new social media plans

2021, creativity, lifestyle

Hello!

My relationship with social media has been through what feels like a large change over the last two years or so – as a teenager I put all of my feelings online because I desperately wanted sympathy and attention (heads up: it didn’t work and just made me look whiny) and it definitely took someone telling me that they deliberately don’t put all their feelings online to start reevaluating my own relationship with the internet.

Cut to two years later and psychologically retraining myself not to turn to Twitter every time I get sad/stroppy and to actually communicate with the people around me, my social media platforms are infinitely less depressing than they used to be!

Pair this with no longer pretending to be an influencer with my blog, YouTube and Instagram content and just posting for fun and we’ve got a brand new SophieCountsClouds (still kind of hate the name, but the brand’s the brand y’know). I don’t feel like I have to post on Instagram every day, I don’t try to ‘promote engagement’ (that I never got anyway) and the content I do make I make for fun; because I love writing, I like coming up with new and fun videos ideas and I love watching social media evolve and develop (hence the beginnings of a career in marketing).

But there are two new profiles that I want to develop in 2021 – having really reinvested in social media as a personal hobby and not a ‘professional portfolio’ (that’s separate) I’ve got two new projects that I want to work on and I’ve definitely mentioned them both already.

My new book Instagram account and tiktok! I’ve kind of fallen headfirst down the tiktok rabbit hole as lockdown and pandemic has persisted, both from an entertainment and a marketing point of view (how someone can gain 99 million followers in a year is astounding) and now I just want to make fun, silly little videos.

The book account has been one of my new years goals for a little while now – 2020 may have been shit but it was the year I full on fell in love with reading again and I wanted somewhere to connect with people who love books and stories as much as I do and somewhere for me to write about the books I’m reading and my thoughts on other things (important discussions like hardback vs paperback and whether the spine of a book should be cracked).

It sounds silly to keep using the word ‘fun’ but doing Vlogmas and watching so much tiktok, making content is fun again for me now! While I was at uni I spent a lot of time thinking that to be a ‘proper blogger’ I needed to be scheduling tweets for every hour of the day and writing really stagey, fake sounding captions with a million hashtags to ‘reach the right people’ but it felt wrong when I did it and it feels stupid looking back on it now. If my blog or YouTube was ever going to be successful then 1) it would have been already and 2) I’d rather people found my content organically and subscribed because they liked it, not because I tweeted three billions times asking if they’d remembered to subscribe.

I’ve had so much fun finding people to follow on my book account and making that tiktok the other day made me feel creative in a way I never expected to!

In between new social medias and setting up my new sewing machine, knitting and sitting with a blanket over my knees 24/7, I think I’m finely balancing on the line between millenial/gen z ‘keeping up with the trends’ and ‘Grandma’.

I still don’t understand tiktok dances, how do you know which are the trendy ones and which ones are people just boogying in their living room? Did I really use the words ‘trendy’ and ‘boogying’ in the same sentence?

Conclusion? I’m having fun with social media and content creation again and I think that might be one of the best things that came out of 2020.

If you’re interested in books or, like me, can’t get off tiktok I’d love it if you followed me! If that’s not what you’re into, I hope you love the creators you are watching and you have content that makes you smile.

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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A Date Day in Bournemouth

2016, travel

Hello!

Having moved to Southampton, I’ve got to explore a whole new area of the country 170 miles away from home. Bournemouth is somewhere my cousins moved to when I was younger, somewhere I went on a family holiday to once and somewhere that’s just a short train journey away from home now.

Talking to people around Southampton and at uni, a lot of people are very fond of Bournemouth and rightfully so – it’s a beautiful South-Coastal city, somewhat overshadowed by the fame of Brighton’s seaside tourist attraction.

My boyfriend took me on a date day there back in late April and I’ve been back since to visit my sister when she was there over the summer, but I love the city and I really want to go back there soon.

From the train station, it’s a really short walk to the beach and it’s really pretty – so picturesque and the pier is so much fun. This area of Bournemouth is really popular in peak season, but we went on a weekend before school was out for the summer so it wasn’t too busy (we might try a week day next time just so it’s nice and quiet!).

My favourite parts of Bournemouth were the things we did on our date day and it started with a walk on the beach, we then found a little arcade and decided we were going to find a good one. We had a look at a bunch of arcades, we got chips for lunch and then we went up to the Odeon team to buy tickets to a movie we went to see later that day.

Side note: the screen we were in at the Bournemouth Odeon when we saw Jungle Book was beautiful, essentially it was a converted theatre and it’s absolutely stunning.

But before the film we went into this amazing arcade literally right next door called Fanzone – it’s not a dingy arcade full of gamblers it’s just a friendly, fun arcade with games like Plants vs Zombies, MarioKart and Temple Run as well as all the traditional penny pushers and games like that. Winning tickets is somewhat addictive, one day I’ll get the 6000 tickets I need for the giant teddy.

We then went to the cinema and saw the beautiful theatre and watched Jungle Book, which was amazing and I wrote a blog post about it at the time if you’re interested in my thoughts! You can read it here if you’re interested.

The perfect way to end this date day was by heading back to the beach and having Harry Ramsden’s fish and chips with our feet in the sand! I love the beach and the sea and chip shop chips are my favourite things in the world. Next time we go, I think we might try sitting in the restaurant because sit down restaurant experiences are my favourite, I love eating out.

If I could afford it I’d do restaurant reviews but I’m a student so I can’t afford to eat out at all, if there are any Southampton restaurants reading, I’d love to do a review…

Thank you for reading!

Sophie xx

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Pokemon Sun and Moon Release Day!

2016

Hello!

Sorry this post is late and potentially full of errors – I’m writing it on my phone because I’ve been playing Pokemon Moon all day and I’m now playing dungeons and dragons with my friends so I’m writing on my phone!

My boyfriend has been counting down to this day for literally months, every update video that comes out has been very important and the five days where the game was out elsewhere in the world and not in Europe were agony.

So this game has been a big build up – I’m a new Pokemon fan, I got into the game because of Pokemon Go because I was totally obsessed with the app over the summer. I learnt the original 151 Pokemon in a matter of weeks and I walked so far to play this game.

From there, Lucas (the boyf) let me play his copy of Pokemon Y to get used to the game and I played that a lot outside of assignment work and deadlines. I didn’t get to finish the game because uni is super busy and I somewhat have priorities, but I was still super excited to play this game when it came out.

I picked Litten as my starter because it’s a cat, not an owl with a fringe or a flamboyant sea lion and the game is so interesting so far – it’s very different to other games but it’s a beautifully crafted game and the Hawaii-inspired Alola region is so much fun to play in.

Do I have time to play this game? No, definitely not. Do I have an assignment due next week? Yes, so I don’t think I’ll finish this game anytime soon but I’m excited regardless.

I know that Christmas is going to be full on playing Pokemon the entire time. So excited to not have any assignments due!

What are your thoughts on the game so far if you’ve played it? What starter did you pick?

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx