Media Whirlwind

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This morning I was greeted at the door by one of the interns, Cooper the Yorkie, who had a fresh new haircut, and the cat food tin stuck to his face. Last week on Tuesday Michelle was out, so I didn’t end of having work (still had to wake up at 8am to take my car for a maintenance check). And Thursday my day was so busy that I never got to write a blog post!

Last Thursday I spent the morning half of my day updating social media sites, such as making sure Scoop The Lake content would be posted for the next two weeks on Instagram, and that Scoop Charlotte articles were being shared on Facebook and Twitter. The second half of the day I worked on a handout for a plastic surgery company about what skin products to use this summer. That assignment was fun because I hadn’t yet made a paper handout, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, my computer was going amazingly slow. It took three times trying to open Photoshop, and having to force quit, before I could get it to open and operate. By the time I finished the flyer, it was time to leave our second office at Starbucks and head home.

Today I finished scheduling social media posts for Scoop the Lake, and I designed the front homepage layout of the Charlotte Surprise Sale website. After that, I worked in Canva on creating a writing document that is directions for people who want to post their articles to the Scoop Charlotte WordPress site. Then there was a quick lunch break for the daily bagel, and now I am doing some research about when is the best time to post on social media sites.

As you may know, Facebook and Instagram each use an algorithm to have content show up on your feed. Rather than posting things chronologically, the sites will put what it believes to be the most important content for you at the top of your feed, regardless of what time is was published.

Personally I see the pros and cons of the new algorithm. The con is that, for people like me, seeing posts in order of post ensures your ability to see each one and not miss any. The pro of the new algorithm is that important things will be there right when you open your feed, even if you haven’t checked your phone all day, you’ll still get to see the most important things people have posted.

But for businesses, the only way to make sure for maximized viewing results is to use good hashtags, get lots of comments on the photo to heighten engagement, or paying to have it promoted.

The new posting strategy is a double edged sword, leveling the playing field by stripping the fakes from their prepaid likes, but also threatening small businesses to lose their followers.