The Online Challenges of Creative Workers
Since the moment I have created my first account on a social media platform and has become an active user, the internet has developed with extreme speed. Afterwards, my profession became closely related to the digital world, and I became highly concerned about my online presence.
Further, I will describe various concepts, which help to reflect on my online presence and how independent professionals present themselves in the digital environment.
In order to analyze my involvement in the digital environment, I will use the concept of “visitors” and “residents” introduced by White (2008). With the former, he describes individuals who use network as a tool, in order to solve particular tasks such as booking holiday tickets or researching a specific subject. They do not see it as a place for interaction and they do not feel a need to express themselves in online environment. On the other hand, White points out, “residents” are “individuals whose identity extends to the online world” (2008, p. 73) and whose interactions goes beyond the use of home banking. He claims that they use the network as a space to socialize, express themselves and build a strong presence that may involve different aspects of their lives.
Despite the fact that I am no longer actively interacting with social media platforms, such as frequently posting pictures/stories from my everyday life, chatting with friends and followers, sharing funny memes, my work is tightly related to the digital environment and requires certain amount of participation and identity maintenance. Based on White’s concept of “visitors” and “residents”, I consider myself as a “resident.”
Continuing to analyze my online presence, I would like to point out another idea of different types of online identities that Aresta et al (2015) concluded in their research. “Context-driven” and “user-driven” online identity profiles. Context-driven online identity profiles describe users who are choosing the information they add on their profile according to the platform requirements. User-driven online identity profiles describe users who disregard the platforms’ rules.
According to this idea, I consider my profile as a “context-driven.” For instance, I am actively promoting my business on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram. Each of these platforms has their own rules. Hence, in order to succeed in my business, I have to learn the platforms’ affordances and interact accordingly.
As a content creator it is essential for me to be present online, to promote my business and have visually appealing content. Since Instagram gained popularity, I invested most of my time for promotion there. It went quite well at the beginning. Unfortunately, it did not last for long. Ever since Instagram introduced its algorithm in 2016 everything has changed. It has a purpose to filter the best, most relevant content for each user every time they refresh their feed. In reality, the algorithm gave a lot of challenges for creative workers and influencers who chose this platform for self-promotion. Each year the algorithm is changing and giving independent workers new tasks for better performance.
Despite the fact that users maintain “consistent” online persona, Duffy, B. et al claims that creative workers constantly negotiate their online presence (2017). As they concluded, this statement was based on interviews with several creative workers in order to understand how independent professionals present themselves and their work on digital platforms. On each platform I have to interact according to its affordances. I agree with this statement. For instance, every time I move to a new country; I had to consider useful platforms to promote my business as well as the local market’s demand and specifics. Afterwards, I had to rethink the style of my portfolio and my online self-presentation.
I also realized that Instagram requires active participation in order to be more visible and get a wider audience. In other words, it pushes you to generate and provide more data. For example, forcing frequent publishing of content on a page or on Instagram’s stories will eventually generate tagged location data or tagged accounts you are cooperating with. Moreover, even though I have a business account, platform rules insist to provide my personal information such as phone number, email address, gender and date of birth.
Along with that, I realized that by having a business account on Instagram, I cannot make it private so it means that anyone can see what I post and share on my page. They can see when and where I published it. Detailed location or people I am working with might be highlighted. I would not consider it as a safe environment for work as I am not protected from any kind of intervention. Such as my location being tracked by someone based on my Instagram stories, just an example.
However, the constant change of Instagram’s algorithm, lack of privacy protection and the endless race to get a ‘like’ made me feel anxious and exhausted. Instagram became inconvenient for me.
As an alternative I created accounts on platforms for freelance professionals.Those platforms provide all necessary tools to build and promote your business. Unlike Facebook or Instagram, the social features are completely restricted, and everything is focused on preparing, making or following up a deal. The platform provides a mobile app which helps you to be up to date and be in touch with your customers within the platform.
By analyzing my online presence and the way, I interacted with social media platforms in order to promote my business. I understood that the digital world a very complex environment. At the beginning of my online journey, I did not think of how important it is to have a basic knowledge of what internet and social media platforms are and how to deal with it. Especially if you are planning to use it for your work and future career. I realized you cannot master your online presence; you can only keep yourself up to date and develop along with it. As everything else in the world, we have to be aware of the things we interact with on a daily basis.
References :
Aresta, M., Pedro, L., (2015). Portraying the self in online contexts: context-driven and user-driven online identity profiles, Contemporary Social Science, 10(1), 70-85. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2014.980840
Scolere, L., Pruchniewska, U., & Duffy, B. E. (2018). Constructing the Platform-Specific Self-Brand: The Labor of Social Media Promotion. Social Media + Society, 4(3), 205630511878476. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118784768