07 Aug 4 Tips for Sharing Cultural Posts on Social Media

These days, most of us document our lives digitally, sharing online updates with high school acquaintances, that guy you hung out with on a solo weekend trip to an island, your cousins who moved to Europe and, in some cases, total strangers.

As someone who is living abroad, the vast majority of the people you are connected with through social media won’t have the chance to experience another culture in-depth and first hand. But second hand, from your pictures, videos and stories is a way that your connections can experience a bit about your community.

Not only that, but social media posts are a much more passive way for them to learn about the culture that you are immersed in. Your posts will pop up in feeds they already have a habit of checking, as opposed to actively clicking the link to your blog. This is why taking a little extra time to consciously craft your posts on social media can be so important.

Picture Captions

Transport here can be costly for most people, so nearly everyone will walk most places around town. The things they bring with them are carried on their heads, as indeed it is the most efficient way to do so, because all of the weight is supported through your spine and legs. With years of practice, many people are even able to balance the things on their heads without holding them. #community #streetlife #baphotochallenge #fishingtown #frozenfish #winneba #ghana #westafrica #africa #everydayafrica #everydayghana @bloggingabroad

A photo posted by Christine Bedenis (@noon_thirty) on Jul 25, 2016 at 3:39am PDT

Thoughtful captions can give people a base understanding of what is happening in the picture. Explain the basics of the festival that you’re at. Mention the beliefs for why certain jewelry is worn. Detail the relationship between the people pictured. Explore the significance of the symbols used in the architecture.

Whatever is in your photos, I guarantee there is something in there that can share a piece of the culture you live in, even if it is mundane to you.

Try to keep it to two or three sentences, so that the captions don’t get clipped. If you do end up writing more, have the first sentence or two be something that causes curiosity and inspires people to click “Read more…”

Captions may also inspire people to ask more thoughtful questions; good captions can provide the information they need to probe a bit more.

Video Clips

Gerardo is one of the last of a long line of rug makers, a fading tradition in the town of Guano. He continues to create his own designs by hand despite the increase in machine productions. And his hard work has paid off, earning him recognition – even from the Pope! His dedication to his family’s craft is inspirational! ➰✂️➰ Learn about his art and passion in my latest blog post (link in profile👆🏼). @bloggingabroad #baphotochallenge #community #inspired #ecuador #handmade #artisan #rug

A video posted by Allison Wilhite (@awecuador) on Jul 9, 2016 at 3:43am PDT

Keep video clips short. There are a variety of video editing apps for smart phones out there (the one above uses the “Quik” app). Find one that suits your skills and needs.

Instagram limits videos to one minute, but that doesn’t mean you need to use the full minute if the action is only for 20 seconds.

Cut your video down to the essential part of what you want to share. Some of the best kinds of short videos are able to tell a very short story, or have a beginning, middle and end to them. Whether it’s the beginning, middle and end of a dance through the market or the beginning, middle and end of a rock, paper, scissors throw-down. You can add additional clarifying information in the caption to give context to your video, particularly if the video you’re sharing is a snippet of your day or an event, and not an edited-together kind of production.

Conversations

Share snippets of your conversations with people, particularly when you learn something new or surprising, or maybe when you’ve done something that gives you a sense of belonging.

Give a bit of context to the conversation, such as who the other people are and where, but try and let the cultural information come from the back and forth. Maybe you want to share how you bargained and were able to get the price down to less than half of the initial offer. Traditional back and forth greetings are another example of conversations that are cultural markers.

Again, no matter how mundane it is to your life now, it’s a part of the culture you live in now, and that is really what can open up people’s eyes to other cultures.

Tagging

My town is known for the annual Aboakyer festival, when two clans go into the bush to catch a deer and bring it back to town alive. Then the deer is paraded around town, still alive, and taken to all the places the gods were taken to the previous day, before ending at the local shrine where it is sacrificed for the gods. The red clan won this year, meaning this year will be blessed with plenty fish. #aboakyer #aboakyer2016 #culture #customs #festivals #deer #winneba #ghana #westafrica #africa #everydayafrica #everydayghana #instatravel #instapassport #exploremore #neverstopexploring #wanderlust #localfestival #crossculture #soakingitin #stillfeltbadforthepoordeer

A photo posted by Christine Bedenis (@noon_thirty) on May 8, 2016 at 12:05am PDT

Put some careful thought into hashtags.

Add some that even locals are using for what you are posting about, that way the people who see your post can find posts from people who are a part of the culture.

Don’t be afraid to make up your own hashtag to give some context or tell a fuller story of what’s going on. Think of the hashtags as a bit of insider information.

Also consider tagging the location of your photos. We live in a world of Google Street View, where people can see nearly anywhere by dropping a little yellow person on a map. But by tagging your location, you’ll be able to make those places on the map that much more real to the people you are connected with.

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What have been some of the more successful ways you’ve been able to share cross-cultural information through social media? Leave your tips in the comments!

This is a guest post by Christine Bedenis, a well-traveled twenty-something from the Midwest. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Thailand), now living in Ghana, and was a winner of Peace Corps’s annual Blog It Home contest in 2014.

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