Engaging Your PLN

• Building a reputation and trust in a connected culture can be difficult; how are you building a network of individuals who are dynamic, reliable, & participatory?

• I have long since neglected the intended building of networks using social media. My network consists of high school and university friends, co-workers, and people I’ve met travelling. It is a space of safety and comfort within which I can post pictures of my life without the need of perfection or the threat of hate. I don’t seek out new followers or engage with people I don’t know personally and perhaps this is limiting the benefits of a PLN. However, the network I have created out of real-world friendships is a space where people are participatory and reliable. For example, if I post a photo of the beach on my Instagram, I will have friends comment on, like, or direct message me about the post. This kind of engagement allows further conversation and connection to flourish, and it is reciprocated. Though my network may be limited to those I trust, I also trust them to be dynamic and engaging within each context.

• Are you leveraging healthy relationships from your PLN for growth?

• To be honest, I would say no. Though I understand social media and PLNs are greatly important in both personal and professional domains, I tend to forget about using them. In an age where technology has made communication easier than ever, I am beginning to reject social media as a whole and I don’t particularly enjoy using it. I don’t particularly care to create growth online, but rather have been focused on creating growth for myself in my real life world. While there are numerous benefits of social media and PLN use, I have found that social media tends to harm my mental health more than help it. For many people, social media can be a challenging space of perpetual negative comments, unhealthy comparisons, and perfected highlight reels of experiences. Perhaps this will change as I merge into the professional world and require a professional PLN, but for now I do not utilize my PLN for growth.

• How would you create a PLN prior to engaging in a social media campaign on a topic of your choice? Consider how you would introduce yourself to others consider how you would engage in initial conversation to generate interest in your campaign professionally.
• To answer this question, I’ll use an example of creating a social media campaign for participating in climate change action, such as organizing beach clean-ups around Victoria. Firstly, I would choose multiple platforms on which to build a PLN as a way of generating interest across diverse modes of delivery. I would use Instagram to build an initial basis for introducing myself and connecting with others more personally, through direct messages and interacting with posts. I would introduce myself through highlighting my personal interest in taking action to fight climate change and my aims for the campaign. I would create multiple engaging and educational posts that link to work other activists have been doing and generate an interest in being part of the community. To reach greater audiences, I would work to build a professional PLN based around climate change activism and reach out to others in my area with similar interests. Secondly, I would create a linked TikTok account, because I view TikTok as being an effective platform to gain more connections and spread the campaign further. I would create engaging videos of myself cleaning up beaches, talking about the effects of climate change, and the issues most salient to Vancouver Island. Similarly to Instagram, I would also use TikTok to find similar people, comment on their videos and perhaps plan a collaboration. I would build my professional identity around being engaging, reciprocal, and highly interested in collaboration, both digitally and in the world. To do so, I would be active in commenting, responding to comments, and direct messaging others in order to create this environment.

Thanks for reading everyone!