How can I grow my social media presence as a journalist?

Post date: 2023-09-16 12:59:01

I now realise that letting my work speak for itself is no longer enough - so how can I grow my social media presence without losing my mind?

I am an experienced journalist and well established in my field. However I've been losing some work in areas like events moderation and similar jobs to male journalists who are average at what they do, but have large followings on social media like Instagram and LinkedIn. Also, beyond working for specific outlets I want to be able to grow an audience of my own by doing things like launching a newsletter - but again, I need to get better at social in order to nurture that base.

I have been talking about this with a lot of women who do a great job and feel really hesitant and nervous about telling the world about it in a more salesy kind of way. I am one of them :( On the other hand, while I really don't want to live to post every moment of my day, I'm not a refusenik and won't bury my head in the sand about this. For a long time I've felt embarrassed to bang the drum for myself and was convinced that these platforms are just an egofest, but I can see how I need to get my act together and talk about my work and grow my following in an intentional way.

I've started doing something around personal branding, like hiring a designer to develop my visual ID and will get new photos done.

Apart from that, what is the advice from social media pros and journalist who are doing well in that sense? What can I do to put a strategy together and organise myself appropriately to do this, and also what sorts of content I should be focusing on? Apart from posting the articles I am writing, events, trips and other work-related content, what would be interesting to post from a more personal point of view? Would it be worth sharing my journey from barely posting to trying to put myself out there?

Anyway, lots of questions but am hoping the hive mind will come to the rescue :) Thanks so much for reading this!

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