Intention
Guiding Principles for Using Social Media and Maintaining My Soul (Hopefully)
This week I have been creating a set of guiding principles of sorts for how I want to engage with social media. This has come out of a few different explorations. First, I, like many others, often get into the pattern of doom–scrolling, or in the case of TikTok for me, the oh-my-god-so-many-adorable-farm-animals spiral.
I have begun to notice patterns, not only in my own usage but in the tendency of creators to gradually morph themselves into something different—something that will get more views. I often wonder if they are even conscious of it, or if the algorithm or the machine or whatever it is just has some sort of dystopian otherworldly hold on them.
Intention
I should say though, I feel somewhat proud of myself for noticing. And as I reflected on this oddly-placed pride, I realized that intention is important to me. And social media by nature robs us of intention—whether by engineering what will hold our attention as a user or by dictating how we must show up as creators in order to be seen and liked. It’s a truly terrible type of peer pressure.
If I read one more article on the Millennial Pause, I will cry
Another influence into this exploration of mine has been the articles about the millennial pause and surrounding phenomenon. No, I will not link to anything here because I hate it all. To me this is a ridiculous meta-analysis – criticizing how people use platforms when the platforms told them how to use them, and castigating the people for not evolving alongside the technology when the only benefit of doing this is that the company makes money. People who are currently criticizing other peoples’ usage of TikTok (for example) are basically just unpaid marketing reps for the platform. We have been told to care about how these platforms are used, but the only reason it matters is that the platforms want to make money off of us. And frankly, some of my favorite creators (who are clearly making money themselves on these platforms) have basically subverted what others have told them to do. All of this further underscores my desire to do my best to ignore other people telling me how to use these platforms.
Always Feeling Wrong
The final input into this process is my reflection on how many starts and stops I’ve had when it comes to using social media as a creator—whether to promote this blog or to play some longer game, which is yet undefined but involves some imaginary way of making a bit of passive income. I know that these starts and stops at least somewhat have to do with the fact that whenever I create a post, I immediately feel as though I am either in authentically presenting myself, too boring, look funny, didn’t use the right music, etc. I can’t seem to win with myself, so my current hypothesis is that if I bring some more intention to this process, it will feel better and net better results (whatever the hell that means—yet to be intentionally defined I guess).
The Principles
So here are my guiding principles. You will notice right off the bat that these are pretty counter to the formula of social media. So, alas, here lies one of my challenges. But it’s kind of an exciting one, somehow.
Avoid gimmicks – don’t be a slave to trends or sounds
Only use music I like as background
Don’t create videos that tell people what to do in any way
Emphasize sharing ideas and encouraging others to share
Minimize negativity – try to avoid content that focuses on criticism or judgment
Ignore all advice about posting frequency
Don’t force it
I imagine I will add to these, and I’m also creating some ideas about types of videos I’d like to create, so we’ll see where this goes. But I’m enjoying the practice of using online tools only to serve my most personal truth. Even now, I am writing this post by hand. I will dictate it into a document later, then edit and post it. I recognized that one of my barriers to writing more was the amount of screen time it required after a long day looking at the computer for work.
If you’ve got any tips or hacks for how you’re using the Internet to serve your highest good, I’d love to hear! For now I’ll share any updates as I go, and if you feel compelled, you can follow along on Instagram and TikTok.
First, I had to read this a few times to get a grip of your message.
Why was that? Because your perspective is obtuse, fresh, counter-intuitive. What? You don’t want to play the game? Great! You want to use the internet on your terms. Well, that’s what everybody should want to do, or at least anybody with a brain, which is most people 😉, though common sense is not so common.
Perhaps, you’ve rumbled the internet. The modus operandum of blogs, posts, etc has evolved around the need to prolong/retain attention in times of accleratingly short attention span, with all the subtle tricks to get you onto the page, and keep you there. This repertoire of tricks has been honed through years of development, where the objective is to retain the viewer’s attention, and of course, cashing in is the end result. That’s the problem.
So, I love that you want to do it your way, but I have to ask, what are going to do to get readers, and keep them?
Is your intention to become known for content that gets and holds attention by NOT doing these things? How does that work?
If your content is subject based, ie all in a certain area, then it’s possible to target this ‘market’. Which makes me think, you need to identify your ‘target’, in order to reach out to them, to say, check me out. Otherwise, it’s like having your store/bookshop/library in the desert, nobody will know it’s there.
I subscribe to a beekeeping blog, which is first rate. Scottish beekeeper David Evans publishes a detailed, varied post every Friday, without fail. (Www.theapiarist.org) He’s a highly experienced, intelligent, articulate, skilled beekeeper, and he puts huge effort into his weekly posts, which are always insightful and entertaining.
It’s an extremely valuable resource, and he does it for free. He has a ‘buy me a coffee’ option, but that’s his only ‘monetisation’.
But, in truth, I’m at a loss to know why he does it. The unfailing regularity of his posts means he must be up half the night on Thursdays to get it done, to meet this self-imposed deadline! Magnanimity like that is rare.
(I digress, but there is a point)
But, if your content is not specifically subject -based, then how can you categorise your target readers? (Just asking!)
I suppose, there are writers who write about just anything, and the have a following because of their perspective, or writing style, brand of humour, etc. Perhaps there’s a parallel with stands-up comics.
So, I think you’re right, it does come down to intention, and everything will follow on from that. The why will inform the what, how, where and when.
Enjoy the journey!