Week 11: Textual Management and Permanent Markers

This week we talked about textual management and how to write effective content for social media. We learned that Textual Management is how creators or writers will enact control over their writing through a series of actions. This could involve monitoring the comment section, controlling the way the conversation goes, and curating any comments that don’t help the writers achieve the goals they were wanting with a particular post or subject. Writers may get directly involved in the management of their section by confronting people and responding to what they’ve said or brought up as a concern. Other times, creators may just report the behavior of their audience so that the social media platform can take care of it. Writers may also just ignore, delete, correct, or update their posts based on the interaction they get from their posts.

After watching some video clips from South Park of one of the characters battling with his profile on Facebook, we had a really interesting discussion as a class. We brought up the Coldstone guy and how because his videos were part of his profile, he became known as that guy and will be known as that guy forever. I think we do have to be really aware of the things that we’re posting because if there’s a pattern of consistency in any shape or form, it can unintentionally become part of who we are. I follow some authors who use a very specific technique when advertising cool parts in their books and when they mix up their content, I’ve noticed that I don’t come across it as easily as in their previous consistent videos.

We’ll need to be aware of how our profiles can unintentionally become part of our identity and how we can effectively manage the interactions that we get from these new identities. Things can be cemented in place surprisingly quick.