For this week’s blog post, I took a look at a couple different social media platforms to look into what kind of personalized learning groups they offered. I have been getting into cooking recently, so that is what I looked into when searching these platforms. I first took to Instagram, which I found had some really amazing video recipes. Typically, in the description of the post or bio of the account, there would be a link to the recipe or the creator’s personal website with more tips, tricks, and recipes. I also really appreciated that with the simple search of ‘#cooking’, I was able to find several informative images about a wide array of foods. There was a post about how long it takes to hard boil an egg with visual representation, as well as posts about different foods and what nutrients they are highest in.
Despite enjoying the experience on Instagram, if I were to make my own PLN, personalized learning network, I would much rather conduct it on TikTok. The reason being it is much easier to engage with your audience. When looking through Instagram, I found most of the comments were bots or folks who didn’t understand media literacy very well. I prefer TikTok because those who use the platform are closer in age to me, therefore they conduct themselves in a similar manner and understand how to use the app properly. It is also much easier to reach a wider audience on TikTok because of the way the app is set up. Instead of watching a feed of your ‘followed’ accounts, users opt to watch a curated ‘For You Page’ which showcases various different creators ranging from huge to small accounts, so you get a wide array of perspectives and ideas.
In order to start my own PLN, I would need to stick to a schedule in terms of my posts. I am certain it is similar with other social media platforms, but with TikTok there are certain times of day where posts do better and times where posts do worse. I also found that when using my personal account in the past, posting in two hour increments about three or four times a day almost guarantees reaching an audience of up to five hundred people on at least one of those posts.
Aside from algorithm, it is also very important to know how to engage with your audience on TikTok. With this platform, there are a lot of communities and subcommunities that share similar For You Pages, therefore are familiar with specific creators. If you want to tackle a certain audience, there are many ways to connect. You are able to ‘stitch’ other popular creators videos, use trending sounds, or even just to comment or reply to comments on other popular videos.
On TikTok it is a little harder to protect your privacy as there is not option for private accounts, only private posts, but that does not mean everyone has to have access to your information. I personally choose not to post anything that would be unfavorable to my future and only have my age and name as identifying facts on my page. If I wanted to, I could also filter out words that are able to be said in my comment section. I haven’t had the need to do so, but if I ran into bots or online bullying, I would definitely use that feature to keep my page a safe space.
Online bullying, however, is much less of a concern for me nowadays than AI is. My biggest fear online is for someone to take my images and edit them in harmful ways, as it is very hard to get things taken down from the internet, and with the advancement of AI, it is difficult to distinguish what is real and what is fake. Unfortunately, there isn’t much more I can do about that unless they limit who has access to AI or editing software, and without the option to be a private account, that is just a risk I have to be willing to take.
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