Why is a Digital Marketer starting to loathe Social Media?

If you go to LinkedIn, FB, Instagram, and anywhere else, you will find articles, posts, and whatnot telling you how good Social Media is for your career, Personal Brand, or the growth of your company.

But, is it true? And, if not why is everyone talking about it?

1. Social Media is easy. 

Talking about what you are doing, what do you want, your accomplishments, and putting out the thought in your mind has never been easier. 

And, it's a 30 minutes task, isn't it? You have a little bit of authority in your field, good friends and family who will engage, and just posting something is getting you 100’s of likes. Isn't that value for money? 

NO. It's not 30 minutes. I have been there, and have talked with 10’s of people about it and have got the same answer. Once you post, you constantly check the notifications, you have to reply when you get messages, reply to the comment and whatever events follow after that. That's not 30 minutes but 3 hours, 6 hours, and sometimes a day (if you are successful in gaining traction with the post) of your mental energy and time. 

But, again, so much PR that you built, people who knew about your business or skills, who interacted with you. That should be worth it, shouldn't it? 

But, who interacted with it? If you go through all your posts, you will find the same people interacting again and again, and most of them are not in any way related to your growth, career, or company. 

2. Because Marketers rule social Media. 

So, which Expertise would rule Social Media? Ask yourself? HR Personnel, Finance Experts, Operation Experts, or Marketers? 

Marketers are trained to Influence people. Anyone with good marketing skills knows how to write, where to write, how to generate engagement and garner a following to achieve their goals.  

Social Media is the perfect space for marketers. Here, Marketers are building more and more influence and have become the driving force to persuade you that Marketing is of utmost importance for any company. The more the better as Gary Vee always talks about. (Gary Vee owns a media company who has invested in Fb, Twitter and many more Social Media Platforms)

I don't have a problem with that as well. But, the problem I have is everyone focusing too much on marketing, when it should be integrated with the product. A good marketer is the one who uses the least resources to gain the most value and not the ones who put all the resources into Marketing. Sorry Gary, less is more.

3. The Chakraview of Instant Validation and the notion of moving forward. 

Social Media gives the “Notion” of movement. If you get something done, post something, and the likes and the comments start showering in. There are wows and Congratulations and good going and best wishes. And, you start believing that yes you are moving forward. You are doing something productive.

But, if you are working on optimizing the product, maybe the codes, the customer service experience, talking to your team on the backend, learning a 3 months course, making financial goals, revamping your Business Canvas, there are just boring long hours where you don't get any appreciation. 

Now, your brain wants this instant validation on which the whole platform of Social media is built and your mental energy, time and resources start getting focused on how to get the “Dopamine and Oxytocin” triggers. And, posting on social becomes your internal motivation and a lot of things you do get subconsciously molded towards gaining traction in social media. 

Let me tell you another pattern I have noticed. The same content shared by multiple people, it's always the people who are very active on social media who get massive engagement. And, most of the engagement is garnered not because the end-users believe in the content, but because they know/like the person. 

Again, I wouldn't say Social Media is bad. I would just like to tell you that it should not take away more than 10% of your time and resources, and it shouldn't be shallow. Meaning, don't post just to post. Post to generate high value for your customers or followers. Post to generate Viral Content. Post to build a community. Post Strategically and don't go for numbers. 

And, if you are a company, surprise, you don't need 20 - 30 posts a month for your page. Rather spend money on Ad Budgets. Search any article on the internet, and they will tell you, the ROI is in Conversion centric Ads in Social. It's a conversion-centric platform and generating awareness through Ads, and not for posting content every day. That's not how it's built for businesses. I don't even know who brought the culture of 30 posts/month on social media pages. Again, sorry, but that's plain stupid.

And yeah, another reason not to be active on social media is shallow activism, shallow work, shallow friends, Shallow content, and shallow following. Sorry, but if you are an activist for everything, you are an activist for NOTHING.

You know it's deep work ( Focused long term work) that generates massive results. But, Social is making us sheep. Mr. Zukurberg has made sure that his ecosystem of companies integrate all elements of our life, friend, work, family, news, social interactions, education and everything we know of in his Social Media Platforms and now we need to be on this platform, or we are not contextually irrelevant. But, the need to be contextually relevant is hurting our potential to build something for years which might generate massive value. 

Yes, Elon musk has more followers than Tesla. But, did he have more followers than Paypal when he built it? People don't follow musk because he is good at Social Media Marketing, but because he built world-changing products and not at all afraid of saying whatever the fuck he wants to say in twitter despite his stocks crumbling. 

Again, if I wasn't a Digital Marketer pursuing a lot of channels of Digital Marketing, I would vouch for Social as you can see the results in Social instantly. But, did you know that it's one of the least converting DM channels?

Digital Marketing includes SEO, Email Marketing, SEM, Affiliate Marketing, Viral Marketing. And, a business includes Product Innovation, Customer Service, Human Resources, Operations and so much more. So, why are we focusing so much on Social ?

In the last 2 years, I have gotten an opportunity to work with a different range of companies. The first type, Startups and Small businesses who are trying to survive (Development and Introduction phase of Sigmoid Curve) and 4 different companies which are worth more than Arbas. ( 20 Million Dollars)  

I found a drastically different behavior pattern between the two of them. While the companies which are in Arbas were much more focused on sales and numbers, the smaller ones were more concerned about branding. 

Now, the people behind these companies, the small ones are involved in Social Media talking about Entrepreneurship, accomplishments, career, but the ones with the giants who have at least 10 times the knowledge base can't be seen anywhere in social media, and most of the time working on long term goals and other times relaxing with their Family and Friends. 

Again, for introducing the company, it does help a lot. I have never been against that. Social Media helped us grow. It's just that startups and career hungry individuals are focusing too much of their time on Social Media rather than building something substantial. (Unless you are a storyteller, it's an amazing platform for you)

Now some of the suggestions I would like to provide through the mistakes I have made: 

1. Create Amazing Value Centric Content

Whatever you do on social, you should never be shallow. If you are writing a post, write a detailed, well-researched post. If you are making a video, make an hour-long video. And, if you want to market it, cut it short like trailers in a movie and divert to the main content. 

If you create shallow content, you will always have shallow followers. It will just be numbers and Vanity Metrics. The more active you are, the more it will grow, and with it the time that you have to put forth. But, what won't grow is your authority, revenue, or the steps towards your goal. 

2. Pause your notification

Notifications are the hook through which Social Media (Or Messaging Platforms) brings you back, and must be avoided at all. 

This has helped me a lot in getting work done, helps me finish my tasks, and makes sure that I am not running for someone else, but for my goals. You can always call back. Don't live your life on notifications. You will never progress. 

If you need social media make just sure that the notifications are not eating away your attention span. 

3. Choose the one which you really love. 

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Quora, so many of them. Don't go for everything. If you want to grow careerwise, DO NOT GO FOR FACEBOOK. Go for LinkedIn. If you want to be an activist for something(Choose 1-2 issues where you can make an impact) choose Facebook. If you are artsy, choose Instagram or Tiktok. 

But, don't go for everything. This will take away your time and mental energy. Be very goal-oriented on what you want to achieve in that platform and stick with it. There are too many distractions, too many things you want to voice out, but that's not going to help you grow as an Individual. If you pick up just 1 thing with one platform, the time you have to give marketing Vs. the time you use creating is going to balance out. 

Finally, it's not a marketers' world anymore like in 1900 - 1980 when media was limited and accessible to few. Its a world of creators and Innovators. Apple is known for its marketing and Branding. But, you know why? Its because they created great products and built a story around them. Tesla Anyone? Toptal? 

So, use your time to Create vs. Market. Don't let the validation game get to you. Don't be afraid to be disliked. Make sure that everything you are creating is value-centric and not all festival posts where you try to show your creativity if you are not actually a creative company. 

My Experience from DM, and operating Digital Gurkha, still today, most of our traffic or business comes through SEO and referrals rather than Social Media where we have invested a lot of our resources. And, Branding the more and more I get into it, it's about how good the product is. 

If I would do it again, I would have not built a brand in Social and rather gave all my time and energy to create amazing products that are highly customer-centric. I would focus more on SEO, Email Marketing, Content Marketing, and more. This, we are working on now. We have learned and changed our ways.

And, these experiences are mine and mine alone and might be completely different from you. I have understood that I am a creator, not a marketer. I want to give time to my family and friends, enjoy my life, be financially, emotionally, and spiritually free and not give all my short-lived life just to entertain shallow friends in Social Media. But, again that's me. Not you. 

Create. Create Create. 

Ullekh Niraula

A Creator, Universe