2. Community
◦ This semester has been a really unique opportunity to explore social media and dive into a
unique section of social media. For this semester, I chose to join the organization community.
Over the past 5 years there has truly been a boom in organizing, declutter, staging and design.
Design has always been a part of people’s lives; however, it has become trendier to post online
about the design you’re doing–and further, showing design processes specifically regarding
organization and declutter. An entire community has come up out of this trend. Professional
organizers are a much more common title now-a-days whereas 10 years ago someone would
say what is that? I have a personal connection to this community already just by being an
organizing fanatic. I have always loved to organize and declutter, it actually calms me. It has
been lovely to see how many others have this same passion as I do.
3. Platforms: Pinterest
◦ This semester I began by choosing two social media platforms for my organization community–
Instagram and Pinterest. I have had a very different experience on both. Both of these platforms
I am personally aware of and hold personal accounts on. I am familiar with them and how they
operate and felt comfortable to start my personal pages to dive into these communities. First,
we’ll look at Pinterest and the experience I had there. Pinterest is a site that is predominantly
used to find information on just about anything. I chose Pinterest because I go there to find new
ideas and ways of organizing. However, I go on Pinterest and get lost, sometimes I re-pin posts
but I rarely follow anyone. I simply go on, search, find what I need and get off. Then based on
my searches my home page is populated with similar items. I figured that I would be able to
contribute to the community with Pinterest; which, I feel like I have, but I have minimal followers
on Pinterest. Since I know how I use the site this does not bother me. I am able to see my items
and content being pinned which shows me that people are interested in what I am putting out
there. And overall with Pinterest this was my goal. Add content to the community.
4.
5.
6. Platforms: Instagram
◦ Instagram has been a totally different experience. On Instagram I have had great success. I feel
that this semester I have been able to add a lot of content, repost, and original as well as videos
and received great feedback and interaction. I feel most confident on Instagram within this
community for a variety of reasons. On Instagram, which I personally use regularly, I find that
the people I follow, like, and engage with have consistent photographs, content, and posts. I am
somewhat of what you call a photo snob, I like high quality, planned, effective images. I can
easily tell if you are an amateur or a pro, I think many people can. I think the way to get a
following and have a respectful page is to have high quality content so that is what I set out to
do. I knew from the beginning the type of photographs I wanted to share. Yes, they were all in
my community of organization, decluttering, and décor; however, beyond the images I knew
how I was going to tint, place, and show the images in a cohesive, consistent way. In order to do
this, I applied a very similar filter to every image, this gives a really nice consistency to the entire
page.
7.
8. Platforms: Instagram
◦ Then I also posted almost daily at a regular time of day. The most successful people in my
community post every day, quality content and quality posts along with the image. I mimicked
what others were doing in my community by making sure I took the time to create quality
content, a good post along with the image that had some of my personality in it, and then a
filter on the image to create a consistent look. This has seemed to be really successful. I have a
solid following now with daily new followers. I have been able to engage in my community by
sharing, reposting others content, and posting personal content. Another area that was really
successful was in my original content, this semester I did photographs and videos, I posted them
on Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. On Instagram I had the most success and felt like the
most a part of the community; however, I think it was a great practice getting out there to other
sites. Posting videos also gave me a real respect for those who post videos regularly, there was a
lot of work behind it. Since I had such great experience on Instagram I wanted to expand out so
I went into the blog world.
9.
10. Other Platforms: Blogs
◦ I started reading other design and organizing blogs and posting feedback and beginning more
of a conversation. I found this to really be helpful. One of the wonderful things I found was that
most of the bloggers are more than happy to talk to you about their process and method which
was a nice surprise. It was nice to be able to interact with the woman who have more experience
being in the community. It made me feel a part of by being part of the conversation.
11. 4 Points of Research
◦ 1. Global Research – Southwest Asia
◦ Social media usage and accessibility
◦ Online dating
◦ Government and social media interaction
12. 4 Points of Research
◦ 2. Community
◦ Content
◦ Tone
◦ Frequency
◦ Social media analytics
13. 4 Points of Research
◦ New Social Media Sites
◦ Vero
◦ Spark Post
◦ Spark Video
14. 4 Points of Research
◦ What role is video playing in the social media landscape?
◦ Video is playing an ever-growing important role on social media. I truly believe that video is the way of
the future. All media is going to have to have video applications as at least a part of their platform. One
area that I definitely want to improve around is video. This experience has shown me the absolute need
to be able to produce, edit, and create successful videos and motion graphics.
15. 4 Points of Research
◦ Live streaming is also the way of the future. It is becoming increasingly popular especially on Facebook
and Instagram. During this course, I have been able to experience the Instagram live feed and people
really respond well and are interested in these live videos. It allows your following to really get to know
you and your personality. In my community it is really great to show actual live time organizing tips and
tricks, it seemed to be really popular.
16. Last Remarks
◦ My overall experience was a wonderful and successful one. I was able to engage into a
community. Refine my social media skills and practices and connect with others. This was a
learning process of what works and what doesn’t work. What is well liked and responded to.
This experience also opened my eyes to all the different types of social media out there. I really
was able to see how some platforms better serve some communities rather than others. I now
have a wealth of information and resources when going out into any community. It has been so
nice to expand my horizons on what is out there.