Social Media: Toxic vs. Transformative

Inspired by the new Dove selfie campaign; we thought we'd use our Saturday afternoon to chat about the polarities of social media....the good vs. evil of the whole thing.

If you haven't seen it yet, Unilever has rolled up theirs sleeves and dynamically worked with Ogilvy to deliver an eye-opening and refreshing take on the powerful influence of social media on self-image post-2020 (lockdown). If you'd like to watch the video, here it is: https://youtu.be/z2T-Rh838GA

As a female owned business, working in the marketing and PR sphere, we can't help but stop to navigate the complexities of this messaging; for ourselves, our clients but also our followers. According to the media coverage around this #ad, 2020 saw so many of us staying at home, working from home and being educated from home. During this time we lathered ourselves in moisturisers, applied hundreds of face masks....and apparently painstakingly learnt to capture the perfect selfie with all forms of editing applied. Gone our the outings with the perfectly instagramable settings and people. So we turned to self-portraiture; unfortunately it seems on the toxic end of the social media spectrum. I.e. for the appraisal and unsought-after criticism of others online.

Before we jump into breaking down our take on the toxic vs. transformative practices of our new-normal social arenas, we'd love to also highlight a South African and in-depth take on the self reflection so many of us experienced during lockdown; Seth Pimentel's 'An Ode To Catharsis' . We personally visited the exhibition in Johannesburg on it's debut date at the Kalashnikov Gallery on Juta Street. Seth manages to capture the melancholy and inner turmoil of facing...well...yourself, everyday. Looking in the mirror and introspectively tackling the layers and layers of emotions and thoughts and anxieties behind capturing oneself and sharing it with the world; developed through brush strokes and deep, dark palettes. What we took away was an honest projection of the battles within ourselves when taking a picture of our own faces, and then sharing it with the world. If you'd like to travel down the empathic journey you can choose to take with regards to 'selfie-practice', we'd highly recommend checking out Seth's Instagram page and the exhibition itself (which you can now find reviews of online).

Although Seth has the exceptional artistic ability to develop this message via fine art, many of us have our Instagram feeds to share our self reflection.

But the internet, and social media in particular tends to be a double-edged sword. We share ourselves and our messaging on our feeds with personal intentions and find ourselves battling the multi-faceted responses from the infinite complexities of the human psyche...of well, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of human beings behind the devices that our images are showcased on (all dependent on your privacy settings).

However, we have a choice - to use this space to be toxic; knit-picking at peoples perceived flaws or battling it out with strangers in the comments sections - or to spread positive messaging, gently navigating conversations and intentionally sharing images to let others know that they're not alone. It's up to us. Stop, 'practice the pause', and make choices that will ultimately define our character, and the integrity of your business, one way or another.

So, how to navigate?

Here's where our expertise jump in; if you are facilitating your personal brand (i.e. yourself as an entrepreneur, business owner, influencer or brand ambassador) or business via Social Media as part of your strategy...we have some suggestions on conduct.

1. Be honest - but avoid 'brutal honesty'. Try to navigate your messaging, tone and approach with grace. Remember, Social Media was designed and developed to be a place for us to socialise online. You have a choice in who you engage with. Passive aggressive responses and conduct is only going to have this reflected back to you. Be gentle. Have firm boundaries, but also try to remember where you are - DM-ing your followers to tell them to please disassociate themselves with you via requests for untags, for example, is not going to champion you as an open-minded, team playing advocate of an inclusive business and brand.

2. Don't feed the trolls - please remember that trolling is not a manageable practice. Delete these comments, unfollow and block. There's no need to vent your opinion to your (un) friendly neighbourhood trolls and notify them of your next steps - these are still people and the world has inevitably been unkind to them once upon a time. Please don't prove them right. Graciously exit this relationship with ease.

3. Refrain from angry rants or comment-wrestling. Truly, there are only detrimental consequences to getting into unhealthy arguments on your social media feeds. See above point and rather direct your energy to healthy two-sided and mutually respectful conversation. If you need help with this for your business platforms, please get in touch with us for community management (we'll happily train your team as well :))

4. Be a teacher! In the words of Tim Minchin - be a teacher! If the people engaging with you on Social Media have questions about you or your business - feed them knowledge; share. Teach. If you're not SURE if someone is trolling you - leave a positive emoji and see where it goes. Spread the love.

5. Don't be a stalker. Please please, don't use social media to feed this heavy-energy practice. Feed your soul with positive interactions and focus on communicating the beautiful thing about you and your business.

Remember:

We hope that you found this blog useful - and if you did or didn't, but have more questions for us, please get in touch. We'd love to help you navigate a beautiful, transformative and financially rewarding Social Media experience!