Reimagining My Social Media Self: Focusing on engagement

Social media often feels like a double-edged sword. It offers light connections and discovery but demands time and energy that can pull focus from what truly matters. (I wrote about this last year, as a matter of fact.)

Add to that, the social media landscape has changed. Dan Blank, who writes about creativity, does a great job, describing how we are all grappling with the pace of change on multiple social platforms. And a recent discussion between authors/coaches Claire Taylor and Becca Syme explores the current impact of social media on health and productivity.

With these factors combined with all the changes in my writing life, I’ve been rethinking how I engage with various platforms. My actions are a work in progress, and I'm not making any radical moves in one direction or the other. I'm simply making a small shift so that my priority is now my Substack. I wanted to explain my shift and encourage you to follow me.

Taking stock of my engagement with social media.

Why prioritize Substack?

For me, it's about the engagement.

I'm not an expert in all social platforms, but I have regularly used Facebook, Instagram and Threads, and I've been lucky enough to garner a few followers. Among my followers, some have caught my posts, and I'm so grateful to those who liked, commented or shared. Yet my accounts have also been swamped with weird messages and my feeds with advertisements. In fact, some days it's like looking at an endless playlist of commercials that I'm not interested in. Thanks, Meta, but that's not my idea of 'engagement'. That's just you selling a lot of advertising inventory.

So I wanted to see if there was another online opportunity to make connections. I researched multiple platforms and lurked in the background of a few. I spoke with other writers, too. Different authors shared what they liked or didn't like in a variety of outlets, Substack included, and I quickly realized there wasn't one sure fire template to apply to my situation. Still, I learned a lot about what I was looking for and where my interests overlapped with Substack.

My conclusion was: Substack offered a unique platform for me to connect directly with readers/writers who value thoughtful, in-depth content and who look to share and spark creativity with others. In my case, I found a rich and robust community of engaged readers/writers who love Gothic and dark romance tales, paranormal stories, experimental horror fiction, and anecdotes of the unusual.

Where am I?

All this to say: instead of spreading myself thin on multiple platforms, I’m choosing to invest my time in Substack and use my other outlets as amplifiers. Which means, I'm more interested in building a human community around shared interests. If you like human connections, come subscribe to Romance at the Dark Wood's Edge. Share the stories that entertain you, the characters you fall in love with, the movies that tug tears from your eyes, and the settings that send shivers up your spine. On Substack, we can talk all about it!