Ep. 6 Hey, what’s your social?
Hey nice to meet you! I’m Desiree Jones or Dez for Short and welcome to the podcast that teaches you how to establish your network and maintain relationships both on and off your screen.
Today’s Topic? Hey, what's your social? Networking on Social Media
Social Media is officially an outlet and tool to communicate. How we communicate varies on different platforms but the act of networking remains the same. It’s another way to connect and promote who you are in various forms and connect with people in different ways.
BOOK OF THE DAY!
Reading is fundamental, and it’s very important to continue to make it a habit. If you prefer audio books that’s fine, but something about the touch of a book and the flip of a page just brings solitude to the mind. So with that, today’s book I’d like to shout out first is….
Call Us What We Carry by: Amanda Gorman
Hey, what’s your social?
So let’s talk about social media. What is social media?
Here’s my basic definition:
Social media is the utilization of the internet and tech platforms used to create and promote information in different ways. It is the merge of society and technology to facilitate community on the internet. How community is facilitated and promoted is expressed in different ways. You had platforms like MySpace and Facebook (now named Meta) where people could post pictures, and wrote about how they felt on any given day which at the time was farely new. Then you had platforms like Youtube where you could post any type of videos and anyone around the world could view, comment and share it.
Then you had social media platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram that are catered to specific types of content. Tumblr was more of a blogging platform, Twitter is platform where you could sum up how you’d feel straight from the dome in very few words that have a massive impact. Instagram was at first just a place to post pictures and descriptions of pictures without the thought of how pretty they looked. To anyone who remembers Vine which was like TikTok before TikTok existed..it was where you posted videos that were under 30 seconds. That was a great time. Then Snapchat where I remember when it first came out you could take a quick snap of what was happening through just photos at that time and it would delete right after. Fast Forward to today, most of the platforms I mention have some form of another platform and overall is a space where anyone and everyone can be social to the world by creating content of any type.
So being that I’m a Zillennial - but mostly a Millennial - m generation was the generation that knew what it was like Before social media existed and it was our generation that began adapting to different platforms as soon as they started to get rolled out. I would consider the Millennials to be the guinea pigs of social media because we were on a variety of different platforms and slowly picked and choosed the ones we liked just based on what worked for us as we were growing into society.
So technically I think it’s safe to say Millennials are the generation that helped shape the world of social media. For Gen Z that’s all y'all really know so it’s become a part of the identity of who you are. Which in my opinion is okay, but it’s also important to remember that social media is a TOOL used to promote what you put out into the world. Social media does not define you, it only amplifies the part of you that you wish to display to the world.
So when networking, keep in mind that what you put out to display, will be used as a way to identify who you are to others. So while I can go on and on about social media because I am a content strategist and a video editor which are two very highly skilled roles that help shape the identity of a brand for social media, which I’ve been doing for several years this podcast is about networking. And networking on Social media can be a bit tricky because each platform has its own style of communicating.
Now there’s also certain platforms that are better for networking and connecting for different reasons.
Professional Social Media Platforms
LinkedIn, Slack, and now Twitter
Casual Social Media
Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, TikTok and also Twitter
If you have a business on a casual social media page, then that would be considered a professional social media page.
For me, because I’ve branded myself as a content strategist, video editor, and unapologetically creative most if not all of the platforms I use are professional.
So If the person you’re connecting with is more on the professional side, give them your professional social media page. If they’re more casual, give them your casual social media page to connect on.
The only casual ones I often use are Instagram and TikTok. TikTok is my favorite platform because honestly it’s the most authentic. People are real with their life, real with their experiences, and real with their chaos of life. And ironically during the pandemic I believe it was an outlet for a lot of people to express themselves in a way they probably haven’t before. And not only that the content made on TikTok transcends to other platforms too high made it that much more powerful.
It’s funny because when I first started my TikTok I had 0 followers and now I’m currently at 11k and almost 1 million Likes. I just used to post what was just happening in my life and what I think was a representation of me and how I felt some days, and as a content strategist I played around to see what worked and what didn’t work. The algorithm is wild though. That’s all I’ll say on that. I may have a workshop that goes over all of this in the future so if that’s something that may interest you follow me @thebookofdez on IG for future updates. I think that would be fun.
Then it all went left
So this is a segment where I talk about a situation that went terribly left but led to the right path.
And because we’re talking about social I’ll give you an example of when it all went left with social:
So a time when things went left with social actually relates to a TikTok I made in the past.
I posted a TikTok during award season. So Award season in Hollywood is when they have the SAG Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars and Grammy’s all around the same time at the beginning of the Year. So me being me, and Black, I was rooting for everybody black so I was like oohh lemme find that clipof Issa saying I’m rooting for Everybody Black.
Mind you, at this time I was working part time at Home Depot at the time so TikTok for me was a place I could just be goofy and post content that fit my mood. So I posted it late at night and the next morning I wake up to over 100,000 likes and thousands of comments on my page.
So I’m like, what is going on, and I realized people loved it but then there were others…who thought differently. Some people agreed other people thought it was racist and there was a whole debate for like a week on this and the views and likes kept rising. But it also got bad because there were a lot of trolls who would then start to comment under all my other videos and even sarted migrating over to my other platforms trolling me. It was pretty scary honestly. And then when I tried explaining myself it just got worse so there wasn’t really a point to do it, but it was just baffling to see the amount of love and hate for a 15 sec post.
I didn’t want to have stockers so I cut off the comments and just stopped posting for a while.
The video is at over 2 million views but the comments are still turned off.
What did you learn?
When should you follow up with someone if you’ve already talked with them?
Outro:
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