Understanding Why I Need a Digital Presence

Before I began planning a digital presence for myself, I was confronted with the question of why it would matter, to begin with. From a commercial marketing perspective, I understand the value intrinsically but it took me some time to see how my digital presence as an educator would make a difference. That was until I began delving deeper into research regarding not-for-profit digital marketing and discovered “The digital revolution has impacted all major stakeholders in society, including institutions, and those that have not adapted to the changing digital landscape risk losing relevance” (Ponzoa, J. M., Gómez, A., & Arilla, R. 2021). This simple quote helped me understand that as an educator, my digital presence wasn’t about me, but was about helping those who lack the technology to avoid irrelevance.

My goal then, for my own digital presence was to create a profile that gave non-technical people the opportunity to learn about digital resources, and gain confidence in their own technical skills through simple, easy-to-understand digital coaching. With this goal in mind, I began my determining which platforms are easily accessible to the at-risk communities I want to help cater to, as well as determining the tools used within those communities.

Understanding the Needs of My Audience

With my focus on the Aboriginal communities across Canada, I began by researching which platforms were the most common for remote communities and their access to technology.  “Many Indigenous people, particularly youth and young adults, are avid users of computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, and were found to be well-informed and frequently engaged with several social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram, with Facebook being the most widely used” (Molyneaux, H., O’ Donnell, S., Kakekaspan, C., Walmark, B., Budka, P., & Gibson, K. 2014). From there, I’ve begun to plan a community-based training program in both English and French that will reuse assets across the five most common platforms.

Understanding the Steps to Reach My Goal

The first step for me is to create a YouTube channel with a focus on aboriginal training and skills development, then repurpose the full-length training content to a Facebook organization page created specifically for that purpose. Next, posting short video segments to Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram with links back to the full-length downloadable content to help promote the material in remote communities that “also face challenges in securing reliable Internet connections and electrical power to sustain the battery life of technological devices.” (Li, J., & Brar, A. 2022).

Finally, my goal is to use existing contact as well as foster new connections through LinkedIn and active community organizations to build working relationships across my network to promote my digital presence with the goal of connecting and coaching community members across Canada.

Conclusion

The hardest step for me was knowing where I wanted to go and understanding the need to create a plan. Once I understood the benefits in terms of coaching, it was easy to see how I needed to plan to reach that goal.

References

Ponzoa, J. M., Gómez, A., & Arilla, R. (2021, December 21). Why Digital Marketing Matters for Nonprofit Institutions:The Business Interest Associations in Europe and Us. Journal of Business Research. Retrieved April 20, 2023, from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3993211

Molyneaux, H., O’ Donnell, S., Kakekaspan, C., Walmark, B., Budka, P., & Gibson, K. (2014). Social media in remote First Nation communities. Canadian Journal of Communication, 39(2), 275 – 288. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2014v39n2a2619

Li, J., & Brar, A. (2022). The use and impact of digital technologies for and on the mental health and wellbeing of Indigenous people: A systematic review of empirical studies. Computers in Human Behavior, 126(106988), 12–12.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563221003113