First Post for Social Media and Society!

"Not Available now!!!" taken by lovelysunflower2008

 Hi, my name is Peyton and this is my blog for COMM 339 (or Social Media and Society). In this blog post, I am supposed to be writing about some takeaways or pieces of advice we learned from other blogs I have read. But before I do that, I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. I am a college student at Texas Lutheran University and am majoring in communication studies. I love watching TV shows and reading books. And finally, I have a love for polar bears and dogs. That is why I decided to include a picture of a polar bear, which reflects my current mood, and a cute picture of my dog Nico in a witch hat.

Now for the reason why I am writing this post. The first takeaway that I learned is that there are many different ways to write a blog. The blog post Why Marianne Williamson's Unconventional Presidential Bid Didn't Catch On  had their post set up in paragraph form. They had full length paragraphs with more information in each one. There were also less paragraphs on the post. Compared to the blog post called In Defense of Y'all, set up their blog post in shorter paragraphs. Some of them were even one sentence long. I also noticed that some of the blog post were a lot longer than others. Some of them had three paragraphs and were short, while others where multiple shorter paragraphs and longer post.

The second takeaway that I learned is to not be afraid to include personal stories and experiences. In the blog post Train Your Brain (Moving Through Perfectionism to Create) Episode I: Reject Perfection, they start off the post explaining what they have encountered while working with other people. They also gave quotes that other people have said about coloring. In a later paragraph, they share their experience with perfectionism to show that they understand how people are feeling and how it can be helpful while acknowledging how it can be harmful. By including personal experiences, we can have a greater connection to our audience.

The third takeaway that I learned from the blog post My Top 10 Most Anticipated Books of 2020, is to be myself when I write. After reading this post, I noticed how natural they sounded and how you could tell how genuinely excited they were about what they are writing about. The way they wrote also gave a connection to their audience. In one paragraph, she wrote "ya girl" instead of saying "your girl." Things like this made the post feel more relatable and like they are just someone who wants to share what they are excited about.

These three takeaways from the different blog post I read will help me write my blog and not let it be so boring. But we'll see how long it takes me to get it right because I've never done something like this before and I'm so used to writing academically. Like I've said before, this is my first attempt at creating a blog, so I'm excited to see how much I'll improve throughout my time writing on it.