I come to the laptop today - like most of this past week - a drained and uninspired soul. So, as always, my cure is to write about what’s on my mind, in the hopes that it’ll help me iron out the kinks and find a way out (or through). And today’s kinks lie in my complicated relationship with social media analytics.
This little blog has been trundling along for close to half a year now. Since its launch, I’ve (reluctantly) ended a two-year social media hiatus to install myself on Twitter, crawl back to Instagram, and even start leveraging LinkedIn. All or nothing they say, and - right now - it looks like I’ve chosen all.
I’ve never been overly hesitant to share my work with others. Of course, I don’t think it’s there yet (is work ever really there?), but I do enjoy connecting with readers who have discovered it and found resonance, relatability, and - most importantly - comfort in the experiences I share. Plus, I definitely need all the honest feedback I can get my paws on.
But at the start of the blogging journey, I only shared my first pieces with close friends, slipping links into our emails and text messages. The prospect of publishing anything on social media made my cup overflow with an unnecessary dose of anxiety, with thoughts centred around a dreaded common theme: ‘is this content even good enough to warrant a triple-digit like count?’
And now, the more I populate the social media realm with my work, the more I’ve come to realise how heavily we rely on - and crave - instant gratification in the form of likes, comments, and shares.
Why aren’t we satisfied with our own self-worth, our unique value? Why do we seek validation from others online, in the hopes of reassuring ourselves that we are, in fact, good enough?
Beyond my circle of (very, very supportive) friends, the response to this blog has been fairly subdued, but high in quality - higher than I could have imagined. A lovely reader in South Africa came across my blog on LinkedIn and extended me an invitation to speak on his podcast. Another in Bahrain - who discovered my work in the depths of Twitter - wrote a beautiful, wholly unexpected, message for me to wake up to an otherwise ordinary weekday. Had it not been for the fleeting moments of serendipity offered up by social media, it is likely these interactions would not have taken place.
But then. If there’s a silver lining, there’s bound to be a cloud to go with it. And this particular cloud is that other, murkier side of the internet. The side in which I pour my heart and soul into a blog post, splash said heart and soul across social media, and then watch as…absolutely nothing happens. My words just bounce around in an echoless void, unseen and unread.
I knew that writing online would be a tough game to play, I knew it wouldn’t be fair to expect instant results from a path that typically takes years to build. I knew all of this. And yet, it was in social media that I started to chase the instant validation I was so desperately craving.
And so, until I (very recently) shook out of it, I increasingly focused my energy on the pursuit of likes and comments - in any shape or form - instead of directing it towards the actual work for which I was seeking approval in the first place. I’d unwittingly, yet willingly, become a slave to a well-rehearsed social media activity: the mindless tug-down of the notification centre, just to check if an arbitrary algorithm lottery had, in fact, been won in the five minutes since the last ‘quick check-in’.
This chaotic bid to garner approval from all corners of the internet resulted in an endless, mind-numbing whirlpool of anxiety. I painstakingly crafted every social media update, as if my (tiny) blogging career depended on it, as if any misstep could result in a devastating reduction in likes. And then there were all the ‘insights’ - the flurry of charts outlining every data point possible, a platter of angles from which to judge the worth of my work.
Unsurprisingly, my relationship with social media quickly became unsustainable. And it all culminated in its inevitable climax: incessant thoughts of ‘how many people like my work?’ which was always incorrectly conflated with: ‘how many people like me?’
You are not your likes.
How can we remind ourselves of this, and focus our energy on what really matters?
First, let’s take a moment to contemplate platform risk. If you’re a creator looking to garner a wider audience for your work, you should absolutely share it online - we can’t forget (nor avoid) the power of social media. But we also can’t forget how a certain (wildly popular) video sharing platform entirely disappeared one day in 2016 - and, with it, so did all those supposedly all-important likes, comments, and shares, meticulously collected over the years.
If any of the social platforms I use today decided to spontaneously combust in a similar fashion, I know that this blog - with all my writing tucked safely within it - would still be here, immune to the storm. I may not have those 108 likes on that ‘candid’ holiday photo, but I’ll still have my words, my stories, and (hopefully) any loyal readers who find value in these words and stories.
So, it makes sense to focus the majority of my attention on building this blog, and not on building up a repository of vapid, irrelevant, social media comments from accounts whose sole purpose for commenting is to entice you to notice them, to visit their profile, to buy whatever it is they’re selling. Or to build up a treasured collection of likes, even if they’re all from that person you met once at fresher’s week seven years ago. Because in tough times, on the rainy days, what will all that online validation actually do for you?
Next, if you’re constantly benchmarking your self-worth with the engagement levels on your social media content, ultimately, you won’t be creating from the heart. Whether consciously or not, you’ll be crafting your work with a specific audience in mind - in the pursuit of their online approval - instead of creating work that might truly mean something to you.
Let’s consider those social media juggernauts who upload seemingly effortless photos of a poolside breakfast in Bali or of a sundowner overlooking Italy’s Cinque Terre. Both are undoubtedly beautiful experiences to document, and both will also guarantee you those 15 minutes of social media fame you claim you weren’t chasing. But the mere fact that you can picture these posts pretty much instantly highlights their oversaturated omnipresence online.
So, wouldn’t it be far better to share your own, unique voice? To share work that speaks volumes to you, and to see what happens when you share it? And my promise to you: there will always be at least one person (but almost always more) who will appreciate your unique outlook on life.
Laying out the pieces here today, it’s unfathomable how (or why) the relentless pursuit of likes became a priority on my journey as a blogger. But this realisation comes with clarity, and that clarity doesn’t come easy. This was an easy trap to fall into, to fall apart in.
But I know now. The reader in Bahrain who found resonance in my words, the reader in South Africa with whom a conversation inspired this very piece - those are the connections infinitely more meaningful than any made through the (exhausting) practice of chasing empty validation on Instagram.
Remember: there is so much more to you - and to life - than the pursuit of online validation.
Likes aren’t why you’re creating. Creating is why you’re creating.
Until next time,
S
Tell me: Do you find yourself seeking validation on social media? How do you tame it?
Cover image captured at Wonderfruit Festival, Thailand.
