Within the prompt for this week’s process post, I want to outline a plan for integrating other social media channels into my online publication. However, before I go into that, it will be important for me to explain some of my past experience.
A few years ago I wanted to create a social media portfolio that I could highlight to employers. My first exploration into this field was an Instagram fan account called TheFreakForce. For a few years I put a considerable amount of time and effort into building up a following on that account. I posted collage images related to Star Wars and Superhero comic books.
On Instagram, I noticed that not many accounts had high quality captions. Therefore, I put a lot of attention into mine. I used that space to essentially blog about my opinions and journalistically report of nerd/geek culture news. It seemed to be working great for me. I was constantly growing, and was getting a decent amount of interactions.
However, when my original plan for the social media account played out — which was to use the catalogue of posts as a portfolio that I could present to potential employers — I lost interest in the account. Part of it was that I was too busy working the job that the social media account helped me get. Another, was stemmed from the observation that my account was losing steam. Since I was too busy to post regularly, it seemed like my interactions and engagements were lower overall. This was severely discouraging. I felt like it was pointless to try to build it back up, since it could just nosedive again.
With all that being said, this past experience would inform how I conduct myself if I were to integrate other social media channels into my online publication. Previously I would blog in the Instagram caption, but that took a lot of time and effort that could have been spent somewhere else. Social media should be a tool, not the source of your content. Therefore, I would keep my content on platforms like a website and YouTube, and subsequently utilize social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to post snippets that direct attention back to the main source. I believe this to be the most effective and sustainable way to incorporate transmedia integration.
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