I’ve never had a client tell me that my social media presence influenced them to work with me.

In fact, there are really 3 ways clients find out about me (based on what they shared when filling out my prospective client questionnaire:

• Word of mouth: They asked their networks for someone who has my skill sets and expertise
• Internet search: The keywords they entered landed them on a page or blog post on my website
• I was off somewhere being useful: From email listservs, in-person meetings and events, or online forums, they noticed me sharing resources and information or offering advice

But like most people, I use social media. I started off using it as a way to connect with the people I know in real life and to make connections with new folks.

Once I started growing my blog, I needed someplace to promote outside of friends and family.

It’s interesting to see the impact that social media has played in our professional and personal lives. However, like most of us, I got caught up in the vanity of it.

Likes, comments, retweets, shares, clicks, and comments. They all play a role in how people view you. But as we see with social media as a whole, they don’t tell the full story.

I call these “vanity metrics“. While they are important to see how your content resonates with your audience, you don’t really know why they’re engaging with you.

When we get caught up in these vanity metrics, we develop this inflated sense of importance. Outside of comments, vanity metrics don’t really tell you why someone engages with you. Nor do follower counts tell you if the person following you actually supports you, likes your work, or agrees with your viewpoint. It’s weird to think that people will follow someone or comment on something they don’t like, but it happens.

With all this talk of shadow bans, algorithms, paying to have your content seen by the people who chose to follow you, and removing likes, we need to ask ourselves some tough questions about what we’re really doing on social media and why. And if you use it to promote yourself or your organization, we need to ask ourselves is social media the best way to marketing ourselves.

My answer is no. Especially since social media platforms can disappear at any time.

While I do believe that social media is a great way to connect with and network with others, my #1 rule for marketing yourself on social media is to not have social media be the #1 way to market yourself.

Instead of having social media drive your marketing, consider the following ways to market yourself while using social media as a supplemental avenue:

I was speaking with a friend recently, who decided to go back to the corporate world after consulting for over 5 years. Of all his reasons, the main reason was that he no longer cared about what he did and who he did it for.

I know this feeling well, because closer to the end of my time with my old organization, I felt it. I have a specific memory of having a new client sitting across from me, detailing her concerns with her housing and benefits. When I first started working there, I would go above and beyond to do what I could for a client. But listening to her (and taking stock of my place within the organization), I realized that I didn’t care.

I’ve always told myself that when I get to the point where I no longer cared about what I do and who I do it for, I would call it quits. So, I did.

But one day in early 2018, I was preparing to write a blog post, create an email newsletter to send out to my subscribers, and do some work for my consulting clients.

It was a snowy, cloudy day. As I waited for my laptop to boot up, I looked out the window and asked myself, “Why am I doing this?”