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Stop It!

Regret in Social Media

By Carlos WilsonPublished 7 years ago 2 min read
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Last year about this time I got all caught up in watching Gary Vee, Simon Sinek, and every Ted Talk I could find about self-improvement. I went "hustle" mode on creating content, a Youtube channel, and jumping on every new app promising community and followers. Per Gary Vee's advice, I went all in on Snapchat and Anchor, shunning work and family responsibilities so I could record every ridiculous thought and action in an otherwise mundane existence.

Things were going well... I was climbing the ranks of social royalty making friends and it was fun AF. I was getting a little pressure from the family to put my phone down and "live in the now." I didn't want to leave them out of the story, but fine, if they don't wanna be famous I'll go full business life on it. I was the master of my domain!

Then one fateful day a couple close friends told me they just tap through my shitty snaps and have no idea what Anchor is... insert awkward laugh here. Instead of taking this little bit of criticism as not my audience perspective, I let it crawl into my subconscious and lay alien babies in my brain, creating doubt that slowly but surely banished both apps and my social stardom dreams to the second screen neither on my phone.

This is how it all went down (literally). I started over thinking my snaps, to the point it would take days to post anything. My "shitty" posts became forced and robotically scripted. Obviously, all the time I was spending on these snaps didn't leave much for Anchor or anything else really. I started hating my message and stupid FACE and creativity became like Rocky chasing that chicken around. By the end, posts were few and far between and eventually I gave up my growing snap base and went completely radio silent on my Anchor community and settled into a sad feed of daily anti-Trump FB politics. This went on for months... then after binge watching Game of Thrones for a solid 2 weeks I tried again but I had lost my momentum and the joy of creating for all the world to see.

Now almost a year later, regret sets in and I can only imagine where I would be and how many awesome connections I could have had by now if only I had more confidence in the long game. Anchor and Whale's new UX along with Insta stories and places to publish like Vocal and Medium are once again brewing a little excitement and creativity for what my social media life might be a year from now if I can just stay consistent and not let the fearful, a-hole voice in my head tell me to Stop It!!

Moral of the story friends, social media marketing and building your brand is a marathon that only requires you show up every day. You can walk sideways, hop on one foot, or army crawl the whole way as long as you stay in the race and keep being your truth you will win!

businesscareersocial media
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About the Creator

Carlos Wilson

Empathy is the solution. Growth Hacking 🌳Cannabis 💳Payments 🏦Banking. #Cannabis #FinTech #RegTech #BizDev #Payments #socialmediamarketing

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