My History With Social Media

As you may, or may not, know, I’m a bit of a web junkie. Being a millennial and growing up with social media, it ultimately became an integral part of my everyday life. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of my time in several online communities, and building my personal and professional profiles.

After spending so much time on social media, I pretty much have a profile on damn near every site you can think of. With my obsession to dominate the Internet market for my name, you can pretty much find me on any site as @desimslaughter. Depending on the site, I may be using it regularly, or I may have only used it for about 30 minutes and there’s not much to see.

The biggest problem became that I’d barely been using them because of digital overload. I really hit a wall with a huge lack of inspiration and motivation that lead me to take a very long sabbatical from posting any meaningful or original content at all. Having been stuck on that page for far too long, with the launch of this blog, I’ve decided to be more intentional about how I use my platforms

After all, I can only build my empire by creating content and sharing my knowledge. It is the foundation of building my reputation and influence as a thought leader in my field.

One of the biggest decisions that I have made for my social accounts was to immediately hop off of the follow-for-follow train to clean up my feeds. Over the years of social habits changing, I have accumulated quite a list of people that I am following — some for no reason at all, and some I have outgrown. This means that, naturally, I will be unfollowing and removing quite a few people from my following and follower lists across accounts to be more thoughtful about who I connect with.

Based on that, I’ll only be adding people and accounts within my “sphere of influence.” For example, since I am a creative professional, solopreneur, and digital creator that live in Michigan while working in branding and marketing, I am more likely to connect with other creators, solopreneurs, and professionals within my field and located in the midwest. With that being said, don’t take it personally if you happen to be one of those people removed, your posting habits may not line up with what I’d like to see in my feed daily.

How I Plan To Use My Social Accounts

In my return to the digital world, my goals include building my reputation and thought leadership by giving value through my posts on social media. To do this, I plan on posting more content and interacting more with people online.

The game of social media is a give-and-take relationship.

As I reflect on how to reach those goals, the way I use my social media accounts is going to change to be more intentional so that I’m not spreading myself too thin.

Although, as I previously mentioned, I do have a profile on pretty much every social media platform out there, in reality, I can be present in all of those places. Knowing that I plan on focusing my efforts on a small group of platforms that I think will be most relevant and beneficial.

Read on to find out about the platforms I plan to use most while online.

Most Used Social Accounts

Below is a list of the platforms on which I’ll likely be spending most of my time online.

Facebook Profile: 

My Facebook Profile is going to be a personal space for me to communicate with family, friends, and associates that I have connected with in life.

Here you will find memories, experiences, and life just the way it happens for me. I may also share accomplishments and things that I am currently doing or working on.

If you are unfriended, please don’t take it personally; I have plans to make this a more closed space.

Facebook Page: 

This is where you will see me spend most of my time on Facebook. I will be posting more promotional self-updates and other endeavors.

Here, you can expect to see posts about things I am doing, loving, and thinking about, as well as edutainment-based content relating to personal branding, technology, and lifestyle.

If you haven’t liked my page Desi M. Slaughter yet, please do!

LinkedIn:

Networking properly is work. Otherwise it would be called Netplaying. LinkedIn can assist greatly.

Steve Bernstein, “How I use Linkedin – Offensively and Defensively”

Over the years, how I use LinkedIn has changed in many ways. I can remember feeling nervous and being really anal about what I was going to put on my profile when I first created it. My profile has always been set up to highlight my professional and academic experience. Whenever I was in the thick of job searching, I made sure to update my profile so that people could find me and quickly get a sense of who I am and what I offer.

Now, after learning more that LinkedIn is far beyond just being a professional networking site. Although I do still use LinkedIn for networking (of course), it has pretty much become a collection of people who I’d like to keep tabs on and know about in my professional life. I am part of the group of people with the opinion that it’s best to network and add people on LinkedIn when you are genuinely connecting and don’t need anything from them.

Beyond networking, I use it to build awareness for my personal brand, find a job when needed, read interesting content, research, and learn soft skills. My biggest goal with LinkedIn is to interact with top people in my industry, stay in touch with people I’ve connected with, and understand people’s thought processes through their content.

Instagram: 

Ahh, the golden child! My Instagram account serves as an extension of my personal brand and blog. I’ve had my Instagram profile set up as a Creator account for quite some time, but I haven’t been using it as much as I should. My profile has had many focuses over the years, but the ultimate goal has always been to grow my personal brand and online presence.

As I move forward, I plan to use my profile as a “microblog” for sharing everyday things that don’t warrant an entire blog post. In most cases, I will share a mix of photos and graphics dealing with branding, technology, food, and everyday life. Regular posting will mostly take place in my stories. When it comes to my feed, visually, I want the content that I post to look cohesive with my overall brand, so I plan to put some real effort into the layout.

Whenever I scroll through my social feeds, it’s not always the pictures that catch my attention, but what is said in the captions and comments. My captions often serve as a context and a starting point for discussion in the comments when I post. Sometimes, this means I will have longer captions than some, but it is usually something pretty quick to read. Additionally, I make it a habit to interact with other people’s posts by commenting and interacting rather than just scrolling through them. Even though interaction on Instagram is among the easiest ways to get your profile seen, I also enjoy creating discussions in the comments. I’ve been doing so more recently since I want my posts to receive the same kind of interaction.

Twitter: 

My Twitter Profile is going to be a space for me to chat and network. Here you will find that I will post short-form updates on things that I know and like, my blog, my life, movies or shows I’m watching, current events, and other trending topics. 

I may also share accomplishments and things that I am currently doing or working on, as well as have the occasional rant or two about randomness.

YouTube: 

I haven’t really gotten deep into the world of YouTube yet, but soon I’ll start creating and releasing video content on my new channel “Branding, Tech & Life with Desi”. My channel will feature lifestyle, foodie, nerdy, creative, and sometimes commentary content.

Subscribe to my channel and stay tuned for more!

Final Thoughts

There are many other platforms that I haven’t even mentioned yet, but the platforms listed above are the most important to highlight. And those are just my personal accounts! I also have separate social media profiles for my other brands and blogs. (Learn more about my other ventures here.) Besides my own profiles, I also participate in several online communities such as Facebook Groups and weekly Twitter Chats.

If you are interested in food, creativity, freelancing, Apple products, WordPress, tech, #BlackGirlMagic, what’s new in my life, or just like to be social find me online and feel free to connect with me on any (or all) of your favorite social media sites. I‘ll be sharing my experiences, tips, and resources that you may find helpful, and quotes to encourage, among other things and I would love to hear from you.

This message is for all you foodies, millennials, creatives, college students, and nerds alike, let’s be social!