This summer, I decided to take a hiatus from social media which has honestly been one of the best decisions i’ve made in my adult life thus far. I could no longer torture myself by means of comparison. It was becoming sickening and confidence crushing to scroll down my timeline to only be overwhelmed by the site of my followers’ exclusive trips to Jamaica or fancy dinners with their celebrity “friends” while I was home writing about the celebrities they were dining with. In the midst of my frustration, I decided that enough was enough and now was the time to get even. How does one compete with someone’s highlight reel? Simple, make a highlight reel that surprasses theirs by incorporating authenticity and integrity. Below you will find three quick tips on how to turn your followers into dollars.
The first tip is to self reflect. How many of us confuse our followers as our friends? We think since we know every detail of their life via the information they broadcast on social media that we know our followers personally. To some extent, we do know their likes, dislikes, and friend circle but we’ve never met these people in-person to say we truly know them. Try redirecting the focus from off your followers and onto yourself. What do we know about ourselves from our frequent postage? Personally, I know that I enjoy motivational content whether it be a positive quote or a 15 second video of Eric Thomas screaming “IN ORDER TO HAVE SUCCESS, YOU HAVE TO WANT IT AS BAD AS YOU BREATHE!” I would suggest you stalk yourself to come up with a list of five things you are interested in based off of your current social media content. Once you create your list, you will notice trends within your interest that you may have not recognized otherwise.
The second tip is to understand the balance between personal posts and business posts. It is perfectly fine to have personal content displayed on your social media, and by personal content, I mean selfies and pictures of yourself on vacation. However, be mindful that you are presenting yourself as a brand, and brands think strategically about what they post. Instead of a selfie, swap that photo out for a full body shot of you slaying in an EXPRESS jumpsuit in the Hamptons. It’s considered a personal picture, because it’s a picture of yourself but it can also be considered a business photo depending on the caption. A good caption would be, “Work hard, play hard.” with the location reading “Hamptons”. Your followers will understand three things from that simple post: you are hardworking, you earned every opportunity given to you, and of course – you can still slay while putting in work.
The third tip is less is always MORE. How many of us have three or more slash marks in our social media bios? I’m guilty of being a filmmaker, entrepreneur, blogger, and radio personality without realizing i’m only promoting myself as one thing – a jack of all trades. Master being phenomenal at one thing, and with time, you’ll eventually be able to juggle being phenomenal at several other things.
Annice Terre’ | IG: ordinary_inspirations