Social media… 

Years ago social media was just a place to post photos and watch funny videos. Well for me anyways. It wasn’t a place to try to grow your followers and learn how the algorithm worked. Social media for the most part was fun. 

Now I have talked a whole bunch about growing on social media. I’ve talked about how hard it is and how these companies will give all this advice to help you grow and succeed and in the end, it doesn’t really work that much. The hardest part was the big changes that have happened over the years and how hard it was to always catch up with these changes. 

Two years ago ish I decided that I wanted to start to grow some socials. As a writer who wants to publish books and put my foot into the door of film, I wanted some of my work to go out into the world. So as someone who wants that the first thing they do is well make an account and brainstorm all the things that you want to post on said social media. Now at first, it was strictly Tik Toks and those Tik Toks would also get posted to Instagram reels. That was my main focus. I would do these very awful short stories that at the time I thought were good and I would post them everywhere. 

I did that for a short while. Some videos blowing up on Tik Tok and some videos blowing up on Instagram. Then another big brainstorm happened and I decided I wanted to change what I posted. I mean I still kept writing but I stopped the short stories and I just wrote things that were relatable or quotes that people needed to hear. I was posting almost daily on Instagram and Tik Tok trying my best to grow all while I listened to the companies and other people seeing what I could do more or less to help along the way. 

Two whole years. I tried. I stressed about it. I lost sleep sometimes over it. I lost motivation. 

Finally, about two weeks ago I said I’m stepping back. In two years of social media on Instagram, I only managed to gain 127 followers. On Tik Tik with the video blow-ups, I managed to gain 304. Now for some people and even myself, those numbers can be huge but remembering that those are the numbers after two years of constant hard work. It for me was barely anything. 

Social media is all about luck and knowledge about social media itself. Luck played a part that maybe someone will love your post and will share it and then that person will get it and share and so on. 

Now maybe this is my fault for thinking that it was going to be easy. I thought all I have to do is post and hope the right people find it. I’m honestly just shocked at how far I did work. My old self would have given up after a damn week of posting. 

As much as I love showing my work and writing stuff that will have an effect on people there’s only so much my mental health and even my life can take. Now that covid has kinda gone and the world is going back to normal it means that everything is slowly pilling back onto my plate. 

I don’t believe people should give up on what they love or what their goals are. But I do believe that you can take breaks. Short or long breaks to refigure out everything and brainstorm what will happen next. 

I can say that I am proud that I tried and that I kept trying no matter how shitty it felt some days and I know a lot of people who are still trying to grow and are still having a hard time doing so. I know that in a couple weeks or months from now I will try again and I have have more ideas and brainstorm on what I can do better and maybe it will work out. But for now I listen to my own advice

Take a break and step back your mental health and your life deserve it. Social media and growing it can wait for a little.