{Ahem} Testing. Testing. 123.

Let me start with full disclosure: I’m a writer by trade (or so I fancy myself) but after graduating with a degree in magazine journalism, I found myself working for an internet startup and reluctantly coming to love it. My foray into the world of online media has made me reevaluate the way we communicate and exchange information and, for better or worse, has changed my writing style, and the way in which I find and consume content on the internet. More importantly though, I’ve developed a keen interest in social media, so much so, that I’ve transitioned my primary tasks at work from content management to social media marketing.

I’m still a newbie to the field and have a lot to learn, but I’m lucky enough to have made some awesome friends in the tech community who are much smarter and more experienced than I, and who graciously help and guide me along, all the while constantly reminding me to trust my instincts because nobody has this down to a science yet. Still, being a social media dilettante, I often find myself encountered with a host of questions about the nature of these new tools of conversation and how they can (or should?) be applied for different types of businesses, products, and audiences.

I guess that’s part of the impetus behind this blog: to be an outpost for my thoughts, musings, comments and questions on all the social media research I’m doing (mostly for fun, if you can believe it!). My hope is that by getting my thoughts down on paper I’ll be able to think about all the great information I’m collecting more analytically instead of accepting everything at face value, and that by engaging in the ongoing discussion I’ve been observing the past couple of months, I can gain an even better understanding of how to leverage social media in my job, life, etc.

Ideally, I’d like to marry this little pet project with some sort of element of the creative. That’s the thing I miss most about writing articles. I used to report mostly on arts and culture and over the seven or so years I wrote (semi) professionally, I covered everything from punk bands, to independent filmmakers, to alternative comedians, to vinyl art toy designers. My favorite part of any article was the research phase—I loved delving into a new and unfamiliar subject matter, meeting the people who were doing new and exciting things in that field, hearing their stories, finding out what motivates and inspires them—it was fascinating and exhilarating work. The actual writing part was more a vehicle for discovery than actual passion. In fact, writing was always sort of agonizing for me, and still is. I was always too self-conscious about my writing abilities to let myself enjoy the writing process (as most writers are, I’ve come to learn).

On the whole, I’m kind of glad I ended up not going the magazine publishing route, at least for the time being. The state of publishing at the moment is a little too precarious for my neurotic tastes. I like my current job, especially now that I’m doing social media strategy full-time. I like the challenge of figuring out creative new ways to utilize these technologies, how to speak to the finicky teenage demographic I am charged with reaching out to, but most of all I love the process of interacting with new people, building relationships, exchanging information and developing a dialogue. There’s only one thing missing: inspiration. I can’t help feeling a bit under-stimulated creatively. I, like everyone else in this day age, want a job that will feed my soul as well as my bank account.

So, I guess this blog is sort of an experiment in how to integrate arts, culture and social media in my quest to find what I imagine to be the ideal job, or at the very least, a fulfilling hobby. Wish. Me. Luck.