Vanity metrics. They make us look good to others without providing a clear understanding of our own performances.
However, principles are proven through performance, not popularity. So why is there such an emphasis on likes, retweets and shares?
Another way to look at it is:
You max out your credit card to buy the newest iPhone, just to impress your peers. You get a moment of fame, but your bank account gets tied into a 24 month contract of pain.
Now let’s think about it with business in mind:
Today’s culture provides us with an unlimited supply of useful online tools and platforms at our finger tips.
They are extremely valuable as forms of simplified publication / exposure, but the value these platforms provide to the work itself is equivocal.
Projects produced with status seeking in mind are always created with the wrong intentions.
As a business or a freelancer, when you share your work, it’s very easy to see dopamine fuelled notifications as successful feedback. However, they don’t offer anything more than an achievement of social status.
There should be no confusion between vanity metrics with the value of work you carry out:
When you start a project, if your intention is to seek status from it, you’re instantly diluting the value of what you do.
If a project is started with the intention of providing a solution to the problem faced – your interest is in the work. That’s where the value is built.
3 useful points to remember the next time you share your work:
Nothing in life is free.
Online tools and platforms are popular and useful. But, if the product is free, you are the product. Use them wisely.
Likes don’t make money.
1 like doesn’t = £1. If it did, we’d all be millionaires. Thinking about it this way serves as a good reminder to how valueless the online notifications we receive are.
Advertisement matters, good work matters more.
Good advertisement and promotion matters. It will transform your business. But as James Cash Penney once said: Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement. What better way to provide your customers with courteous treatment than to respect them.
Try your absolute best to give them everything they need form you. They will share the work for you.
Amplify the effort of your input to maximise the value of your outputs. Working like this isn’t easy, but what comes easy doesn’t last.