My thoughts on the internet, social media, personal branding and where it's all going

I was born into the world of social media and entrepreneurship. When I was 6 years old (1998) my parents launched the first global social business network called Ecademy. I grew up in the world of blogs, social media posts, people writing books and online marketing. I was always first to a new platform and a lover of posting. Not because I wanted the likes or recognition (this was long before all that) but because I genuinely just wanted to share my thoughts and my life, I don't really know why.

I didn't go into this world fully until 3 years ago when I started my first business, an online digital agency of digital nomads. I didn't know enough about actually growing a business, I was someone who saw an opportunity but wasn't actually sure how to execute. So I started an eCommerce business selling jewellery. I didn't know enough about business then either, this business still exists but I don't do much with it anymore.

In March 2019 I decided to put my full focus into personal branding, to coach and train people in how to build their own personal brand from scratch. It wasn't about being an influencer or about being famous, it was just about having a message and expertise and bringing this to life online. The kinds of people I wanted to work with weren't natural content creators or online marketers, but they were skilled at what they do. These are still the people I work with.

I have spent the last 2 and a half years living and breathing the world of social media. I have a love-hate relationship with it and sometimes dream about packing up the whole thing and joining the army (yes actually) due to such a deep desire to do something completely different as I see the industry I once loved changing at a rapid pace.

I truly believe in the positive power of the internet and of social media. I think we often forget about the positives of what this world has actually created. It's lowered barriers to entry for entrepreneurs, it's connected people, it's enabled those who'd be sat behind a desk doing something they hate to build a business doing something they love. It's enabled leaders to be born from nowhere, it's enabled movements to be started.

Personal branding isn't just about social media, it's about having an online presence that represents you as an individual. Which positions you as a leader in a space and an expert in what you do. Unfortunately, thanks to ￡9.99 online courses, anyone can now be an expert in something and anyone can create a social media post. The internet is now full of people posting content because they have to and rushing whilst doing it, resulting in a load of content that no one really wants to consume. It's also full of extremely good marketers selling products and courses to people promising to make them 6 or 7 figure entrepreneurs through a 60 minute, prerecorded webinar. Everyone is out there, hustling to be seen and attention is now the top of every entrepreneur, business leader and marketers mind. How can I stand out? How can I find my 'ideal client'.

So what does this actually mean? Shall we all give up? Accept that it's too busy and stop? Shall we push harder? Create more content? Make bigger promises? Create more clever marketing techniques?

It's now a big topic of conversation, whether you want to be in or out. I have constant calls with potential clients who aren't really that passionate about sharing content but are planning to do it because they 'have to' not because they have something important to share but because it will help their bottom line.

Corporates are pulling in external experts to boost the brands of their CEOs and Directors who in turn have personal branding or social media 'done to them' rather than alongside them.

This isn't really the point.

We're getting it wrong. Content shared on Social Media should be an amplification of your voice, of your passions, of your beliefs, of your skills. We should be sharing content because we want people to read it and feel inspired, educated or excited by it.

We should be slowing down, and creating content we're excited to share and sharing less of it.

We are all overwhelmed, we are all too busy, we all have to-do lists that are too long. We're panicking about whether we should be on TikTok or LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook.

We're getting it wrong, but I'm not sure what we can do about it.

It's now quite normal that if you want to grow on Instagram you need to be posting daily and going live daily. If you want to grow on Twitter, you need to be posting 30 posts per day.

How is this humanly possible? Twitter alone would be your full-time job if you wanted it to be any good.

We've moved into total content overwhelm, total content panic. So we're just chucking everything out the door and hoping something sticks.

So is it pointless to create unless you can make it your full-time job? Is it pointless to share?

No, not if your content is going to be considered, high quality and focused. You're going to be committed, you're going to find the time to create things that matter, which engage, which inspire.

However, if the joy and excitement aren't there, why are we doing it at all? We aren't enjoying creating the content and no one is enjoying reading it?

My dream for social media is that we all slow down, we pause, we reflect and we create content that is a true reflection of us. That we want to share, that we want to create and that others want to consume.

Possible or not? Would love to hear your thoughts.