When I think about my social media usage over the years, it surprises me that I’m more confused about how to use it than ever. Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself part of the social media pioneer generation. Compared to what Facebook is now, it astonishes me that I was around when you needed a college email to sign up and it still had “The” before its official name. And there was no talk of the Metaverse at all.
But ever since starting a podcast and then a business, I began to use social media for much more than catching up with friends and family. I began to use it to network and promote more.
Ugh, even typing that made me gag a little bit in my mouth.
But at the time, it felt good. I would get rushes of dopamine when I’d talk with people in Facebook groups or get into Twitter thread discussions with other podcasters. I loved touting my friends and supporting them during their launches.
I wrote posts I knew would get shared in order to build my brand and my network. I always tried to provide value with my posts and I never wanted to be all SELL SELL SELL like those marketers on social media who didn’t give a damn how they came across it seemed.
A lot of what I struggle with when it comes to my own personal Imposter Syndrome is feeling like my stuff isn’t worth putting a price on or marketing so when I saw that I could put out enough useful information that I felt good about asking for money, I felt I hit my social media sweet spot.
And then when the pandemic went into full effect here in the U.S. around March of 2020, I pulled back. I had already felt a burnout coming on around that time, even without the looming shutdown of the world it seemed.
I posted what I could to help my audience, who at the time was mostly other podcasters and those I was coaching and mentoring. But at that point, I was having a lot of trouble separating myself from the digital version of myself I felt like I was constantly putting out there.
This isn’t to say that person you see online isn’t me. But it is a curated version, to be honest, as with most other people you see on social media. In fact, I would venture to guess that I post less than 10% of my actual life online. It would be impossible to capture truly every facet of every day and put it up on social media without a team of people helping.
But I knew which 10% to put out there. Before the turmoil of 2020, my feed was INCREDBLY curated. I made sure to brand myself for the exact clientele I wanted to work with and I’d like to say I did a good job. Too good of a job, in fact, that when I started to pull back, I was sent messages and DMs from folks who wanted to know why I wasn’t doing as much. They wanted more from me.
But it was content they wanted. Not actually me. They wanted me to keep talking about microphones and podcasting equipment, growing their audience and, of course, monetizing their podcasts. But I was struggling to find excitement in posting those things I felt like I had already talked about over and over again. I had older posts, blog posts, website links, all sorts of resources that I spent hours putting together and I was confused why that didn’t seem to be enough for people.
I found myself wanting to post photos from my hikes and drives, I wanted to post photos of me when I was feeling my best and when I may not have had anything in particular to say, but I wanted to express myself and say hi to the people I talked to regularly.
Looking back, maybe I should have created an account just for podcasting, but I was so wrapped up in this idea that I was my brand, that the idea that anything else I did was “off-brand” felt like a restriction I wanted to break away from badly.
I went through the rest of the year unfollowing and dropping the “friends” I saw who went about business as usual while the rest of the world watched and reacted to unspeakable acts of racism and violence throughout the rest of the year. I realized a number of people I had thought I had genuine connections with were practically selling robots, it seemed. The pandemic wasn’t bringing out their compassion and appreciation — it was showing how well they could pivot and continue doing business and impressing people as the rest of the world seemed to need that step back.
I knew all about relationship marketing from my business coach and I was able to see right though them. They come off great, and seem so relatable until you realize they’re regurgitating the same copy every other entrepreneur does.
In fact, when I decided to start a series back in the beginning of this year focusing on one aspect of podcasting I knew no one else was covering, it didn’t take long for many of these types to swoop in and repurpose my content in their brand colors and style for themselves. It was disgusting and that was the moment I knew I wanted out.
By January of this year, I didn’t feel like I could believe anyone online anymore. Of course I had a handful of people I knew I could trust, but after the election and the attack on the Capital earlier that month, the internet seemed like a minefield and nothing but yelling and screaming and pain and suffering.
My friends who were also entrepreneurs were hesitant in their own posting and many folks were taking frequent breaks.
I put up a post annoucning I was going to be taking a break from the usual podcasting talk (above) and immediately felt a sense of relief at not feeling tied to my curated feed anymore.
In my post, I had announced it would be more lifestyle-focused, but after a short while, I began to question why I was posting at all. My profile was public and I liked that listeners of my podcasts were able to find me and catch up with me, since I hadn’t been podcasting in months. But the majority of my followers were mostly other podcasters.
Needless to say my Instagram reach went down significantly after I stopped worrying so much about my posting schedule and being consistent. I didn’t lose a lot of followers, per say. I still had a lot of information about podcasting on my feed and website that people were able to find and look through.
But my posts went from podcasting tips, tricks and tutorials to pictures of gorgeous spots in Connecticut, fun and interesting food we were able to score in the midst of a pandemic, or random life updates. The captions ranged from simple to some paragraphs pondering life or expressing appreciation. Sometimes I’d put some podcasting tips in there, but I mostly stuck with writing captions as if they were mini-blog posts to document my life.
Even though I say my reach went down, I found after this shift, I began hanging out in my DMs more and having deeper conversations. I was posting about things that meant a lot to me and finding others that shared these feelings and interests actually brought me closer to some people I didn’t expect.
The copycats soon went away too, which was nice.
But then it was just me and my audience, who didn’t quite know what to expect from me.
Nevertheless, I was determined to get over my social media burnout. In fact, I knew the pandemic had taken a toll on me, and social media actually provided quite a nice parasocial space for me.
Over the next few months, I began to feel more connected to the people I was following. I stopped playing the algorithm game and abandoned a lot of the marketing rules I had so desperately clung to because I was so afraid of making wrong move and upsetting the algorithm before.
My feed started getting … messy.
Once I started roller skating in March, forget it! If you look at my feed now, it’s a jumble of selfies, nature photos, screenshots from Twitter, and lots of skating Reels.
I turned off the ability to see the number of Likes on posts and I haven’t updated my spreadsheet keeping track of my follower numbers like I used to. It was absolutely freeing and I hope if I ever have to go back to actively worrying about gaining followers, I can hire someone for that because doing it myself was fun … until it wasn’t and it drove me to burnout.
One thing I loved about finding the roller-skating community on Instagram was being able to search through hashtags to find real folks like me at home with their messy houses and un-curated lives but who still showed up online to express their joy.
Comments on one another’s Reels have led to DM conversations with some of the most awesome people ever! I had similar conversations with podcasters I really connected with and, really, anyone I’ve met who is creative in some way. I love finding folks in both the skating community and podcasting community with ADHD — I don’t have any statistics or numbers to prove this theory, but my guess is ADHD is common in these creative fields, no doubt.
A favorite roller skater of mine, @thegoodguy91 put up a post back in September talking about her own rocky relationship with social media, and one of her goals for her own feed was just what I was looking for: Friends over Followers.
I immediately adopted that phrase as my mantra when I read those words on her post (I wish I could find it to link to it, but think it’s been taken down since).
It’s been 10 months since I’ve changed the focus of my social media.
My Facebook is personal only and I’d love to be able to pare down my followers there, but when I first got into the entrepreneur space, the thing to do was friend anyone you could possibly have a business connection with.
After being in every Facebook group for podcasting there was it seems, as well as going to numerous conferences, I barely recognized most of my friends list over there. I rarely post anymore because of it. I’ve since set up a public page for anyone wanting to follow me on Facebook and I plan on cross-posting from Instagram a lot, including my Stories.
For the most part, I’m over on Instagram and haven’t found a social media platform I like as much. Truth be told, when I first started my business, I put my focus fully on Instagram because that was where I knew my ideal clients hung out. But now I’ve fallen in love with the visual aspect, the joy of phone photography, and of course the communities I can find by searching and following hashtags.
I’ve recently begun talking more about Adenomyosis and ADHD on there, which is a lot of which I’m hoping to focus this blog on. I haven’t created a post specifically talking about my sexuality, though the only time I felt compelled to was Coming Out Day. And in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t because I’m still in the process of figuring it out!
I’m curious to know if others have shifted their social media presence, especially if you use your social media for your brand or business in any way. I know I wasn’t the only one 🙂
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