What are the benefits of a diverse and inclusive PLN in social media sharing that understands where you are coming from with messaging that impacts the community?

In order to gain maximum traction for certain ideas and make all members of a community feel supported and heard when discussing important issues, it is necessary to have a diverse and inclusive PLN in social media. This inclusivity in PLN brings together people from various backgrounds including different ethnicities, careers and education that contribute to the cultural mosaic of Canadian communities. It allows everyone to feel comfortable to share their opinions and perspectives while also allowing people to learn from one another based on individual experiences.

In an interview with Markiel Simpson, he shares that his passion for advocacy ignited when he realized that “you are the expert of your own lived experience, and there is value there”. As a black man who lives with disabilities, he found that he could use his unique experiences to share an important perspective on prevalent issues that need to be heard. One way he has effectively used messaging when spreading his ideas is using Twitter not as a personal account, but as a professional account to effectively advocate for important issues he is passionate about. He claims that he gained followers and attention slowly and naturally over time once he truly found his niche and effectively applied his voice. He shared that he did not become disheartened with low follower counts, as he knew that overnight attention and virality is a very common in social media platforms such as Twitter which makes advocacy through a PLN on social media extremely effective. One way he has utilized twitter to his advantage is to use the hashtags “strongertogether and #togetherwerise in his Twitter bio. He often uses these hashtags as a “call to change” to promote his advocacy as well as encourage others to use the same hashtags. This allows his voice and other people’s voice on the matter to be heard much more easily, which can therefore foster important discussion many different people including politicians.

References:

Miller. (2021, June 1). EDCI-338 MARKIEL SIMPSON. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsoDHGaXNNs