The social media struggle

I just started my last semester of graduate school. (yay..kind of)

My first class of the semester is a graduate-level social media research class. I like research, and I’m fascinated by how social media affects people. (Notice I didn’t say I ‘like’ social media…See previous post). But now I am torn.

I had previously been operating two personal twitter accounts. Being a mass comm major, a lot of professors thought they would “challenge” the class by having us tweet throughout the semester. Knowing that the account would be monitored by people controlling my grade made me extremely uncomfortable so I created a “professional” twitter account. On this account I would tweet PR and classroom related things…then, subsequently, would go on my “personal” twitter account and complain about how stupid the assignment is.

Now being in grad school, I care much less about the perception of my tweets from my peers but the thought of a professor reading all of my stupid twenty-something, related tweets still makes me uncomfortable. Even though my personal twitter shows my true personality…do I want professionals to see that? In a way I do, because this is who I am. Another part of me is like “Sarah grow up. If you don’t want professionals seeing those tweets than maybe you shouldn’t tweet them?” but then again I think..well..it is MY account and I’m free to say whatever i want, right!?

This is my social media struggle. HELP!

UPDATE: This article “5 Questions to Ask Before Posting to Social Media” is great! 

What defines you?

This woman is totally inspiring. Like puts everyone to shame how inspiring.
2 things. 1.I love a good public speaker. She was funny, heartwarming, interacted with the audience and was confident as hell doing it. 2.I love people who rationalize negative situations and turn them into positive things for themself. Lizzie could have spiraled into a pit of depression and self loathing after being mocked on the internet. Instead she turned it in to a career for herself.
And aside from overcoming her syndrome, she put herself out there, in the public eye, on purpose, which is not an easy thing to do. This is awesome. Definitely worth watching.

She kept saying, figure out what defines you. I have no idea what defines me. Good for her for figuring it out. AND she’s twenty-five. If she can figure out, we all can.

“…but then you print some sh*t that makes me wanna scream”

I recently distanced myself from social media. Mostly Twitter. I’ve come to hate most social media sites in the past year or so, with the exception of a few niche sites like Pinterest and LinkedIn.

I decided to get off of Twitter because I realized that I really don’t care about what any of my followers have to say. That mostly speaks to the quality of the people that I follow. Everyone on social media has an opinion, which duh, that’s what social media is for. Giving people the opportunity to express themselves and yes, everyone is entitled to say and think whatever they want.

Lately, every time I log on to Twitter it’s all the same stuff. Complaining when you’re bored, complaining when you’re busy, men slut shaming, women slut shaming, everyone calling everyone out for the way they live their lives all while boasting these meaningless quotes and prophecies about what you need to do to be successful or how to be a better person. No one really lets anyone live their life without having some conflicting opinion about what’s cool and what’s not.

I live by the philosophy that if someone is doing something that makes them happy, and they’re not hurting themselves or anyone else, then just let them do the damn thing. Who cares? People care so much about how other people live their lives and spend so much time telling others how to live via social media. Twitter and Facebook especially have made people think that just because they have an opinion on a subject then that makes them an expert, and they can pass off their knowledge as some kind of supreme law.

I know that me telling people to shut up on Twitter is hypocritical and doing exactly what I said I hate, which is telling people what to do, so that’s why I just logged off. The only downside is that now I feel so out of the loop. I mean I didn’t even know about Beyonce’s new album until like 12 hours later (a long time in the world of social media).

I think in the near future I will be doing a cleanse of my followers and only keeping the ones who’s posts I enjoy reading. For now it’s actually been nice not knowing what people are saying or doing. It’s also been nice not being glued to my phone which is a habit that I hated myself for acquiring.

Sorry this is a bit of a rant but I just had to get it off  my chest.

Dress code: There is none.

I’ve never had a job that required a strict dress code. I’ve worked at in an IT department and in a gym, and while both were professional environments, it was a pretty casual setting. Starting my first full-time job, we have the same kind of dress code I was used to. “Business casual”..but….not really.

A lot of people would be stoked to not have to dress up for work everyday, but I’m somewhat indifferent. Being the youngest person in the office it becomes a struggle between dressing for the culture of the job versus dressing to be taken seriously. It would be impractical for me to go into work wearing a power suit, yet I don’t want to be the girl who wears hoodies everyday.

Anyways, I’ve come up with some creative ways to keep it super casual, yet professional, that seem to work for my work environment. I don’t consider myself a fashionista by ANY MEANS, but here are a few of my go-to outfits for a typical day at work.

Side note: I practically live in leggings and the majority of my wardrobe is black, but I’m trying to mix it up!

 

“The List”: Part 1

I have about 2 and half years of experience being in my twenties and there some things that I have noticed certain trends about being this age. I must say that I really hate reading lists about “Things every twenty-something should know” or “what ever twenty-something should be doing” because all they do is stress you out and make you think you’re living your life wrong. Which we already all think we are anyways.

But this is part 1 of my “list” of things that I have noticed during this short time of being in my twenties.

It really is all about “who you know” not “what you know”

It is unfair but it is what it is. I am all for networking except for when it leads to companies hiring under-qualified twenty-somethings, and then later complaining about how incompetent millennials are. I won’t complain too much because I got my current job solely through networking and being at the right place at the right time, but the emphasis on networking often gives young professionals false hope that they can get an amazing job from who they know, but come time to deliver quality skills, they are coming up short.

“Social Media is not a career”

Duh. I can’t even count the number of times I was told this while networking. Social media is a day to day activity and it is like breathing for a lot of people. There is no need for fourty-somethings telling me that I’m not going to make a living doing social media. Young people have been marketing themselves on social media since before professionals even realized it could be used as a valid marketing tool.

Generation Y invented social media and Generation X took it upon themselves to write articles about it and teach courses on it and call themselves “social media experts”. There is something wrong with a job posting requiring 7+ years of professional social media experience when Twitter itself was only created about 6 years ago.

Don’t expect to be taken seriously 

I worked in my last office for almost 5 years, and was always the youngest person working there. The department was failing and no one was open to suggestions. The point is, it doesn’t matter how many degrees you have, if you’re under a certain age, you still won’t be taken seriously as a professional. They won’t hire you, but they sure will ask you to teach tenured, 60-something PhDs how to right-click a mouse and compose an email.

Just be grateful, no matter what

This first year out of college has been an interesting time. I’m technically not even out of college since I made the ridiculous decision to go to grad school, but grad school is so different, it doesn’t even count. The point is, that everyone’s journey is different. I was lucky enough to find a full time job and find myself envious of my unemployed friends who get to do crafts and watch Netflix all day. Meanwhile, they’re willing to do anything to secure that 9-5 position. This time is so trivial when you look at the big picture that as long you’re doing something that makes you happy you should just be grateful to be where you are.

Tricky questions

I was recently asked….

“Was there ever a time where you questioned your interest in working in the media industry? What happened and what caused you to reconsider?”

My (not so) brief response:

In the summer of 2011, I was approached with an internship opportunity with Black Card Media, an online and print media company who published a college newspaper called The Black Sheep. The Black Sheep is an edgy, satirical newspaper geared towards the interests and lives of typical college students. The company was interested in starting a new branch of the paper at VCU and I was offered the position of campus manager as well as editorial manager. I was given the task of assembling a staff of writers and a marketing team. After about three months of finding writers, brainstorming story ideas, editing articles and searching for venues to distribute the paper, we finally launched the first issue of The Black Sheep at VCU in October 2011.

Shortly after the launching of our first issue, Style Weekly, a very well known and established newspaper in Richmond, approached me wanting to do an interest story on our student-run paper that was quickly gaining popularity on campus. I took a call from a friendly reporter who asked me questions regarding the casual and sarcastic style of the paper. Two days later a very condescending and mean-spirited article was printed making a mockery of the paper and our efforts to provide students with entertaining reading material that is relevant to college life.

I was shocked at how a group of professionals would be so underhanded and seem so friendly; even send a photographer to photograph us at a campus event, and then write an article that would essentially discourage and dampen the spirits of our staff who worked so hard at launching this paper from scratch. We had all taken our jobs with The Black Sheep because it seemed like amazing learning opportunity for us as students and way to gain journalistic experience while contributing something to our school.

Until then I had only had experience networking and meeting with PR professionals in Richmond, all of whom were extremely helpful and encouraging to students trying to pursue a career in their field. I admit that I was naïve to the fact that a journalist could so easily appear to have my best interests in mind when in fact they’re intentions were the complete opposite. This caused my entire outlook on the media industry to change. This was my first personal experience dealing with negative press and naturally it made me question my involvement with the paper and with our entire project in general. I did not want my name to be associated with a negative article, especially when my words were spun so far out of context. I was even considering resigning my position with the paper. After taking a step back and speaking with my supervisor and a few of my mentors in public relations, I realized that this is what a career in PR is all about. I came to the realization that I would inevitably have to deal with a lot of negative press in my career if I intended to pursue a career in media. Although my first negative experience came earlier than I had hoped it would, it has made me a stronger person by learning to deal with the situation as well as coming up with ways to fix it.

A few months later I arranged for The Black Sheep at VCU to team up with VCU’s PRSSA chapter on our X-Out Homelessness campaign. Together we advertised the campaign in our paper and my supervisors at Black Card Media agreed to match any amount of canned goods that we received as donations during our campaign. This partnership definitely helped the image of the paper and showed our readers within the community that although the paper is about college life and the “fun stuff” that comes along with it that we also have the community’s interests at heart and that we are able to benefit the community through our readership and contribute to such a great cause.

I later learned that the people at Style Weekly might have felt threatened by our paper and the fact that we were after the same sponsors and advertisers, and used the story as an attempt to create bad press for our paper to discourage businesses from advertising with us. In retrospect, I am thankful to have had this experience because it taught me a lot about dealing with the press and how to move past negativity. It is an experience that actually ended up reinforcing my passion for public relations and I think back on it a lot while moving forward in my career.

Networking: You mean…I actually have to talk to people?

Networking. Every college student has heard this term (ok, I’m generalizing). You meet someone you find interesting. Something about their job, the company they work for, or the field in general has sparked your interest. Networking, in theory, is so easy. You just walk up to someone, introduce yourself, have a conversation, be exceptionally charming, and then they give you a job. Right? It COULD happen. But instead of a job, they hand you a business card. As an up-and-coming professional, the rest is on you. If you’re like me, the realization of having to talk to actual people to find a job may have you reconsidering your path in life. You contemplate faking illness, or even possibly changing your major completely to something that consists of no human interaction at all. Okay I am being dramatic. But once you pluck up the nerve to make the initial connection, you may wonder what to do next. You have their contact information. First you send out that email.

“Hi,

We met at this event. I’m in the process of looking for a job, and you have a job that I want. I’m going to ask you a lot of questions about that job so you know how interested I am in it. I’ll probably ask  you about yourself. What you like or don’t like about what you do, or what your job is like day-to-day. But by now you’ve figured out that what I really want to know is how you got your job and what I can do to get a job like yours. Because face it, I’m in college and am just looking for that one foot in the door. We should get coffee and talk some more about your job and your life in general because I’m genuinely interested in getting to know you (not only because you can help me) because you seem like a very interesting person.

Please respond so I don’t feel so needy and annoying.“

Ok, I really hope no one’s ever sent an email EXACTLY like that, but you get the idea.

I used to think professionals thought I was really annoying until I realized that they really are happy and willing to help young professionals get their start. It’s all about putting yourself out there and stepping out of your comfort zone. Especially in PR, if you’re not willing to step out of your comfort zone and ask for favors, it’s likely that you’ll remain stagnant in your career pursuits.

However, for the socially challenged, LinkedIn is another great networking tool. Before meeting a professional ahead of time, you will likely be able to find them on LinkedIn. (If we’ve had a conversation, I probably looked you up on LinkedIn on the way home) You can add professionals or simply browse their profiles. Learn some stuff about them that you can bring up in conversation or use to generate interesting questions to ask. They will be impressed that you took the time to do your research.

Just keep in mind that as annoying or bothersome you think you are being to a professional, that they have all been in your position once before. It took me a while to realize, but professionals really are happy and willing to help young people, especially students, in providing them with the advice and guidance they need while looking for that first job. It did take a while to get comfortable with, but for me, networking eventually became second nature.

(Image source)

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ― Ernest Hemingway

Graduation is about a month away and I still find myself changing my career goals almost daily. (I know, I know, every one goes through this) I have been thinking a lot about what goals I have set for myself and what I expect for myself in the future. Currently, my short-term career goal is to engulf myself in as many aspects of public relations and communications as possible. I am focusing my short-term goals mostly around the idea that if I dip my toes into as many areas of the media industry as possible, then I will be able to find a niche that I am passionate enough about to create long-term career goals around. Throughout my last two years of college I have set goals for myself to complete internships and shadow as many professionals as possible to learn as much as I can about the field I want to go into before fully entering the real world as a young professional. Improving my ability to network with professionals is also another short-term, and possibly long-term, goal I have for myself. For me, networking is a skill that I don’t think I can ever stop improving upon; especially in an industry where it is so crucial to simply know the right people. Graduate school is starting to present itself as a viable option for me to take. I do want to further my education as much as possible so I do plan to go school and get as much education as I can.

I am still trying to figure out which path is right for me but I’ve realized that there is no “right” path to take and as long as I am moving in the right direction I want to enjoy this journey of realization as much as possible.

I have been blogging…in my mind.

I’m sorry. I have been so caught up in other things and also trying to draft the perfect topics to blog about.

I came across this article which talked about horrible blogging advice. Just to name a few:

“Stick to a rigid publishing schedule.”

“Bloggers need to be edgy.”

“Images aren’t important.”

“All it takes to succeed is quality content.”

“Cultivate reciprocal links.”

“It’s all about subscribers.”

These tips stuck out to me the most because I could definitely relate to each of them. At first I thought that to blog meant to have a strict blogging schedule and set rules and guidelines for blogging. I realized that blogging is just a way to engage in conversation with people who are interested in what I have to say.

I will try to be more conversational with my blogging and blog about relevant topics that I come across.

MORE TO COME!

Obligatory blog introduction post

It’s December 17. 8 days until Christmas. 14 days until the New Year. 28 days until I start my last semester of undergrad. 145 days until graduation. It’s time to get serious about the future.

I’ve always been partial to blogging, but recently I’ve been thinking about my experiences during this last year of undergrad and how others may be interested to know what life is like for an almost college graduate, trying to figure out what to do with the future.

I’ve learned lessons like, it’s probably not a good idea to drink more than one cup of coffee an hour, unless I enjoy feeling like my heart is about to beat out of my chest. I’ve also learned that it is possible to successfully complete 7 semesters of college while simultaneously having a job and internship, without ever pulling an all-nighter.

Other things I’ve learned from the dozens of cover letters I’ve written and numerous interviews I’ve been on this year. Like how you may think it’s okay to wear the same dress to an interview that you wore to your friend’s birthday party if you just put a blazer over it. Wrong. Or that it saves time to write one cover letter and just change the employers name for each job. Also wrong.

Throughout this year I’ve also learned to be more realistic about my future. We all (especially PR kids) have big dreams of finishing school, getting that dream job offer in New York or LA and doing what you love. You know, that thing that you say every first day of class when the professor asks each person in the class to go around and say why they chose their major? I’m not saying that dreams don’t come true. I’ve learned to be practical. I’ve lived in this city for the past 4 years of my life, and it finally hit me that Richmond is my home. 5 years ago if you had told me I would be applying for graduate school and jobs in this city I would have laughed and said “yeah right”, but my views have changed! I’ve really learned to love this city and all that it offers young professionals and I may as well get as much out of it as I can before pursuing bigger things.

So anyways, as 2012 comes to a close, my resolution is to blog. And not just say I’m going to blog and be a flake but ACTUALLY blog about experiences and topics that are relevant to my life and others can relate to.

ENJOY! 🙂