Social media is full of pitfalls for writers.
I know because I fell right into one.
That’s why, today, I spent the morning rebuilding and re-organizing how I approach social media.
All the impressions, engagement, and followers, all the online attention and virality, it doesn’t guarantee connection or community. It doesn’t even guarantee business success (which, for the writer, translates into books sales.) And I learned that the hard way.
Before Twitter/X melted down, I did fairly well for myself there in terms of numbers. I gained 10k followers in 2 years. I averaged 30-40 likes on most tweets and 10 commenters. I enjoyed riveting interactions about fantasy with other authors and readers. I had more than one tweet go viral and hit many, many digits worth of impressions and hundreds of comments. I began to chase those numbers, because that’s what most social media advice recommends for success.
“What can I make for my socials?”
“How do I make content so I can get impressions and engagement?”
Those questions started to dominate my thoughts, and my writing slowly shifted to the backseat.
In the end, it became unsustainable. Keeping up that level of social media presence ate up all my time. I didn’t enjoy it and, eventually, it burnt me out. Even in the heyday of pulling in all those numbers, I was only selling two or three books on a good month. Then, when Twitter become X, only a handful of readers followed me by joining my mailing list or connecting on other socials. I came to grips with the reality that chasing online attention wasn’t helping me reach my goals of 1) Write books, 2) Share my work, 3) Connect with people, and 4) Have fun.
Here I am a little wiser (hopefully) and I’m ready for a change.
The first change is that I’m not going to create “content” anymore. That’s the wrong angle of approach for me. I don’t enjoy creating content for content’s sake. It’s not sustainable for me.
I’m going to approach my writing the way artists do. They draw what they want to draw, paint what they want to paint, and then use their socials to share it with the world. One digital artist I follow said that every time he tries to paint to get impressions, his posts bomb. When he paints without thinking about the numbers, that’s when what he shares does better. I want my writing to be like that—writing what I love to write and sharing it with the world.
Who knows what will happen? Maybe this won’t be the most ‘effective’ strategy—but it’ll be real, and that’s what I’m after. Because “effective” didn’t work for me, I’m ready to try something new.
Do you find social media burns you out or is a mismatch for your creative goals? Comment below and tell us how you handled those challenges!
