I have a love-hate relationship with social media platforms, I always have. So many ups and downs of social media in the creative space. From a personal level and a business level. The social networking platforms specifically from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram (don’t even get me started on SnapChat!)
But I followed along with almost every new social media network that came along, most of them from day one. And at the beginning, it was fun and silly, a novelty to see what everyone was up to and what they were doing, pinning all the projects to all kinds of board, writing statements in only 140 characters, or sharing images of our food with the latest cool new photo app. They all started out by offering more connection, to me and to my blog.
Well, that’s what they were supposed to do. And at first they did. They helped market my website, share my blog posts and ideas, and helped more people find out who I was and what we were doing on Make and Takes. And don’t get me wrong, from a business perspective, free marketing via social media channels is awesome, and I’m grateful for the traffic and followers I’ve received through each of them, truly. But that’s not to say I haven’t been frustrated over the years, that what was actually happening was breaking that intimate connection I once had and felt over on my blog. Sharing my blog posts on all these social networking platforms now took everyone to so many different places outside of this cozy little blogging space that I had created. Everyone was now somewhere else. And I was alone. I soon realized how difficult it was to find connection with 4-5 different social media networks. Every one of them is different, every platform needs something specific to market and share – how to reach the most followers on Facebook, best practices for getting your content in front of your readers on Pinterest, what’s more relevant, how important are you, algorithm after algorithm, making you feel like you just forced all your loyal readers to go follow you at all these new places, only to then have to back peddle and ask them to come back and leave a comment once again here on the blog. And on top of all that, social media really isn’t free. Now you have to pay a lot of money to have the people who already want to follow you actually see your content. I have found myself having to conform to each platform individually in order to find a following and have connection. I am exhausted. I can’t keep up. It’s not fun anymore.
So. I’ve decided it’s time to change things up a little!! And it’s exciting for me and to share with you. While we’ll still be part of all these social media channels, I still hope to reach people looking for creative ideas, I’m going to do it on my own terms. We’re still offering up our new and fresh content everywhere, hoping to inspire and spark creativity, but a little less frequent and a little more real. Because life is real. And I want to have a more intimate relationship with people, period. We’ll still share our fabulous DIY content for your home, food, and family, but also focusing more on YOU and on ME. What do WE need? I’m excited to find out.
I’d love you to join me. Share how you’re growing and expanding with social media. How is it working in a positive way in your life? Or share the bad stuff too, the ugly negative stuff so we can get it off our chest and move right along :)
*image via Scott Webb
