Yes, I am officially announcing that I'm leaving social media and yes, there is one glaringly obvious reason that, to be perfectly honest, threatens to cut the rest of this blog short: I hate it. I always have done. Even way back when, when I was just an editorial assistant at Jo Fletcher Books in London, I hated having to be in charge of the Twitter account. I remember once, a post went up (not something I'd written!) and I got such an outpouring of pure hate over it, that I had to close the account for the weekend because I felt sick with anxiety the whole time. I was only about 24 at the time. For me, this just cemented my hatred for social media. I promised myself that I would never use it if I was in charge of my own business. Well, now I am, and I'm using it, but I'm finally breaking free. Social media can eff off. Here's some reasons why I'm finally doing it:
1. I'm sure it's impacting my mental health
I often find myself scrolling. And I say it like that, because I don't consciously make the decision to scroll for half an hour. I just find myself doing it. And as I do it, I feel worse and worse and worse. I compare my art to others much more successful than me and I wish I could do what they do. It contributes to artistic paralysis. As they say, comparison is the thief of joy. And if my joy is gone, then what reason have you to buy my work? A vicious cycle. I feel bad because with a baby, I only have a limited amount of time, and I spend it scrolling? I tell myself I'm trying to relax, but how does half an hour vanishing into a tiny screen help you to relax? It's trickery. It is not relaxing. Reading is relaxing. Knitting that new pattern is relaxing (for me, anyway!). Scrolling is just not the thing!
2. It's changed beyond recognition
When I first joined Instagram it was a lovely place to be, full of my friends posting lovely unedited pictures, showing me everyone I followed in the order of their posts so I could keep up with their lives, drop a comment, say hi. Follow small businesses successfully. There was no pressure. Now I barely see my friends, and I definitely don't see all the lovely small businesses out there that I followed. I read recently that Instagram now expect you to post 10 reels a day to even start to become visible. No. Nuh uh. No. What a complete and utter waste of my time. I want to draw, I want to write, I want to run my business, not spend all day on social media. And god knows I hate being told what to do. I also hate putting money in massive corporation's pockets. And I HATE ADVERTS AND SPAM. Good lord, the spam. It's time people.
3. It's not helping me
Instagram officially does nothing for my business. I barely get any traffic from Instagram, and I don't really get views anymore. (I only talk about Instagram because I deleted my Facebook years ago, and I've never had Twitter - vile cesspit of all the worst kinds of human opinion that it is! TikTok has never really appealed to me). And mostly, what I get is a lot of people claiming the free stuff I offer on there and no one coming through to buy. I'd rather focus on my newsletter subscribers. I'd rather give stuff to people who actually care. So, if you want to keep up with me, sign up here. That's now the place to do it.
4. I've been doing a course called 'Marketing Without Social Media'
By Leonie Dawson. And it has absolutely, once and for all, convinced me that you do not need social media to make a difference with your business. I'd rather be connected to actual people, to be genuine, honest. For me, social media is none of that. You have to make it sparkle, and I tell you, my work is not all sparkle! It's hard and scary and I barely earn any money, and a lot of my sketches and ideas are terrible and no, I do not have an aesthetic sketchbook to spend half my life trying to photograph beautifully. That is just not the way I work. I work in chaos. Half-baked ideas flying everywhere, impeded by crises of confidence and my inability to focus on one task for too long (which I'm sure social media is not helping).
It's just time. It's time to go. It's time to say farewell. It's time to part ways. It's time to really focus on my newsletter subscribers. It's time to focus on the people who actually care. It's time to focus on me. It's time to streamline. It's time.
If you want to keep up with me not on social media, then please sign up to my newsletter. I only send it once or twice a month, so you won't get a torrent of spam from this quarter. Just nice, helpful newsletters about my news, lovely offers and chat about art nature and sustainability. So if you like those things, join my pack, and sign up!
I hope you can join the Pack and I hope to see you there!
As always, thanks for reading.
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