In this assignment, it was incredibly stressful. As stated previously, I am very introverted and I am not a fan of putting myself out there. With this assignment, it forced me out of my comfort zone and doing things that I otherwise wouldn’t, which was a blessing but at the same time, a curse.
With not much that I was really interested in diving into, I decided to go forward with promoting myself as a web designer. It has always been a dream of mine to do streaming as a hobby on the side of my regular life as I love the attention of it all, but at the same time I don’t. I figured if I moved forward with this topic, it would give me a reason to actually try streaming and do something with it.
My first few ideas were definitely stream oriented and it shows. I wanted to do something that would push users heavily towards my stream, as that’s where most of the content would be, and I wanted my posts to reflect that. Each of my posts were stream oriented and I hope it helps stick with the audience so that the next time I stream I have more viewers.
I did run into some small roadblocks however. I found myself needing to help engage with the audience in order to promote my work. The only problem was I didn’t know what would be an effective way of accomplishing that. The only way I know how to fully interact with people is through humor. So, I threw up images and posts on my Instagram with very dry humor to help break the ice for myself and getting comfortable with the feeling of putting my work out for everyone to see. Usually I am hidden behind anonymity so having my name attached to my work was quite stressful. It was a good experience for me and now having done it once, I feel more comfortable with doing it again if needed.
The post that I liked the most was the one promoting my stream alongside with showing my own portfolio that I had built. I was really happy with my portfolio and the way it turned out and I was excited to be able to share it with people.
Behind this image was a lot of hard work and effort. I went in depth on stream about how to create engaging portfolios with interesting concepts and ideas to help set individuality among the crowd. It was a great way of interacting with people and getting a chance to help coach people through what they can do in their own work. When I posted it, I obviously went over the top with my emojis and exclamation marks. The reason I did this is because again, I want to emphasize that I am a lighthearted and easy going guy, but the image itself is very serious and professional, showing that I do take web design seriously. I feel confident that I drove that point home with my audience as I am well known to be a sort of clown amongst my peers.
The next post I was really excited about was the Apple landing page stream. I had a lot of fun copying the website on a 1:1 scale and being able to dissect and explain as to why Apple made these design decisions and what they did right and what they still need to work on. I had a lot of fun with this project and it was really cool to try and do something that was engaging with users and push me to really see if I knew what I was talking about.
When I initially posted this image, I decided to take a more serious approach with my comment stating that I had did this on stream and I would love for my followers to check it out. I did this because I wanted to see which of the two approaches (serious or goofy) would engage with audiences more. I am hoping to watch it throughout this next week to see which one ends up taking the crown of interactivity.
Instagram has a fairly intuitive zoom in and zoom out on the corner of their staging page which made it very easy for me to have my posts fit to scale if needed. This first video I ensure to only record no more than a minute long to make sure it fit Instagram’s standards and cropping and editing if needed.
Overall it was a different experience for me to try and 1) promote my work and my services to people I knew in person and people that I didn’t know at all and 2) actually see if I knew web design. I have been doing it for a while but it was definitely a “put your money where your mouth is” experience. I want to be able to teach people good web practices so allowing myself to really test myself was a great experience and really helped me learn a lot along the way. I really learned how difficult it is to really market yourself as an online persona and it has really given me a newfound respect for people that have made it a living. It was a lot of fun to do and was a cool experience for me for sure.
In the end. I want to keep moving forward in this direction of online streaming. It may take some time to get my footing and also developing more confidence of being an influencer but I hope that I can achieve that milestone eventually in my life. This project was a lot of fun and I had a great time learning how to market on Instagram.