How did you build your online presence?
My online communities have always started as a reflection of my “real life” communities. I joined Twitter in 2008 and more than half of the people I followed and interacted with at that time were people I knew in person and saw frequently—studiomates and work friends made through design community events, conferences, etc. Back then Twitter was mostly people who worked in some way “on the web” so that site represented my web design community of friends. I gained followers through association with all those early Twitter power users and also because I try to be a pretty fun person to follow—I post about silly thing, I share work without a pretense for selling you something (most of the time), and I share good resources when I stumble upon them. Being myself online (rather than a hyper-curated version of myself) has served me well and I think is the source of most of my success. My community grows based on things I'm interested in or people I interact with due to proximity or work. My Twitter world is so much more Silicon Valley focused than I could have ever imagined it would be, which is a by-product of living in the Bay Area and the fact that most of my friends here are connected to tech in some way. I’m a little addicted to Twitter because I feel like it’s the only social network where I can be my true self most of the time and don’t feel compelled to use it as a portfolio site.
Instagram is a whole other beast. I joined in 2011 when people used it to post brunch photos and not much else but in the years that followed it evolved into a full on portfolio website. I tend to use the Instagram main feed to post about projects and curated work experiences and the Stories feed for personal updates and "ugly" in-progress work. I still try to be myself on Instagram as much as I can but the signal you put out about your professional life via Instagram is incredibly important in determining what kind of work comes your way. If I post too much personal stuff in the main feed, client requests start to die down. If I spend a few days posting a lot of new work, I see an immediate uptick in job inquiries. Finding the right tone is really difficult, because no one wants to be sold to 24/7. I post less than a lot of folks I follow because I worry about overloading or turning off my followers. I also generally turn down influencer work because it can feel disingenuous if it’s not your whole vibe.