Reflection

When I first decided to take this course I thought it would be a pretty simple, cut and dry examination of social media and it’s benefits. However; I had no idea what I was getting myself into haha! This course had so much depth and consideration regarding social media strategy and how the different platforms function. If I am being honest it was a bit overwhelming. There is so much information about social media and it’s constantly growing and evolving. Especially when looking at the tactics used to best build a brand from social media platforms. I am currently working on developing a brand I conceptualized and all of this information, while useful was a lot to take in over the course of just 8 weeks. That being said, I really enjoyed the class and felt as if I gained a lot of insight into how the varying platforms function as well as what makes a business successful in their use of social media.

The True Loudy Brand < —- My Personal Brand

I think one of my biggest takeaways was how important it is to be organized when you are building a brand through social media. This is compounded when you have a team that you are working with in order to accomplish a certain goal. The bigger your business, the more moving parts, the more there is a need for a group of people that are well coordinated and communicate efficiently.. and not just with customers but with one another. It’s so easy to look unprofessional and even more easy on social media when compared to competitors. Having well defined roles is paramount in the execution of strategies your brand is working to implement on a platform.

One of the other takeaways that I gathered from this class is how important it is to be adaptable within your plan or approach to social media campaigns. The world of social media is this amorphous, ever changing entity that is in a lot of ways unpredictable. It’s hard to know exactly what new type of media posts are going to become the craze and how people are going to respond to new platforms that arise. Yes, a lot of it has to do with psychology but there is certainly an element of unpredictability that takes place in the realm of social media. It’s not a place to be rigid.. if you aren’t malleable as a business or brand, you can easily be broken. When creating a strategy, brands want to keep this in mind and pay attention to metrics and analytics to see how well their posts are performing. It’s all about giving your audience what they want. Maybe you don’t know who your audience is yet, but you can find them by looking at the type of people who engage with your posts the most. I think that concept of adaptability is pillar of any good brand. Jump on trends, stay aware of your audience and utilize new features that come out on the platforms you use.

Lastly I realized that the whole idea of branding myself on social media is a much bigger undertaking than I thought it would be. It made me appreciate the amount of work that goes into building a brand and marketing it so that it becomes successful and actually permeates public consciousness. After taking this class I have come to the conclusion that I need to build my own marketing team if I want my brand to ultimately be successful. Now.. I could just keep doing what I am doing but awareness of brands only comes thought promoting and marketing which I am personally terrible at doing. I just don’t enjoy the process at all. I find it tedious and boring. I much more enjoy the process of creating content.

I really appreciate all of the things I learned in this class and I have a way better idea of how social media works and… well, damn.. it’s complicated. I have no doubt that the concepts I learned about in this class will help me build strong brand presence as well as maintain adaptability in building the brand that I want. I think it’s really interesting how far we have come from the days of Myspace and I wonder where we will be in another ten years. I personally think shit is about to get crazy with augmented reality and Neuralink. If you haven’t checked out Neuralink.. you need to get on it.

Neuralink Presentation (supercut version)

How do you think social media will evolve in the next ten years?

Much love, thanks for reading the article and good luck in all your future endeavors my people!