There is a strange and often unspoken transaction that occurs between service based businesses and their customers. Heightened by the introduction of the internet and more specifically social media, more and more entrepreneurs, small businesses, etc are promoting themselves as a means of promoting their work. More and more women are selling themselves as a means to sell their product or someone else’s product, but at what cost?!
I know this intersection quite well as I made the switch from a brick and mortar business to a service based business in the midst of the pandemic. After closing my co-working space I continued to show up online and share my story in an effort to ensure that other women experiencing the same felt less alone, but it became increasingly hard to know where to draw the line between sharing my story and promoting my work.
It got to the point where I could no longer cut through the online noise, when every single post I read or wrote came with a transactional choice. Self promotion has reached an all time high and more and more ‘lifestyle’ brands are promoting family vacations more than the product and services they actually sell. Everyone seems to be posturing and positioning themselves against everyone else, viewed from afar it all feels wrong.
After openly sharing my story, my successes and also my failures online, I found myself at a crossroads. Uninterested in the increasingly transactional platform that built my first business and burnt out on self promotion as a means of ‘success.’ After taking a much needed break from social media over the summer, I made the very easy decision to quit promoting myself and my work on social media altogether.
Removing myself from the constant noise I experienced in my online life has awarded me a freedom I didn’t know existed and an even deeper connection to myself and to those I hold close. In the much quieter life I am learning to love, I have found an even deeper desire to connect women back to themselves, to help them rediscover who they are and who they want to be free of social media and the outside pressures we often put on ourselves.
Over the weekend the entire world was on sale, and I repeatedly asked myself how many women were trapped inside an algorithm that was quite literally holding them hostage?! How many women were unsure of where their work ended and where they began?! How many women were equally burnt out on self promotion and social media, but stuck feeding the beast that ‘created’ them?!
The ability to market ourselves and to connect to our target audience should not be overlooked, but is social media helping or hurting us more?! People do not buy goods and services, they buy relationships and stories and magic but what happens when we find ourselves uncomfortable with putting ourselves and our ideas out into the world in the ways that social media requires?! What happens when we burn out on self promotion and sharing our lives online?! What happens when we decide we want to show up in an entirely new way?!
I have found that the only way to figure out what I want to create is to quiet the noise, to live my life offline and focus on the work that wants to be born through me without outside influences dictating the way I show up in the world. Allowing myself the time and space to create based solely on what feels good to me, unattached to algorithms and stories and reels that left me feeling uninspired and disconnected from my real life.
While I don’t have all the answers, I know that women deserve the opportunity to exist without feeling the constant need to show up and share pieces and parts of themselves online. What would the world look like if we all focused a little less on our online lives and started showing up for our real lives with the same determination and drive we so freely offer social media?! What conversations could be had, what connections could be made?!
Questions to ask yourself:
How do you currently promote yourself?
What about this type of self promotion feels good?
What about this type of self promotion feels bad?
If you could show up in an entirely new way, what would that look like?
Who currently promotes themselves and their work in a way that you admire?
What is one change you can made today?
Two recent reads that capture some of the issues I have with social media:
We at Instagram Want You to Know That if You Don’t Use Reels We Will Hurt You and Your Family
The Problem Isn’t That Elon Musk Owns Twitter, It's That You Don't