Why you won't find me on social media

I’ve always thought that this was pretty self explanatory. Most people do not choose to spend their free time as an extension of their work life. I’m not talking about work you take home with you. I’m not talking about professional development, as there is certainly time I set aside to research and explore my field, and how I can be better. I’ll even go so far as to say I enjoy that. But, I am talking about true free time. Would you go home and voluntarily continue to play games in marketing software, or exchange emails with clients as a means of casual conversation? I’m going to go ahead and guess that that’s a hard no.

It wasn’t until I was told, quite adamantly last night that this stance was a professional misstep, that I thought I should address it, even if it is in a place no one will see it.

“You need to brand yourself!” I was chastised. Do I, though? I’m so sick of talking about myself, of selling myself when I’m not actually selling anything.

If you carry on a 5 minute conversation with me, you’ll know exactly who I am. I am transparent almost to a fault. A curated feed, will not give you any insight into who I am, personally or professionally. It will not tell you how I can market your brand, because believe me, you don’t want me to market your brand in the same way I “market” myself to my friends and family. I’m so tired of watching people curate an existence instead of actually just…existing. And I get it, truly I do — it’s the world we live in. It has a place, it’s where we get our information. We are all under the influence of influencers. However, I do, and have done, social media for a living, for upwards of 7 years now. I spend hours upon hours facedown in multiple platforms, wrangling communities that number in the millions, dealing with crisis management, playing mediator to (literally) millions of bickering adults, agonizing over cohesive content and copy, and quite frankly, it is not how I want to spend my free time. Do I need more of a reason than that?