We live in a social media age. No matter how hard you try to deny it, time and time again we get reminded that social media is just a part of our daily lives. Nowadays, there seems to be an app for everything under the sun. It can be quite overwhelming if you ask me. Don’t you miss the days where a cell phone was only able to make calls and texts?
Based on the year I was born I am considered a “millennial” and all of my fellow millennial’s know that we pretty much grew up alongside technology growing into what it is today. It started out with MySpace, then Facebook, Tumblr was somewhere in the mix too, then Twitter, Snapchat, and the ever popular Instagram.
In the beginning, social media was really just a place to connect with friends and share your life. Some took it a little too far at times and would share a little bit too much about their daily lives (I think we’ve all had that ONE friend). But, now I’ve noticed social media is slowly warping into a “undisclosed” dating pool. If your profile doesn’t catch someones eye in 5-10 seconds, you are out of the game. How do I know this? Well, I’ve caught myself doing it a few times and I have heard both men and women completely write off a human being in that amount of time.
“Girl, his face! Nope. I NEED my man to have a decent face!”
“Nah, she looks too much like a good girl. I need something exotic.”
“Oh no. Every photo is perfectly taken, he’s got 3 cars, and wears designer clothes. F boy central.”
“Every picture of him is him half naked. I mean we see you workout but geez. Conceited much?”
“Bruh, look at THIS one! She gotta cute face, she thick, and she single. Might have to hit this one.”
And the list can really go on and on with the responses I have heard.
From hearing these types of judgments based off pictures, it came to me that how you “market” yourself really can influence how you are seen and approached on social media. Because I am a woman, I will be focusing on how women really need to be very conscious of how we are marketing ourselves, especially if you are wanting any kind of respect from the opposite sex.
I’ve had roughly a handful of friends in my life complain about the types of men that are in their DM’s. I’ve seen the messages these men send and it shocks me to see how bold these men can be. But, when I looked at my friends pages a little more closely, I noticed that the women who had problems with men coming on too strong, had enticing pages. Their pages would include lots of selfies of them done up, gym pics, pics revealing their silhouettes, etc. It clicked right then and there: they are marketing themselves for these men without knowing it.
On the contrary, I and a few others, RARELY, if ever, get messages from men. All of my messages are from females with less than a handful from guy friends that follow me commenting on a story I posted. Thats it! So, I looked at my page, and others similar to mine, and saw the marketing difference. I post a lot of quotes, pics of my blogs, a few pics of myself, and more quotes. My page is more focused on a subject other than myself. And the women who had similar experiences to me, had similar constructed pages but with a few more innocent pics of themselves.
So I pose the question to you: how are you marketing yourself?
If you are okay with the traffic that is, or isn’t coming in, then bravo! Keep doing you girl. But, if you’re getting too many unwanted messages, take a look at your page. See what you might be saying without saying it.
For those who seem to feel like they don’t get any attention, I will caution you on putting effort into making your page more “hot girl summer”. Why? Because you might be dealing with a deeper issue with self esteem and self worth if you are really wanting a huge influx of male traffic. Just as precaution, know WHY you want that extra attention and ask yourself is this what you really want? An influx of men from all over the world bombarding your DM’s just to say you’re pretty? Woman to woman…..you deserve more than that.
All in all, I want to urge all of my fellow sisters to be conscious of what we put out there. I don’t know where social media will be at when I have kids, but one thing I want any of my kids to know is that their “mom” was one classy woman on the gram.
