In 2010 I discontinued my use of all social media. I did so to avoid the pain of the he-said, she-said comments associated with my divorce, as part of my healing. It was extremely helpful and I did not miss social media in any way. In 2020 I waded back into the swamp of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, etc. to support my new blog, podcast, and video series. Because I thought I needed to.

Over the past two years I have failed miserably to utilize social media effectively. I have no interest. An obvious lack of talent, possibly related to my age (almost 50) and my ten-year absence. I’ve given it a fair chance and decided it ‘just isn’t my thing’. But I’m still not convinced I can exist without it.

Now, I understand that a lack of advertising means few people will see me. But I naively hold on to the idea that there are people looking for the type of content I produce, and that they will find it. Isn’t that how it used to work?

And maybe it just doesn’t anymore. But I am philosophically opposed to that. I feel like I’m having my ‘get off my lawn’ moment, and my sincerity and belief is very real. My conviction, however, is not going to change things. No amount of ranting, crying, or declaring how unfair the world is will put my content in front of anyone’s eyes.

And, as far as I can tell, social media is the most direct way, if not the only way, to achieve that goal.

Maybe my resistance is due to a story one of my best buddies told me. I will share it with you in hopes that it resonates, but not to relieve myself of responsibility.

My buddy is a musician. One who could do it for a living. One of his former bandmates actually ended up doing music for a living. He won awards. Got the recording contracts. International tours. Achieved at the highest levels. He ‘made it’.

The friend-of-a-friend enjoyed a successful career for a few decades before he announced he was quitting. He was retiring in his late 30s. His explanation was related to social media.

The successful musician, it turns out, was spending the majority of his professional time grooming his social media accounts. This preening of comments, posts, likes, and follows ended up taking up more time than actually playing and writing music. The venues demanded he promote, measured his success by ticket sales, and fans increased dramatically with greater social media support.

In effect, his career became that of a social media marketer rather than a musician.

The job had changed. The tail was wagging the dog.

And so i ask myself, ‘How often does this happen?’. I attended graduate school and a PhD for a job that, during the 15 years I was training, changed. My wife did the same thing in medical school. By the time we sat at the desk or wore the white coat of our dreams, the jobs had morphed into something different. Something more . . . . capitalistic.

More . . . . one-sided.

Less. . . . . meaningful.

I guess the same thing happened in music.

That’s a long way to go to call out social media marketing as being difficult for me to do. Maybe I’m gunshy. Maybe self promotion doesn’t suit me. Maybe I’m a huge entitled snowflake.

Or it could be that I’m just nostalgic for a time that may or may not have ever existed. A time when people were informed because they wanted to be. When advertising was about sharing information. When we had enough money to buy things we needed, but weren’t too nutty about the things we wanted. When the machine of consumers and producers was more balanced and less desperate.

Yeah, I probably have that all wrong. And my fears of not existing are strong enough to believe whatever it takes to avoid blame.

I could list all the excuses. I don’t like psychological manipulation. I don’t have the time. I’m not good at apps. I don’t want to spend more time on social media or my phone.

But the end result is I am obscure. I am invisible. I don’t exist in the same world as the social media aficionados. Who enjoy the apps. Who want the pings and the badges. Who are happy with their dopamine relationships. Given equivalent content, I am going to come up short due to inferior marketing.

Am I a martyr? Or just stupid? Or just resistant? Or scared?

Or am I standing up for principals, willing to trade exposure for reduced suffering?

So why even bring it up at all?

When I owned a small craft brewery, I similarly sucked at advertising. My entire marketing campaign, besides a poorly-supported facebook page with basic information, was like this:

“We make really good beer. It’s different from what you can find elsewhere in our area. We are here if you’d like to try it”.

Yes, that attitude made me a terrible business person. But it also made me an excellent brewery owner. It turns out, many craft beer enthusiasts — the ones who truly appreciate beer — appreciated this authentic approach. We were loyally supported an important part of the craft beer scene.

And in the early days of the last craft beer wave, that authenticity mattered. It doesn’t so much any more. The advertising and marketing machine slowly ate up the market share, and fewer and fewer breweries were effectively supported by the consumers. We are now seeing a dramatic reduction in the number of breweries as the consolidation so common to this market repeats itself. This was happening years before COVID, but that certainly exacerbated the process.

I guess I just don’t know any better to do anything different than what I’m doing. Or I’m just too scared to try. Or ashamed of my inability. But the thought of learning about and implementing a social media marketing plan reduces my desire to write, podcast, and create. So what I am doing now is better than not doing anything at all.

I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this topic in the comments to help me decide whether to give up on social media again, whether authenticity has to suffer in exchange for marketing, or whether I should enter the 21st century.