There is no shortage of advice on how to strategize your media to grow an audience and go viral. I’m sure you know the “rules”:
Post X number of times each day
Post every day
Post videos
Use hashtags
Don’t use hashtags
From a business and strategic standpoint, these are great guidelines to get into a routine. Posting consistently is a great way to build and strengthen your voice.
As a creator it can suck all the fun out of making content.
It becomes a chore. Another thing to add to your to-do list. And no matter how you identify as being creative or not creative, it adds unnecessary pressure to sharing a message.
Here’s what I’ve learned: when you create for the sake of driving numbers, you create from ego.
Your ego is a terrible creative collaborator. It’s self-involved. It’s fragile. It needs a lot of extra coaxing and coddling just to cooperate.
You know what doesn’t need this extra work? Your purpose.
You can grow a following posting useless content. A test pattern can play to the algorithm and generate results. But you have a message. There’s a story you want to tell and an audience you want to reach. That’s your purpose.
Everytime we post on McEwen Media we start with the purpose. The three-second pitch of our company is “we get you on TV”. But our purpose is to coach people to share their authentic stories on any platform, including TV. Our content, even the marketing of our programs, is designed with this purpose in mind. It’s why we talk about overcoming fear, finding confidence, and pushing your own limits.
Don’t get me wrong, we do track our social media. But I don’t stress about follower growth. I look at engagement. I look at efficiencies - how can we amortize our content to reach more people. And I look at how the brand is consistent from when you first find us on social media to when you ultimately work with us.
There are many ways to measure success and progress on social media. But there’s really only one way to get and stay in creative flow.