You have a presence online, whether it be a username or an email address. Whenever you log in and comment on a blog post, forum, or otherwise, you’re producing digital media. If you are to create your own website, share your opinions, reblog articles, write essays, prose, poetry, or a script, you’re creating digital media. The more active you are online, the larger digital media shadow you cast; the bigger your footprint. And if you’re using the same unique username or log-in, you curate an audience across platforms, whether you know it or not. Curating an audience allows for many things: internet celebrity and fame, monetization of your content through ad revenue, followers and internet stalkers, as well as an incentive to keep producing more and more content.
If you’re going to maintain a strong and influential web presence, you need to produce high quality content and in great quantity. But an intense schedule of digital media creation can be taxing on one’s personal and professional life. It is important to strike a healthy balance between online and offline time.
Career digital media producers, like those of YouTube or Instagram fame, invest a great deal of time into the production and upkeep of their personal websites and content. Some spend each day producing their content, which could involve documenting (via video or photo) their every action and then editing the footage, before uploading and sharing a presentable version of it online.
