I Quit Social Media for 30 days.
My last post was on July 28 – exactly 30 days.
But it wasn’t on purpose
That last social post got 64 likes, 12 comments, and 3 shares on Instagram, plus 9,086 Impressions, 5,721 Unique views, 181 reactions, 36 comments, and 1 repost on LinkedIn. 🤯
The most engagement I’ve gotten EEVVERR. It was wild! I had the momentum, the viiiiewws.
so why did i quit?
Honestly, it started with just not having anything else scheduled out. It didn’t start as a dramatic, ‘I QUIT.’
Up until that point, I had been good about using my tools to ideate, create, and schedule my posts - but then that dried up.
When I did try to get back on the horse and slightly revisit the idea of coming up with content, I got over it - fast.
Over the stress of trying to post often, if not daily.
Over the need to think of content to post, create that content, film that content, and repeat the cycle.
I felt like I was spending so much time on my videos or posts, to get very limited engagement.
I was chasing the likes and the follows. (Obviously wrong but we’re human, aren’t we?)
Doing it for all the wrong reasons. So I just left it at that.
so then what happened?
I worked!
Somewhere in between that mental struggle, I got busy with actual client work. (yay!)
I started focusing on my business, streamlining my processes, networking a ton, joining groups, all the things to get myself out there in ways outside of social media.
I was actually social without social media.
And it was great.
I met so many new people - virtually and in person.
I even got a few new clients from all that networking! (Who would have thought?! 😅)
(Here is that last post 👇🏼)
A few things I learned in my time off...
Social media isn’t that serious.
Yes, it can be a great tool to reach a larger audience, but it wasn’t the end-all be-all of my business. I was still gaining clients and focusing on the quality of my clients and my work.I was more present in work and home life.
In time I wasn’t spent trying to come up with a post, I spent either in my business, networking with real people, or with my family, spending qualify time at home.Finding out what works for me.
Having your own business, you can find yourself constantly seeing what others are doing and thinking you need to replicate it. (Especially with social media). Taking this ‘break’ helped me focus on my values, who I am as a designer and person, and what I want my business to be about.
so why am i back?
I’ve taken some time to think about my return to social media. If and why I should return.
Was not posting doing anything negative to my business?
Not necessarily.
okay sooooo, why “return”?
I decided I’m now in a better space with my approach to social media and my purpose within the content I post.
With me return —
i plan to focus posting 3 things:
Bringing back my how-to’s, with a slightly different approach.
I feel that if I have to google something, or learn something new, or found a way to make my design life easier, someone else out there in the world wide web might benefit from that information also.Still posting my work.
Social media is an additional online portfolio. When you’re learning something new about someone, or are checking out a new business, your first instinct is probably checking their online presence. So I’d like to keep mine accurate and up to date.A new series! Things I’ve learned as a freelancer.
While I’ve technically only been a full-time freelancer for slightly over a year (at the time of this posting), I have been a freelancer for about 10+ years. I’m no Chris Do or Kristy Campbell, but I’ve still learned quite a bit along the way. If I can share what those things are, it might benefit the few people that watch my content.
With all that said, I’m looking forward to getting back to social media, making myself write, record, edit and post, stretching a different creative part of my brain.