My Final Thoughts
My experience being a part of the Lehigh Mobile Storytelling community and my favorite parts throughout the summer course
At the beginning of Lehigh University’s Mobile and Social Media Storytelling class, I had little skills in social media storytelling. Throughout the six weeks of learning, my professor, Matt Veto, taught me several different techniques.
The class focused on optimizing social media posts, building video and photo stories, and engaging with others on social media. I have now mastered each of these skills thanks to this class.
Many tips and tricks that I have learned from this class can be applied to many mediums. I will definitely continue to use my newfound skills and knowledge on social media optimization for my Twitter profile and other social media platforms, such as Instagram.
For this class, I made a separate account on Instagram to complete assignments that required a post on that platform. This account features several photos and videos for this class that got recognition using hashtags and engaging posts. This caused my account to gain followers.
I am most proud of the interviews that I conducted for this course. Two projects, one being the final project of this course, involved interviewing people outside of your circle and exploring their lives. I am an outgoing person. However, when it’s a more serious conversation regarding a formal setting, I can become uncomfortable. I am proud of the way I handled asking for interviews as well as how I conducted them. I was professional, but not so professional that I could not build a friendly relationship with my interviewees.
I was especially nervous during my final project interview with small business owner Walter Bracero. However, I learned that I should not have worried as much as I did because it was not as nerve-racking as I originally thought.
Furthermore, I loved building up my profile on Twitter. While I still have a relatively small following, I have not used Twitter before this class, so gaining followers meant a lot to me and showed me that I did something right. This class required an active use of Twitter, and I feel that was important in building a stronger following.
During the Twitter Curation project, I chose to focus on women in business. The point of the project was to become more focused on creating a more professional profile for the group we want to join in the future. The most exciting part of this project was that some women I researched and included in my Twitter list followed me back. It showed that Twitter can be used as a networking tool as well as a platform to build up one’s professionalism.
Mobile and social media storytelling really opened my eyes to everything you can accomplish using just your phone. From the beginning of this class, I did not fully understand the concept of social media storytelling and I was also shocked we only needed our phones to complete assignments. Especially in this social media-emphasized world today, most people carry their phones everywhere.
This class taught me all that I can accomplish with a device that can fit in your pocket.
