Week 7 Part A: Get Visual with Instagram : Alternative Assignment

 I have an existing Instagram Account @ TiffanyEYoung for myself that I used for my activities as a Journalist and I wanted to use it to connect with other mixed people. I have 2300 followers, I follow 345 people, mostly people I know.  I have 169 posts.  I have not been active on my account for 2 years.  It makes me a little sad because it was something I liked to use to share my life.  When I had my daughter I posted her when she was about 3 months old.  Mainly because people wanted to see a picture of me with her.  I never posted pictures when I was pregnant so a lot of people didn't even know I was a mom so it was a surprise.  I really didn't want to post it. But I also loved taking pictures of my daughter because she is my life and especially during covid with a newborn, all I did was take pictures. I wanted to keep my life private but also wanted to share.  I was torn.  I left it up for a while but then decided I didn't want to post my daughter to Instagram so I archived it.  I think with the birth of my daughter, COVID happening right after, the breakup with her dad, moving by myself and then getting her diagnosis of Angelman Syndrome, I was in too much of a depression and dealing with grief I just couldn't bring myself to get on Instagram and post anything and that may have been the death of my account.  

I will talk about what worked for me before all this happened.  I started my Instagram 10 years ago.  I didn't really pick up followers until I started taking on assignments as a host and reporter.  I used hashtags and locations and tagged people I interviewed.  I noticed I started to gain followers because of certain events I was at or if I posted pictures in my stories with certain known people, it got engagement and follows.  I'd say I was most successful with posting stories.  I also noticed people loved Behind the scenes (BTS) stories.  Like if I was working at the news station and putting together a news segment in the editing or control room, I'd get so many clapping hands and hearts on my stories.  I think people liked seeing me do something I loved at the time.  It was good confirmation about what people liked to see because I had struggled before about what my Instagram was for.  I posted pointless pictures of food and selfies and I really felt like what's the point.  The only time I started to enjoy putting posts together was when I was out and about doing something interesting.  It was good and bad.  I remember at times I felt forced to post a story and in a tight deadline because if it was a Saturday night event and if you don't post soon enough it isn't relevant anymore. I remember that stressed me out.  I'm also somewhat shy and self conscious at times.  If I didn't like the way I looked in something, I didn't care what celebrity I was in the picture with, I wasn't going to post it. Im a bit of a perfectionist which stopped me from posting as frequent because I couldn't be as free with it as I wanted to.  

I really wish I could get back into it.  I need to have a clear strategy and understanding of who I am and why I'm there posting content.  There needs to be purpose.  At this point I'm not even sure if my account is able to be revived.