Six Tips on Using Your Personal Social Media for Professional Growth

Originally published for the October edition of PRoclaimer, the monthly e-newsletter of the Florida Public Relations Association—Orlando Area Chapter. Read it here.

Social aptitude (almost) looks better than a resume.

For anyone in the Communications/PR field, having a strong social presence goes a long way in establishing yourself as a professional. It indicates dedication to digital, adaptability, creativity, and ability to tell a story through something other than press releases or news articles. Having a strong presence also eliminates the struggle that many college students or fresh graduates face in getting a job with no prior experience.

With dedication and creativity, you can enter an interview with skills in content creation, analytics, SEO, CMS, and more, all without interning or spending money on courses/conferences.

This is something I’ve seen clearly in my time as a Communications student at the University of Central Florida. Across campus, I see students of every major focus more on their digital presence, whether it be via blogging, vlogging, becoming a micro-influencer, or having Instagram photoshoots with friends. Call it a trait of our generation.

Yet regardless of how old you are or how much you know, it is never too late or less important to have a strong social media presence. This is a field new to everyone. Therefore, it is paramount that we as communications professionals know how to use it, and moreover, use it well.

So, whether you’re fresh out of college or years into a career, here are some tips to get you started on using your personal social for professional growth:

• Find what you love. It’s much easier to focus on one or two major aspects of your life in creating a digital presence.

• Find the medium that best serves telling the story of that love. It can be slightly depressing to see people who seem to do it all, but there’s always one platform they do the best. Determine what “the best” is for you; videos, writing, photography, etc. After doing this, mainly use that medium in your social media to continue improving your skills.

• Get a support network. Some of the best communications professionals got their start by connecting with others of similar goals. Being in FPRA is a HUGE start, but also seek locals or friends who love what you love and create content together!

• Learn about social media tools by using them on your personal accounts. Interested in social analytics? Sign up for a free Hootsuite account and connect your accounts to it. You can also browse the in-program analytics offered by Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to see what metrics matter on each platform.

• What about website analytics? Create a free Google Analytics account and connect it to your website like I did for metrics like bounce rate, user data, and more.

• Take advantage of mobile apps! The App Store is filled with a variety of apps that social media professionals use to create content. Some of my favorites are Canva, Unfold, Adobe Spark Post, Adobe Lightroom and PicPlayPost. Tip: I always test apps out on my personal social before using them professionally.

While more exist, these are all really easy and beneficial ways to start improving your professional social media skills with personal accounts. For all of my fellow UCF students who plan to attend any job fairs, remember that any skill you learn personally can and should be on your resume, portfolio and mentioned to employers. For example, explaining how you used Instagram Analytics and engagement tactics to increase your following by 500 accounts in six months. It doesn’t have to come from a job to be valid experience!

Due to the nature of social media itself, I offer one final word of advice: stay current. You never know when the next big thing will hit, and staying current will ensure that your social strategy is too.

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Check back each week for a new blog on social media tips, life, food and more. Oh, and of course...

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20 Ways Your Brand Can Use Twitter!

Ah, Twitter.

Years ago, it was the hottest social platform for brands to attract and grow an audience. The real-time, constantly-updating feed that Twitter offers allows brands to ‘tweet’ often without overwhelming their audience. This is unlike Instagram, which recommends posting a max of 1-2 times per day. 

But because of Instagram and it’s ever-growing audience, more brands are choosing to divert their efforts away from Twitter. Not exactly the best decision. Sure, Instagram is gaining in popularity, but there’s still millions of people to reach on Twitter. Cutting it out of your social strategy means losing a potentially-strong audience.

Another key reason to keep Twitter lies in how flexible it is for creating platform-specific and varied content! Lacking on inspo and tweets for your content calendar? Check out 20 of my most-successful ways to use it:

1. Post a GIF that relates to a brand topic (and ask your audience to reply with a GIF of their own!). For example, "Comment a GIF that describes your first day of school."

2. Start a Twitter thread of images, links that relate to the tweet topic (ex: “We get it fam: Dorm eating isn’t easy. Check out this thread for some easy, cheap options that you can make in your dorm!") or quotes.

3. Create a Twitter poll to gauge audience thinking, or to ask an engaging question.

4. Share an article created by your brand, influencer, or industry expert. You can find these by following relevant accounts and subscribing to weekly emails from experts/bloggers.

5. Utilize the ‘heart’ and ‘retweet’ features to have your audience pick between two options.  

6. Scan the Trending Hastags section of Twitter for relevant topics to include and Tweet about.  

7. Re-purpose videos that fit the time limit and file format and share with your audience. 

8. Go “Live” at events, Twitter Q&A sessions, and even Twitter takeovers.

9. Post a photo collage of something brand-related. It makes your Tweet more eye-catching than one photo, plus it gives the audience something extra to tap on. Another option for this is to try the "Tap to Expand" trick where you post a vertical image and have a surprise in it that can only be seen by tapping. 

10. Ask your audience a question and direct them to answer in the comments (or better yet, say that the first # of people to comment/RT win something!). 

11. Get creative with emojis! Post an emoji riddle, create a picture with emojis, or use them to communicate a mood.

12. Tweet using a daily theme like #MotivationMonday, #ThrowbackThursday or #FridayFeeling. You can also invent a daily theme that relates to your brand, like #FootballFriday or #StudyBreakSaturday. You can find a full list of daily hashtags on ThriveHive.

13. Retweet and/or quote User-Generated Content (UGC). This content can be spontaneous things you see, or the direct result of a campaign. Always ask for permission if you are sharing it in a separate tweet, and encourage users to tag you in their own tweets, too! 

14.  Directly tweet (@‘ing) another brand. Maybe you’re trying to add humor, or maybe it’s a collab, but either way doing this allows for cross-engagement on both of your accounts. You can also tag other accounts in your photos for an indirect tag! 

15. Quote an old Tweet that did really well to re-purpose content without digging into your other channels. Look at tweets you made for past trending hashtags, events or holidays as a starting point. You can use Twitter’s FREE in-program analytics tool to find these high-performing tweets. 

16. Do a Twitter scavenger hunt! Hide an item somewhere, and say that the first person to find it and tweet the photo/tag you wins a prize.

17. Create short videos/daily images and countdown to an event/announcement.

18. Have your audience enter a contest by asking them to tweet a specific statement, including a hashtag to measure audience entries. 

19. Create your OWN GIFs using Giphy (but you need to be a verified account) and share them on Twitter, encouraging your audience to use them and tag you. 

20. Share inspirational graphics/quotes. A great resource to find images for these is the website Unsplash. You can find more resources for creating/editing social media graphics and images in this blog post. 

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I hope you enjoyed my latest blog post! Remember to hit the "subscribe" button and never miss another #BeyondWords blog again.

Check back each week for a new blog on social media tips, life, food and more. Oh, and of course...

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How I Edit in Adobe Lightroom!

Hi friends!

I've had a lot of people ask me how I edit all of my Instagram photos. Well, just like the thousands of other IG-savvy folks out there, I edit using a consistent 'style' and color scheme to keep my grid clean. There are TONS of free apps and programs available to accomplish this, meaning that you don't need to spend tons of money on software and cameras to get a good grid. Use what you have, work hard, and make something great!

This brings me to the point of this blog: how I edit my photos in Adobe Lightroom! Now as I mentioned earlier, there are countless editing apps out there, with the mobile version of Lightroom being one of them.

I will do this tutorial using the mobile app because it has almost every feature that desktop Lightroom does. You can even sync photos between the two for copying edits! I use this feature a TON when traveling because it allows me to edit my images without carrying around a laptop and hard drive.

Now, without further ado, let's EDIT!

STEP 1: ADJUSTING LIGHT

This the first section of Lightroom that I adjust when editing images. As with all edits, what you do in this section depends on what ‘look’ you aim to achieve. I like my images to be bright and so here’s what I adjust:

Exposure: This setting changes how exposed/bright the image is. Depending on how bright the original one is, I typically bump this to +1 or +.75.

Contrast: This setting changes how different the darks and lights in an image look. I don’t like my images super contrasted because it takes away from the bright, cheery look, so I hover in the 5-20 range for this edit.  

Highlights: If you want to achieve a bright image, bringing up highlights is super key. Lower highlights help under-expose certain areas in an image. For example, if you want to see the clouds in the sky (which is typically too bright in images). 

Shadows: This adjustment, when raised, decreases shadows in an image. How much I raise it depends on the image, but typically I raise it enough to where little shadows exist.

Whites: As the name implies, whites bring up the whites in an image. I like the whiter appearance, so I usually bring them up to +20 or so.

Blacks: When raised, this decreases the blacks in an image. I typically don’t change this, but when I do, usually only go up to +10.  

STEP 2: ADJUSTING COLOR

The color section of Lightroom is really where theme creation begins. Think about it: when you look at any creator’s grid, what’s the main thing that looks similar? Color.

It starts with actually taking photos that include your desired colors in it (because software can’t do everything). For instance, having colorful photos for a colorful grid, darker tones for a dark grid, and so on. Lightroom comes in by helping to fine tune colors, and also diminishing unwanted ones.  

White Balance: This section changes the warmth/coolness of an image, how it is tinted, and also vibrance/saturation. For a colorful theme, I like to have a warm accent and pink tint. This means sliding the first bar to the right for however warm you want it to be, and again to the right on the second bar for the pink tint. You also want to bump up the saturation and vibrance, which changes how noticeable and rich the colors are. I aim for +15-30 in saturation and +10-20 in vibrance. 

Color Mix: Located at the top right of the Lightroom app, this is a tool that really builds theme. For each of the main colors (red, orange, yellow, purple, green, teal, etc), there are options to change the hue, saturation and luminance. If you’re aiming for a colorful feed, then it works well to boost brighter colors and desaturate darker ones. You can also change color hues to keep consistent shades throughout all photos. I love using this tool for my skin, helping to diminish red undertones from acne *I cry*. 

 STEP 3: EXTRA EFFECTS

After I finish editing color, my last steps are to do some minor effects based on the photo. But before doing this, there is one effect I use that ties into color: 

Split Toning:  Hidden under the “Effects” panel, split toning allows you to choose a color shade for shadows and highlights. This adjustment is my new favorite for color edits, and it’s honestly much easier than adjusting multiple colors. 

Clarity and Dehaze: Wile I don’t use these too often, clarify and dehaze are sometimes useful when the sun or other phenomena cause a bright image to look hazy and unclear.

 Sharpening and Noise Reduction: Located under the “Detail” tab, these edits do wonders in the appearance of a photo. Images that are out-of-focus or unclear can be fixed by raising the sharpening tool—just beware of too much image grain! But just as sharpening adds noise/grain, noise reduction takes it away. This is particularly useful if you shoot with a high camera ISO or at night.

STEP 4: PRESETS!

While optional, this final step allows you to save all of your edits into a preset that can easily be applied to future images in one tap. You do this by tapping the three dots in the upper right of the app screen and selecting "Create Preset." From there you can name the preset and select which edits to include in it. 

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I hope you found this tutorial helpful! Feel free to DM me any Lightroom edits of your own via my Instagram (account name bel0w). Remember to hit the subscribe button and never miss another #BeyondWords blog again!

Check back each week for a new blog on social media tips, life, food and more. Oh, and of course...

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6 Apps That Every Social Lover Needs!

It's time for my secrets to come out. Well, my social secrets that is (sorry for the letdown friends!).

Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with social media. It is honestly my favorite thing (even though pizza comes in at a close second). But there is much more to social than tweeting or posting a selfie.

The creation of one post can involve multiple tools/apps that change all. the. time. Literally hundreds of social tools are released daily; so much that it can feel downright overwhelming to keep up. This leads me to the ultimate question: what are the essentials that anyone who loves social should have? 

Here's your answer:

1. Adobe Spark Post

Let me just say that this app is a savior if you are graphically-challenged like me. Adobe Spark allows you to create graphics and even motion graphics in all sorts of sizes and layouts. I use this app to make my blog cover photos and Instagram Stories. If you aren't sure how to design something, Spark has tons of pre-created layouts that you can remix to fit your project.

Another cool feature in Spark is that you can have it remember your brand (colors, fonts, etc) for easy access when designing. And don't worry, you can use Spark without having an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription!

2. Google Snapseed

For years, I never knew that Snapseed existed. I found it one day after watching Instagram Icons rave about the app in their YouTube videos. At first, I wondered what was so special about a free photo editing app. Then I actually started using it (shocker, right?).

At first glance, this app is a lot like other photo editing apps. You can adjust contrast, exposure, and other standard edits. But Snapseed has so much more than other free apps do. One of my favorite tools is the "Selective" one, which allows you to paint over parts of an image for specific edits. The interface is user-friendly, allowing editors of any skill level to make an image #pictureperfect.

3. Hyperlapse by Instagram

Hyperlapse is a free app provided by Instagram to easily create.. well, hyperlapses! These are created in true photography by moving the camera slightly between each shot, giving the illusion of motion shots. Check out an example of one here! 

Hyperlapse app takes this somewhat-complicated concept and simplifies it to the palm of your hand, making for quick and unique content. The downside of this app is that it only shoots in Instagram Stories size (vertical, 1080 x 1920), and so you would need to rotate your phone to shoot landscape.

4. The Preview App

The Preview app (and other apps like it) is made specifically for any of my readers who long to become #InstaFamous, or simply want a better-looking feed. In recent years, the whole concept of feed-planning has grown in popularity. A big part of this is due to the rise of influencers, who want to look good on social in order to attract followers and brand partners. But what exactly is feed-planning?

Feed-planning is a strategic process of curating and arranging photos to follow a consistent theme. Without going too into depth, an Instagram theme involves some basic things: color, composition, and grid layout. A theme should have similar colors and/or filters to keep the images looking alike. It should also have alike composition. For instance, my photos are mostly of myself and outside (note all of the greens and purples). This is where apps like the Preview App come into play.

This app allows me to upload my photos and re-arrange them to see how they'll look before I post on Instagram. It also has filter packs (just like the app VSCO) that I can use to keep my photos looking the same. The downside is that this app does cost money ($8.99/mo). But for anyone looking to up their feed game, I think it is well-worth the price!

5. Social Media Today

Ever wonder how people use new social media features before you? Or that they just always know about these features first? Well just like any other person who reads the newspaper to stay current, they read social media news.

One of my favorite sources to get social media news is a website called Social Media Today. Aside from the hired staff, SMT brings in social experts around the globe to write articles and keep a fresh, diverse voice. You can also subscribe to SMT for social updates emailed directly to you!

6. Unsplash/Pexels

This final tool is also not an app, but incredibly helpful nonetheless. Unsplash and Pexels are both websites that provide free, royalty-free images for creators to use. Royalty-free is a fancy term meaning that you can use a copyright material without buying it/paying royalties to the owner. However, sometimes you must give credit to the owner, so make sure to read all of the fine print before using a royalty-free material.

The images on Pexels and Unsplash are great to use for creating wallpapers, blog photos, or even as inspiration for taking your own images. I regularly use them as wallpaper backgrounds, and use Adobe Spark to add text on top!

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Do you have any social media tools of your own? Share them in the comments below! Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and never miss another #BeyondWords blog again!

Check back each week for a new blog on social media tips, life, food and more. Oh, and of course...

CONNECT WITH ME: 

Instagram: @maddielill

Twitter: @Hey_ItsMaddie31

Snapchat: @Heyitsmaddie97

CONTACT ME!

~This is My Story~

5 Tips for Using Instagram Highlights!

There's a new ruler in the social media food-chain, and it's name is Instagram.

While just a fledgling platform years ago, this photo-sharing network has grown to unpredictable heights in 2018.  In fact, Instagram now amasses over 800 million active users a month. But what has stunted this growth?

The answer lies partly in the slew of innovative, engaging updates we all never expected but loved instantly. Here are some you might recall:

• The ability to choose from different text styles in Instagram Stories
• Being able to tag other accounts in your Instagram Bio
• For some accounts, adding "swipe up" link features in Instagram Stories
• The ability to follow hashtags 
• The ability to turn on post notifications for certain accounts

Now, this app hasn't released everything we want (hint: having portrait mode as a Stories option). But one thing for certain is that Instagram knows what the people want. And it's most recent success?

Instagram Story Highlights.

If you're new to the #InstaGame, here's the rundown: the Highlights feature allows users to save their stories to certain 'albums' (which can be named anything like food, workouts, makeup, etc) that will appear publicly and permanently on the user's Instagram profile.

For consumers, Highlights is an incredibly useful tool for sharing your lifestyle/personality and saving precious memories.

For businesses, it allows events, deals, products, and insider-looks to be easily seen and saved by an audience.

I see more and more each day people buying in to the features of Highlights. But, I also see that not everyone knows how to use it.

Whether you fall into that category, or are just looking to grow your social savvy, here are some tips to help you get even more out of this awesome feature:

1. Make. Cover. Photos. 

I honestly cannot stress this enough if you decide to seriously engage in Story Highlights. Creating cover photos with a consistent, simple, and creative look allows your profile to stand out to other users! Think of your Instagram profile as a resume to new followers: if they like what they see, they will want to see more (meaning following you!). 

There are a few things to consider when it comes to creating the actual covers. You always want to make sure that the icon you want to show in the cover is centered in the graphic. As for the graphic itself, design it in Instagram Story size (1080 x 1920 px). To create the graphics, you can utilize online programs like Canva and PicMonkey, or pricier-options like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop for detailed edits.

Finally, make sure they all have a consistent color scheme and look. The covers should fit your Instagram theme (if you have one made!). 

2. Your Highlights Albums Should Describe You!

The other day I was looking at someone's profile and their many Highlights albums. After scrolling through for a few minutes, I noticed they had one called "Makeup." Pretty common. But the only issue? This person NEVER posts about makeup! And a few days later, that album was no longer in her profile.

This story teaches us one thing: make sure that your albums describe you! One way to figure this out is to conduct a Story Audit by accessing your Story Archive and seeing what content you post frequently. For example, I post a lot of food, fitness, UCF, Universal Studios, and social media stories; hence my Highlights album choices!

3. Add to Highlight Albums While Your Stories Are Still Viewable

All Instagram Stories expire 24 hours after they are posted. Once this happens, you can only add new stories to your highlight albums by opening each one and manually adding them from the Story Archive. I don't know about you, but this is honestly too much work for me! Instead, add to your albums before they expire. Here's how:

1. Open the story you want to add

2. Tap the Highlight button in the bottom right corner of the screen.

3. A Highlight pane will appear at the bottom of the screen. Simply tap the album you want to add it to, and VIOLA! You're done!

4. Do Not Add Old Stories to New Highlights Albums

Very simply: only add stories that are posted after your Highlights albums are created. This matters because users must tap through your entire album before they can see the newest story, and since it is a cover, the graphic you create should always be the first thing they see.

Adding stories that were posted before you created your Highlights album results in the cover image being sandwiched between stories. This looks unprofessional, unclean, and may lead to your beautiful cover never being seen when a user gets tired of tapping through the album. 

But how can you make sure a user sees everything in your album? This leads me to my final tip:

5. Keep Your Highlights Albums Short

Let's face it: we all have short attention spans. If it isn't quick or eye-catching, chances are we won't pay attention to it. That's why Twitter is such a popular social network. We get our daily doses of entertainment, news, and laughs in short, concise pieces. 

The same principle of short 'n' sweet applies to your Instagram Highlights. Nobody wants to tap through 30 stories of food that you eat, or any content for that matter. When it comes to Highlights, you want to keep your albums to 15 stories or less. 

Each week, I will poke through my own Highlights to refresh the content in them and trim it down to that limit. This practice allows current followers to see new content without having to re-tap through old stories, and new followers to quickly glimpse my feed and see who I am. 

Moral of this tip? Less truly is more!

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I hope you enjoyed my latest blog post! Check back each week

for a new blog on social media tips, life, food and more. Oh, and of course...

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