The Problem With Social Media

I've been thinking about social media a lot lately. I'm old enough to remember the days before internet was commonplace in every household.

And I remember when Facebook was new. I was working as a holiday rep and up until Facebook came along, I'd used email or MSN messenger to stay in touch with friends, would buy phonecards to call my family every few weeks, and I had used Bebo to share updates when I was travelling around Australia - I guess that was my first blog.

Then Facebook came along. Everyone was talking about it and I finally gave in and set up an account. And it was brilliant. I could keep in touch with friends from home, friends I'd met repping, and friends I hadn't met yet.

I actually first started talking to my husband on Facebook. We'd just had our placements for the upcoming season and connected as we were going to be working in the same resort. We chatted on Facebook loads before we met (back when Facebook Chat was a thing). We arranged to meet and travel up to training together - our first adventure together.

But Facebook is a completely different platform now.

I don't use it to keep in touch with family or friends - we use WhatsApp, WhatsApp groups and good old fashioned phone calls or in-person meet-ups to catch up. Hardly any of my friends or family post on Facebook anymore - my feed is mainly full of ads, news stories, or posts from various groups I've joined over the years. I barely use it.

When I first started my business, Twitter was my go-to social media platform. I spent every Friday afternoon scheduling posts for the following week and I'd join Twitter chats. I even went on a Twitter course. And I got business out of it. But I gradually stopped using it as I moved towards other platforms and I recently deleted it completely. It's definitely changed in recent years (especially since it became X).

Then there's LinkedIn. I joined LinkedIn in 2012, but didn't really use it with any consistency until the end of 2019. From 2020 until last year, it was my biggest source of new leads.

But LinkedIn has changed too. Personally, I think it was at its best during the lockdowns and just afterwards (so from 2020-2022). People were stuck at home so they were using it more and it was one big giant networking site. It was a fun place to be and you could actually get to know people and make good connections.

But the last couple of years, it's gotten a bit stale. And you can tell people are getting tired of it. People aren't networking as much - they are simply going through the motions of sharing a post and liking a couple of posts. Some people have moved onto other platforms completely.

And that's one of the biggest problems with social media. They start out as one thing but they change.

They usually start out as social platforms - places where people can connect, learn, or be entertained. They are good and people like them, More people start using them and they grow in popularity.

Then businesses start to find ways to use them and some of them see decent results. So more businesses move towards them. And courses start popping up, and pods start popping up, and people start looking for ways to cheat the system or game the algorithm. And the feeds become full of people talking sharing tips for how to use the platform. And the platforms start offering more and more paid ad opportunities (and why wouldn't they - they have to make money somehow). Gradually, the platforms become full of ads and shit content. People's feeds are no longer full of the stuff they want to see so they move on.

I'm not saying using social media for business is pointless. But it's important to understand that people are rarely ever on social media to buy.

I don't go on any social media sites to buy. If I want to shop, I go to shops, or I head to the website of shops I want to buy from. Or I search for the thing I want to buy.

Now, that's not to say I haven't bought stuff after seeing it on social media - I have and I do. But buying is not my primary reason for being on social media. And it's probably not your either. And it probably isn't your ideal customers' either.

Most of us use social media because we want to be educated or entertained.

So how do you stand out enough on socials? How do you get the attention of people who aren't there to buy what you're selling?