Week 6

Social Media & My Career

Step one to having a professional online presence is having an online presence …duh, but where should I be present and why? There are so many social media sites and networking spaces to choose from, Art Station (“ArtStation,” 2016), Instagram (“Instagram,” n.d.), Facebook (“Log in or sign up,” 2016), Twitter (“https://twitter.com/,” n.d.), Linkedin (“World’s largest professional network,” 2016), Youtube (“www.youtube.com,” 2016) to name a few. So thinking about which sites would be most beneficial for me as an animation student trying to break into the industry would be Artstation.com, Youtube and maybe Facebook. I’ve made an Artstation and Youtube account recently and have found Artstation particularly useful in getting in that creative atmosphere were I find myself being inspired to create something every time I land on their homepage. The enormous amount of daily uploaded art from amazing artists around the world is fantastic by itself but the job listing aspect of the site is also a huge bonus to having an account, being able to see what jobs are available and what companies are looking for is eye opening and motivating. A lot of the site is about networking and has a lot of opportunity to communicate with other creatives in the industry. Having the platform that links me to people in the industry is a great asset and I’ll definitely be engaging with other artists in forms of comments, likes and follows to open lines of communication with people in the community, effectively starting and putting into practice my professional online presence.

Trying to please everyone

“people that attracted the most polarised ratings (high and low) received the most messages. In other words, the most approachable and ‘popular’ were the ones that appealed to a smaller amount. So “greater variance means greater opportunity.” (Popova, 2014)

In Maria Popovas report on “Why Being Extraordinary Is Not a Matter of Being Universally Liked but of Being Polarizing” (Popova, 2014) she explains through the research she has accumulated that trying to please everyone is not going to yield the best response. Where as if you were to focus on a narrower audience and showcase yourself as you actually want to, like expressing an uncommonly thought opinion or creating something niche, you will receive a more effective response. More effective doesn’t necessarily mean good, although any publicity is good publicity right? This is interesting information and not exactly what I would have expected, I’m more confident that I’ll be able to represent myself the way I want to online in a professional light knowing it will probably be better for me to be a little risky and against the grain instead of trying to follow the pack and be liked by all.