Another social media platform has flown into our midst and, whilst we should all take a moment of silence for all the social media managers who now have one more platform to consider and cater to, it’s interesting to see the space that Threads is trying to fill.

Instagram has long been my favourite social media platform – something about its particular combination of images and text appeals to my storytelling style. I’ve even ended up with two IG accounts – one just for personal stuff, family photos etc, which I keep private, and one public ‘creator’ account where I could share my writing and talk about books.

Facebook is a platform that continues to just sort of be there. I rarely actively post – any content I share tends to be pulled through from Instagram. I mostly scroll through to see what family and friends are up to and use it for the community groups to see what‘s going on locally.

TikTok I use purely for viewing the many videos hubby sends to me! I am not a video content creator, nor do I have any desire to be, so this will remain a space I observe in rather than post to.

I kept my (paid) professional stuff for LinkedIn but as my career has shifted I’ve found the focus of my work has moved and I’ve wanted to talk about it more alongside both my personal and ‘writerly’ content. I’ve kind of wanted to draw all these bits of myself into one place – especially now I have the new dimension of ‘Mum’ to add to the many aspects of myself. Maybe Threads is the place to stitch all these bits together…?

I’ve abandoned Twitter because…well…you know…[image error] That was previously my sort of catch all platform but it is not a place I want to be anymore. Threads seems to be trying to offer an antidote to the Twitter bin fire. Same functionality, different feeling? How successful it will be in pulling it off remains to be seen.

It’s an interesting struggle, deciding which bits of ourselves to share online and where. Do we get personal on LinkedIn? Do we talk about work on Facebook? How much of ourselves do we want to reveal? And is what we’re sharing really us or is it for show?! How much does it matter?

I occasionally have days where I think about just coming off all of them. Sometimes I balk when I realise how much of myself I do share online. It’s a risk. One we maybe don’t always acknowledge or consider as fully as we should. But then I think about the communities I draw value from in online spaces, the family and friends I probably otherwise would lose touch with, the professional opportunities that being active online has offered me. And I come to the conclusion that I do want to be here, in this digital world.

I’m slowly returning to this poor, long neglected blog – which is somewhere I have shared content from all my different selves over the years – but this space doesn’t offer the same opportunities for interactional content. It’s missing those conversations that social media platforms facilitate more easily. I have been toying with the idea of sharing the content I post here through Substack as well. I’m enjoying reading content through Substack and am considering using it as a publishing platform myself mostly because a) I’m not sure how many people are really reading blogs anymore, and b) I don’t want to start an email newsletter but I do want to share more longform content, which Substack seems good for. I don’t want to shut down this blog because I like having this little corner of the internet built out of things I made – it’s my little vanity project and I kind of love it! But it can be a bit like whispering into the void sometimes…

SO, here I am, dipping my toe into yet another social media platform to see if it will offer something new. And I think I’m bringing all of me to that space.

Reader. Writer. New mum. Guilty feminist. Construction PR professional. Adult in progress.

Let’s see if it sticks…

If you’re a Threads user, do come and connect with me over there. You’ll find me at https://www.threads.net/@jennywrenthincs