How to Build a Better Social Media profile, a Reaction to chapters one through three of "The Art of Social Media"

The initial chapters of Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick’s guide “ The Art of Social Media” provide a relatively comprehensive outline of tips to create a better profile for a social media site or service. The tips ranged from ways to ensure that you have the appropriate profile picture to making sure that you are presenting yourself in a professional manner that is also easy for people to find. These tips were given through the listing of resources and tools that could be utilized in order to build a better profile. However, the thing that struck me as most important in these chapters was the way to provide content to your social media profiles.

When it comes to social media, I am most definitely not the best when it comes to providing my friends with hard-hitting and exciting news and stories on my profiles. I am somewhat present on the facebook, instagram,LinkedIn, and snapchat social platforms, however, I am not an avid publisher or networker on these outlets. For instance, I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve used the story feature on snapchat. I mainly used these platforms as a means of communicating with certain people as well as current events. The main way which I utilize my profile on Facebook is for:

1.      1.  Following news outlets and local events sources as sources for current events

2.       2. Following cooking and recipe sharing profiles

3.       3. Staying in touch with people through Facebook Messenger

My other profiles are not much more vivid or useful to me than Facebook. As a matter of fact, the only profile that I have been actively updating and monitoring is my profile on LinkedIn. The only reason that this platform has taken precedence over my others is due to the fact that I use this resource to network and market myself to potential employers. Regardless of the media platform that I am using, I always seem to have the same problem. What can I put on here that will grab attention and communicate what I want to say? The entire point of social media is to have your voice heard, but I have always been more of the person who has a very quiet profile and just likes things that other people have posted or shared. This is why the portion of the chapters that focused on “feeding the content monster” really reached out to me as a participant in social media.

The book begins by outlining what exactly the “content monster” that you must combat as a social media poster is. This monster is the need to constantly provide some sort of information or news that will draw people consistently to your profile. This spoke to me because this was an area that I struggled in since I created my social media accounts. I was never a highly viewed profile on any platform regardless of how many friends or followers I had. The book then goes on to provide several outlets that could be used as sources of articles or stories to be put on social media in order to maintain interest in your profile. Some of the tools outlined were

1.      1.  Feedly

Feedly is a resource that pulls information and stories off of online sources such as blogs and other outlets and provides them in organized categories. The site allows you to easily navigate through several categories, or to also search for a specific topic or genre to read about. These stories can be uploaded and shared directly on social media sites such as Twitter, Hootsuite, and LinkedIn. This way you can provide articles and readings on subject matter tailored for what you want your profile to reflect.

2.    

 2.  Klout

Klout is a service that provides comprehensive aid when it comes to the strength of your social media profile. They offer not only the service of providing content to be posted on your social media accounts, but also provide a profile analysis. This provides you with an idea of just how strong your online presence is, and provides tips and guidance as to how you can improve your presence.

Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick list several other sources of content that may be used in order to strengthen one’s online profiles, however these two were among the ones that I felt could be most useful to my profile personally. These sites provide content over several categories that are present on the web that can be directly shared on several social media profiles. There are also other services available online that will allow for postings to be scheduled in advance by the user, to ensure that content is always being shared on your social media outlets. The outlines, resources and tips that were provided throughout this section of the book are ones that I could see myself utilizing and would also recommend to others to take into consideration.