The Gambling Problem
There are over 5.66 billion active social media users and those numbers are still climbing. It won’t be long now until literally every human is on social media one way or another.
It only takes a tiny fraction of people to find your content and enjoy it to build a thriving career off of social media. But actually doing that is never as easy as it looks.
In some ways, posting on social media is a lot like playing the lottery. Everytime you hit the post button there is a miniscule chance your life will change forever but it probably won’t.
There are 1000s of videos, articles, and courses all with contradicting information about how to grow your different social media platforms but they’re rarely helpful and grow out of date very quickly.
The reality of posting on social media for most of us is low views & engagement. It can feel discouraging, especially in the beginning as you are building the variety of different skills required to actually make “good content.” Many people quit due to the daunting demands of consistent posting when the payoff feels nonexistent.
As a small artist myself, I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic. Here are some mindshifts that help me set some mental boundaries to keep posting on social media fun and healthy- even if nobody else is watching!
You actually don’t want to go viral
The allure of 100,000s or millions of eyes on your work may seem like the ultimate goal of posting on social media; however, in reality, it is never really that glamorous.
When a video blows up, congrats, you are now going to compare everything you make to it. The numbers you got before will now never be enough.
You suddenly face enormous pressure to perform for a brand new audience that knows nothing about you or the content you normally make. More eyes also means more criticism. People on the internet will not mince words. And if that audience came for one specific thing, you’re now wearing golden handcuffs: make the same type of content forever, or watch your numbers tank.
I’ve seen a video of another artist who went viral for posting one cute pokemon fan art on instagram. Overnight she grew to over 100,000 followers. The problem was, she wasn’t even that big of a fan of pokemon. It was just a one-off drawing she thought was cute. None of her other posts got the same reaction. And as she kept posting, she would lose followers. Imagine posting your own original artwork and losing hundreds of followers because of it. Mentally that feels like a punishment. It killed any drive she had to make more artwork and she ended up abandoning that account altogether.
Why Slower is Better
The beginning experimental phase is more valuable than most people realize. You get the time to experiment with content and have fun with it without all of the pressure of other people’s expectations for you. It also gives you time to build up a tolerance towards other peoples comments & opinions vs the landslide of virality.
Subscribers and follower counts really don’t matter anymore. People are fed content based on their current viewing interests and those are constantly changing.
What direction your social media takes should be authentic and internally driven. If not, you risk building an audience and career that you will end up resenting. A smaller audience that genuinely cares is worth more than a massive one that showed up for the wrong reason.
Rejecting the Gamble
I had an epiphany the other day.
I have a little friend & family discord server that I post on. It’s usually just painting progress pictures and I get a couple interactions and a comment or 2. After I post, I feel satisfied and I am happy that I made progress on a painting.
In a group chat, there is no expectation of growth. And no possibility of fame & fortune. The people there are the only people who can see it. Posting there is safe and easy.
That’s how I want to feel when I’m posting on social media.
I am not trying to win the lottery. I just genuinely want to share snippets of the things I am making and the meanings behind them.
I really enjoy making long videos, because I am able to use them to process complex topics for myself. And if I know one thing about being a human being is that we rarely have an original experience/idea. So if I am going through something, there are countless others who have, are, and will be experiencing the same thing. So by solving my own problems, I could inadvertently help someone else just by sharing.
When I post on social media, I usually get more than one or 2 likes. So therefore that is a success! I can be content with the progress I made.
Mindset Shift: the Brick Method
Instead of getting lost in the numbers, I’ve come up with this approach called “The Brick Method.” It kinda goes like this.
Each video/post is like a brick. Once you post it, you’ve laid a brick. It’s usually not that exciting and by no means does the brick have to be perfect but it is there! And that’s what matters. You keep laying bricks, you’re gonna get faster and better as you go. And eventually you’re gonna zoom out and realize that you’ve managed to build a whole house!
What you’re building will change based on the person, but in my case, that is a career as an artist and painter. Social media is the perfect documentation of all the skills you're building over time. Even if you never “make it big,” you’re still better off than where you started!
Ultimately, social media is a tool to document your journey as you grow as a human and artist. One day you will be able to scroll through your feed and be proud of how far you’ve come!
Just keep laying bricks.