During this past semester, I have had the opportunity to develop my personal brand and online presence. Social Media is an easy way for future employers, or customers to view the people they are interacting with. Because of this, having a professional and interesting media presence is very important. Establishing my brand throughout this course was often difficult, but very rewarding in the process. I was able to learn the importance of an easy to find brand name, as well as using social media to connect with people all over. I learned about a social media outlet useful for job searches, LinkedIn and was able to curate the accounts on other platforms that I currently had. 

The first task I dove into was making sure my Instagram profile looked professional, as well as demonstrate my talents in marketing for companies. To do this I changed up my bio to how where I was located and included the link to the profiles of the business account I am currently managing. I then also changed my profile image to a more recent photo. I discovered the importance of having consistent hashtags created specifically for your brand and related to the post. This helps new people discover your profile, and with the Instagram algorithm, I noticed the hashtagged photos received more actions than those without. For example, I used the trending hashtag “Thanksgiving” and “Black Friday” on a photo and it received more likes and comments than the one I posted without. During one of the Hootsuite lessons, they briefly talked about the benefits of setting up an Instagram profile as a business account. I did this and discovered easy ways to curate my feed. The setting revealed that I have more actions on my posts if they are presented on Mondays and Saturdays, between 9-11pm. Another demographic it gave was the age bracket my account attracts. By learning this I was able to curate feed that targets that age best. My following grew from 545 to 700. I am really happy about the profession I was able to make. My strategy for the future is to receive more conversations on my feed. I would like to be talking more to my followers as well as hear from them. To do this, I plan on using the Instagram story aspect to create polls and questionnaires. I noticed that when I did this in the past I got a lot of informative responses based on what my followers enjoyed. 

Twitter is a very popular media outlet. It is an easy way to get and receive tons of information, as well as connect with businesses and future employers that have similar interests. I have avoided Twitter in the past because I haven’t had a large interest in it. However, for this class, I set up an account, and have been amazed at the information I was able to learn. One thing I discovered was twitter is an easy and effective way to quickly give out information. I have found that Twitter is an easy way to reach out and connect with creators. Because I started fresh, at the beginning of this semester I had zero twitter followers, now I have 25. I know that’s not a large number but to me it’s a good start. As I go forward I am going to continue to follow accounts related to my industry, as well as tweet out information with topic related hashtags in order to reach that demographic. 

Above are the before and after images of my account. There is a username change and that if because I wanted my username to match the one I had on Instagram, and because of a hack, I had to recreate my account. 

Personally, I found Facebook one of the more difficult accounts to grow. During this process, my following only grew from 270 to 280, which isn’t much. After looking through my analytics, I discovered most of my following was older than the age group I had on my other accounts. Because of this, the posts on my Facebook performed less. So to change this I discovered the type of content that interested my following most by looking at the demographics on Facebook. I discovered my following prefers to see images related to my work. So with that information most of my future posts were related to the photography I do on the side. I noticed with this activity I received a larger reaction count plus more followers. This has been a great way to get my photography name out and I have received several paid shoots because of this.   

(above is the before and after.) As I continue with Facebook, my plans are to stick with posting my work, post more frequently, and to engage more with my Facebook friends in the comments. 

At the beginning of the semester, we did an assignment where we Googled our name to see what information was out about us online. When I originally searched my name the only thing that would show up as images of other people, and an article of a prison record for someone else that had my exact name. This time around, the first thing that pops up is my Instagram and Pinterest account link, and several photos of me. 

Overall, during the course of this semester, I have been able to apply tactics like creating a content calendar, or posting schedule to grow my brand on multiple platforms. One of the most useful things I have learned was that using an app or website like Hootsuite, will really help in keeping multiple accounts organized, focused, and easier to manage. My plans moving forward are to continue creating my brand and establish an online presence that attracts a community of people that have a passion for creating.