A few weeks back almost everyone with a smartphone nearly lost their collective minds when Instagram began experiencing serious update malfunctions. This is nothing surprising given how heavily it’s 1 billion active monthly users are online or how often the Facebook backed platform makes spontaneous updates that result in a crash. What was surprising was how quickly people turned back to their old friend Twitter. Albeit, Twitter has never really died out, but it has become an afterthought when it comes to daily likes. This phenomenon made me wonder, what do you do when it all goes away?
After some thought I realized first things first. Don’t panic! Yes that unnerving void feels awkward but that is natural when you are trying to kick an addiction. Yes, social media is almost as addictive as some illegal drugs. Especially to those who don’t know a life without it. Instead of losing your shit focus on natural distractions. You don’t have to record yourself watching TV. Just watch it.
Secondly you should have probably already diversified your brand. Just like with money, the true way to wealth is to not put all your eggs in one basket. Same can be said about your social life. TikTok is a great alternative to IG or Facebook and actually is a bit more fun and engaging. Try out some new apps, you may love them even more.
Lastly stop relying or basing your values on just one type of metric. This one is business specific. Yes, I’m talking to you “influencers”. Instagram is already testing out what the platform would look like without the Like feature. When that happens the value of that pic 2.5K people liked will drop dramatically and change your relevancy. So start looking at other ways to showcase your worth. How many people can you reach? How many combined reshares do you have? How many people in your actual life promote you word of mouth.
In a nutshell, life will always changes which in turn means the tools we use will change. Don’t get left behind focusing too much on what your life is with social and think more about what it is regardless of it.
