005 • A guide to productive social media use
005 • A guide to productive social media use
Is it possible to use social media productively?
This question’s been around almost as long as the social media platforms themselves.
My answer?
Yes, you can, with constant optimisation and mindfulness. I’m going to tell you the methods I use to avoid doom scrolling in this issue. First, however, I’m going to make a case for my response…
I believe that social media use is productive if the reason for use falls within one or more of three categories…
Business
A massive benefit to social media is that it’s free (money-wise anyway, not so much attention-wise), and your content gets suggested to many new people around the world.
There are people on every social media platform building personal brands, finding clients and advertising products.
If you’re looking to increase your wealth, social media is the place to do it - take advantage of the huge audience that platforms provide to become relevant.
Networking
I posted a tweet the other day.
Currently, embedding tweets isn’t supported due to Twitter updates, but it mentioned how I found a ghostwriting client in someone who I’d followed for a while on YouTube before connecting (hopefully I’ll add the tweet after the fact when this issue’s fixed).
The point was that if you manage your connections on social media correctly, they can be powerful, leading to friendships, clients and other relationships.
As well as this, there’s not much wrong with being able to follow the updates of your closest friends on socials. It’s when you let the list of accounts you’re following grow out of control that you’re faced with a problem. I’m going to talk more about this later in the issue…
Knowledge and Inspiration
You have access to all the wisdom in the world on the internet.
Often, those people who are at the forefront of this wisdom are posting their updates on social media platforms.
You have:
By-the-minute updates on trending topics - useful for learning what engages an audience
Access to free guides and resources people produce - because there are so many people on all these platforms it’s a highly competitive environment, and people give away guides with a ridiculous level of value for free
Inspiration for the creation of your own work. Creation comes from connecting existing ideas in new ways and there’s no better place to find valid existing ideas for content than on social media
Negative Uses of Social Media
Outside of these three use cases, I consider social media use broadly an unproductive thing to do.
You end up:
Wasting time looking at pointless posts you don’t care about, damaging your baseline dopamine levels by repeatedly exposing yourself to stimulating content…
Comparing yourself to others who’ve had a completely different life path and circumstance, instead of comparing yourself to who you were in the past.
The problem with social media lies in that the platforms make it extremely easy to do the above two things. We can hack the neuroscience behind this but it’s a little complicated. I set out how in this issue...
002 • How to hack your dopamine levels for productivity
Unless we want to be swallowed by endless scrolling and comparisons, we have to use a few tricks and techniques…
Managing Social Media Use
Controlling What You See on the Platforms
Unfollowing is your friend here. If you don’t think that an account’s content is providing you with exceptional value through business, networking, inspiration, or knowledge, then there is no point being exposed to their content.
Ruthlessly cutting down the accounts that you’re exposed to will allow you to better build a network with the accounts that you still value. This is because you’ll have more space to enjoy the content that they produce, and more reason to leave a comment, send a message or engage in some other interaction.
Most social media platforms immediately present you with an endless scroll of content on their homepage. It’ll contain content from people you follow, but it’ll also show content that the algorithm thinks will resonate with you (i.e. spike your dopamine to make you stay on the platform longer).
Luckily, there’s a way to change this. Most platforms have the option to alter your home feed so that you’re only exposed to content from accounts that you’re following.
This has the same effect as cutting down the accounts that you’re following, but it’s even more powerful considering the service can no longer suggest random content that wastes your time and makes you addicted.
Managing the Context in Which Social Media Use is Allowed
If you have strict boundaries to your use of social media, you’re less likely to find yourself scrolling through feeds at any random points in the day.
An example is to stay away from platforms throughout the entire morning, so you can make headway on your projects. This I recommend, because in the morning your brain is fresh and creative.
Other examples could be ‘I’ll only go on Instagram when I’m in the gym’ or ‘I’m allowed maximum 10 minutes to engage on Twitter (sets a timer)’.
There are options for app blocking so that you can enforce these rules to maintain your productivity. Cold Turkey Blocker is one I’ve always used on my laptop, as well as Lock Me Out on Android.
I’ve yet to find a solution for iPhone that doesn’t break the bank (I’m looking at you Opal), so if anyone has suggestions for me, reply to this email!
Bonus - Turn Off Vanity Metrics
This is things such as followers, likes and comments. Services can offer this within their settings, and there are Chrome Web Store plugins that help you do this on desktop (Minimal Twitter for Twitter, and Unhook for YouTube are my favourites).
I suggest this because of how it can cause comparison to others, which is one of the negative uses of social media that I warned against.
Note that this is more relevant for things like personal accounts (if running an account for a business, metrics can provide valuable insight).
However, I use this technique when building a personal brand for business too…
I’m aware that substantial growth is going to take time, and that vanity metrics are going to fluctuate, therefore I block myself from constantly being able to view analytics pages and stats on the platforms I’m growing on. This means that I’m less exposed to the highs and lows that fluctuating growth can cause, meaning I’m more likely to stay consistent.