Currently I´m thinking about deleting my Instagram profile. I had once created one to promote my music. For now the profile has 60 followers. Which serves as an indication on how frequently and intensively I have made use of my profile. That being said I assume the loss of my Instagram profile probably I will not consider it as a severe loss.
The trigger for this article was given when I went through the respective chapter in „The Art of the Start 2.0*“ by Guy Kawasaki which I´m currently on. By doing so I get the impression that social media appears to be one of Guy´s most favorite topics.
No cherry picking
Initially I wanted to skip the chapter. Maybe because I had already made the decision that currently I´m not planning to make social media one of my priorities. But life is not about cherry picking. In general, it´s my intention to read books in their entirety. It´s the same with music albums. Even if there´s a song which I do not like at the first moment when I´m listening to it, I will not skip it. The point is that it´s my intention to understand the full work, be it a music album or a book. By following that approach (meaning going through the entire content provided) I obtain a more profound understanding of the author´s way of thinking. That additionally helps me to even better understand the chapters which I like immediately.
That´s why I confronted myself with Guy´s content in terms of how to deal with social media successfully. I did so by fully knowing that social media is far away from being a funny or entertaining thing. At least for me. And the funny and worth mentioning point is that by going through the chapter I dropped over some statements which clearly indicated why I should stay away from social media. I tried to read the chapter with an open mind in order to avoid a self fulfilling prophecy. For example, if I already set my mind with the phrase that I do not enjoy social media it´s more likely that by reading the respective chapter I will unconsciously search for arguments which underpin my existing attitude.
Evidence of why I´m avoiding social media
However there was a minor amount of statements which jumped into my eyes directly. They clearly indicated why I´m avoiding social media. As a conclusion I was not able to reject that burden of proof.
Here are some of my favorites:
Guy recommends to feed the content monster.
Yes. Good idea. There´s not enough content out there. We need more. More content. Go go go. Be fast. Rush and prepare for the fight to stand out. It´s a competitive environment. The monster will always scream for more. Give him what it wants. Cut off monster´s head but don´t be afraid if three further heads are growing out of monster´s neck.
That´s not Guy speaking. That´s me. I´m pointing that out as people are already full of content. Filled to bursting. The point is that stomachs as well as brains have limited capacities. The following assumption is contradictory to the purpose of a worldwide network and contradicts a liberal driven mind. But the next „big thing“ people really desire in terms of technology is a tool which is able to filter out the incredible amount of trash while e. g. simply trying to navigate from one website to another.
That´s one of the reasons which restrict me from sharing content. That´s why I have agreed for myself that if in the future I share a post it has to have it´s authorization that it´s that good that it will likely turn something into positive. If I do not have that feeling, it´s unacceptable to further stuff people.
Long term vs. short term
Another argument which has not been mentioned in the book directly but which is important for me to mention is related to the general time perspective of social media. Which is always short term related. For example, posts are intended to create an effect immediately. If not, the post will be forgotten. A post is intended to entertain for a few days. In the best case it will last for some weeks if there are a lot of reshares. But after that it will be forgotten.
To point it directly I feel a strong antipathy towards everything which is related to a short term period. My whole mind, my whole way of thinking and my whole motivation in terms of creating something is based on a long term time frame. For example, I deeply enjoy reading historic stories. Reading about situations which are long gone however the effect they created was such remarkable that people still remember. In addition, I feel a deep motivation to release a song which will still be remembered in ten or twenty years. It may be true that a good post can act as a snapshot of a very special moment worth for history. But 99% of the posts on social media I consider as small babies crying for immediate attention. Now now now. Here I am. Me and not the other. I´m the best. Follow me.
Please pay attention to me
If I follow that approach (meaning acting like a small baby) I highly contradict to an inherent part of my personality. It´s not that I do not intend to generate attention in terms of my creative work. But related to social media it seems that following an approach of being pushy and whining will lead to the best results. Being „pushy“ is the opposite of my natural behavior. On the other hand it´s fully in line with Guy´s statement: „If you´re not pissing someone off on social media, you´re not using it aggressively enough.“
That´s the perfect description of why I´m failing in using social media successfully. The last thing I´m interested in is to treat anybody in a bad way or doing active harm to anyone. I already consider it as harmful by imagining of penetrating someone with a post of mine for several times, no matter how good the quality of the post. In other words, I´m the opposite of an activist. Doing active harm to someone and acting in a pushy mode highly contradicts to my core values. There´s no further explanation needed.
And now let´s not take a selfie
Additionally, I do not work via photograph. As the wording Instagram already implies the platform is about sharing images. And it´s a well known fact that images of persons work better rather than images of a white wall. So the best thing to do in order to succeed on Instagram is taking a huge amount of selfies and post them regularly.
The issue is that I never do selfies. It´s not that I do not like the way how I look. I´m totally fine. But as mentioned above I simply do not work via photograph. Do not work means that I do not think that people will be able to get insights of my true personality by simply watching a photograph of mine. The point is that what in return I consider as my true personality is solely expressed in three ways: Conversations in person or via phone, creative works with music above all and writing deeply thought out emails or articles like the one I´m currently writing.
Final conclusion
It´s satisfactory to obtain these kind of evidences out of the chapter I went through. This means that it´s nice to know that I´m not doing anything wrong by not using social media in the proposed way but rather respecting my values by avoiding that fighting atmosphere. Fighting for attention. Fighting to stand out. Be better than others and do more.
No.
Be different. Not better.
To soften the whole thing down a bit and restore harmony: I´m aware of the fact that for a minority of people specific content shared via social media can provide adequate help and alleviate pain. In this relation I´m fully aware that social media tools are powerful tools in terms of promotion and marketing. There´s no doubt about it.
Striving for a compromise
That´s why it´s not my intention to criticize social media in general. Saying that social media does not work for me does not mean that I´m planning to fully ignore and avoid the ecosystem around it. As mentioned above, life is not about cherry picking. I doubt to achieve my future goals by simply cherry picking. It´s a topic which I have already emphasized in Crossing the border.
So in the case that I will use social media as a freelance consultant I will strictly focus on not putting myself in the focus. Meaning that I prefer to share short and remarkable finance quotes rather than posting images of myself. This is the last option which I consider to work out. By following that short term approach I may reach someone whom I can support on the long term. Sounds like a compromise. Sounds not that bad.
However in no way I´m planning to set up a social media profile for this website. Based on the factors mentioned above setting up a social media profile for this website will be the most contradictory thing to do.
Holy words
Social media does not work for me. That means that if I run a profile by myself I will always fail by trying to put myself in the foreground. I´m happy that Guy has provided some statements which going forward I can use as arguments to explain why the environment of social media contradicts to inherent aspects of my personality. In the case I intend to continue using social media I either have to fully remove myself from the foreground (e. g. by solely sharing financial quotes) or hire an external person in order to manage that powerful monster.
Any thoughts on this can be sent privately to send@realthoughts.me or publicly via the comment function below
Martin
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