Wednesday 3rd January 2024

I don’t really do New Years’ Resolutions (in fact, thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve ever really known anyone who does, not really – is it all a scam to fill up column inches in Sunday supplements and LinkedIn articles?), but I randomly thought of one last night while popping out to the shops and being caught in the rain. Like many ideas, it popped into my head with no context or relevance to anything else I’d been thinking about. It’s a bit of a leftfield resolution, and even though we’re not into the double digits of January yet, I’m already uncertain if I’ll truly be able to commit to it long term.?

Are you ready??

I’ve decided to spend more time on social media.?

Go back and reassure yourself the above isn’t a typo.?

Now, I’m not saying I spend little or no time on social media – that would be a lie, I genuinely do spend (waste) a fair bit of time already on the socials. I won’t say that I spend hours mindlessly scrolling X or passively watching videos on TikTok, it’s not quite that bad*, but it doesn’t always have a active purpose.?

The internet – and specifically, social media – we are often told, is a terrible, toxic place. And there’s a very good reason for that: a lot of the time, it is a terrible, toxic place. I should acknowledge that as a white straight man, I pretty much have a lovely time online: I don’t really attract unwanted attention or abuse and I rarely if ever receive unsolicited DMs. I am, in the best way possible, pretty much invisible. My twitter follower numbers (yes, I know it should properly be called my X follower numbers, but come on that sounds ridiculous) are in that perfect sweet spot of being entirely unnoticeable: I think if you’ve got about 200 followers, that’s probably mainly your friends, family, and people who think you look cute / say funny things. In which case your online life will be fairly chatty and active. Then, if you’ve got 13k followers or above, you probably sell something (art, cookware, music, whatever) that a decent number of people want to buy. In which case, you’ll be at the point that you have to Turn Off Notifications on your phone. If you’re where I am (around 3k) I suspect you become somewhat invisible, unnoticed by all. This can be great (see: Not Getting Abuse), but if your career(s) ever need you to be in any way visible, It might help that if your online persona is like mine on most platforms: in other words, ever so slightly passive.?

The platforms themselves have very different personalties. Facebook (ask your mum) is a bit like the kitchen in shared student accommodation where you can see a noticeboard of what’s going on in everyone’s lives, overhear updates in people’s relationship status, and occasionally see photographs of dogs belonging to your possibly racist aunt. X (ask your uncle) tends to be VERY LOUD PEOPLE shouting their opinions at one another at street corners while on skateboards going too quickly for anyone to listen to anybody else’s answers. Whereas Insta (ask your cool niece who definitely isn’t going to stay stuck in that job all her life) is a carefully curated portfolio of artwork that you don’t really know how to buy because the link isn’t clearly accessible.?

TikTok is a whole other thing, and very much the thing to watch. I was at a training session a few months ago talking about how to promote your presence online (I’m misquoting the title slightly because I’m about to moan about it), and one of the repeated ideas (from the facilitator, a man who I’m assuming was roughly my age) was that TikTok was For Young People And Therefore Could Be Safely Ignored. Which, in terms of promotion etc, is missing several tricks. If you’re a reader or writer, you’ll already know the extraordinary power that BookTok has, partially because the videos that people (of all ages) share are unvarnished, unpolished. In other words, authentic – which is something I’ll talk about in a future post. Remind me, won’t you??

Plus – never worry that a thing isn’t for you. Yes, be aware of inappropriate appropriation and legality, but the idea that TikTok – of indeed that trashy show you’re binging on Prime, or the series of fantasy books that is LOCATION of PRECIOUS STONE and WEATHER is ‘just for young people’ is an attempt at shaming all. I regret to inform you, and particularly the young people themselves: if the people over 30 have heard of it, it doesn’t just belong to the youngsters anymore.?

(yes, we can have a chat about the fact that I just placed the definition of ‘not young’ at 30. Later.)?

I have a few bullet points to my resume, all of which I want to sell: I’m a writer (of plays, of prose, and more), I’m a dramaturg. I coach people in confident communication. I also act, I direct, and I co-run Ironclad Creative. There’s a few other things on the bio, but that’s enough to be making the point for now. And everywhere I turn, I see advice about how one of the best ways to engender and nurture relationships and friendships (and yes, healthy client lists) is to be active on social media.?

But there’s a problem. If you run any kind of business (even if that business is simply yourself, as an actor, asking for your next audition) you’ll have spotted it already.?

People don’t talk as much on social media as we think they do.?

Oh yeah, sure: people argue, they give (sometimes unasked for) advice. They pontificate. But if someone is advertising their gig, or announcing the third anniversary of their nail saloon, the responses can be depressingly muted. The relationships – both online and IRL – haven’t been solidified up until that point, so people can feel a bit shy in giving up their answers. People might (might) ‘like’ your posts or tweets, but getting to comment or engage can seem like a lot of effort. You’ll have a lot of so-called ‘lurkers’, who very rarely talk to you at all.?

Now, there are ways to make all of this less of a barrier (again, remind me, I’ll talk about it later), not least remembering that there is very little positive about the phrase Positive Word Of Mouth, but it reminds me that I need to up my own game online.?

I can definitely be one of those ‘lurkers’. I’m generally quite a shy person (which, perhaps counter-intuitively, is at least part of the reason why I ended up starting Confidence In Communication), and I tend to prefer the perimeters, waiting to be approached. I even? and this is the bit that I have to squint at and ask myself exactly what I think is going on here) on occasion don’t leave a comment on people’s updates and tweets because I feel like that might be attempting to pull focus onto myself.?

But come on. What is social media if it isn’t asking for attention? Not in a bad way (you might have learned already that this is not the place to get judgey) but literally to be social.?

So I’m going to make an attempt to be slightly more chatty on the socials. Not in a past-11pm-OH-WHY-DOESNT-HE-GO-IM-TRYING-TO-CLOSE-THE-BAR-DOWN kind of way, but just in a letting people know that they’re being seen/heard kind of way. The internet can be a lonely place, and we’re all in it together, and that’s not even close to being contradictory.?

Apart from anything else, it’s also cheerfully mercenary: if I want a new gig in coaching/directing/dramaturgy/writing/acting (hint: I kinda do), then it does well for me (and my potential client or employee) to already know what kind of personality I am before I suddenly rock up to their call out having never interacted with them before.?

There’s some more to say on this subject, but I’ve taken up enough of your time already, and anyway I’ve got to waste some time on Insta.?

Oh by the way. I feel like I shouldn’t really do this entire post and not mention my own social media handles. So. This is me on X, Insta and BlueSky. Confidence in Communication has a presence on Facebook, Xand Insta. Ironclad Creative you’ll find on Insta, X, Facebook and of course its own website as well as The Ironclad Hub. See you there!?