Hey y’all, it’s ya girl Daria Guava-Fresca here again, talking to you today about building your media presence.
As public figures and future public figures, it’s really important to have a media presence that is available, desirable, and most importantly engaging. As a public figure, the rest of the world is for sure interested in you. It’s important that you recognize and understand what this means for you. Sure, you may be saying that “I didn’t ask to be famous, I just wanted to play football,” but you have to realize that little kids everywhere are looking up to you (some adults too) and how you act and behave, especially in public spaces, is going to make an impact on them.
People often talk about building your brand, but what does that really mean as an NSFL player? Well, building your brand in this case is building you. We all know that we need to work out on our stats, and get better in a wide variety of areas, and for most of us this is the easy piece. For some people, however, it can be really difficult to manage that physical aspect of our job with the media aspect of our job. If you want to be in the public and share your opinions with the world, you have to remember that means everyone now, not just your small circle.
People, and especially the kids, who look up to you want to be a part of your world. They want to know what you do on the daily, and they want to see the things that you do that are just like them. They also want to live vicariously through you a bit, too. When I want to engage with my audience on a regular basis, especially if I’m not sure what to share or don’t have time, I typically just show them my meal prep for the day. It’s fun to see the meals that I’ve had when I was training and being fed by my college, but at the same time, people want to see me as just that, me. I’ll sometimes do a quick snap or instagram post of my meals once or twice a day, and post it with a quick link. Sometimes, when I have more energy and feel like I can socialize more, I’ll give my peeps a video and talk through my favorite recipes.
Now, sharing a bit of your personal life, especially images of your house, your friends, or your family might be intimidating. That doesn’t mean this is the only thing you have to share out on your media. There is a lot that you can share that doesn’t have to invade your privacy at all.
For example here are some things that I share that are pretty easy and can keep your privacy too:
Favorite books or the book that you are currently reading
Favorite table top or video games to play (I really recommend Spirit Island!!)
Your NSFL Fantasy Football picks and information
Recovery recipes, especially after hard workouts
Favorite at home workouts
Favorite gym workouts
Favorite sporting equipment (especially great if you’re angling for some sponsorship later on!)
The best part about all of these types of posts is that you can do it through almost any social media. If you want to tweet, you can do a short snippet, whereas if you’re looking to blog and engage your audience even more, you can definitely write a longer post about any of these topics. Sharing a video that you’ve made or a podcast about these ideas is also incredibly beneficial to increasing your media presence.
Now that we’ve talked a little bit about what you can post, you might be asking yourself, “Daria, how often should I reach out and post?”. If you’re looking to increase your media presence, you should be posting at least daily. Our news cycle and the world just moves so fast these days that if you aren’t regularly posting, you’ll be easily forgotten. If you want to make sure that you’re finding ways to post and have an impact and be memorable, then you should post almost every day, if not more. I find that posting a few times a day, throughout the day is what works best for me. You need to think about what works best for you.
If you’re worried about the media taking over your life, well, you shouldn’t. If you start to feel the process of creating and posting to social media about your life is way too much, then just remember that you can always back off and stop posting. Nobody is going to hate you for quietly disappearing into the background. After all, some players rarely post about themselves, and they live their quiet life. They play football, they practice, they come home and chill. That’s perfectly okay, and you don’t have to be doing what everyone else is posting or how frequently. If you want to keep up a media presence but you are finding it too difficult to post frequently, then you might want to look into hiring a media director. Early on, you might not be able to afford it, and maybe you just see if you can draft a friend (I use my boyfriend for this, he’s great at pre-drafting or looking over my media ideas before I post them). Eventually, you can have someone who takes the time to format your posts and thoughts perfectly so you don’t have to. It’s still you and who you are, just someone else writing the words. Think of it like dictating.
My last piece of advice for creating an active media presence is to not engage with the trolls. We’ve all seen that word before, and in theory we know what it means, but it’s really important to remember that you shouldn’t engage with people who are just trying to cause chaos for the reason of chaos. Afterall, some people are just sowing the seeds of discord. Sometimes it might not seem obvious that someone is saying something simply to get a reaction, but the moment that you realize, you need to stop. There’s no reason to get worked up over what an anonymous person says on the internet. Own yourself, my friend, and recognize that being yourself means that you are authentic. The audience that you obtain with this authenticity truly likes you for you. What does it matter if someone doesn’t like you? Are you really going to change who you are because of it?
I hope this helps you feel more comfortable posting media about yourself, especially when you’re feeling uncertain about where to start. It doesn’t have to be scary, and honestly, your public just wants to know more about you. They can look up your football stats, but they have to interact with you to grow to love you as a person.
As public figures and future public figures, it’s really important to have a media presence that is available, desirable, and most importantly engaging. As a public figure, the rest of the world is for sure interested in you. It’s important that you recognize and understand what this means for you. Sure, you may be saying that “I didn’t ask to be famous, I just wanted to play football,” but you have to realize that little kids everywhere are looking up to you (some adults too) and how you act and behave, especially in public spaces, is going to make an impact on them.
People often talk about building your brand, but what does that really mean as an NSFL player? Well, building your brand in this case is building you. We all know that we need to work out on our stats, and get better in a wide variety of areas, and for most of us this is the easy piece. For some people, however, it can be really difficult to manage that physical aspect of our job with the media aspect of our job. If you want to be in the public and share your opinions with the world, you have to remember that means everyone now, not just your small circle.
People, and especially the kids, who look up to you want to be a part of your world. They want to know what you do on the daily, and they want to see the things that you do that are just like them. They also want to live vicariously through you a bit, too. When I want to engage with my audience on a regular basis, especially if I’m not sure what to share or don’t have time, I typically just show them my meal prep for the day. It’s fun to see the meals that I’ve had when I was training and being fed by my college, but at the same time, people want to see me as just that, me. I’ll sometimes do a quick snap or instagram post of my meals once or twice a day, and post it with a quick link. Sometimes, when I have more energy and feel like I can socialize more, I’ll give my peeps a video and talk through my favorite recipes.
Now, sharing a bit of your personal life, especially images of your house, your friends, or your family might be intimidating. That doesn’t mean this is the only thing you have to share out on your media. There is a lot that you can share that doesn’t have to invade your privacy at all.
For example here are some things that I share that are pretty easy and can keep your privacy too:
Favorite books or the book that you are currently reading
Favorite table top or video games to play (I really recommend Spirit Island!!)
Your NSFL Fantasy Football picks and information
Recovery recipes, especially after hard workouts
Favorite at home workouts
Favorite gym workouts
Favorite sporting equipment (especially great if you’re angling for some sponsorship later on!)
The best part about all of these types of posts is that you can do it through almost any social media. If you want to tweet, you can do a short snippet, whereas if you’re looking to blog and engage your audience even more, you can definitely write a longer post about any of these topics. Sharing a video that you’ve made or a podcast about these ideas is also incredibly beneficial to increasing your media presence.
Now that we’ve talked a little bit about what you can post, you might be asking yourself, “Daria, how often should I reach out and post?”. If you’re looking to increase your media presence, you should be posting at least daily. Our news cycle and the world just moves so fast these days that if you aren’t regularly posting, you’ll be easily forgotten. If you want to make sure that you’re finding ways to post and have an impact and be memorable, then you should post almost every day, if not more. I find that posting a few times a day, throughout the day is what works best for me. You need to think about what works best for you.
If you’re worried about the media taking over your life, well, you shouldn’t. If you start to feel the process of creating and posting to social media about your life is way too much, then just remember that you can always back off and stop posting. Nobody is going to hate you for quietly disappearing into the background. After all, some players rarely post about themselves, and they live their quiet life. They play football, they practice, they come home and chill. That’s perfectly okay, and you don’t have to be doing what everyone else is posting or how frequently. If you want to keep up a media presence but you are finding it too difficult to post frequently, then you might want to look into hiring a media director. Early on, you might not be able to afford it, and maybe you just see if you can draft a friend (I use my boyfriend for this, he’s great at pre-drafting or looking over my media ideas before I post them). Eventually, you can have someone who takes the time to format your posts and thoughts perfectly so you don’t have to. It’s still you and who you are, just someone else writing the words. Think of it like dictating.
My last piece of advice for creating an active media presence is to not engage with the trolls. We’ve all seen that word before, and in theory we know what it means, but it’s really important to remember that you shouldn’t engage with people who are just trying to cause chaos for the reason of chaos. Afterall, some people are just sowing the seeds of discord. Sometimes it might not seem obvious that someone is saying something simply to get a reaction, but the moment that you realize, you need to stop. There’s no reason to get worked up over what an anonymous person says on the internet. Own yourself, my friend, and recognize that being yourself means that you are authentic. The audience that you obtain with this authenticity truly likes you for you. What does it matter if someone doesn’t like you? Are you really going to change who you are because of it?
I hope this helps you feel more comfortable posting media about yourself, especially when you’re feeling uncertain about where to start. It doesn’t have to be scary, and honestly, your public just wants to know more about you. They can look up your football stats, but they have to interact with you to grow to love you as a person.