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My Social Media Woes

My Social Media Woes

I feel like I should start this post with a disclaimer, I am not trying to offend or judge anyone this is just my personal view and experience!

Ok I am just going to say it, I am not a fan of social media and, I know as a girl who blogs, that may sound a bit strange.

It wasn’t always this way, about 8 years ago I was on Facebook and like half of the population I was a little obsessed with it. I would spend many a hour looking through posts and pictures. I loved it. Then one day I was having some food in a cafe when one of my ‘Facebook friends’ walked in and we both just ignored each other. It was a girl who I had been to school with 10 years earlier so, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting a full blown conversation with her but a smile or hello was not even passed. It wasn’t just her to blame because I also didn’t initiate anything. It made me feel so uncomfortable with the whole meaning of ‘Facebook friends’, what does it mean? Is it just a number to make ourselves feel better about ourselves?

I have a good friend who has hundreds and hundreds of ‘Facebook friends’, she recently had a party and there was only a handful of people who turned up, very few of these ‘friends’. Experiences such as these tainted Facebook for me. I guess it just made me think – what is the point?

A couple of weeks ago I joined Instagram, I knew out of all the social media platforms this would be the one for me. I love taking pictures and I love looking at other peoples pictures, I have about 3 shoeboxes on top of my wardrobe full of photographs from growing up, University, holidays, nights out. It would have been great to be able to share all these with friends throughout the years. Just as I imagined, I do enjoy it but there are parts I feel slightly uncomfortable with. I look at other accounts who have thousands and thousands of followers and feel like I am the most unpopular girl in school, don’t get me wrong I realise people work really hard to build up their followers and they are well deserved but I do feel it can bring back all the same insecurities we all feel when we are younger. This makes me sad, especially for my girls. I don’t want the number of followers or Facebook friends to define them. I don’t want them to feel any less about themselves. I want them to have good real friends they can count on rather than hundreds of ‘Facebook friends’ they can’t.  I don’t want them to get confused with what is real.

Social media is such a double edged sword. On one hand it brings so much opportunity – people are making careers for themselves, people can easily keep in touch, it can reunite old friends etc. – it amazes me and the evolution of Technology is very exciting. Whilst on the other hand it can bring so much pain, insecurities, jealousy. It scares me for my girls growing up in this world. Remember that time you fell over in front of your whole class or walked around with your knickers tucked into your skirt, imagine that online for the whole world to see forever. 

That said, I know if I want this blog, my labour of love to be found and read in this virtual universe I need to promote myself on social media. I need to up my game and stop being scared, to have a thick skin and maybe just to take social media for what it is – an opportunity.

40 thoughts on “My Social Media Woes

  1. Yep, I totally relate to this. There are so many people on my personal Facebook who wouldn’t say hi to me if we walked past each other on the street. As for my blog accounts, they all only have a small following and it can feel very discouraging when I see people with thousands of followers and I’m there with like 20 Facebook likes or something. I think you’re right though, having a thick skin and working hard is the only way to crack this social media thing. Good luck! X #TwinklyTuesday

  2. I understand, social media (especially Facebook) can be an emotional minefield. My son is only a toddler so I hadn’t really thought about the impact of social media on him until I read this post, I just hope he has a thick skin and can weather it.

    Overall I think social media is a wonderful thing for the reasons you mention. As long as you use it in the right way and don’t get too worried about how many friends/followers you have it can be really awesome.

    Thanks for sharing. #twinklytuesday

  3. I have a love hate relationship with social media. It concerns me when people blindly share negative stories as the truth. I see so often a photo of someone and an accusation being shared as the truth and I can’t understand why people don’t question it. #sharewithme

  4. I think you sum it all up perfectly in your last sentence and I bet there are many out there who feel the same way, social media is essential to me for promoting our holidays whether I like it or not so I may as well grab it with open arms and do the best I can. #Sharewithme

  5. Totally agree with this which is why I am very choosy about who I allow into my private facebook account (I have a separate one for my blog) and those people are the ones who I see regularly and interact with often. I don’t understand why people feel the need to share such private things on social media with random people that they went to school with twenty years ago!!! #sharewithme

  6. Really interesting as I had never really looked a social media in this way. I have had facebook for many years but don’t have many ‘friends’ and any I do/did have were people I actually knew however once I started blogging I realised I would have to inevitably sign myself up to twitter, Instagram, etc and I feel social media is fine for blogging. Not so sold on it for anything else yet! 🙂

    #sharewithme

  7. Yup, I can so relate. Before I started a blog and decided I wanted it to be bigger than a simple hobby, I was seriously considering shutting down my Facebook account. I worked with social media for a municipal government, so my job pretty much all day every day was steeped in negativity. I mean, look at the comment section of any news article shared on social media – it can be such a dark place! Since I want my blog to succeed, I know that using social media is a necessity. My task is to find ways to focus on the positive aspects of social media instead of dwelling on the negative.

  8. I really like instagram and had the same experience with so called facebook friends too. Every January I delete a load of people, this year the total was 100 haha if they are not enriching my life or I dont enjoy reading theirs, or have a bond from way back then whats the point lol

    Things take time to build up, but then its quality not quantity I think xx

  9. It is really hard isn’t it? I do completely agree with what you are saying. It is a bit like being one of the popular ones or not. And at the end of the day to be honest it is all a bit fake. But social media has bought a lot to me- true real life friends and work, plus that and my blog enabled me to stay at home and work for myself, so I do love it. I do have a love hate relationship with it though. x

  10. I love social media, having been an early adopter of both Twitter and Facebook (and before that MySpace – anyone remember that?!?) But too many people – bloggers in particular – treat it too much as a promotional vehicle and not enough to actually engage with other people. My Twitter timeline these days is at least 60% bloggers plugging their own posts – that’s fine to a degree (I tweet my own posts too) but increasingly I see bloggers who use their Twitter for nothing but shouting their latest posts at people. There has to be a balance – of else social media becomes anti-social media.

    Having said that, I have made a number of genuine friends via social media – I run one blog with six other people who all met on Twitter – and, when it’s used well, it’s a wonderful thing. SO much though social media annoys me at times, I’ll still be here …

  11. I think it is so hard to find that balance, especially when you’re a blogger. I find Facebook really hard but I love twitter and instagram. I try to look at it more from a personal point of view than a blog, I was using IG before I blogged and everynow and again I try to remind myself to use it just as somewhere to capture moments of my life rather than posting a photo to get likes. I like my feed to be full of all sorts of things that make me happy, I don’t have a theme or style but I love other accounts that do! I think the best way is to do as much or as little as you’re comfortable with and try not to get swept away in what others are doing. I find it so hard to get back into it if I’ve had a break, it’s a hard thing to always be happy with. Great post! xx

  12. I totally get this! I love Facebook but I had a similar situation where I saw a facebook friend out, an old friend from school and we didn’t acknowledge each other at all! So I had a massive friends cull of anyone that I didn’t feel like was an actual friend and I felt so much better for it! #sharewithme

  13. I often feel the same about ig because you almost want to take it personally when you put a lovely photo up and not many like it but they like squishy ugly food photo you took the time before that more. It’s hard to take social media with a pinch of salt sometimes and not a personal attack. I had to learn that the hard way. I now think of it as opportunity and that timing, luck, and effort put in is why numbers grow. It’s all a bit random but we will get there in the end. Some people have been on these social media from the start so they have way more followers and dedicated ones at that. Thank you so much for linking up to Share With Me blog hop. I hope to see you again this week for another great round. #sharewithme

  14. I completely agree. It can be good for so many things but bad for so many. Each time i lose a follower I just wonder why and what did I do wrong. Probably nothing, though! #fortheloveofblog

  15. It’s difficult isn’t it. There are many pitfalls of social media, including many you haven’t mentioned here, but it seems that in order to make any kind of success out of blogging, we need to be on it constantly! #fortheloveofBLOG

  16. I totally get what you are saying about Facebook and “friends”. I just try to enjoy the positives of social media and ignore everything else.
    #fortheloveofBLOG

  17. Social Media can be really hardwork, before my blog I hardly updated my own personal page, now I’m finding I have to do it for the blog, and as Wendy said it can be so discouraging when you don’t have as many followers as others. #fortheloveofBLOG

  18. Really interesting musings. I’m not Instagram so can’t comment on that but know what you mean about the blurring of reality with Facebook ‘friends’ and also the half life that gets shown on FB. I like Twitter…I like the anonymity and speed and ability to dip and out. Up until a couple of weeks ago (when I tried to put some effort into a Facebook page) it’s been the only social media channel I’ve used to promote my blog and I haven’t yet got too many negatives with it…I suppose there’s sometimes a lack of interaction and it can move so fast that I can dizzy but overall I like it. Hmm as for the point about children and social media…well this terrifies me. It will be like growing up in a whole other world to the one we did, I need to put some serious thought into it before mine grow up #fortheloveofBLOG

  19. Interesting post. I have a love hate relationship with social media. I have to say, I’m glad it wasn’t around when I was a teenager (well, not like it is now anyway). #fortheloveofblog

  20. One of the things I’ve done as a result of this realisation is to stop adding people I’m not familar with. I haven’t really removed anyone that’s already on my list (which reminds me a clean-up is due) but I have very strict privacy controls which means not everyone knows everything about my life. But I get what you’re saying. I have had a few awkward encounters and I’ve actually tried to hide myself because if they saw me, I wouldn’t know what to say beyond ‘hello’ :/

    #fortheloveofBLOG

  21. I don’t use my personal FB very much for this very reason, it is all so fake. I have felt the way you are feeling about the numbers too – especially when I see others posting similar photos to me but have thousands and thousands of followers. But, that is life I guess and as long as you are happy with what you produce then you have to just stay true to that. x

  22. Well, written. I can so relate to this. Has happened to me a lot of times where I ignore people who are my apparent Facebook friends. For this very reason, I hardly use my Facebook profile. I have just created a page for my blog and joined a couple of groups – the only reason I visit Facebook.

  23. This is a great post, and I relate 100%…especially on the fake friends part, thats happened to me too and it is just such rubbish – people clearly only want to be your facebook friend to make up numbers or be nosey, when they have no interest in real life. Its sad.

    I also totally hear you with Instagram, but you never know how much work those with thousands of followers are putting in to getting them…some of them are even buying the followers from what I’ve seen!!…you just never know whats real and what isnt on social media.

    Thanks for joining us at #SundayBest, hope to see you again this weekend! x

  24. It can be so dangerous but also so helpful – if it weren’t for social media I wouldn’t be back in touch with some old friends who I had lost touch with, I wouldn’t have met some of the people I know now and I certainly wouldn’t be blogging. Everything in moderation I think!

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