Why I gave up on social media as a writer

I wasn’t a big fan of social media since I decided to be a broadly defined artist around 2017 (writer, metal musician, digital painter, writer again). Whenever I googled “how to promote your [insert your art type here]“, the 1st tip I got was “YOU MUST USE SOCIAL MEDIA!!!“ As a little, young and stupid kid, I followed this advice… and that didn’t end up too well.

While I’m not trying to tell that all SM always suck for everyone, I would like to explain why I completely gave up on them.

Before I start my flood of complaints, I will highlight a few positive things about using SM and a few of my mistakes:

• yes, you can find your new fans on SM (at least around 2021). I sold about 3 copies of my epic metal EP when I used Instagram (but I had to spend 2h per day on promotion and got around 500 real followers. Does it sound good?)

• it all is determined by your target audience. Some time ago I saw a post by some author who sold 5000 paperbacks through TikTok. Before you decide to use any specific SM, please do research about its main audience. You will save many hours of your life.

• SM marketing is a skill. I’m terrible at being a social animal in both; real and virtual life. I’m bad at satisfying the algorithms that change every month. All my attempts of creating “viral content“ failed. But it’s not too late to learn this skill (I just have 0 motivation to do it now). It’s like math or a foreign language. You have to learn it.

And now, before it starts looking to nice, I want to expose all traps I fell into while using SM. This list isn’t about any specific site, it’s a general compilation of all my woes:

• time and effort =/= results. This and the point below are my main reasons why I gave up (they’re somehow connected with each other). That goes for all SM I’ve ever tried. You have to spend many hours on creating the content, planning the right time to publish it, finding hashtags/keywords, sharing it on other sites and then… you get nothing. No one buys your stuff. Or even more, no one sees it. But that’s the reason why I included the next point.

• too low organic reach (how many followers see your post without paid promotion). It’s not a huge discovery when I say that all these SM companies just want your money. If you don’t pay them to promote your post/page/video, no one will see it. I think Instagram will be the most noticeable example. Somewhere before 2022, I could get even 160 likes while having only 500 followers and using good hashtags. Then, in the beginning of 2022, all my organic reach disappeared. The same hashtags stopped working. I tried it with a few new accounts and the results were the same. 500 followers, 20 likes. When I took a closer look at this issue, I found out that it’s not me doing something wrong. Many people complained about a sudden drop in their organic reach here. That was my final straw. Turning to other SM didn’t help. According to the current data, the organic reach on Facebook is 1%, on Instagram - 3%, on Twitter - less than 1%. Unless you pay for it…

• comparing myself to others and seeing their success. While it wasn’t a huge issue when I was a musician, this hit me so violently when I became a writer. Whenever I opened any SM, I saw inspirational things like “I wrote 5000 words today!“, “I sold 100 books today!“, “my book will be turned into a movie!“ and things like this. Maybe this will make me look like a “jealous hater”, but it was absolutely exhausting to me. I felt how it sucks out all my engagement, passion, self-esteem and will to succeed. “Why should I put any effort into something if someone else will be always better than me?” I saw only the successes of other people, and not their failures. That made me feel that I’m the only one who fails. Terrible mindset.

• doom scrolling a.k.a. wasting your time on watching funny things (instead of working). I don’t have to explain too much here. Watching cat videos or cringe compilations can’t always be better than writing, right? RIGHT?

• censorship + ignoring the real threat. Watching things on Youtube, especially if they address some more controversial things, looks like a comedy sketch. “The victim of [beeeep] was [beeep] and [beeeeep] because the [beeep] was [beeeep].” YT forces the creators to censor more and more common words under the threat of banning their account, blocking their earnings or cutting their organic reach. Other sites aren’t much better. Every innocent joke may end up with a ban. Showing even fictional violence may end up with a ban. All SM try to be family friendly while ignoring the real threat (from common scammers to child groomers etc.).

• everything changes to worse + terrifying monopoly. The last thing is that I don’t see any hope for SM in the nearest future. Paid posts will be necessary. Scammers, spammers and other scum will remain. Reach and engagement of normal posts will decline. No other SM will repeat the success of FB, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube. BeReal, Vero, Vimeo, Likee and other sites like this tried to be the new FB/Instagram/TikTok/Youtube, but let’s be honest, I guess that 90% of you never heard about them. If no one breaks the monopoly on social media sites, the creators will stay doomed (unless they pay for views).

I think I said enough. If SM works for you, that’s great. You’re a lucky one. Just please don’t feel the pressure to use them. You exist even without them.

Thanks for your attention.

 

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