From social media to personal media

The shift from social media to personal media happened swiftly and seamlessly at the same time. I'm not sure if there is any turning back.

We went from sharing our lives openly on social media, to fearing that our lives are being tracked by advertizers, all in the same online spaces that we use for sharing our day-to-day activities.

Now we are skeptical and our trust in these online spaces is at a all-time low.

I won't defend how social media networks have acted, mainly protecting profits over people and communities. Perhaps it is to be expected when profits had risen consistently since crossing the profitability threshold.

I also won't defend people who abuse these same venues. The people who find ways to hack the system. The people who pay to advertise things, or worse, push nasty political propaganda on others. The people who look at the social media channels as places they can abuse for their own benefit without considering the people that are impacted by this abuse.

At some point the people that enjoyed the social venue had enough. Like frequenting a bar that suddenly becomes overly commercialized with screens everywhere you look, bad and expensive drinks and bathroom attendants that make you feel bad for not tipping for washing your hands. The regulars are out and they're not coming back.

But let's get back to social versus personal media.

Personal because media still matters. Personal in the sense that people will still consume it, but they are more likely to do so via a private message, or in a private group. Some will even see it organically because the message is interesting and people like it, add comments and share it.

Ultimately people and organizations can, and in my mind should, still use social channels to share what they care about. They should ask questions and connect with those who respond. That bit of social media is still magical.

Yes, I know, organic reach is dead. Yes, dead in comparison to when social media was not monetized to this level.

Still, if your message is important, maybe just to you, but if it is important then you should still get it out there. Just don't expect algorithms that rule your social media of choice to magically make your content go viral. Focus on helping one person, two people and so on. That still matters.

So make content (personal media) that I will enjoy consuming and that I will freely like and share because I think that others like me might also enjoy it, learn from it or perhaps it will make them think a little.

That to me still seems worthwhile, no matter what any algorithms have to say. So go ahead share your personal media. I'm here for that.