Friday, January 16, 2015

Missing the Mark with Social Media

Hello all!  And welcome to a (hopefully) glorious new year! Once again, I have resolved not to make any resolutions in my personal life.  In my professional life, however, I have resolved to put a better foot forward.  To that end, I’m once again taking classes—albeit far fewer than I ever did as a full-time student.  While I could attribute my scholarly pursuits to my love of learning (which is actually true), the real reason I’m taking a class on two of Adobe’s sweethearts – InDesign and Photoshop – is to increase my marketability.  We’re just getting started this week, but I’ve got a feeling I’m going to dominate the Adobe suite!

Now that we’re all caught up, on to my main topic.  Now, technically, some of this is a rehash of my last blog.  But…I do what I want…so here we go!

Since starting this blog, I’ve been trying to have a better social media presence.  To that end, I’ve gotten Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.  Of all of these, I probably use Pinterest the most.  Not because I’m welling with untapped crafting potential that just aches for the next do-it-yourself project, but because I love looking at the humor board.  My friend, Niki still shakes her head in disgust that most of the Tumblr posts I read, I find on Pinterest.  She’s correct, it’s an improper use of social media.  Bad me.

I can’t become too concerned over this misuse.  I’ll continue to use Pinterest as I do because I prefer to share funny pieces of our world instead of crafts that pretty much no one (other than my mother) has any intention of doing.  Some of my funnies make me giggle at the antics of others, some make me cringe in horror at where our society is heading, and others make me laugh while bringing a tear to my eye and touching my soul.  Occasionally, I even find content that is both funny and socially conscious.  Most of those are feminist posts that serve to highlight places where society could be doing better, without being (too) militant.  However, one thing that constantly annoys me is when I find uplifting messages, clothing suggestions, or just art on the humor board.  I might like some of what I see, but they have no place on the humor board, gosh darn it!  As these misplaced pins are quickly passed with a swipe of my finger, I don’t go full Hulk, just lift an eyebrow at the audacity of someone’s hashtag ;)

Really, I should use my Tumblr more.  Yet I find so many already amazing things on there, that I don’t know where I could begin to add to it.  Plus, I have no way to create gifs of my own, so I can only write out my thoughts.  Then I find that my thoughts get going and I have a post that’s far too long for Tumblr (or Facebook), and so I come here.  Though, I do have plans for some nerd-rage in the near future in regards to Clara of Doctor Who, and the relationship between Oliver and Felicity in Arrow.  Those rages may show up here as well…but that all depends upon the length of my rant.  Good luck to my non-nerdy readers!

I’ve already discussed Twitter ad nauseum, so I’ll forgo any commentary on that purveyor of 140-character-awesomeness for the moment; and I’ll only say a bit about LinkedIn.  While I applaud what the sight is trying to do, it doesn’t seem to be working for me just yet.  Perhaps I’m not following enough companies, or perhaps I’m not following the right ones.  Either way, the job offers have not been forthcoming.  However, I have been able to follow a couple of companies that I’ve applied for.  I’m kind of hoping that if they see I’m following their company, they’ll know I’m serious about working.  (Which I very much am!!)

I'm sure I'm not the worst culprit of social media mishandling.  However, when it’s all said and done, I’m afraid that there isn’t enough social media in the world to help me when it comes to Google searches.  If one were to search for my name on that hallowed sight (or any search engine for that matter), one would have to search a loooooooooooooooong time to find me.  And one would have to go through at least 3 pages of hits about a porn star before we even enter the realm of possibilities that I’m even close to being on the page.  Oh Internet, thou art cruel.


On that sad note, I shall bid you all adieu.  I hope you all had a happy holiday season, and that--if you made a New Year’s resolution—you’ve been able to stick to it thus far.  Let’s hope 2015 is amazing for us all!

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