If it bleeds it leads.

Just reflecting on what Seth Godin has said about social media these days: “We are not the customers of Social Media networks; we are their products- they are selling us to someone else”.

I remember early 2006 the birth of Facebook, then Twitter and the launch of Instagram in 2010. Like many others I happily jumped the wagon to share my content, to the point I could not image a world without it. Catering to my online audience in a happy-go-lucky demeanor, I could never see the dark side of it.

Woke up one morning and as I was having my coffee I realized I felt bad about not having as many followers as my friend. I was tempted to push a boost button. On reflection I can now see it was a mistake, and it took me some time to understand that my job is not to make Facebook or Instagram happy.

The old trope of “If it bleeds, it leads” applies to mechanism that Social Media platforms built to sell us, no matter if it’s pushes us to feel anxious, angry or not enough. We are being lured to boost our audience, to have more followers, to pay for adds with the promise it will make us feel better.

But does it really matter how many followers we have, or have many people liked our posts?

Seth Godin says: Embrace the idea of smallest viable audience that sustains you, get comfortable with it and create a meaningful content that helps to change the person for better!

I find it so inspiring!