Two years ago, at the age of 24, I gave a talk to some high schoolers about how social media changed my life.
I hadn’t done any public speaking in a while, so I was kind of nervous despite being pretty good at it earlier in my life.
As I was preparing for the talk, I gathered photos and stories from my journey.
I was shocked at how much I had really done (I’m generally pretty hard on myself).
The cool thing was how many of the dots really connected.
One action led to an opportunity, which led to a decision, which led to another action. And so on.
This probably seems obvious, right? But have you ever reflected on the last 5-10 years of your life? Like, really reflected. You start to notice patterns and graces that got you where you are today.
The catalyst for a professional opportunity in my life was posting on social media.
When I was in high school, I sent a motivational Snapchat video to my friends every day. This grew into a very large following in the area, and people looked forward to seeing it.
At the same time, I ran a Twitter account for our student section to galvanize our student body around certain themes and initiatives. It was all focused on positivity.
This led me to win the #Digital4Good award in 2017, where my mentor took me on an all-expenses-paid trip to Twitter HQ in San Francisco to accept the award and give a talk.
While I was in college, I leveraged this experience to get some interesting internships and get hired to speak at a school.
One specific internship in customer support landed me my dream current job.
After graduating from college, I pivoted to my personal brand.
I regularly create content for Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
My Instagram content is mainly daily vlog style, while LinkedIn is focused on sharing experiences and insights.
The lesson I learned is this…
No one in the world would know what I was up to if I weren’t sharing it on social media.
That’s the simple reality.
Social media is a storytelling tool to engage people in the work we are doing and bring them along.
If it weren’t for me sharing my journey on social media, I wouldn’t have had any of those opportunities.
When you share your experiences and insights, people start to take notice. They are engaged in your story. And opportunities will find you. But you have to share content.
So here’s my encouragement to you…
Pick one platform and start posting to it every day.
Post about your hobbies, work, thoughts, journey, etc.
See the world open up for you.
God bless,
Mitch