Mental Health & Social Media

Some things unexpectedly just come to you, the best being ideas for blog posts. Am I right.

Mental Health & Social Media. This isn't a new thing. There have been plenty of posts & articles about this destructive relationship. For me it has been up and down and not so long ago I sort of did a cull. I went through my Twitter & Instagram and unfollowed the accounts that were just clogging up my feed. I deleted Snapchat altogether; I barely used it and it was just another thing I was wasting my time on. Facebook is something I'm still on the fence with. On one hand, I'm sick of seeing all the crap on there while on the other I have my blog page as well as being a part of blogging groups which is really helpful.

The problem with social media is that most of the time (especially on Instagram) it's everybody's highlights. So while you are having a bad day it makes it 10x worse to see other people showing how great their lives are.

With this blog, social media is kind of necessity. You gotta get out there and promote what you're creating in order to get readers. Brands, as well as PR companies, are also interested in it. Especially the numbers side of it. The bigger your audience is the more likely it is you'll get approached or they'll be more receptive to you. This aspect for me also messes with my head and just makes me feel low.

I have a quite a small amount of numbers on social media. Around 500 on Twitter, 360 on Instagram and 80 on Facebook. I find Facebook the hardest as with the other two you can use hashtags while if you want to attract likes you have to pay to advertise which sucks. I've been blogging for just over four years and it is something I really work hard on and at times it can get a bit depressing to see low numbers. It's also hard when you approach brands/PR companies and they tell you to come back to them when your following is bigger. It's definitely a 'goal', something to strive for but at times can get me down.

Things that make this worse is when other bloggers buy their followers or copy other bloggers work and get recognised by brands/PRs. It's heartbreaking to work hard at something only to get passed over by someone who is essentially cheating. This is what inspired me to write this post as I saw on Twitter that a blogger was buying followers as well as another blogger blatantly passing off another's post as their work. It's infuriating. At school/university, this would have most likely resulted in expulsion, a serious consequence. Why is it then that this has no real consequence. Thankfully there are tools to see if someone is buying followers. You can search someone's username on Social Blade and if you see numbers going up in big chunks, it's suspicious.

At the end of the day, I just have to remind myself that social media is not that vitally important. The world doesn't end if I lose followers. For me I know I have to take breaks from it in order to keep my sanity. I'll leave my phone in my room, go off and read a book, watch TV. Going out also helps especially if you don't have data on your phone. Especially for a walk, walks are good.

So yeah, that's my little spiel.

Ashley xx