online

Silly videos and dance trends are not the only things successful on social media these days. Diverse groups of audiences are online every day seeing what is happening, not just one type of person or just one age category but nowadays more and more people are logging on every day to see what is happening online. From the comfortably of their work or home they can see what is happening around the world. Your company can join the conversation. Your brand can get involved in what really matters to your audience.

 

(Statista, 2022)

If you’re a realtor, joining home ownership groups on Facebook, or adding hashtags like "potential new home buyers" to your post, could connect you to your untapped clients. If you’re a local handyman, connecting to other plumbers and contractors, could help line you up with future referrals just by liking and commenting on what they have online. If you’re a new restaurant, engaging other community accounts and chatting with them can get you involved with their events. You could plan and start inviting new customers that have never heard of your restaurant before. You could also feature your employees and the work they do. "Profiling the people behind any business is a great way to humanize the experience for customers." (Austin, 2022)

 

However, you’re choosing to engage online is up to you and your business. Developing a strategy that can be effective is your next step. See what works and see what doesn’t make adjustments and you’ll start to see some growth. Maybe one social media platform like Instagram is better for your audience than another like Facebook. Don’t expect instant gratification instead play a long-run game set a goal for a year or six months and see how that goal turns out and adjust accordingly. The technology involved in social media is changing rapidly, so get involved now and stay above the curve.

Austin, K. (2022). The Guide to Restaurant Social Media Marketing. Toast Tab. https://pos.toasttab.com/blog/on-the-line/examples-of-awesome-restaurant-social-media-marketing

Statista. (2022, July 26). U.S. internet usage penetration 2021, by age group. https://www.statista.com/statistics/266587/percentage-of-internet-users-by-age-groups-in-the-us/

 

 

Your Representation Online is Important

In the early development stages of social media, smaller circles of friends allowed for personal interactions to stay intimate. As popularity grew circles became larger. More people wanted to see what Facebook was all about and why people were discussing it so much. "In December, 2009, Facebook hits a major milestone. With 350m registered users and 132m unique monthly users, it becomes the most popular social platform in the world." (Boyd, 2019) Fast forward to a time when your boss is now online and they will most likely search for you on social media in the hiring process. Remember those party pics from the bachelor party, it may be a good time to take those down.

Professional boundaries have been established online and more observance of how you are acting is happening. If you’re at the beginning early stages of your career, this may be a good time to assess what your profile looks like. Companies now are referencing someone’s credibility and how they act in the world based on their online presence. Some people may be easily scrutinized for insensitive materials they have posted. These materials may have once seemed funny and relevant, but now can feel insensitive and demeaning. 

The social media site, LinkedIn specializes in professionalism and is a place to go if you are looking for new work and connections to the industry. There is a potential to lead to great career paths by logging on and creating a resume and account that seems approachable and unique. "95% of recruiters are on LinkedIn looking for the right job candidates." (Baes, 2022) So if you haven’t already, now is a great time to reassess your presents online and figure out how you can represent yourself to the fullest of your nature. Start off by simply creating your profile and answering the general questions. As time goes by and you feel more acquainted with Facebook and LinkedIn you can hopefully take full advantage of the opportunities presented by these resources. This is still social media, so try your best to represent yourself as you would in the real world, and how you would communicate naturally. Just don't forget, the internet is forever.

References

Baes, H. (2022, October 25). How to Get Recruited on LinkedIn + Tips from Recruiters. Jobscan. https://www.jobscan.co/blog/recruiters-find-linkedin/

Boyd, J. (2019, January 25). The History of Facebook: From BASIC to global giant. Brandwatch. https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/history-of-facebook/