Dear Pennies & Pens,
So this week, I decided to retire from social media. I’ve had a great career but I can no longer put my effort, energy, and focus into it. As y’all know, I work with a variety of different brands to create content about their products and services. My company, ISLP creates books, magazines, and travel guides; in essence, our sponsors are usually featured here in de la Pen or in one of our digital travel guides.
But lately, I’ve been working with quite a few brands who really emphasize helping them amp up their social media. In essence, they want to be featured on our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. It’s all about that follower count and engagement, ya dig? So to appease them, I’ve been putting a lot of time & energy into social media. Also, I figured that the more content I posted, the more likely I’d be to gain new followers and keep the current ones engaged. Plus since I want to increase ISLP’s sales being active on the most popular social platforms seemed like the right thing to do.
But lately, the shit has started to irritate the crap out of me. First off, my follower count on Instagram changes CONSTANTLY. I refuse to believe that people are seriously following and unfollowing that quickly. Come on, son. Then every time I post, Instagram is trying to get me to boost it. I get that Instagram has/needs to make money but ummm…so do I? And guess which one of us has millions of users?
Then there’s the SPAM. The ultimate HAM of Instagram. There’s always some creepy weave account, young lady posing in a “seductive” way ready to thirstily follow you and watch your IG stories because apparently a Multicultural Creative Entrepreneur like myself is appealing to them 🙈🙊. I am sick of SPAM, it’s annoying to get the notifications and just weird.
I’m also tired of people and their fakeness. Like I say in my book, people be having perfect IG photos but the shittiest real lives. I want to real time happiness not the instant gratification of social media. It just gets me that people present the best side of themselves instead of just keeping it real. I personally don’t have time for that. I can only be Penny — no more, no less.
Social media is also exhausting to keep up with. It’s just too many fuckin notifications. Bippity, boppity, boo 🤯🤭🤫 So how about I cut most of social media our my diet? I bet I’ll shed pounds overnight!
Don’t get me wrong, it has its positives. Social media is a great way to keep up with people + places + things you love. You can also make new friends, network and gain new business contacts, as well as marketing your business. And all for free! Who could beat that?!
Having said that, like any retiree, I’ll still be active on social media. Just not going crazy over it. What brought on the final decision? Well, this week I tried on several different occasions to publish new posts and it wouldn’t work. Then my follower count changed multiple times. So I was just like I can’t control who sees my content and whether or not it goes live, but I can control when and where I post. Also, since I spend money to maintain this site as well as all my others, shouldn’t I be focusing on that?!
From here on, we’ll be dropping news of all of ISLP + 8515’s latest products and events here on de la Pen first. This means you should check the page regularly to keep up with our latest ink. You can also subscribe to our email newsletter (link is on the right hand side) so the ink goes straight to your inbox once it hits the page.
I’m so hype!!! I think it’s going to be dope. Stay tuned for exclusive ink that you will only find on our page. #ISLPDTX #InkWithUs
And there it is. de la Pen…All Pen Everything. With us, keeping it real never goes wrong.
P.S. Did you like this ink? Want to read Penny’s Ink on life, love, relationships, and pop culture? Check out, The Loudest Pen Ever here: http://bit.ly/TheLoudestPenEver
