“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.”
~ Seth Godin
Social Media Following is overrated. It really is.
Recently it got me thinking about what we could all do to help people see this…
We need some new holidays.
I’m all for holidays. Holidays here in the United States and abroad are wonderful. I enjoy celebrating thought leaders of the past and the great things they did to push often important agendas forward be it local or worldwide.
But in recent years we’ve lagged on creating some new ones. Some that are a little more current and will make something inside register for us living in the present times.
This is why I’m proposing to all social media platforms to come together and create: UNIVERSAL FOLLOWING DAY.
Everyone on earth has the earth’s population of 7 Billion people following them on their social media accounts. For one day.
WHY?
UNIVERSAL FOLLOWING DAY would help people see the value in themselves and how they can be of value to others. They would realize having all those followers doesn’t mean anything. Your followers don’t define you.
The only person that defines your self value is you. Period.
Social Media followers are really just a number. Our lens is focused on the wrong thing. We are looking too much at how others see us instead of looking inward, seeing how we can providing value for others, and respecting ourselves.
That’s right. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Medium, YouTube, and whomever else wants to participate for one day gives everyone on the platform the amount of followers that matches the current planet earth population.
Whomever wants to be a part of this is welcome. I’m not sure if the Social Media companies have the algorithms to do that for a day, but I think it would help people see that having that number there isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
At the end of the day we are all equal. Out great leaders of the past have always emphasized this.
In 2018 we’re disillusioned into thinking that someone with 1 million followers is somehow a more valuable person than a person with 1. At a fundamental human level this isn’t true. At all.
We are conditioning a generation to think that the number of social media followers one has defines their self-value. This really bothers me.
We have people creating content for the sake of gaining followers instead of creating content that provides value or even changes lives. When you understand this, followers show up.
Anyone who gives you strategies only for the purpose of widening your influence should cause you to pause and reflect.
It’s not the amount of influence that’s important. It’s whats BEHIND the influence that matters. If what is behind your influence is powerful, your influence will be a natural byproduct.
By giving people 7 billion followers for one day, perhaps people wouldn’t get so caught up in feeling like they are “less than” someone else because of a silly follower count on a profile. They’d see that number for what it is. A number.
They might see the fact that when the lens is changed for a day (even under hypothetical circumstances) that we are all equal and that we can all accomplish our goals and live out our dreams.
By Geoff Pilkington
You can connect with me at: www.geoffreypilkington.com
Originally published at entrepreneurs.maqtoob.com