My personal online presence is low profile. I’m not the type of person that feels the need to broadcast my every opinion to the world. I have been on Facebook since the early years but rarely post anything and the only reason I joined Twitter was because it was a class requirement. (I’d like to join Instagram but I know it will be just another platform to waste away the hours scrolling so for now I’m abstaining.) I’m also not one to have a personal blog. I never kept up with a physical diary; I don’t see the need for a digital one.
That being said, if maintaining a social media presence was part of my job, I would approach it differently. In terms of blogging, I try to be professional but inject a certain amount of informality, which allows people to connect and makes me seem like less of a robot (I think). Some of the better blogs that I have seen are visually pleasing and include media such as pictures, GIFs, videos, links, and tags. I have included images and links in some of my posts but if blogging were part of a paid position, I would gear posts more toward a general audience by explaining some basic digital/public history concepts and including more media. Some of the same tweaks could also apply to Twitter. While I have never tweeted (or retweeted) anything, if I had to use Twitter in a paid position, I would make sure that my tweets related to current events as well as historical happenings. Some of the historians and historical organizations that I follow tweet about important issues, while others stick to history. If my position allowed, I would do a combination of both to raise awareness about important matters while also teaching history.
If I needed to promote a digital project, social media would be the best way to do it. I would tweet about it and try to include popular tags. I would also post something on Instagram as well as Facebook. Establishing a sound social media presence would help to promote important projects and would also provide an opportunity to interact with an audience. I could pose a query on Twitter or Facebook and allow people to respond to me. Additionally the nature of social media is that it is interactive. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. allow for likes and comments so just by engaging in social media, I am engaging an audience. If I posted something about a certain topic, the amount of attention it received would determine its popularity and could steer me to explore, research, and post about related topics, thus interacting with an audience.
Exploring New Worlds 