Putting the "social" back in social media

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I’ve been on Facebook since close to the beginning, and I’ve watched it change over the years. I’ve taken social media breaks, I’ve tried platforms and left them, and right now, I am mostly on social media for our business and to share my writings, exclusively on Instagram and Facebook. I don’t do snapchat, or twitter, or any of the other ones out there. I do have to say I’ve met some pretty amazing people through social media!

A few months back I was at Real Deals and Danielle, one of the owners, said to me, “You are the queen of commenting and sharing.” I love to be social on social media, and I don’t even think twice about it! This got me thinking… what’s the point of “social media” if you’re not being social? Are you guilty of the mindless scroll? Yep, me too.

Another part of social media that can be exhausting is all of the ads. Have you noticed that when you’re scrolling your feed or swiping through stories that every 3-4 posts is a sponsored post? That is so much advertising.
This observation got me thinking… as a business owner, if all i’m sharing is my product and trying to get people to buy from us, that’s not exactly effective to my audience. In fact, they tune me out. Nobody wants to be sold to. I really try to post things that make people smile, make them, happy, and give them hope.

I don’t know about you, but when someone takes the time to comment on something I have written and shared from my heart, it makes my day. I make sure to take time out of my continuous scrolling to actually engage with the people that I follow and who follow me. Sometimes that means sharing something they have shared, or leaving a genuine comment, or tagging someone that might like what they’ve posted. Social media takes a lot of time if you let it, but you can make it worth your time by making the most of it and actually being social.

Go out there and comment, like and share, and make someone’s day better with social media!