Messy! (why you and your business should not immediately race to “invest” your time into social media).
I was talking to my sister-in-law earlier. She is a very wonderful person. And a very creative person.
She started a restaurant. It is incredible, what she and her business partner (and co-owner) have done in the last two years to get it up and going. Going strong. It’s doing well.
When something is doing well, people want to hop on board.
They want to be a part of something successful.
People are very excited to be part of something new. Because new is exciting.
Doing something new can be extremely difficult and challenging. But in some ways, it’s the easy part because endless possibilities are ahead. The euphoria of what might happen; the adrenaline of diving into the unknown can propel your forward momentum. But then you get past that point, and it’s not so exciting…
…it’s work. A lot of work.
A lot of repetitive work. A lot of the same stuff over and over, and if you’ve got skin in the game, if you’ve invested blood and sweat and time and money, then you don’t have the luxury of stepping away. You stay in it. You keep going. It’s not necessarily fun and it’s not necessarily exciting.
That's the point where lots of people - those people who were excited at the beginning - kind of fade away, or disappear for a while. They’re not bad people. Good chance they’re still wonderful people and care about you wanting to succeed…
…but they don’t want be a part of the grunt work.
The tough work.
The dirty work.
The day in and day out work.
At a certain point,
the vision and hard work you had in the beginning starts to come together (maybe),
and then at a certain point,
the hard work and the slogging through repetitive days starts to pay off (maybe),
and at that point, (probably) people start calling again, and getting ahold of you again, and telling you all the things that you need to do,
even though they haven’t really been a part of you building what you’ve built.
They’re ready to jump on board.
Because you’ve done the tough part.
And it’s starting to look like you’re going to pull it off.
Like your business, your big idea, your blood and sweat and toil, is going to pay off.
And people want to be a part of it.
And they want to tell you what you need to do in order to be successful.
Which is funny, because you’ve already done the hard work. You are the one doing it.
And they got to skip that part.
But now it’s starting to look fun, like it did at the beginning, when it was all a big grand idea and people could support it without doing anything besides sideline-cheering (which is great),
and now they get to educate you on what you really need to do to be successful. Chances are, ninety-percent of the advice they have is something along these lines:
‘You have to get on Instagram/TikTok/Facebook/Twitter/Social Media. You’ve gotta be putting up fresh content every day.’
Something like that.
This is the big business advice that people have.
And there’s lots of people willing to take your money - your new business’s money - so they can help you become successful. Successful at social media.
I’m not anti-social media.
A lot of work came to me, during a certain time period early on, in a round-about way based on my presence on Facebook. Yep, that old dinosaur platform.
But guess what?
A lot of great books were written before Twitter was around.
A lot of great movies were made before TikTok existed.
A lot of great photographs were captured before Instagram was invented.
And a lot of great businesses were successful before any form of social media was even an embryo.
These platforms should exist to help you. To serve you.
You do not exist to serve the platform.
Posting stuff on Instagram, or any platform, is not in and of itself creative.
Again, posting stuff on Instagram is not you being creative.
It is an outlet - or can be an outlet - for what your creative medium is.
There’s a difference.
Whether it’s art or business or both, these platforms should exist as a way for you to take and share your creativity in some form, whether it’s words or images or a restaurant or other business.
I have seen so many people get distracted by the (apparent) necessity of leaping aboard, as if it is impossible to exist or to be successful without them.
For many, and perhaps most businesses and organizations, these social platforms may provide a valuable way to enhance, to grow, to connect, and to build on what you’ve done.
But let’s be also be honest about who’s done the work.
If you’ve done the work, don’t be misled or distracted by others jumping on board now offering to help out and make you successful.
Remember what you’ve done. All the work, all the sweat, all the skin in the game.
Remember what you represent, or your business represents, at its core.
Find a simple way to share and connect, on your terms, on a platform or two, that does not distract from your core creativity or focus.
Keep on doing what you’re doing. Only a little better every day.
That’s what you’ve done. Pat yourself on the back, and don’t back down to some fast-talking shyster trying to convince you otherwise.
I need a sandwich. A messy one. Not a picture of one. A real one.
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