Some Final Thoughts (4/4)
I wanted to wait until I was completely done with every aspect of my social media story across platforms to complete a final update on how the entire process went for me. In the end, I am happy with how all of the elements of my story turned out even if it isn’t how I originally envisioned it.
All of the little changes that I made were either because I wasn’t completely content with how something turned out or because my original idea just wasn’t viable at the point in which I was working on it. This was mostly the case with my Instagram Live element that I completed since composing my last update. My initial idea fell through and then the interview that I had fell through, but at the end of the day it still turned out successfully and I think it did a good job at portraying an aspect of my story that I couldn’t have accomplished in a produced story or in an image. So It really helped show me the benefits of live storytelling. It was a really bright, colorful and fun way to connect with an audience.
I also made some changes to my produced story since the last update. I went back and added captions to the video so that it was the best that it could possibly be for Facebook as a platform. Watching videos on Facebook is something that people often do without actually having the sound on. This helped show me that you really need to think about the platforms that you are using and optimize your story elements in the best way for each individual platform because they all have their pros and cons. One thing I would change if I had some extra time would be to add some other types of visuals into my produced story (like charts or data visualization) because I think it would have broken up all the pictures and videos that I shot and ultimately made the video a little more diverse.
At the end of the day, after completing the in-class presentation and writing the reflection paper, I realize how much I have learned and taken away from completing this project. There are so many things that it’s hard to be aware of if you haven’t genuinely tried to use a platform or even a feature on a platform before. It really is best just to get out there and try new platforms and experiment with what they can do in order to best be able to tell a story online. Some things may be out of your comfort zone, but you only have to try it once if you hate it!
