Storytelling is important when creating great digital content because without a story, you’re just throwing information out there hoping someone will hold on to it or even be interested in it. But if you have a story, people are more inclined to read what you have to say and to have an opinion about it. Content is guided by storytelling because it gives the information you’re saying a direction and a purpose.
The kinds of stories I want to tell are all about what I’ve learned in this course, I want to share this information with people so they are informed about what social media really is. What’s the purpose of social media? Why are we addicted to it?
Throughout this course, I’ve learned about a number of things such as communication styles, the inverted triangle, target audiences, B2B & B2C and lastly, personal brand.
There are four types of communication styles; passive, passive-aggressive, aggressive and assertive. Most brands will choose to use a passive or assertive communication style with clients because they have more chances of getting through to clients when using this approach.
The inverted triangle method is saying your most essential information first, your additional information second and lastly, your least important information. You should use this because if someone gets bored in the middle of your post/blog, they’ll have at least read your most pertinent information.
Next, B2B vs B2C meaning business to business vs business to consumer. These are two different company work methods you can use when doing business. Both have pros and cons but it’s up to you to see which benefits most your company.
Lastly, personal brand. Personal brand is the way you present yourself online and this is how other people will see you as well. How you present yourself to the world online, is how people will see you in real life so it’s a very important part of having a social media identity.
The question I chose for this assignment is ‘Who am I? What do I do?’. I chose this question because I feel like introducing myself to you and what I do.
Who am I?
My name is Madison and I live in Quebec City, Qc. I’m 18 years old and I recently moved into my own apartment. I did gymnastics until the age of 12 years old but I sadly had to quit because I caught mononucleosis. I have a dog, a golden retriever and he’s the nicest most cutest dog ever.
What do I do?
I personally don’t own a business but I would like to start one in the near future. For now, I work at ZARA, a clothing brand with over 2000 stores worldwide.
I work in stock in the back of the store. One of the things I have to do is a ’25’ which consists of pulling clothes from the stock onto a clothing rack and every hour. I have to do this because every item that is sold in stores, I have to pull out the same item from the stock and put it back on the floor of the store in the same colour and size it was sold in.
Other than my job, I do photography. I have tried to start a small photography business in the past but it’s failed miserably because I didn’t care to do the work that was needed to get it to take off. For now, I photograph my friends and I once in a while and still get a thrill from it.
Personal brand is an extremely important aspect of having an online presence. It’s important to maintain this crucial aspect for yourself or your business to keep a steady flow with everything.
Some personal qualities of mine are that I’m a perfectionist, I’m organized and I also have a very rich creative side. As to characteristics, I pay close attention to detail, I’m adaptable, I’m diligent and intuitive.
Some things I’ve done lately to make myself stand out is try to pay a closer attention to certain details on projects I’m working on. I’ve also been trying to have a more positive outlook on life and work to help me do better on these projects. I’m very proud of myself for working on these aspects of my life for me. I’m bettering myself everyday for the better of not only me, but my employers and my jobs.
My colleagues would say my best trait is my adaptableness and versatility. I’m great at adapting with any situation that comes my way and I’m very versatile meaning I can work on a large range of different projects and concepts.
The things I do that make me most proud of myself are how positive and outgoing I am. Also, the fact I give my all into everything that I do. I always give 110% because I always want to make sure the work I do is the absolute best I’m able to do.
My case study is going to focus on French Boulevard which is a small Quebec owned brand. This company is fresh on the market and it’s a refreshing black-owned brand. Since they are new in the industry, they promote their clothing by word to mouth but more importantly, online.
Having an online presence in this day and age is important especially since times are hard during Covid-19, this is a helpful way to stay afloat. Their name, French Boulevard is due to the fact that the owner, is originally from France, Europe hence the name; French Boulevard.
They sometimes engage with their fans on their Instagram page in the comments, in DM’s and more. They do multiple photoshoots to show off their new apparel and it brings a nice flow to their Instagram feed.
I do feel like they could do a better job at interacting with their fans to encourage the B2C method. Especially for a small brand like them, it’s crucial they keep up their online presence to keep their fans intrigued to see what they’ll drop next. Owning a brand is a lot of hard work but it’s worth it in the end. You have to invest everything in your brand and use every tip, trick and tool at your disposal for a better outcome.
I feel like by promoting their products more and by interacting with their fans more, they could really kick start their company and earn a name for themselves in the industry.
Target audiences are simply who your company/products are advertised and made for. For example, a baby clothes store won’t advertise their products to young teenagers because that simply wouldn’t make sense, they would advertise to adults because that is their target audience.
One of my main personal interests are photography, but since photography is such a vague topic, specifically VSCO. This social media platform is basically Instagram but simpler and easier. On VSCO, you can share pictures you took on your profile, but people can only follow, like and repost your pictures. There are no comments and it’s impossible to see how many followers or likes someone has. You are the only person who can see who liked your pictures and it shows you the names of the profiles but not the amount of likes/followers.
VSCO is also an editing software for pictures, personally I pay an annual fee of around 30$ to get all of the filters and editing tools, but it is free to edit and share pictures. The membership is called ‘VSCOX’ and since I love photography and take pictures regularly, I love using this app just as much as other social media.
Moving on, the target audiences for VSCO are anybody who enjoys taking pictures but I would say it’s directed more towards teenagers and young adults. Since, VSCO doesn’t let you see the amount of likes and followers, plus it doesn’t let you comment, I find it’s a less stressful and more enjoyable platform to be on rather than Instagram, for example.
Recently, VSCO added editing software for videos. In my opinion, this was added to attract videographers as well to the app. They did this successfully too, because on my feed, I now see as much videos as photos which is a fun aspect instead of always seeing pictures. People have really found interesting ways to make captivating videos and it’s really fun to see what people come up with.
This week, I’ve learned lots about all the different kinds of storytelling, communication styles and the kinds of interactions that are encouraged with your audience.
There are many different methods of communication and storytelling, through oral communication, narrative storytelling as well as music and dancing storytelling. It started with oral communication that then evolved into drawings in caves as a way of storytelling, which turned into people expressing themselves through music and dancing. Many thousands of years later, writing emerged as the new and evolved way of communicating. This was better because it allowed stories to be shared to many more people and it could also be transported. Lastly, many more years later, the invention of the printing press allowed stories to be shared even further and faster than ever before. Fast forward to the 21st century, the web now allows anyone with an internet connection and an electronic device to share information and have it reach the other side of the world in seconds.
There are many ways to develop your very own communication style online, I will name just a few.
To start off, clarity and conciseness which means saying what you have to say by being as clear as you can be in the shortest word span possible. This is due to people having a very short attention span online. This means you have to say what you have to say in the shortest and clearest way possible to keep the reader’s attention.
Next, grammar, spelling and punctuation are also a necessary aspect in developing the perfect, eye catching post. If for example, you work for a news station and you make Twitter headlines with news with grammar mistakes, you’d make your news station look unprofessional. Grammar, spelling and punctuation are a vital part of social media posts especially in a professional setting.
To follow, we have passive vs. active voice which is the tone you choose to have on social media. A big mistake most people make is always using a passive voice and since using an active voice is more interesting to most readers, this is where a lot of people lose their audience.
Lastly, practice makes perfect which is simply to continue practicing all these methods to better yourself and improve your communication and storytelling skills.
My last vacation was certainly my favourite for lots of different reasons and I’ll tell you all about them right now.
My last vacation ended right at the start of Covid-19. I went to Florida on February 28th 2020 until March 14th 2020 with my family and best friend. Not only that, but on our way to Florida, I met up with an internet friend of mine and it was a one of a kind experience.
The vacation started with my family and I driving up to Hartford, Connecticut and sleeping at a hotel for one night. It was on this night that I met up with my internet friend. My friend and I had been talking, facetiming and texting for over 3 years and we finally got the opportunity to meet up. We were really shy at first but we quickly got to talking and it was as if we’d known each other forever.
My internet friend and I, our first time meeting.
Next stop, the airport to get to our final destination: Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. The plan was my family and I were going to spend one week alone and my best friend was coming to meet us a week into the vacation.
The flight from Hartford, CT to Sunny Isles Beach, FL
During my first week, we went to a restaurant called Duffy’s. This is one of my dad’s personal favourite when we go to Florida because there’s countless televisions since it’s a bar and grill, but most importantly, it’s on the water and some people come to eat at this restaurant by boat. There’s a pier where people can park there boats, come to eat and head back home by boat. It’s really impressive to see just how much money some people have.
The view from the patio of Duffy’s Bar & Grill
My favourite part of the vacation was when my best friend came and joined us for the second week. When he arrived, we went shopping at Walmart and bought tanning creams and all the essentials for a beach vacation. He had never been to Florida and it was fun to see him discover the place I spent a month out of every year at.
Every day, we tried to make a plan for the day, whether that was going to the beach, going shopping or simply relaxing. Some of my favourite days were when we went to big malls such as Aventura Mall and Sawgrass Mills. Aventura Mall is more of a luxurious place with all the luxury name brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and more. As of Sawgrass Mills, “(…) it is the eleventh largest mall in the United States (…)” as cited on Wikipedia.org. Another impressive place we visited was the Miami Design District which is not somewhere middle class people like us would normally be seen shopping. This district is strictly big name brands accompanied with high price tags. It was especially impressive to see the kind of people who did have the income to actually shop there.
In conclusion, this was simply an amazing vacation and I’m extremely grateful to have had this opportunity. Let me know if you guys have any internet best friends. Also, comment which destination was your favourite vacation.
Juice Wrld and XXXTentacion are legends in the music industry but sadly, they both passed away. Although both died very differently, they contributed enormously in the industry.
Juice Wrld’s government name is Jarad Anthony Higgins and he died at the young age of 21 years old. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and moved to Los Angeles in October 2017. He learned piano, guitar and drums early in life and later started to take his music more seriously his sophomore year of high school. He first started releasing music on SoundCloud, but it was after joining ‘Internet Money’ that he rose to fame. He was signed to Interscope Records for 3 million dollars in 2018.
His first big song to blow up was ‘All Girls Are The Same’ after producing a music video for it. This video now has over 167 million views on Youtube. Juice Wrld spent over 688 weeks on the charts on 67 different charts. That’s extremely impressive and he is now considered a legend in the music industry.
But Juice Wrld didn’t just have an impressive track record, the way he touched so many people over the world is also a milestone. For him to be able to reach so many people is really something to be proud of. Unfortunately, Juice Wrld passed by overdosing on December 8, 2019 when he was only 21. Many have conspiracies that he faked his death but I believe he really did pass away and he’s resting in peace.
XXXTentacion’s government name is Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy and he died when he was only 20 years old. XXXTentacion had a difficult childhood which landed him in a juvenile detention center. It was at this juvenile detention center that he met his rapper friend Ski Mask The Slump God.
XXXTentacion was accused of multiple crimes and even went to jail. This didn’t change the fact that he was a very versatile artist with many different genres of songs. One of his songs titled ‘Jocelyn Flores’ is about one of his best friends who committed suicide. They were living together at the time and after telling him she had to go back home in Ohio, she unfortunately decided to end her life and XXXTentacion has expressed this made him suicidal. This song now has over 548 million views on YouTube.
XXXTentacion was killed in a robbery on June 18, 2018 just outside a motocycle shop in Florida. I find this extremely sad because he was just rising to fame and everybody loved him. He was shot multiple times before eventually being pronounced dead.
XXXTentacion now has a huge memorial in Boca Raton, Florida where people visit him everyday. Fans gather and sit around while playing his songs paying tribute to him and his work. He is considered a legend gone too soon.
By definition on Oxford Languages, feminism means ‘the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.’ This statement rings true in every form.
Feminism has been ignored and put to the side for too long and it’s time for a change. It’s long overdue and I believe that everyone in the world should be a feminist and I’ll tell you why.
A lot of people nowadays hear the word ‘feminist’ and think, I will never be a feminist it’s a stupid, sexist movement. This is because men-hating women ruined the word and title by saying the complete opposite of what the movement was originally made about; equality. All we want is to be seen and treated as equal to men.
All most feminists want today, is equality. From the latest pay gap studies in Canada, women still earn less than men at 87 cents to every 1 dollar a man makes. Which is completely absurd to me. It’s infuriating and insulting to me and women in Canada.
Women’s marches have been going on for a very long time. A huge women’s march happened in 2017. This march was in Washington D.C. with 470,000 people in the streets of Washington D.C. Most people wore pink and since it was extremely cold being that is was on January 21st, 2017, it was winter, and a lot of people wore pink hats. It looked like a pink wonderland.
This was said on Wikipedia about the 2017 Washington D.C.’s women’s march.
The Women’s March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Tensions rose due to his statements, considered by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive.
This makes a lot of sense considering Donald Trump has made countless derogatory statements about women over the years. Anyways, this article is to bring awareness to the movement not talk about Donald Trump.
This was written on a blog post titled, ‘History and theory of feminism’
According to Maggie Humm and Rebecca Walker, the history of feminism can be divided into three waves. The first feminist wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second was in the 1960s and 1970s, and the third extends from the 1990s to the present. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements. It is manifest in a variety of disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history and feminist literary criticism.
Like I said earlier, feminism has been around for a long time and overtime, has evolved into what it is today. It has helped get us where we are today but sadly, we are not done fighting. We still are getting paid less, we are still getting catcalled, we are constantly being sexualized, and some men still see us as sex objects.
As a society it’s crucial we work on this together and make this a priority. I know with everything going on right now it can be hard to prioritize women’s rights. Wrong. Women’s rights are human rights, and this should’ve been dealt with and over a long time ago. Sadly, our society is filled with misogynistic men and we still have a long way to go.
I know coming from a white woman it may look like I ‘m only talking about white women or ignoring how belittled women of color are constantly being. But when I say women, I mean ALL women. Black, Asian, Indian, Native, Hispanic and White women. We are all in this together and now is the time to make a change. We are stronger together and I believe we can get through this and finally get all the basic human rights we deserve.
We all came from a woman and people treat us like the world could function without us. There wouldn’t even be a human race without the reproductive system of a woman and the sperm of a man. We created the world together and it’s absolutely absurd that we aren’t treated as equal.
The movement called ‘BLM’ short for Black Lives Matter is a very important movement going on right now. If you don’t support this movement, here’s a couple reasons and examples of why you should.
Obviously, the Black Lives Matter movement has a long history so I’m definitely not going to be going over everything. But I do want you to understand crucial moments in this movement and how it has become one of the biggest movements ever.
This movement originally started in 2013, when Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old teen from Florida was shot and killed on February 26, 2012 for no apparent reason. He was shot by a neighbourhood watch member; George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of all charges on July 13, 2013. I want you to imagine going to your local 7/11 to buy candy and ending up getting shot and killed. Trayvon Martin was doing exactly that, and it cost him his life. There were protests and petitions, but Trayvon and his family still don’t have justice to this day. This is what sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Black Lives Matter movement was created by three black women named Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. The phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ inspired the movement after Alicia Garza first said it in a Facebook Post.
Since then, the hashtag has gained more and more popularity with more than 47.8 million tweets from May 26 to June 7, 2020. Especially since George Floyd, another innocent black man was killed by police by standing on his neck for 7 minutes. This sparked nationwide outrage and protests all around the United States. Now, there have been protests all around the world demanding justice for George Floyd and a change in the justice system. Other demands from protesters were to get rid of systemic racism and to defund the police.
During the 2020 protests for George Floyd that were going on all around the world, it was estimated that approximately 15 million to 26 million people showed up and that only in the United States. This is the reason that Black Lives Matter is one of the biggest movements in the US.
As you know, protests aren’t always peaceful but the riots that happened during the protests were mainly started by police. Below are pictures of police attacking peaceful protesters. You can see the protesters aren’t provoking them or doing anything wrong, but the police are still attacking them. Spraying them with huge amounts of pepper spray, restraining them and worst of all, shooting them with rubber bullets.
Black Lives Matter isn’t just a small movement that was happening on the news. Social Media helped the movement grow tremendously. One artist, ‘Lil Baby’ even made a song about police brutality and it now has over 70 million views on Youtube. When you listen to this song, you can really put yourself in their shoes and imagine what life is like for black people. He has one line in this song that really hit hard for me; ‘I find it crazy the police’ll shoot you and know that you dead, but still tell you to freeze‘ I find this line extremely sad because it’s true. This is the reality of the world we live in right now.
Sadly, there has been hundreds more like Trayvon, who were targeted just because of their skin color. Racism has been around for as long as we can remember, and some might think it doesn’t exist anymore, but it is still very much alive.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 