What’s hidden behind this arrogant and slightly clickbait title? The truth.

Do me a favour and please go look at your Facebook wall or your recent tweets. Tell me what you see.

Probably a couple of self promotion posts that don’t have that many engagements (like your brand new website, you latest entry on your blog, your guitar cover on YouTube…) mixed with a couple of reposts or shares of others’ content.

Why did you share them?

Maybe the meme you shared described exactly how ridiculous the news made you feel earlier in the day. Maybe you shared shocking data about how badly it is to eat meat compared to having a vegan lifestyle. Maybe you shared an inspiring quote from a celebrity you appreciate. Because they made you react in a way. They made you feel some kind of emotions.

Pretty obvious right?

Now, let’s take this experiment a little further. Take a sheet of paper and a pen. Draw two columns. The one on the left will be all the negative emotions, the one on the right will be all the positive emotions. Go on Facebook or Twitter and every time you notice a friend of yours sharing content, notice if it is a share driven by positive or negative emotions. And count the points. Do that for 30–40 shares total or so. You will realise very quickly that most shares come from negative emotions.

Most shares come from anger, jealousy, frustration or hatred.

Negativity drives discussion.

Negativity is expressed more easily. That point is also true in real life. Ask someone for feedback on a situation or a project and they will immediately start by telling you what’s wrong. Truth is, they might even forget to say anything positive!

How does this apply to social media?

Stop self promoting. Just stop.

No one really cares about self promotion. It’s like being at a party and trying to make new friends by yelling ‘I AM THE BEST COME TALK TO ME’

Instead, try spreading emotions.

Keep in mind that it is easier to start conversations by using negativity. Find a common enemy. Find a common tone. Expressing anger for example will be more likely to drive further conversations.

Or you can do the opposite.

Does it feel nice when you ask someone for feedback and that person spontaneously lists all the positive points first, before suggesting corrections about the weaker aspects of your project? It feels nice, not only because it pleases your ego, it also feels nice because it is unusual and unexpected.

Share pieces of content that are inspiring, that are truly beautiful, that would draw a smile on your audience face. It’s a far more difficult exercise, believe me. We are far more exposed to negativity in our daily lives.

Self promotion is dead for good

Social Media is saturated.

Most people follow way too many accounts, algorithms have to do their job in order to provide the best content for their users. That means that content that is engaging is prioritised.

Publishing on Social Media to say that you are the best is not engaging, it makes you seem like a jerk and it is overall not even efficient for your brand awareness.

Make your audience feel something. Bring value to your audience. Don’t try to yell that you are the best, your potential audience is too busy having conversations with other people.

Do you feel like you tried everything to grow on Instagram? Hopefully, what follows will be the last thing you will have to do to reach your goals.

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