In December 2018, I irrevocably divorced Facebook and Instagram for personal use.
It’s a difficult decision to make when you are an online marketer. People expect you to use social media when you talk so much about it from a professional perspective. It creates this weird notion of doing something to keep up the appearances. In Polish, we have a verb – “
I had this professional bone-deep social media fatigue. Keeping up with social media was tiresome. I lost the enthusiasm for creating social media content. I felt disappointed by Tumblr’s recent decision. I felt unsure about the platforms I gave my data to in face of data leaks and breaches.
I let this idea brew for a bit, slowly laid off FB and IG. After a while, I knew it was the right step.
Social media are awesome business tools and used intentionally can bring amazing results. But in my view, they are tap dancing around what it means to be ethical and making money.
I am keeping my Facebook page for those, who like to get news on Facebook – I scheduled automatic WordPress updates and will post there from time to time.
I am keeping Twitter.
I deleted content off my Instagram profile but leaving it as a username holder.
This major change in my perception of social media, once a lucrative promotional channel with immense opportunities for organic growth, led to the next decision.
I am re-focusing my consulting business. I am going to dive deeper into analytics, SEO and WordPress management. While I will still provide online presence strategy advice, it will be skewed towards websites and organic growth on search engine
I am looking forward to regaining my joy of writing posts that will help small business owners. I feel a spark of excitement thinking about this tiny blog. I look forward to being more present and dedicating time to professional growth.
Other news…
Last year I also increased hours at my day job. ‘What job?’ you will ask.
The job I have had since October 2017 but did not talk about because I felt that I am somehow betraying the idea of being a freelancer.
I killed that weird feeling a couple of months ago.
I have been working part-time in an NGO. I abandoned being a full-time freelancer because, to be honest with you, it wasn’t working out for me.
Why?
I love having new exciting projects and being independent. I love networking, fighting for clients, providing solutions that make someone’s life easier. BUT I also love being part of a team. I like to think (and I will humbly add that I was told this many times) that I make a good manager.
I am so proud of myself and how I have developed in that period of intense stress when I started freelancing in 2016. I am proud of the way I grew, the experiences I built taking on my first clients. I grew my network from nothing, in a foreign country, without connections. I love how it translated into me being a more confident and self-driven employee.
I am smarter now and I know that while I love to freelance, right now it will not be my main thing. Maybe in the future, when I gain more
The NGO is moving to another country and I will be looking for another part-time or full-time job in 2020. We can connect on LinkedIn if you want to offer me a job or just to stay in touch.
On a personal note….
2019 has some travelling in store. I am excited that this year I will finally attend the Marketing Festival in Prague. Today I and my boyfriend went for a long walk and planned our trips together. I internally squeal with joy.
I have plans to do a bunch of online courses and certifications. I want to revise German and start using it more.
I want to contribute more photos to my accounts on Shutterstock and Unsplash.
I want to spend more time playing computer and board games; more time reading books and reviewing them on Goodreads.
I plan to hike Vienna city trails because hiking challenges my physical preparedness.
Lastly, I decided to find a word for the year to guide my intentions. It’s ‘offline’.
Let’s make 2019 a good year 🙂