Facebook and Instagram

 What could I possibly say about these two. I've done a lot of research on these two tools over the course of this semester. One of the articles that I cited in one of my papers (and I cannot for the life of me recall the actual title of the article) compared different tools to different physical spaces. So like, Facebook was the living room, LinkedIn is the office, Twitter is the bar? maybe. Something like that. But I loved it! Because it's so true! After a decade of use, Facebook is closest to home. It's got personal and professional friends, it's got my parents and grandparents, it's got my siblings.. and it's the one space where when I'm communicating with each of these individuals, it's not weird. I can casually communicate with everyone and no one is going to bat an eye.... unless I say something really off the wall but come on.. it's still the internet. I keep the hot takes mostly to myself. 

Instagram is similar but there's a completely different vibe there. It's hard to explain but it is definitely more structured in terms of norms (my perception, anyway) and how I share content. I can share 30 videos of my kid on Facebook and not think twice, but I feel a pressure to limit how frequently I post and, more specifically, how frequently I post the same topic. I have a weird thing about redundancy and I want my pictures to look nicer. All around more strange than Facebook, but I still spend most of my time on Instagram.  

This course has given me a chance to look deeper into both of these tools. For Facebook, I began more critically considering how active the learning environments are on there. Facebook Groups became a particular source of interest for me. For my produsage assignment, I created my first ever Facebook group. It was hypothetical and is not currently live, but I really have considered making it a real thing. On Instagram, I really felt compelled to dig into the Insights features. I have a separate account for some of my lifting content and I began understanding the Insights when I made it. This course has given me a chance to take the information provided in Insights and figure out how to target what I'm posting to my specific audience. Shifting the focus from followers to *learners* has really helped me frame how to keep the page alive and to keep it growing. **note: I'm going to be honest real quick, if you go check out the page (@liftingcait) you will not see much fresh content. It's because being pregnant has made lifting weights not fun because I can't go super heavy like I want to, haha**

Anyway, the sentiment, here, is the same as on the Twitter blog I shared. This class has given me a chance to view these tools from an academic perspective. I feel much more prepared to push my social media use further by taking advantage of all of the learning environments that are available to me AND that I can have a hand in creating. I do truly hope to be a source of knowledge on social media instead of just a plain old account. So, feel free to tag along. Just keep in mind that it might be a little boring for the rest of this year. Come January, I'll be a baby free, lifting machine!!!!