Week 1 - Choosing themes and taking names

In anticipation of creating my first blog entry, and with the goal of trying to put off writing the first course assignment as long as possible, I probably spent much more time than needed on the theme. I spent about two hours in the acts of browsing themes, selecting and re-selecting features, and uploading photos. I'm sure that sounds surprising given how simple the final layout of the blog looks. Two factors helped me finally choose my theme. First, I tried to pick a layout and font that would be easy to read online. Second, I wanted to choose a background that would inspire me in some way.

The font issue only came up recently when a coworker mentioned that text sans serif is easier to read online. She stated it as fact, as if it were from a meticulous study conducted on fonts. Rather than ask my coworker for a cited source, I've just accepted here words, and I try to make my online work easily readable. The one exception in the blog might be the bright green title against the background image. They may not fit well together, but I couldn't resist that shade of peppy green!

I chose the background image of a spark for my blog theme. The colors are dark in tone, but still vivid and dynamic. While I have that background image, I'm thinking of my ideas as the spark. Each new idea has life and energy.

As I think on this course and the social media platforms, I struggle with the idea of where the line between personal and professional lies. In being likable and accessible to followers, how much of myself should I share for my business? I think some of the factors must be the type of business and the type of social media platform.

My business is education based. By tradition, there's that respectful distance between teachers and students, or between teachers and online subscribers. Education could be more of a business that would do well being promoted on YouTube. You can create teaching videos and people can still leave comments, but the mode of interacting here seems less personal compared to other social media. 

For personal use, I enjoy social that allows for quick responses and encourages interactions, such as Instagram and Twitter. You can leave comments, "like" posts, or in some social media even go off to a personal chat. Instagram has been promoting some very smart ways to create feelings of community and keep people engaged. Their group challenges are an example of this, such as #challengeaccepted to promote female strength and bonding. This idea could also be used to market a business, but the "hook" would have to be refocused to match the product.