Get Healthy with Hannah

Throughout the semester I have had the opportunity to interact with numerous social media platforms. Through these interactions I have gained many takeaways. The following reflections demonstrate what I have learned from interacting with these platforms.

Lab #1 Who Am I Online?

When I search my name online, I come up on five different websites. The top search I show up on is LinkedIn and following are Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, and a tennis recruiting profile from high school. I was pretty surprised I showed up in the number of results that I did. I expected my online presence to be more minimal. I believe what this says about me is that I am active online, especially on social media platforms. Since I am currently the most active on LinkedIn it made sense that it was the first website I show up on. 
I am like my peers because I noticed many of my classmates also have an online presence. They also showed up on sites such as Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Almost everyone in my age group has a social media account on some platform and I am sure that social media is what the majority of us appeared on.I am unique because I showed up on Periscope and a tennis recruiting profile. Periscope is a video recording and sharing platform that allows users to create videos over anything they please and then post them live. Other users can then watch live streaming’s of the video and comment on them to communicate with one another. When I was on Periscope a few years ago not many of my friends were on it. I am also unique because I show up on a tennis recruiting profile. I played tennis throughout middle and high school and created a profile when I was interested in possibly playing in college. I have many goals in changing how I appear online. My first goal is to appear more professional, I feel like the majority of my online presence is from high school and early college. My presence is mostly through photos and videos and I would prefer if most of my online presence was work related. For about two years now I have wanted to start my own blog. I have read so many wonderful blogs and I would like to have my own website where I get to write about the topics I enjoy. About a year ago I created my own website through Wix. I added some photos and wrote a few captions, but I never published it because I did not feel that I was doing it correctly. Recently, my best friend and I have been wanting to create a vlog about all the things we enjoy doing as friends and by ourselves. My goal is to have a blog or vlog created by the end of the semester. Another goal of mine is to take over the social media accounts at my job. I would like to be in charge of our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts at my property. Taking this class will give me the knowledge I need to successfully and professionally manage these accounts while also giving me the knowledge to create my own personal website. 

Lab # 2 Hootsuite

As I begin to navigate through Hootsuite, I see how powerful a tool like this can be in managing social media accounts, especially if managing several accounts at one time. Watching the videos on how to use Hootsuite in the Hootsuite Academy has also made me realize how Hootsuite can play a large part in effectively managing social media accounts. I tweeted my first tweet using Hootsuite and it was surprisingly very easy and effective. I did not need to login to my twitter or even open up my twitter feed in order to tweet. I can also see who has interacted with my tweet since I posted it. My first tweet using Hootsuite was to promote the blogging I will be doing in the near future. I wanted my followers to be hyped and ready to see some cool content coming up soon. I even mentioned that I will be providing links for my website once it is up and running. I will definitely be using this tool in the future. I believe it can be very helpful when managing multiple platforms especially in a business situation. Currently I am using Hootsuite to manage my personal accounts, but I would actually like to start using this tool to manage some professional accounts for my current job. My dream is to own my own business and Hootsuite would be a great tool to implement when I have to start creating multiple social media accounts for my business. I look forward to learning more about Hootsuite and posting on it more once I create my blog. I think my followers would be excited to see the content I will be writing about and Hootsuite is the perfect tool to use to promote it. 

Lab #3 WordPress and Blogging

Going forward I will use other social media tools to improve my social media profiles and improve my personal brand. There is this tool called Buffer that is one of the most popular social media tools right now to manage social media accounts for business. Buffer seems to offer a lot of the same tools as Hootsuite does, such as managing all social media accounts through one platform, specifying times to post posts, and responding to and viewing activity on social media accounts. I personally like Hootsuite and I will continue to use it to improve my personal brand. I will continue to blog once this class comes to an end. For some time now, I have been wanting to create my own personal blog. I was pretty intimidated to start but now that I have received some help and advice, I can continue to do this for my own personal enjoyment. I want my personal blog to be centered around lifestyle, self-care, and health tips. I have been doing some research on how to maintain healthy diets, exercise, and participate in self-care activities. I will also include many of the things I have learned through my own personal experience. I am really excited to continue on with my blog. 

Lab #4 LinkedIn

I chose to follow Kevin O’ Leary of O’Shares Investment and Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank. The reason I chose to follow Kevin O’ Leary is because he is an entrepreneur and self-made business man. My dream is to own my own business and I greatly admire the work O’Leary does. He started with nothing and turned himself into a well-recognized entrepreneur. A large part of his success came from investing in the right companies. I have recently gotten into investing as well and value his thinking on what companies are good investments. He even founded his own mutual fund. Through hard work and perseverance, I can achieve creating my own business.I chose to be part of three groups on LinkedIn; travel bloggers, Austin Green Leaders, and an animal rights and protection group. I chose these groups because I have interest in traveling, being environmentally aware, and protecting animals. My hope in joining these groups is to learn more about how to be involved with these issues, and potentially turn them into careers. So far from these groups I have gotten a sense of what is important to the other group members. 

Lab #5 Facebook

I chose to join a group called Briana K Fitness / Help Group. I chose to join this group because they help support and motivate people while guiding workouts and health consciousness related activities. The company I created on Facebook is to promote health awareness, by sharing videos of workouts, healthy foods, and selling merchandise such as t-shirts. In this group I learned some great workout tips and how to be okay with asking for help about anything related to personal health. I did not post in the group; my participation was solely reading through posts and looking at pictures and watching videos. From my company page I was able to understand the constant management it takes to ensure the page looks nice and is running smoothly. There were many helpful tools to gain insight on my page. I monitored my page views, previews, number of likes, post reach, followers, and engagements. Since my page is fairly new there was not too much interaction, but I hope to see more engagement in the near future. 

Lab #6 Twitter and Microblogging

5 Individuals/companies/groups followed: Women’s Health,Spiritual Gangster, Fitness and Health @fitspirational, Meditation @mindspaceuk,TOMS @TOMS. I chose these five entities to follow because they are relevant to my interests that I write about on my blog. I am interested in promoting a healthy, happy, and fit lifestyle and these companies I followed on twitter can help me portray what my interests are. From following all of these accounts I got great insight and gained more knowledge on these topics. Toms is an awesome company to follow because they are very interested in giving back to the community and being politically and environmentally aware and active. From the other accounts I learned a lot of tips on being health conscious, how to properly work out, and how to relax during stressful situations. I hope to take all the new tips I learned and incorporate them into my blog posts. I engaged with these accounts by liking and retweeting certain posts that I saw fitting for my followers. My favorite account was Fitness and Health because they incorporated humor into their posts about working out and staying healthy. I think I will include microblogs in my personal social media plan, as it can help me convey information in shorter and more concise ways.

Lab #7 Video and Photo Sharing

I chose to follow these three accounts; Austin Pets Alive, Social Media Week, and Austin Animal Shelter. I chose to follow Austin Pets Alive and Austin animal shelter because I hope to work with a nonprofit that supports animals and promotes adoption of pets. I chose to follow the Social Media Week account since we had been discussing it in class and it relates to our class content. Going forward I will use video to improve my social media profile. On my personal Instagram account, I have posted numerous videos in my stories and I think it is a great way to get a message across. Videos are powerful in portraying emotions and I think it can be very useful in selling a personal brand. I will definitely include photos in my PMSP, I am not sure about videos yet but if the right video comes along and it fits into the project then yes, I will include video as well.