Remember when you were young and making friends was as easy as "Hello, my name is..."? Let this be a platform to introduce ourselves and make new connections. In a world full of virtual courtships, find a place that resonates with you, that encourages you and asks you to build a better curated version of yourself and create content that will advance your self brand.
On this crazy journey I call graduate school in the lovely upstate New York region, I am learning how to brand myself and make connections through work in the public relations field. Public relations is just that—building relationships with different publics and creating communication between otherwise separate entities. One of the greatest shifts in public relations is that which encourages media and the Internet to welcome new virtual communities. Regina Luttrell wrote in her book, Social Media: How to Engage, Share, and Connect (2017), that these new media platforms are building a global village with communication and collaborations between media producers and the public.
In her book, Luttrell remarks on the necessity of any company (even in self-branding) to share resources, maintain consistency and build effective communication that encourages collaborations. I may be the one in graduate school, but all the things I learn are helping me build an online identity, branding myself through the curated content that is shared freely on my own site. Think about how a millennial blog like BuzzFeed uses multiple platforms to create and curate content. Twitter is an amazing social media platform that encourages interaction between users and sharing content. Sprout Social's 2018 social media statistical analysis found that 47% of marketers believe Twitter is the best for interacting with their customers but still see Facebook as the most popular social networking site with 79% of internet users using the site worldwide.
With the many social platforms to choose from, where should a company share created or curated content specifically? BuzzFeed's created content is primarily shared on the company websites in ready to share content, it also hosts popular millennial content as top # lists and quizzes while BuzzFeed News features hard hitting content creation that concerns its key public. Finally, the curation of the content is then shared across these social media platforms and others through a curated and consistent image and color scheme.
This is a company that is well established and understands its key publics explicitly. The research is prompt, often finding trending topics and topics of great interest to its public that is then created and shared. The main objective is to bring traffic to the company sites but also to encourage readers in its community to share the content across multiple platforms. BuzzFeed uses strategies and tactics for promotion and to target its public with the implementation of content specific to interests and trends shared through various platforms. The popularity and reach of the company's content can be tracked and evaluated from start to finish and can reflect whether or not the created content was successful or not.
This is a space to participate, to develop your online identities and establish your presence online as I will be working to do. With professional PR persons contemplating the crossover between real world and virtual world relationships, the ability to maintain a virtual relationship without
denying a real life presence is achievable, as we see BuzzFeed do, but takes consistency and commitment to building the brand and establishing an online presence.
Which are you: a content curator or a content creator?
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Until next time,
Lacey