Social media allows for numerous diverse and inclusive communities to form online that makes each participant feel a sense of belonging. The strength of minority groups such indigenous communities, LGBTQ groups, and the Black Lives Matter movement become more powerful when these individuals realize that they are not alone, and as a whole they have the ability to make significant positive changes around them.

Community engagement through online public media has been noted to be quite beneficial in the sense that a large number of people can gain access to information rapidly regarding the events and situations that occur around them. The wide range of social media platforms available allow individuals to connect in different ways, for different purposes, and with different people. For example, many use Facebook to interact and keep in touch with their loved ones, whereas others use LinkedIn to connect with professionals in the same or completely different field of work.

During this current Covid-19 pandemic, everyone has been more involved online than ever before. As a personal example, I had never thought I would be attending my university classes online for the last year of my undergraduate degree. Although the learning is still taking place, the face to face interactions with professors, classmates, and friends is being missed immensely by majority of the students. Although these circumstances are unusual, I think it is important to appreciate that we live in a very active social media generation, where even a global pandemic has not been able to fully stop us from achieving our goals and interacting with the people around us.

Community-based communication on social media has also been seen quite vividly in the most recent BC election. After the sudden announcement of the election by NDP leader John Horgan, it was reported that “the BC NDP has spent 10 times as much as the BC Liberals and about 85 times more than what the Green Party did on Facebook advertising in the week leading up to the election call” (Daflos, 2020). Knowing that leaders will not be able to interact with people in person, the leading party used the most important weapon – social media, to reach out to the public and share their platform and explain what the public can expect from them if elected.

One of the main challenges faced with social media use is the fact that when messages are put forward using text rather than voicing them out on camera or face to face, is that their interpretation can become distorted and taken the wrong way. To overcome such a situation, the use of emoji has been quite popular to express a person’s mood and expressions. Additionally, because social media is used so widely in every single part of society, it can be a difficult task to grab the attention of your audience. Hence, it is important to utilize a number of content strategies – videos, podcasts, blogs, infographics, memes, etc. – until you find what sticks and generates the engagement you’re looking for (Sharma, 2019).

If an individual is a spokesperson on social media for a particular company or employer then I’m sure there are a number of rules and policies that have to be followed. For example, a communications representative that handles a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account for a certain news channel would have to make sure that when informing the online community with a news report they don’t express their own individual opinion or favor one side of the debate. Instead, as a representative of the media house they would only state the news report and stay neutral especially if it is regarding two political parties to avoid backlash from the public.

Since a vast majority of people are present on social media, I believe its highly important for all of us to post and share thoughts and ideas that will not offend one another. Although this cannot always be achieved because we are all unique human beings, with different perspectives, experiences, and ideas, it is important to recognize when a certain action can deeply upset a large group of people belonging to a particular community.

This consideration is especially important if you are a public figure with great seniority and have a reputation to maintain. Back in 2019 during the Federal election in Canada, Justin Trudeau faced immense backlash when a photo from 2001 surfaced the internet showing him dressed as Aladdin and face painted brown. The conversation on this topic was complex and views of Canadians varied greatly. As explained by James (2019), “Some people who have lived with their blackness all their lives told journalists to just move on. No harm, no foul. Meanwhile, citizens smugly cloaked in white privilege expressed outrage.” Being a person of color myself, I did not feel enraged seeing this picture. I personally felt this situation was brought up to use as propaganda and demean the liberal party even when the Sikh individuals in the picture seem happy and not at all distressed about Trudeau’s appearance.

A PLN should be an honest reflection of who you are as an individual and most importantly, the public should be able to trust you. As Mike Russell also explained, different communities have different preferences on how they communicate over social media. In his case, most parents in the school district preferred to communicate over Facebook or Instagram and therefore most of the content was posted on those two social networking sites. This goes to show that the voices of parents are being heard and they can rely on Mike to make important announcements on platforms that are most actively used by them. Additionally, he introduced a new program called “Hello Dolly” where Dolly answers questions submitted by community members. This allowed elders in the Cowichan community to build a lot of trust with Mike and share their own personal stories regarding injustices they have faced being an indigenous personality.

When creating a PLN for the purpose of career development, I think it is highly important to keep your personal life outside of the professional platform. Networking sites like LinkedIn were created for a reason with the expectation that only professional business will be discussed. Agreeing with the point made by Angie Kermer, I believe that in these professional networking sites, it is also important to understand that these connections are not just made because they can give you something in return (i.e. a job opportunity in the future). Instead, a network should be expanded to diversify one’s knowledge in their own field of work or on a totally different topic. We should not only grow from our own experiences, but also recognize that others who are more successful than us have also gone through many struggles and learning from their stories can both motivate us and help us become more humble individuals.

 

Once a community begins to learn more about my platform and who I am, I think it is very important to make sure that I post content on a regular basis and keep them engaged. I also want to make sure that if I get personal messages regarding my content I reply back to the community and make them feel heard. It is also important to keep up with the readily changes of social media and be aware of the new trends everybody is following.

 

References:

Daflos, P. (2020). BC NDP spent 10 times as much on social media ads before election call. CTV News. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/bc-ndp-spent-10-times-as-much-on-social-media-ads-before-election-call-1.5117433

James, R. (2019). Who objected to Trudeaus blackface? The Star. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/09/19/who-objected-to-trudeaus-blackface.html

EDCI_338. (2020, October 18). A01 – Kermer, A. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73KOxy_fMSM&feature=youtu.be

EDCI_338. (2020, October 18). A01 – Russell, M. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH_UiTWYYwU&feature=youtu.be

Sharma, R. (2019). 22 experts share their biggest social media marketing challenges. Status Brew. https://statusbrew.com/insights/experts-reveal-their-biggest-social-media-marketing-challenges/