I have been working full time in a very competitive environment for almost two years and I the most important thing that I have learned is important networking is. Having a strong skill set will take you far but knowing the right people will ultimately be the most important thing when it comes to finding new opportunities and other jobs.
I have been working on building my network on LinkedIn. I find people that work in the same field as I do to connect with. This is a great tool to meet other professionals woking in your industry. In the short time that I have been on LinkedIn I have already been recruited, although I did not move forward with the interview, so I know that this has the potential to open doors for me.
I also make a point to make myself known within the company that I already work for. I like to get to know all the managers and make myself an important and know part of the company. The important thing is to make myself, my skill set and my role know.
I am a big shopper and Instagram is my favourite way to keep up with my favourite brands. Having a great Instagram page is so important for a brand to interact and provide updates to their customers. I use it to keep an eye out for new releases and ideas on how to use products, also for updates on sales and special promotions. It is a great way for a company to directly market their products to their customers. My two favourite Instagram pages for brand that I think are doing everything right are Dynamite Clothing and Colourpop Cosmetics.
Dynamite’s clothing is not only totally my style, their Instagram is so intriguing to me. I love the aesthetic but I also love how they give me so many ideas for how to style their clothing as well as pieces that I already own. This is a similar reason as to why I love Colourpop’s Instagram page. I love the updates on the releases and collections but I also love the looks they post with their makeup. This not only promotes their products, but giving ideas for how to use the products or how to style the clothing provides a different kind of incentive for customers to buy their product because they can see what they can do with the product.
A direct contrast from Colourpop’s amazing Instagram page, Sephora’s Instagram page is not operating the same way. While they do post frequently about their products and the occasional sale (which is very rare), they don’t go beyond that and post content on how to use the products or how to use different products together. I feel that this is a huge missed opportunity for Sephora.
I have never been great at staying up to date with the news or information in general, but over the past year I have found a few tools to make this easier for me. My favourite tool is Instagram.
As basic as it sounds, Instagram is a great way to stay up to date on information that is relevant to you. You can follow specific pages to receive updates that are specific to your interests. And to receive the most up to date information, you can choose to receive post notifications from any pages that you want.
With it also being one of the most popular social media platforms, there is a plethora of pages with different topics out there. From influencers to news sources, theres something for everyone. Instagram has evolved immensely since its beginning, from a simple photo sharing platform to where many people receive their daily news.
During this course I learned a lot about how important storytelling is in digital posts. I never knew before that the lack of this was the reason why many blogs and articles didn’t grab my attention and I would stop reading. Because our fingers are so scroll happy when browsing the web, our attention needs to be grabbed almost instantaneously if we are to be interested in the post.
Everything that I had learned in the past about essay writing, the five paragraph model, simply does not work for online communication. While it is great for academic writing, the two forms or writing are very different.
It was great to learn not only something new, but something that I feel more comfortable doing.
Right now, I am sitting in my bedroom on day 4 of self-isolation after finding out my boyfriend has tested positive for Covid-19. I have not been able to see another person since and have been spending far too much time alone with myself. However, the silver lining of this unfortunate situation is that I have gotten to know myself very well.
I am pretty cool. I don’t think too critically about life or the world around me but, occasionally I have a funny thought about it and am able to give myself a good laugh. I really like to keep moving and to be honest the walks around my bedroom have just not been cutting it for me. Space is something I will appreciate so much more once I am able to be in the outside world again. My favourite thing to do right is my makeup and to lay out all my clothes and admire them fondly. It really is the little things.
While I am very excited to experience the world and all the people in it once again, I will never again be able to spend this much alone time with myself again. I will cherish this time despite this being the longest two weeks of my life.
I work in a women’s clothing store as a visual merchandiser. This means that I am in charge of floor set and the stores layout. I move product around based on our customers needs and shopping trends. I also have to be very creative when doing my job because the store always has to be visually appealing and shopable for the customer.
I am very good at thinking outside the box when moving clothing around which depending on stock, can be very difficult. I am also very thorough making sure that the store is in the best possible shape. Lately, with Covid-19 causing less stock to becoming in to the store, I’ve had to work even harder and act faster to make changes because things are selling out more regularly.
The way that I have been able to adapt to the changes in business after Covid hit is what makes me stand out. It has made my job ten times harder but I’ve been able to keep up.
Lifestyle bloggers have become very common in social media today. Watching someone live their day to day life has, for whatever reason, become very popular. The target audience of these blogs tend to range across many age groups and genders. Because the bloggers can range across many different age groups and genders.
The lifestyle blogs or youtube channels that I choose to follow have a tendency to be people I can relate to. People that fit into the same demographic as myself. That goes for most people, if they are going to take in lifestyle content, the want to be related to themselves. Other wise the term “lifestyle” doesn’t necessarily apply anymore. Relatability is key when creating lifestyle content and determining your target audience.
Because lifestyle blogging is such a vague idea and concept, everything else will vary from blog to blog. Depending on the blogger and the content that they are creating, the target audience will be different. Who are your favourite lifestyle content creators and what do you like most about them?
This week, in our lesson about becoming a digital storyteller, the most important aspect to me is that practice makes perfect. I feel this way because all of the other elements of becoming a digital storyteller in a way fall under this umbrella of the more you practice it, the better you will get–whether it is your grammar in your writing or being clear and concise or using the inverted pyramid model. The inverted period is what I need to practice the most and what I put the most focus on when doing this assignment.
To grab your reader’s attention immediately while also keeping your writing clear and concise it makes sense to put the most important information in the first couple sentences. Writing online is very different than writing a novel or other forms of storytelling because the reader is for the most part only skimming what they are reading. So the point of the post has to be easily found.
The inverted pyramid model is a very new concept to me and will definitely be what I’ll be putting my biggest focus on in my future blog posts. Hopefully, if I keep practising, I will be able to perfect it. What will you be taking from this lesson to continue practising in your future posts?
Starting a new school year in 2019 was very different for me because of one very specific reason, I wasn’t going back to school. I had made the decision to take the time off to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Along with this decision I found myself deciding to do something totally outside of my comfort zone, go on a solo trip to Greece. Planning trips with other friends had always been a headache and more often than not, they never ended up happening. So, I made the decision that because I always wanted to go and I had more time because I was not in school, now was the time.
On the plane to Athens all by myself!
Because I was so young and I did not know where to go or how to travel on my own, I decided to book with a tour group that I would meet up with upon arriving in Greece. This was another amazing decision because I met a lot of great people and made friends from all different parts of the world.
Me and the friends I made on the trip.
The trip started in Athens, where I got to see all the old architecture and historical monuments in the city. I absolutely love old European cities and one of my favourite parts of travelling is taking in the scenery and seeing all the sites that are so different from back home.
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Next, we hopped on the ferry and started island hopping. Beginning in Mykonos and ending in Santorini, I got to visit some of the most beautiful buildings, streets and beaches I’ve ever seen. It really does look just as beautiful in person as it does in pictures.
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This trip was not only my favourite vacation ever, but it was also the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. Going by myself pushed me to not be the quiet and shy person I normally am and to talk to people and make friends. I loved the experience of travelling by myself with a tour group so much that I had plans to do it again in May 2020 but unfortunately had to cancel due to COVID-19. I will travel again when it’s safe, and I am so thankful for this experience allowing me to grow as a person in a way that I wasn’t able to at home.
You may have noticed a few weeks ago when logging onto Instagram that it was looking a little different. All the usual shortcuts were in different spots, and there was a new feature where you could shop at different stores by clicking where we used to click to check our likes and follows. This is because Instagram launched its e-commerce platform.
I know. Sounds crazy. All we do is complain about ads, and Instagram decided to cut out the advertising and bring us directly to the shopping stage. I love shopping just as much as anyone else, probably more, but that is not what I go onto Instagram for. When Instagram was created it was space for content sharing. Over time it has evolved with different features such as stories and IGTV. These updates, however, still stayed true to its core purpose to share content. Instagram Shop, however, is moving away from that purpose by prioritizing shopping over the activity page.
In my opinion, this change was just too much. What do you think of this new update?
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 