Social Media Tips from the Women’s Empowerment Series
“Your #SocialSelf: working in a digital world”

Photography by David Michael Howarth

It was another wonderful Women’s Empowerment Panel where we gathered (in-person) to talk about the world of digital. It was the perfect way to close the season – learning and laughing about a topic that touches us all. We are grateful to everyone who continues to support us as we work to empower women, especially to our panelists who are always so open and honest. When we scheduled last year’s first empowerment panel, there was no way of knowing how things would go after a year of no events. But in the end, we were so happy (and relieved) to see the series was once again a success.

See you next time!

Panelists

Kathy Orr
Meteorologist/Weather Anchor, Fox 29
@kathyorrfox29

Priscilla Loomis
Olympian, retired professional track & field athlete
@priscilla_frederick

Karen Correa
VP/Head of Global Operations, Takeda Pharmaceuticals
@kmcorrea804

Mona Aslam
Influencer/CEO, Mango Prime TV
@monaaslam_

Moderator
Marianne Aleardi

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, SJ Magazine
@mariannealeardi

Their go-to digital platform

I started with Facebook – that was the big thing to do then. But for us in television, we transitioned to Twitter, which is awesome for things that are current: a storm is coming, severe weather is coming. I use Twitter for fast updates. I use Instagram stories for work a lot too.
Kathy Orr

My favorite, favorite thing is Instagram. I started in college years ago, and it’s been my thing, but I do Facebook as well. The only thing I will not do is TikTok, because I’m too old.
Priscilla Loomis

I live on LinkedIn. I network 24/7 on LinkedIn. I do Facebook as well as Instagram, but LinkedIn is my #1 go-to platform. If you want to network, if you want a job, if you want to get a connection, you have to be on LinkedIn.
Karen Correa

My favorite media is Instagram. It’s where I started my journey.
Mona Aslam

Growing a social media following

I had no plan. I just posted 1 post. I started researching, watching YouTube videos, reading blogs on how to grow Instagram. I now have 24,000 followers on Instagram. I posted at least every day for one year, and I comment on 300 posts every day – at least 300 comments before going to bed. I would spend almost 5 hours on Instagram every day.
Mona Aslam

I set a goal that I would connect with 5 to 10 people every night on LinkedIn, and now I have thousands and thousands of people I am connected to, and I can’t keep up. But I love it. I post at least once or twice a week.
Karen Correa

At the station, we watch our progression. We have a social media team, and we meet with them to see how we’re doing.
Kathy Orr

On algorithms

I went on Instagram with no plan, but behind Instagram there’s a big monster that you need to follow – the algorithm. You need to use hashtags. You need to follow other bloggers. You need to make a family on Instagram.
Mona Aslam

I only have 14,000 followers. I say “only” because I’m an Olympian, right? Every Olympian has the blue check, and they have like 670,000 followers. I’m like, what am I doing wrong? I started realizing there’s algorithms, and there’s all these things behind the scenes. You have to post every day and post reels to get more views. If you don’t follow their algorithm, they won’t share your content.
Priscilla Loomis

In the beginning, I would post daily because of the algorithm. You have to post every day. But then it just got to be a lot. I was like, this is not my main job. They don’t pay me enough to do this. So now I think I have a good balance. If I don’t want to look at my phone, I’m not going to look at it.
Karen Correa

You can get ghosted on Instagram now. If you’ve ever posted something and it gets so many likes and views, and then you use the same hashtag for the next post, they’ll stop spreading it. You can’t use the same hashtag more than like 2 times in a row. Change your wording. Change your hashtags. I’ve never been ghosted on a date. I don’t want to be ghosted on social media.
Priscilla Loomis

Censoring personal posts

Because I’m posting to my business world, I thought I would censor myself, but I actually don’t. I’m honest. If I’m going to be a leader, I need to lead by example. The only way I can lead and encourage and inspire people who report to me is to be honest and true with them. So they can go on LinkedIn and Facebook and say ok, she’s the same person here and there. There’s a bridge. She’s the same person.
Karen Correa

When the kids were little, I didn’t post a lot about them. I wanted to protect their privacy. Or I would post a picture of them from behind on the first day of school, because it’s not their job, it’s my job. But now I show them more. They’re older. We’ve talked about it, and they’re ok with it. You just have to find the point where they’re comfortable, and their privacy is protected.
Kathy Orr

There was a company who was making reusable pads, and of course I wanted to talk about this, but coming from a conservative culture, we’re not very open to talk about rinseable pads or reusable pads. But I was very passionate, so I made a video and talked about these pads. When I posted I thought, “Oh my God, what are my family and extended family and their family going to think? They’re going to think I went crazy. But I needed to bring awareness. I wanted my daughters to know that if you think something needs to be changed, you stand up for it.
Mona Aslam

On what they post

I post about clinical trials and drug development. I’m a speaker on diversity in clinical trials, so I’m always posting about what’s going on with health disparities and health equity. And then I focus a lot on people who are looking for jobs. I make sure I network with people and connect people, like hey, do you know someone at this company? Yep, I absolutely do, let me connect you to that person. I feel I’ve been given this gift and this opportunity, let me use it to help someone else.
Karen Correa

Sometimes I do a thing called batching, where I don’t have to show up every day 2 million percent, but I can show up 10 million percent one day and then have content for the rest of the week. I can go to breakfast, lunch and dinner, and take pictures each time. That could be 3 different outfits and 3 different atmospheres. If there’s a day I can’t post, I just go to throwbacks – look how cute I was when I was 2.
Priscilla Loomis

I do post my favorite moments, but sometimes it’s good to be old-school and just have that moment for yourself. Let it be your moment. Let people wonder what you’re doing.
Kathy Orr

On not-so-pretty posts

I’m a big Marvel fan. We go to the movie theaters expecting to see Captain America go up against an enemy and get stronger and learn from the experience. We are all superheroes. We all have something we have to overcome. That’s important to show on social media. We don’t have to show all of it, but you’ve got to be real, you gotta be who you are. But always remember, there are filters.
Priscilla Loomis

I’m very open and honest about the things that didn’t go well, what I probably should have done differently. That’s really important because if we don’t share that, others will never know how to get where we are. It’s also nice to be honest about your past, because people would be like, “Oh, you just blossomed and now you’re at this position.” No, I did not. I was homeless. I’ve been through a lot of trauma in life, and I think it’s important to see that, because my battle wounds have made me the woman and the leader I am today.
Karen Correa

On negative comments

As soon as I post, there are people who are going to leave a negative comment, and I cannot stop them. I don’t respond, but their presence is there. Probably I’m at that age where a negative comment does not affect me. Somebody sitting in West Virginia – I mean, I don’t know him, I don’t know her, so that doesn’t affect me. But there is a lot of negativity. If you have a very thin skin and you take everything personally, it is going to affect you at the end of the day.
Mona Aslam

You have to look at what they’re saying, right? If somebody calls me out and says I’m stupid, it doesn’t affect me, because I’m not. If somebody says something negative, that has nothing to do with me. That’s their own opinion. It’s on them, not me.
Priscilla Loomis

Negative comments do hurt. They hit for a minute. You’re like “Whoa, that hurt.” I have 5 adult children and 3 of them are daughters, and I tell them things are going to hurt. People are going to say stuff and it’s going to knock you down. But you have to be able to realize that it happens, it’s reality. That is life.
Karen Correa

We used to get phone calls – your necklace is perfect. Then we got emails – time to get your hair dyed. Now we don’t get phone calls or emails. It’s Twitter comments. Sometimes I’ll ignore them. Sometimes I reach out to them with correct information if they say I saw on your station that you said blah, blah, blah, and I’ll show them this is actually what we said. If they’re really bad, which is not the norm at all, I’ll block them.
Kathy Orr

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