This Is Why Social Media Is Not Important For Content Creators !

I started blogging and content creation 6 years ago. And I was not getting many views on my content. So, the one advice all my friends and internet auntie gave me was having a presence on social media. I didn’t know about its usefulness, but I tried.
So, what do you think, could I have got the views I was searching for? Did social media help me deliver my content to my viewers? And is it really important, according to me to, have a professional social media account?
Well, the short answer is that I don’t think social media did much good to me. I used it many times but didn’t get much benefit. But I tried different things to get popularity and views.
To know everything I did and what happened, keep reading. I have many points for you to believe that even you don’t need social media. Its actually harming you. So following are all the points I have for you:
1. Followers may not like it
So lets understand it with my example. I started on an app called UC news. You may be knowing of UC Browser, there are articles in it. So, the UC news app showed those articles. These were the main sources from where we got views.
I wrote there and over time built a fan base. They liked my content. It was great. But again, I wanted to try social media. So what I used to do was everyday I published the content I write. But with that I started publishing riddles. The answers were in Youtube videos embedded or social account.

So the strategy was simple that people would follow me at other places also.
But what happened was that people didn’t like it. They don’t want to leave a platform where they are. Also, they don’t want to change the medium in which they want to take information. I wrote the riddles and then they needed to watch video to know the answers. Needed to know the whole video.
People commented about it, but I ignored them because I was getting more engagement at other platforms then always. I digested a few dislikes people did who were dissatisfied without knowing the answers.
But soon what happened was that people stopped reading the riddle articles, and reads on other articles also decreased. But soon I stopped and reached 50 K mark before leaving that platform.
2. Algorithm
Well, all of us know that the social media algorithm is complex. Being frank, I also don’t understand it much. The reason could be that it keeps changing, and evolving. But does the algorithm helps you, the content creator.
Try to remember, how many times have you seen any post on Instagram’s search page promoting any outside content with external link? Or how many views do your tweets with external links promoting any content receive?
Well, obviously, social media knows about you and also everything about the content.
So, even if someone follows you on social media doesn’t necessarily mean that they will get your post. But why?
Let’s give you a rough idea of what happens and let’s take example of Instagram. So when you post something new Instagram shows it in the feed of few of your followers. They do it to know if the content is good or not and know the behavior of the people. So, after reading the post if they go to another platform, Instagram doesn’t promote it much. And its very obvious.
They don’t promote posts having external links in them. Secondly, even if they show your post your followers may not react to it. Its because they have so much in their feed. Social media is to connect with friends.
Your followers are going to react more to their friend’s new handmade cake rather then your new post.
Therefore, email marketing is great because content consumers have lesser emails then social feed. So they see it for sure and are in habit of reacting also from there.
Therefore, I use email marketing. But I did something different. I asked people to give their friends’ email also if they wish to. Most people ignored this friend’s thing. But some people gave emails. Parents gave email addresses of their kids so that they can get something useful to know. Good friends did for their friends’ benefit. And pranksters did it as prank to their friends.
I don’t say do it, but I say keep trying different things. We don’t know which may workout for you.

3. Misinterpretation

The worst part of social media is having haters who misinterpret our thoughts to spread hatred against us.

Once my friend wrote on social media that we should not have donated money to religious places but rather should have kept it so that now it could have helped us and we could donate it to the needy people. It was during the lockdown time when he had lost his job. But he just meant that it was getting difficult for him to carry on now, and he even could not help the needy people he wanted to.
But everyone made it a huge thing. They were criticizing him, abusing him and more. We all did many things in stress and he also wrote a post. I don’t say he was right or wrong, but people were wrong.
So it can happen with any of us and it happens too.
Once a detergent brand created an ad. It was about the festival of Holi. They tried to show unity among all religions, but the strategy got backfired. People thought that they are insulting their religion. On twitter various hashtags were started, like. #BanExcel (the brand’s name is Surf Excel).
The ad was not bad and just wanted to show unity. But some of their haters (rivals) misinterpreted it. So if this happens with you. It will surely happen if you grow big. And being on social media just increases the fire by tagging and all.
But this is not all.
4. You may get the wrong heat
The hashtag and all was for detergent brand. But it had the name Excel and we all know whats it. At first, I was confused and thought its for Excel only, but later came to know reality.
But this is not done because its not only to getting name attached to hashtag and later by checking to know reality. Some stupid people tagged Microsoft and started criticizing MS Excel too. These stupid and negative people keep such defamatory hashtags trending. They just have so much negativity to them that they just keep spreading.
Keeping distance from such people is more important than being with good people.
They once did it with me too. I wrote that how can India and grow and be the most powerful country in the world. I wrote about politics and politicians. I wrote that we need PM Modi to make India great. Then it started politics and hatred against me. Actually I just meant about the strong, innovative and criticism leadership of his. But they just hyped it because they were associated with another political party. But the best part was that it was all limited to a Whatsapp group where I posted the link to article. I was knew and small by then so the matter resolved soon.
5. Your time is limited
Lets be true. Your time is limited and you need to do everything in that time. You just can’t be doing everything. You need to make choices. Do you want to give great content? Which platform you want to give your time to? What you want to do?
You are a content creator and the most important thing is creating great content. You may have a presence everywhere but if your content is not good nothing will happen.
The time you are devoting to social media needs to come to reading books. They are going to help you give great content. Good marketing done for bad product kills it faster. So focus on getting great content.
If your content is great, it will be shared on social media itself. But if the content is bad then social media will just kill it faster.
I tried using social media like this. But what ended up happening was that I didn’t have time for content creation. And being frank, I started surfing on the platform. This is what happens with many people and is the most harmful thing.
But yes, it does not apply to you if you have a team for content creation and its marketing. You can keep doing what you are doing.
6. A few Extras
There are various other reasons also due to which you should not use social media like things get real messy. What I mean is that when I used it I forgot the purpose of social media. I started posting there to. I thought to increasing my followers there and bring them on other platforms. But I can’t post a blog post on Instagram or Twitter.
So I created different content for different platforms. And I always remained confused as to which idea was good for which platform. I was posting everywhere differently rather than in sync. Things just went messier and messier.
Also, your followers will definitely know who you are following. If you follow someone they don’t like then they don’t like you. This is not necessary but it happens. It happens especially in religious and political matters. My advice to you would be separate yourself from these things. Its because they can break you very badly.
Social media is not for content promotion. This is something which we need to accept. The purpose of social media is not content promotion, but to connect with people we know. Now it is being used by celebrities and large organizations to be in front of people. Social media knows this and is OK with this. But they don’t like content creators taking the users to other platforms. This is not accepted. They have a loss in it. So it is so obvious that they will not promote your promotions.
7. What did I do
Well, when I was working on my first online startup I was not having advertising budget. But I needed to do something to get marketing. I am not going to tell you about the stupid idea we were working by then. I still laugh sometimes thinking that, but back on track.
So I didn’t use social media majorly, then what? If not using the virtual world then from where can I get the marketing I want? Simple, from the real world.
I was living there. I knew real people. Obviously, not all, but some. So I reached to the local shop owners. Asked them to please allow me to put my poster in front of their shops. They knew so they just accepted. Their gesture of helping. To some I just needed to give a lunch. It was all.
Soon, everyone came to know about the service we were giving. And good marketing killed the bad product faster.
Conclusion
OK, my first startup failed but still I got to know many things like promotion. Well, I don’t think social media is great for promoting content. But you should try it too. So you don’t regret not doing it. And it may workout for you. But my advice is that always keep trying new things. We don’t know what may do the best for you.
Keep Hustling!