Impression Management

Between my social media profiles, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok ,LinkedIn, and Facebook; I feel as that I portray myself differently on each platform. For example, I keep a common "self" through Instagram and Snapchat, only using it for interactions with friends and occasional updates of my life. By occasional I mean maybe a few times a year, if any, because I do enjoy keeping my life private. As for something like LinkedIn, I tend to update it frequently looking at jobs, new people to friend, as well as new opportunities presenting themselves. From this site I portray myself as an adult, a soon to be graduate, and a women looking for her future career. In other words I keep myself professional. Instagram and Snapchat are still a professional setting for me, although I tend to show myself as being more glamorous.

Facebook is something I only use from time to time; mainly to keep my family updated with the major changes I am facing, as well as recent accomplishments.

From this, I can truly say that I do tend to portray myself honestly because I do lean towards the private side of media. I don't enjoy sharing my personal opinions whether in my online persona or in physical life. I am a nice person, and I definitely recognize media as being a place to show my true qualities. Sometimes I think that I try to promote myself as being someone who has their life together and all planned out, not a worry in sight. While this may not be true, it is something I use as a mechanism to show the better side of myself because it is a part of who I am.

Therefore, when disucssing how many "selves" I have in media I would say there is two. One who likes to give an occasional update, but hides most of the time. As well as someone who promotes professionalism, goals, and future career paths. With having these two identities they go hand in hand in how I like myself to be perceived. Private but motivated. Though I have nothing to hide, keeping the bad aspects of my life a mystery only gives me the power instead of someone else. Also, while there might be "haters" for people who only post their accomplishments, I am the one winning in the end.

In all, my social impression is a partial mystery and I enjoy it that way. By doing this, I can ignore the "dark side" of media and all the negative energy that comes with it. Impression management is defiantly something that reflects on our persona and how people think we are. Creating a false impression can show you how dark people can truly be. In addition, impression management can help you lose trust in people who falsely promote themselves whether negatively or positively. Overall, there will always be a dark side to impression management and media, it revolves around how you chose to show who you truly are.