My Dilemma Of Whether Or Not To Promote My Work On Social Media
An honest reflection on what it takes to get noticed nowadays.
Nowadays, people promoting their work/business on social media seems to be the norm. Actually, it feels as if it’s something we need to do in order to get some eyes on our work.
As a way to reach more readers for my poetry and website (when I still had it up), I would post some form of content almost everyday on Instagram. This was from around November 2021, and it only lasted until February of this year.
I guess it’s also important to note that I stopped posting around the time when I took down my website and diverted my focus back to Medium. There wasn’t as much of a need to find new readers, since there’s already an existing audience here who would (potentially) be more interested in what I was writing.
But another reason I stopped posting was because—although I love creating images and experimenting with formatting—I was beginning to question whether or not I should be contributing to the chaos that lives on social media.
Like, we all know that the culture on social media can be quite unhealthy—countless other people trying to post as frequently as they can, filling your feed with endless information that is beyond what our brains are capable of processing.
At least, I was beginning to realize the negative impact that social media was having on my mental health at the time—as I was noticing how I’d be checking my Instagram a lot more often than I use to. Being exposed to snippets of so many people’s lives, various news stories, and dozens of memes every hour of every day—it was overwhelming.
Do I really want to be contributing to this unhealthy environment? I share my writing online because I want to make a positive impact, so I didn’t want someone to see my posts and make them feel the same way as I did.
And look—I’m all for creators wanting to share their work with others. That’s exactly what myself and other writers are doing on Medium. But when it comes to social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter, it’s so quick and easy to consume short form content—we find ourselves continuously scrolling as our brains are wanting more and more.
I don’t know if I want to be a part of that anymore.
I know other content creators are not responsible for my own issues with social media, just as other people’s mental health isn’t my responsibility.
But it also felt as if I needed to keep up with everyone on the platform, or else I wouldn’t be able to get noticed at all. And that was what caused a lot of stress as well, and it took a lot of the fun out of creating.
(Just a side note: I do know that YouTube and, perhaps even Medium, are considered social media platforms, but I do think that they’re different from others. What I’m referring to are platforms that mainly share short form content.)
Though, there are numerous ways in which social media is making a positive impact. So, I don’t want to give up on it completely. One of the reasons I want to share my work with more people is because I hope that it can help and be of use to someone, even if it’s just to offer entertainment or relaxation. Social media is an effective tool to enable us to reach that audience, and it’s a nice way to get constructive feedback and meet new people.
What I’m trying to do now is to think about ways in which I can make a positive contribution to everything that’s happening on social media, instead of feeling pressured to follow what everyone else does to grow their platforms. While I still do want to reach and share my work with more people, I want to do so in a healthier way—for both myself and those who see my work.
Should I still post on Instagram? I guess it’s something I need to think about. And if I decide to continue using it, I should plan out how I’m going to approach using the platform.
Social media is pretty noisy—we need to find what works best for us in order to get our voices heard. And that’s what I still have to figure out.
Hello there! I’m A.X. — a soon-to-be college theatre student who writes poetry and other stuff. Last month, I set a goal of reading at least one play per week and sharing my thoughts on each in theatre stuff. There’s so much we can discover & explore through theatre, so I welcome you to follow and join me as I share my insights on the life lessons we can learn from dramatic literature (and more)! If you’re interested, here’s something to get you started:
