How I'm Using Social Media to Find My Niche
by Nikki Uy, Spring 2013 Niche Movement Cohort Member
I had learned about the Niche Movement through the Assistant Director of Student Outreach and Support Wellness and Alcohol and Drug Education at Saint Joseph’s University, Katie Bean. She had invited me to the Mark Conference at Rutgers in February 2013 and since I enjoyed it so much, she directed me to the Niche Movement’s application process for their first online mentorship. At the time, I had my Facebook deactivated as my fasting for 40 days of Lent and I had hated the idea of having a Twitter. One of the reasons why I thought I needed to get away from Facebook was because of an increasing addiction to seeing that little red balloon pop up to fuel my self-esteem. I figured Twitter was not going to be any different.
Once the founder of the Niche Movement, Kevin O’Connell welcomed me into the Spring 2013 Cohort, it’s safe to say that my vice shrunk in swelling. Though I didn’t quite make it the 40 days (5 days early!), the separation helped me balance using Facebook for communication purposes and the occasional ‘facebook stalking’ (Admit it! I’m sure majority of people are guilty of this too!). This worked to my advantage now, seeing that I had to reactivate my Facebook to keep up with the Movement’s postings.
I also created a Twitter account, which honestly, was to my own dismay at first. After Kevin gave us a list of handles to follow, though, I immediately became attracted to the advantages Twitter yields. It’s been two or three months now, and I have already been exposed to how easy it is to communicate with certain associations and people that I’m interested in. Though I owe many laughs to accounts like Ugly People Problems and Funny Pokemon and many nostalgic memories of the past few months to 90s Girl Problems and It’s Boy Meets World, and I must apologize for my endless tweets to the Backstreet Boys in an attempt to win VIP tickets to 20th anniversary tour this summer.
Personally, I’m very interested in the fields of Psychology, Philosophy, and if any of those two relates to the concept of utilizing language, my heart explodes with passion. An aspiring future Speech Therapist, I’ve connected with grad students divulging both positive and negative experiences in pursuing the same field such as Life as a Speechie. I’ve been able to read up on research on therapeutic speech programs for both children and adults through accounts like Speedy Speech. I was reassured that the job market for Speech Therapy and Pathology is in high demand, thanks to PediaStaff, Inc. These sorts of connections, simply through reading Tweets, have reaffirmed what I want to do with my life.
I even created a page on about.me, which has the option to connect a Wordpress blog to it. To fluff my page even more, I’m actually in the process of creating a blog centralized on documenting my life through pictures and stories (which Twitter has also helped me with by expose me to different artists and writers!). If there’s one that I learned through the Niche Movement, it’s that there are loves and interests of mine that I can develop through the use of social media.