“We’re in the era of digital video, and it’s a mess” – Steve Jobs
Yes, we live in a digital era, smartphone glued to the hand, and your eyes are more trained to see the screen than your surroundings. Indeed, we live in a world where the pace of technological innovation outstrips our ability to keep up, leaving us trailing behind in a digital mess.
We trailed behind trying to keep up with life-trends, not to mention keeping the pace with digital trends. I once thought to live a life as an online celebrity is very cool; you can wake up anytime you want, you don’t need to comply with clients or bosses. Until I realized that they suffer tremendous social pressure and constant upkeep. You need to constantly update your gadget or tech or gear or whatever they call it. You need contents and fresh ideas all the time, most of your time will be spent on making said contents. The demands of maintaining an online presence can quickly become overwhelming.
Common people – like us – also have this pressure to release new content once a day, or at least once a week.Several friends and colleagues commented that my feed is not regularly updated, I don’t have enough posts with my face in it – only some random stuff, or questioned whether I use my social media accounts to stalk someone. As someone who prefers to lurk in the shadows of social media rather than bask in the spotlight, I’ve often found myself grappling with feelings of inadequacy and guilt over my sporadic online presence.
Producing contents when you only use 1 social media is manageable. Heck, even when you have 3 different social media platforms are still manageable. But let’s count how many digital accounts we normally use? I have a Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Goodreads and recently joined Twitter and managing this website. Not to mention several emails, online banks, several freelancer website accounts, marketplace or online shopping accounts, and my non-active-but-not-yet-deleted social media accounts (yes, you Google+). My LinkedIn account is almost non-existent after I updated the current employment, other than accepting friends requests I don’t deal with LinkedIn that much. The same can be said with my Facebook account, which I use frequently as a silent reader.
Does this mean I need digital and social media management for my personal life? With a mission in mind – to declutter my digital life – I googled for a possible solution.
The most solution requires a third-party tool to compile those social media accounts into one dashboard. Then, it is recommended to create unique content for each platform, easier said than done. After pouring efforts into taking pictures and selecting the best filter for my Instagram posts, the next thing I think about is browsing idly, not ‘rephrasing’ my Instagram content into Twitter or Blog post.
The next solution, they said, is to plan and schedule posts to save time. Honestly, this is where I stop reading because it starts to feel like I’m managing a business account.
It is no secret that we are all our own brand. We do personal branding all the time, and social media platforms really help us in achieving greatness. However, I don’t believe we should manage our personal social media just as we manage our company’s accounts. Here is what I learned so far in an effort to declutter my digital mess:
- We need to define our goals. Do you want your accounts to be personal or professional? It is better to use different emails for different goals, to help you memorize. Whichever your goal is, remember to be genuine. We can smell fakeness, even in digital media.
- Having a dashboard is convenient, but it makes you feel managing your accounts less personal and more business-like. If you don’t like to open separate apps for each platform, consider using free social media tools and have a dashboard.
- Make time. Contents do not produce themselves. You need to sit down and write, take some pictures, and write those captions.
- Have fun. We are a social creature and we want to be acknowledged. Your account is all about you. Don’t give in to social pressure and just have fun.
As for myself, my goals using LinkedIn is for professional use, while Twitter enables me to learn from the very best, and having this blog and Instagram account allows me to share ideas. Why I still use Facebook? Because I want to know what my friends and families are up to.
I know I still have a long road ahead of me to declutter my digital mess. In the meantime, let’s embrace the messy creature that we are.
