Social media is a networking tool through which you can immerse yourself into a broader community – not just with the people in your area, but interstate and internationally as well. The types of people that you can meet are extensive, and can be connected to you through an array of topics and interests. This is why it can be so useful to creative practitioners, as it allows people to share and to reach broader audiences. It can also be used to advertise and promote certain causes or projects.
Many social media platforms such as Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook allows you to interact and connect with people that you otherwise would not be able to.
If you are a creative practitioner that has a social media presence (and if you hope to have any sort of reputable name in today’s creative industry, you should), you must be able differentiate between personal and professional mannerisms online. So why do creative practitioners need a social media presence, and why is it important that they use this presence in a constructive and professional way?
In today’s world, the presence of technology is something that this very hard to escape, and if you earn your living from being involved in the creative industries it is even more so, because of the way that this industry has evolved to become a world-wide market.
So, people need have an Instagram account to help boost their business, what’s complicated about that?
Well, actually, quite a number of things. Although the use of social media is a way that you can gain attention for your work from peers, media, and industry professionals, if you are not careful it can also gain attention towards yourself as a person, regardless of whether it is related to your projects, which can cause damage to the things you are trying to achieve through your work.
For most people, first impressions are very important and have a large influence on how strangers and acquaintances perceive you. In most cases, today’s first impressions are also made through your online presence. Your social media accounts are where most potential fans, colleagues, and clients will see your brand and your business for the very first time, and if you conduct yourself poorly on these platforms, it can create or even reinforce negative opinions towards you. As an example, let’s take a look at the last two presidents of the United States of America, and how they utilise social media.
The 44th president, Barack Obama, served from 2009 to 2017, while the 45th president, Donald Trump, took over this year. While both use the social media platform of twitter during their presidencies (and in the case of Obama, still continues to use following his end of term), they have starkly contrasting attitudes in the way they conduct themselves online. Whist Obama uses his ‘tweets’ to seem well-spoken, calm, and kind, Trump seems to view his social media account to as a platform on which to be rude, ignorant, and insensitive. Trump often used his twitter account to insult his opponents during his 2016 campaign, and continued to belittle them after his inauguration, using the platform to give them derogative nicknames such as “Crooked Hillary”.
This is a perfect example of what I perceive to be an inappropriate use of social media. Even though I do not know Mr. Trump personally, I already have a negative opinion of him, and that leads me to dislike his work as a politician, even more so than I would if he was civil on social media.
When you seek a career whose success comes from being in the public eye, such as in politics or creative industries, there must be an acknowledgement from the individual that they will be scrutinised from anyone else that can access the internet. If they have a large following, they may even be considered a role model, where they would have even more responsibility to make sure the personality that they exhibit online is professional and respectful, less they want their profession to be taken less seriously.
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