DON’T LET YOUR IMAGINATION STOP AT SOCIAL MEDIA

For the last decade we’ve put our best work on social media – videos, images, hot takes – you name it! But with so much time and energy devoted to publishing on so many platforms, our websites and newsletters just became digital brochures; static and boring.

So it was refreshing to hear Natalie Brite on Amelia Hruby’s Off the Grid podcast talking about where we limit our imagination.

“For so many entrepreneurs and micro businesses … this total dependency, where there’s no imagination outside of social media, it’s like my imagination stops at social media marketing and it’s like there’s so many other ways, right?”

I’ve seen this for decades. I was one of the first 3,000 people to sign up for Twitter. I’ve subscribed to a lot newsletters since I began this journey in 2001.

Artists have crafted their work to fit into the social media platforms, all while 95% of their followers never even see it. But 100% of the visitors to your website see old photos, old copy, embeds, and not much else. They open your newsletters filled with product images and BUY HERE buttons.

All the personality and joy and brightness you bring sits on social media platforms, waiting for the chance to impress strangers. All while your digital home is covered in dust, or treated like a product catalog.

“It’s like (the) imagination stops at social media marketing,” says Natalie.

Maybe it’s time to use the same imaginative powers we use to make our work and focus them in places where our biggest fans can appreciate them. Imagine what happens when the people who admire our work find a way to go deeper? What happens when they find more stories, more personality, more history, more work?

Or do we just leave that chance of discovery and delight to a social media platform, trusting that fan who wants to find out more will be fine with the random things you’ve posted over the last 10 years?