Week 7 Reflect Activity

I see myself using online photo sharing more in my professional life than my personal life. While I have been enjoying this week’s play activity, it ultimately does not really serve a purpose to me. I feel as though if what I was taking pictures of would be interesting to my friends and family, I would just prefer to talk to them about it rather than upload for anyone to see, as most of them would not care. It may serve a purpose for the people who are interested but is largely irritating for those who aren’t.

However in my professional life I think image sharing is a great way to promote yourself and what your organisation is doing. As people tend to follow companies they are interested in they are more likely to appreciate the news of what is happening within that company.  Also as a picture with a small caption can convey a large amount of information very easily and quickly there is less of an issue with information overload. It will allow people who are interested to investigate further while letting people who are not interested simply skip over it with little effort. It is also very easy to create for a smartphone user as the instagram app simply works with your phone's camera. This is already an advantage of the twitter service as whole, but I think pictures can be even more effective than 140 characters; which is why I love how easy it is to integrate an Instagram photo with both twitter and Facebook.

As I hope to work in a library I think something like Instagram would be effective for creating awareness of an upcoming event or even documenting one that has already happened. Not only is this an excellent way to engage with the community it can help to let people know exactly what the library is doing for the community, as I have found there is still a misunderstanding with people in that they think a library is just a place to get books.