The Power of Persona: Adapting to the Platform

BCM241 BLOG POST 5

As discussed in my last blog post, I’ve been evolving my Digital Artifact based on an aesthetics analysis of my media niche on TikTok and Instagram. In the development of my DA, I’ve made a cohesive grid post on both platforms, as I’ve observed other creators in my niche accomplish. By taking on the “aesthetic styles” presented in my niche to adhere to “such communicative forms that tie the ephemeral appearance of individual contents to a larger frame of reference (Schellewald, 2021, p. 1439).” Thus, become a participatory individual content creator within the larger niche through establishing an aesthetic. I’ve made content in a vintage/retro style, editing footage from my camcorder into short aesthetically pleasing videos with complimentary old school music. I’ve observed this technique being used effectively throughout my niche to establish an aesthetic, for example, a rainy day video will often have the audio as a song from the Twilight series. This is true for the niche on Instagram too, where creators will “establish and follow a particular temporal pattern” based on aesthetics to enhance the audience appeal (Manovich, 2019).

To elaborate further upon the platform differences I began to highlight in my previous blog post, as a result of my problematising, I’ve found several differences between the TikTok and Instagram communities within this media niche. Beyond the physical aesthetics aspect of my research, is a notable observation I’ve made about the difference in creators’ personas on each platform. Instagram has a “particularly wide-ranging spectrum of publicness” this publicness, makes the presentation of persona more susceptible to random audiences, therefore within the niche the bigger audience creates a less intimate presentation of persona (Moore et al. 2017, p. 2). With TikTok, there is a level of anonymity to the persona, which is then used as to what feels like a safe way of connecting with others in the app without disclosing your “publicness” as you would on Instagram (Moore et al. 2017, p. 2). Thus, in my DA, I’ve established a slight distinction in my persona between the two apps, Instagram being more public and professional, while TikTok is more thought-provoking and intimate, adhering to the escapism experience exclusive to that app. I aim to do this primarily through the captions of my videos, speaking more personally on Instagram, giving backstory to the video. On TikTok, I’ll have brief captions aiming to evoke emotion based on the video content, a more detached version of the “publicness” of the Instagram persona (Moore et al. 2017, p. 2).

Building upon all of this, I’m continuing to learn about TikTok, using specific hashtags and audios in an attempt to boost my engagement as I’ve seen others do on the app. Which is sometimes successful though not always. TikTok attempts to provide users with content that “resonate with a user’s interests” in form of their “For You” page, if I continue to make content within my established aesthetic and use the relevant hashtags and audios, I think I’ll capture the attention of the niche I’m researching (Schellewald, 2021, p. 1438). Although I suspect that I need to make content more consistently for this to become a reality. 

Reference List

Manovich, L 2019, The aesthetic society: Instagram as a life form, Data Publics, Routledge, forthcoming.

Moore, C, Barbour, K & Lee, K 2017, ‘Five dimensions of online persona’, Persona Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–11.

Schellewald, A 2021, ‘Communicative Forms on TikTok: Perspectives From Digital Ethnography’, International journal of communication, p. 1437–1456.