By Ellie Greenberger
We should treat social media as if we are marketing ourselves, and the truth is, today we are. Most employers look at a candidate’s social media when considering them for a job. We have to make ourselves look appealing.
Most people reading this probably know all of these things. However, if you consider that social media is a method of selling yourself, would it change the images you post?
Think back to when you first got social media. Maybe you were, like me, you got into social media during middle school.
I was in the seventh grade. Scrolling through my old feeds, now I wish I had waited until I was out of all my awkward phases before I started posting. But let’s be honest, if I waited for that to happen, I would never be able to have social media. At the time, I simply thought having social media made me cool. When I dropped a glass jar of spaghetti on my knee, I posted things like “Falling spaghetti jars hurt.” I was definitely not cool.
Today, I like to consider myself a little bit more knowledgeable when it comes to normal behavior. I’ve come to realize that my social media acts as its own private advertisement for myself. There’s a bio that tells a little bit about me, a link to my portfolio, and pictures that show different facets of me all in one place. I am advertising myself, and it isn’t simple.
Often, making a professional social media post is a process.
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First, posted photos should have good quality. One weekend, my friend and I took 50 photos just to find the right one that she would be able to post.
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Then, I edit my photos after the selection process. I have a variety of apps on my phone that allow me to adjust different aspects of photos like saturation, focus, and exposure.
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After the photos have been edited, I spend a while coming up with a good caption. Finding the shortest way to say the cutest thing and often trying to include puns.
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Finally, I have to wait until the right time frame when I know that more people will be looking at social media, so that I can get more likes. When it comes to social media, you can also look into the fact that different social media sites have developed different algorithms to maximize viewership.
This whole process is based on marketing yourself. Instead of selling anything tangible, your goal is to get the most likes and comments possible. I don’t always post my favorite photo, rather I post the photo that will make me look the best. My goal is to show people that you are a good person, not that you take good photos.
Social media is deceptive, and it is not an accurate representation of my life. I show the best parts of myself on social media. I don’t show my most human moments. I don’t show the moments when I am so overwhelmed. I don’t show the moments when I screw up. I don’t show the moments when I am upset. Why would I show you the parts of myself that I don’t like if I get to choose what you see?
Your content as a whole, words and images, should be exactly what you want people to think about you. It is your brand, and brands are formed in the audience’s mind. It doesn’t matter what you think about yourself. It matters what other people think about you. It matters what people think about your image..
One of the most important things to remember when you post to social media is that it is accessible to all different kinds of people. People talk about the fact that writing online takes away the personal interaction. In turn, people get comfortable posting things that they normally wouldn’t and even shouldn’t. While you should always strive to not harm people with your words, there is a chance that if they are said in person that one day they will be forgotten. But if at any point someone can use something you have posted against you, it really can’t be forgotten.
Here is a link for a Her-Campus writer Ashley Surber’s instagram account and my web portfolio: