Social & Softball

Hello! Another week has gone by, my teammates and I are just a little over a week out until we get to hop on a plane and travel to Florida where we get to enjoy the warm weather and play the sport we live for! I cannot begin to explain to you just how excited we all are for this opportunity! We had a lot of donators for this trip and it was all because of individual letters we sent out and social media.

Social media has always been a big part of my life when it comes to sharing my traveling experiences as well as my softball games in general. As of this semester, this website is playing a part in my ability to share my experiences through what I do and explore. I have the ability to share what I have been experiencing from the past seasons and now the current season(which I am so excited about!). I won't be necessarily using this website as a "photo/post dump" which is where I just post a collection of photos from my travels with no context whatsoever, every photo I share will be posted with a connection to what is shared.

Whereas, with Instagram and Facebook, I would post collections upon collections of what I experience from a specific softball trip. It could be a single day's trip, a weekend, a week, or even a season recap. I use these platforms for my own purpose to create a place where I can keep my photos for memory purposes So that I can look back years from now and have the chance to "re-live" those memories and have the option to look back upon those exciting trips with all the different teammates I have had throughout my life.

Snapchat isn't my go-to platform when it comes to the collection as much, it is meant for the present moment and maybe to be able to save the images and videos I have taken so that I may post them on other platforms; such as Instagram and Facebook. Snapchat is what I would use when I am communicating with friends I stay in touch with on a daily/weekly basis. I can post something on my story for everyone to see, it is extremely similar to posting something on my story to Instagram and Facebook as well. It is a 24-hour post where you can either create a story for whoever you pick to have accessibility to view it or you can post it on a story where everyone you have added may view it. There is also the section where your "memories" are kept, your memories are the photos and videos you have decided to save from what you have captured within the app. I have had Snapchat since I was in middle school and I have my memories reach all the way back to when I was maybe 12 to 14 years old. That's at least 9 to 11 years of memories for me.

Finally, this isn't technically a social media platform, but I do share my location with my family when I am traveling for softball, especially when traveling by myself. Google/Apple Maps is a BIG necessity for me when it comes to traveling everywhere I go. My family and I have always shared our journey with one another when it comes to long-distance traveling. Not just for safety matters but just to see where we may be for progress.

There are two very important platforms that mean a lot to me are National Prospect ID(NP) and FieldLevel(FL). These are recruiting platforms for sports. In my case, these two are the reason I got to continue playing the sport I love all the way from high school to now. NP was how I was seen by the college I went to out in Eastern Montana and through FL, I was found for where I currently am in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Social media will always be a big part of my sharing experience because I love sharing what I get to see that others may not have gotten the chance to see yet. Whether it be a Montana sunrise/sunset, the constant warm weather of Arizona or California, the beautiful sights of Washington State's mountains and lakes, or the open grasslands out the Midwest. I get the chance to experience it all because of softball and I will be forever grateful that I stuck through with this sport because it is the main reason for my adventures and I want to be able to share it with whoever is willing to listen <3

Thank you all for taking the time to read! Until next time ;)))