Periodically I get fixated by statistics. I get obsessed with counting things, with measuring. It might be steps, it might be pages read, but it might also be my social media figures.
When my online figures go through the analytical machine and get spat back out at me, I’m almost never happy. These are figures that I don’t have a healthy relationship with. I feel lessened from their perceived lack or not quite satiated by their perceived growth. Either way I’m left feeling empty and not quite good enough.
I’ve been focusing on them a lot recently, perhaps it’s a sign of idle hands, perhaps it’s an inevitable side effect of all of my doomscrolling, perhaps it’s me trying to find some outside validation while I can’t see other people as much.
To let you see what I see, here are my social media stats as of 18th November (ish) alongside some of the meaning I give them. This ended up being a weirdly cathartic exercise for me where I tried to take two difference perspectives on the numbers.
I’ve steadily seen a decrease in Instagram figures this year and an increase in blog numbers. My pinterest can vary wildly hour to hour, I think there have been points where it’s been in the millions of monthly views and in the tens of thousands.
Without context, these numbers mean absolutely nothing. With context, I’m not sure they amount to much either.
I’m present enough to understand that social media statistics are not exactly correlated to “creative” success and also that follower counts are used by certain potential clients as a qualification for consideration. I can see that paradox in my mind as well as the personal one that says while a lot of my illustration work comes through personal connection so word of mouth rather than hashtags should be important, the work I share has led to many of those personal connections. I can even grasp that social media statistics are not a signifier of my success and not directly correlated to anything that I want in my life but that I also understand them as a marker of success for others.
Ultimately, I think it’s paradoxes that have me paralysed when it comes to these statistics.
I care enough for it to niggle away at me but not enough to make content that just pleases an algorithm.
If all I wanted to do was increase the numbers I shared I’d start to tag more brands and “influencers” in my work, I’d create illustrations and graphics in formats that were more on trend, I’d focus solely on optimising. Perhaps it’s a false sense of my own abilities, but I think I could do it. I’d never be a power player but I could certainly do a lot better.
But I don’t think that’s what I want to do, because while playing the slot machine-like game that is social media could be fun, it sounds unfulfilling and frankly even more dangerous for my mental health.
So, the logical conclusion, the one I get to every time I have this argument with myself, is don’t care about the numbers, just make whatever you want to make and be done with it.
While I can follow the logic of “why feel bad about something that you’re not focused on changing?”, I can’t make it stick. It’s not so easy to ignore messaging around certain statistics as a signifier not just of success, but of quality. It’s not easy to detach yourself from platforms that have become the primary way to promote your work. It’s not easy to fight against millions, billions of dollars of social engineering. Especially if you’re not able or willing to turn off every figure.
I still see social media as a big part of sharing my work, but I can’t live trapped in the paradox of whether or not to care about the stats it comes with. So I made myself this decision tree tool to help me make sense of what those numbers mean and what I should do about them. Every option comes with an action, because I’ve found that just sitting with the same information does absolutely nothing for me.
