Lessons

Lesson Info

Forming Social Media Rules

Let's think about what we should be doing with our social media presence, okay. So our social media presence obviously from now on needs to fulfill our life's purpose. So before you post anything think, am I fulfilling my life's purpose? Yes, no. If no, maybe don't post that. Maybe it's not actually helping you or showing who you are to the world. Maybe that's just gonna be that kinda fake, curated content that we wanna stop doing. Your social media presence should represent your unique personalities. So it should show off who you are. Show yourself off to the world. So it should show off the highs and the lows. Everything that makes you special and different. That's what's gonna make you really attractive to other people and magnetize good feelings and good energy around your social media presence is being yourself. People are gonna be really excited about that. And it's gonna be really refreshing. And you're also gonna inspire other people to be themselves on social media too, which ...

is a beautiful thing. Alright, you're gonna be an accurate description of your career and your life. We hear a lot about creating social media rules for separating your, if you have a business account versus a personal account. In this class I'm telling you all that I think it's pretty cool if we combine those because our career and our life is what makes us as people special and unique and different. So I think it's really interesting even if you have two social media accounts, a business and a personal, to show a little bit of both on both accounts. So show the rich cloud that is your career and your life all online. Alright, so you should also celebrate your strengths and show your weaknesses, okay. So whenever I ask you how you're doing and you're actually doing horribly, say that. Say it online. Share that with other people. Share when you're having a hard time or share the things about yourself that make you a real person. Real people all have that range of emotions, of highs and lows. So we should be showing that online. 'Cuz again, you're gonna inspire others to be themselves, but it's also gonna make you feel really good to be vulnerable and be supported by the community that you've created for yourself online. Alright, woo next challenge. Okay. So we're gonna write out a list of five, we're going five this time. Five things on social media that you're gonna do from now on. So what are you gonna do with or on your social media accounts from now on? Okay, whoo so think about it. Think about what your personality is and how you can show that off. Think about what your skills are and how you can show that off on social media. Think about what your life's purpose is and how you can actually fulfill that daily on your social media account, okay. This one is super fun. I'll go through mine. So these are the actual things that I do all the time on my social media. I created this list myself and I use this list everyday. I'm as goofy as possible all the time on social media 'cuz that's who I am. I'm weird and goofy. I want to make sure that I show that 'cuz I think social media can be very serious a lot of the times. You're like, oh beautiful cup of coffee. But I didn't take a picture of the coffee that I just spilled on my lap, which is what normally happens to me. So I make sure that I show that part off because the spilling of the coffee is what happens more often than the perfect latte art on top. So on social media I create a safe space for others to share and be themselves. Like I mentioned, I do this a lot online where I create posts and things for people to interact with each other and to share things about themselves and to interact with one another. So I wanted to represent all aspects of my life. So my home, my relationships, my career, in progress work, finished work. Things like activities and hobbies. All of the things that make up my life. And remember again, we don't have that career life balance. We don't have a separation. So my life is also my career. So I wanna make sure that I'm showing every aspect of that equally and perfectly. For me, another role that I created was to challenge my audience and challenge my community with thoughtful exercises. Exercises like this are really important to me. For people to like, we don't often sit down and think about ourselves as much. We think a lot introspectively. But we don't spend the time with ourselves enough to write these things down and actually think about these things. So I like to be the person that gets people to actually do that. And I found that I could reach a lot of people and get a lot of people to do these activities for themselves through social media. It's a great way to do that. And lastly, something that's really important in fulfilling my life's purpose on social media is cheering on and supporting other people. So if I can, you know, if that's through retweeting or re-posting people's work that I love, my friend's work or people that I admire, I do that as often as I can. If someone I know is searching for a new job, I'll post about them and try to hook them up and see what I can do. If somebody posts a new portfolio site, I'll share it with other people and be really excited to lift that person up and cheer them on. Alright, so let's go down and let's just list maybe one or two of your favorite things that you'll do on social media from now on. I think I'll start suggesting sort of wild ideas, like on Twitter in response to people posting questions. Share more about the real people behind the scenes. So, I have a really cute daughter and husband. So I wanna share more of them on the business side and not keep them as separate. And also the real people behind the businesses that I'm working with. So my social media is primarily visual, so I'd like to start sharing more music and dance. I think I wanna start sharing more of my experiments that you know, are possibly not fully baked. Just so people can kind of see my process. I wrote that I'd like to post sort of the weird, everyday detailed observations that I seem to be making. I want to experiment more with the platform and its limits. That's great. I think it's cool that a lot of you are mentioning how you want to kinda blend your career and your life together in your accounts and show things that you normally are interacting with on your daily lives. In your life and as well as your career. So putting them together. I think nowadays, especially if you're working in a field where you're working with clients or you have an employer or you're looking for a new job, it's really important to show all aspects of who you actually are on social media because nowadays we get hired not based on skill always. We get hired a lot on hangout-ability. So a lot of employers now hire people primarily on how well your connection to them is. Like how well you get along and how well you interact together. And so everyone is looking at your social media before or after your interview with them or before or after they're about to contact you to work on a project with them. And so showing that rich, whole picture of yourself is actually a really great thing because that means you're gonna have a better connection in person. If they like to see pictures of your family and they really like who you are, that whole picture of who you actually are and they wanna work with you, that's a great sign because that means that you're gonna get along together and they really like you as a person. Which can only create a harmonious relationship with these people that you're working with. So it's really really great to always show the full picture of who you are online because everybody's gonna be looking and trying to figure that out anyway. So you might as well just show them the whole thing. It's scary, but it's worth it. Ooh, this one is fun because it's a little negative and it feels unlike me, but we're gonna do it. So, we're gonna talk about five things that you will stop doing from now on. So what are things that you've been doing on social media that you're gonna stop doing because it's not fulfilling your purpose? It's not showing off who you actually are. So brainstorm some ideas. I think five is an easy one to do, but if you wanna just do a few or go crazy and do more, I'll talk about the ones that I've listed down. The biggest one has been to stop caring what other people think about me. That's been a huge problem with my whole life and as I've been learning to embrace myself and love myself more, I've cared a lot less about what people think about me 'cuz I really like myself. So it's left feeling like it's okay, everybody has different tastes. So if people don't like me, I understand now. Not every person is for every other person. So it's important online to, it took me years to post my first dancing video online because I was so self conscious about people judging my dancing or what they might think or say to me. So it took me so long to actually post a real video of what I wanted to post because I was so scared. So the first thing I wanted to stop doing was just stop caring what people think about me for once. And it's been so great. Another thing is to stop posting before I've truly enjoyed the in-person experience. Thinking back to that sunset that everyone saw where they just took a picture, never looked at the sunset, and then sat back down. I wanna stop doing that so badly. And this is something I keep reminding myself of, to actually take a deep breath and enjoy an experience before I do anything else. So have that moment introspectively for myself where I'm enjoying it wholeheartedly is so important to me now. Alright, I'm gonna stop only showing the shiny perfect parts of my life and show the big picture. I'm naturally really happy and positive and I really love myself and so I think that a lot of times that can come across as being really positive and maybe fake, just because that's who I am. And like a lot of people the spectrum. I have a spectrum of highs and lows. So I just need to make sure that I show people the lows too 'cuz there are still insecurities that come up sometimes. I also wanna stop only representing the parts of my life that are easier to show. So I, like a lot of people, am lazy. So sometimes I'll be like, I really wanna show this process. A good example is my design work online. I'm really bad at posting my finished work online because I've been working on this project for three months. By the time it finally launches, I'm so done with it mentally that I forget to take the time to take photos of it and actually care for it and give it the respect that it deserves. So I find that it's easier for me to just be like, okay I'll record a dancing video 'cuz it's just one button and then I can just dance for a while. And that's so easy. A lot easier than showing off this thing that I know I'm gonna have to have a photo shoot for my work and it's gonna be difficult and challenging. So that's something I wanted to stop doing is only posting the things that are easy for me to post. I wanna actually show off all aspects of my life, even if it's gonna be a little bit more work. Alright, so let's go down the row and talk about one or two of your favorite things that you're gonna stop doing. I'm gonna stop keeping my LinkedIn all professional and leaving the you know, fun stuff for Twitter, so. We haven't talk about LinkedIn at all. This is a great way to incorporate who you really are into all of your social media. I'm going to stop self editing or hiding behind the pretty perfect planned grid. I'm gonna try to stop paying attention to metrics and worrying over how many followers, how many likes. It shouldn't be that important. I'm actually gonna stop avoiding it. I always do personal things, but for the business side I totally avoid it. And so, I'm gonna try to stop and not overthink it and just do it and not be so worried. I think I maybe worry too much whether something is 100 percent relevant to the audience. So I'd like to stop doing that. I find myself sometimes modulating my tastes like the things that I'm sharing. Worrying that they're too niche or too odd. And I think I'm just gonna stop doing that. I think I've noticed the main stop thing is to stop doing things that are just for other people and start to focus more on yourself and doing things that really show off yourself or that are more for yourself than other people. And I think it seems counterintuitive because when we talk about social media, it is a lot about metrics where we're thinking about, we equate popularity to you know, curating what we're posting. So we think about, oh I won't post this 'cuz people won't like it. But actually you'll find that it is, it feels counterintuitive, but whenever you post things that are yourself and are all aspects and you're doing it for yourself, it's actually really attractive and magnetic to other people. And people will see that real side of you and they're really gonna love it. It seems like they won't because it feels so unnatural for you, but once you make that switch it's really brave and really risky feeling, but once you do you'll find that people are really attracted to that side of yourself. And they'll be really very excited to see somebody being real.