Why I’m Back

This week marks a month since I deleted all social media- but I’m back.

You may sarcastically say to yourself “wow that lasted long,” but you try doing it!

It’s not that easy.

Here’s why I decided to come back to social media:

I recently just had to re-login to my snapchat and instagram accounts in order to keep them. Yep, these tricky apps won’t let you deactivate your account for too long- sucking you back in after just a short break. Even though I did want to not use these accounts, I didn’t want them gone forever so I decided to log back in.

The plan was to log in and activate my account again and then just deactivate them again for another month. However, to my surprise both instagram and snapchat won’t let you deactivate your account multiple times in a short period of time- forcing you to keep them active.

At first this was very surprising to me, but the business student in me saw what they were doing. Obviously the creators made these policies to draw you right back in. If you can’t deactivate your account again, then you might as well keep it and go back to being an active user!

I hate to admit it, but snapchat got me. They won. I’m slowly realizing that the best and fastest way to communicate with my friends is through snapchat and that’s not going to change until another new app comes around.

As my friend Jorge says “Shay, you literally can’t hold a conversation over text with anyone” so I guess this is good for me!! This is actually so true the more I think about it because I hate texting unless I have a specific question or I’m making plans. I’m really not a big fan of long texting conversations because I really don’t have that much to say honestly.

As for instagram, I’m not throwing in the towel just yet. I still don’t have the app on my phone and I don’t scroll through it to see people’s pics- sorry if I’m not a “loyal liker” anymore folks! When I initially re-downloaded it, I missed so many pictures people posted that I could not tell which were from a month ago and which were from 15 minutes ago. It was legitimately stressful so ultimately I gave up because I really didn’t care that much about looking at other people’s pictures.

Here’s what I’ve learned about managing social media in my life:

Accept the fact that people communicate more using snapchat, GroupMe and Facebook than they do through texting and calling- It’s so much easier to have a group chat or discussion board through Facebook than through a group text, allowing everyone’s thoughts and opinions to be presented more clearly. Facebook is basically an essential for college kids at this point- with almost all clubs having their own Facebook pages.
If you find yourself checking your apps a lot, hide them in random folders on your phone. You’ll forget where you put them and forget they were even downloaded to your phone in the first place.
Don’t carry your phone with you wherever you go- If you’re going to watch tv in the other room, just leave your phone in the kitchen. It doesn’t need to be glued to your side at all times.
Going along with that last point- If you’re going out to dinner with the fam leave the phone at home! Be present for that car ride and dinner- there’s no reason to have your phone. The messages will be there when you get back.
If you catch yourself aimlessly scrolling through apps when you’re bored, take that time to google things and educate yourself. Maybe look through Pinterest to find some new exercises or recipes, youtube workout videos, or check CNN or FOX news to see what’s going on in the world!
Stop “doing it for the snap, insta, or vine”. Some people will literally go places and do things just for the pictures and videos they can post later. Seriously just do things because you want to!!

Some practical uses of social media (it’s more than meets the eye):

Blogging– Using social media to spread your ideas, opinions, and pictures is great! Sharing the link on Facebook, snapchat, and instagram will get people noticing you and also show them what you’re interested in other than beach days and the food you got at dinner that you posted online.
Building your professional profile- Sharing blogs and articles on LinkedIn is a great way to network and make connections. This is also an awesome topic to bring up in interviews! However, if you talk about your “poppin” instagram that you manage for a club or yourself, you better make sure it’s actually “popping” with more than 27 followers- all of which are your cousins and aunts that comment excessively.
Discover and Expand Upon your Interests- Through getting this blog and through instagram, I really discovered that I love social media marketing. The power of social media that companies harness is ridiculous. Seriously, remember that bathing suit that every girl reposted about a month ago? PLEASE go look at their website and you’ll see what I mean( https://sunnycoclothing.com ) . EVERY. SINGLE. BATHING SUIT. is sold out. One simple social media marketing stunt transformed that company, how freaking crazy huh?!
Make accounts other than your personal account- For example, I really love food as many of you know. I’m super excited to head to Italy and feast for 6 months. With that being said, I’m gonna need a place to post these pictures because they all can’t go on my blog. This extra instagram account is a great partner for my blog and also an awesome way to get my blog out there. It’s even better to be able to show employers “hey I made this instagram account for one of my passions- here’s what it looks like and how many followers I have!”. If you’re able to work at it and be successful, that will surely impress an employer.

So yeah, I am back on social media for now and I’ve made it my summer mission to really use social media in a different way. I really want to learn about social media from the business and blogger perspective. I really think this can help me, especially with my career and “side hustle”.

Thank y’all for reading- stay tuned for my next project!!

FOLLOW @FOODIE.IMPASTA on instagram to help me kickstart my instagram that will coincide with this blog!!