Social Media promised connection, visibility, and impact. But if you’re a builder—whether in music, design, podcasting, or entrepreneurship—you have to ask: Is it delivering on that promise for you?
For many creators, social media feels like a requirement. A place to find an audience, grow influence, and spread ideas. But before you keep investing your time, energy, and attention into these platforms, it’s worth stepping back and asking: What is it for?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Social Media isn’t neutral. It was designed with business incentives that don’t always align with yours. Understanding this can help you make smarter choices about where to spend your time—and how to use these platforms to your advantage, rather than being used by them.
1. Social Media Was Designed with Fundamental Flaws
Social Media platforms don’t exist to serve their users. They exist to serve their advertisers. That means their primary product isn’t your content—it’s your attention.
This creates a fundamental tension: The more time you spend on the platform, the more valuable you are to advertisers. This is why engagement metrics—likes, comments, shares—are engineered to be addictive. These platforms aren’t optimizing for meaningful connections. They’re optimizing for time spent.
The major Social Media platforms of today–Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram–have flaws that undermine their value as community-building tools:
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- The User is the Product: You are not the customer—you are what’s being sold. Monetizing your attention is the primary way these platforms generate revenue. Good rule of thumb–if you are not paying for a product, then you are the product.
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- Emotional Manipulation: Platforms optimize for outrage and controversy to keep you engaged longer. Triggering an emotional response, positive or negative, is good for business.
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- Tolerance for Trolls: Open networks that allow anonymous users, always attract trolls. They often reward bad actors with visibility, creating toxic and unrealistically coarse environments. There’s not a bank in the world that would allow you to walk in with a ski mask over your face and start shouting at the tellers–but that’s tolerated on many social media platforms.
If you’re a creator, ask yourself:
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- Is this platform helping me connect deeply with my audience, or just keeping me chasing engagement?
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- Am I in control of the way I interact here, or am I being pulled into distractions?
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- If this platform shut down tomorrow, would I still have access to my audience?
The real power isn’t in being on social media. It’s in building something outside of it that lasts.
2. Viral Isn’t the Same as Valuable
We’re wired to crave attention. It feels good when a post takes off, when the numbers tick up, when people notice us. But is being noticed the same as building something meaningful?
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- A viral post can bring a flood of new followers—but do they stay? Do they care?
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- A controversial tweet might get attention—but does it create impact, or just noise?
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- A platform may reward you today—but will it punish you tomorrow when the algorithm shifts?
Creators who win long-term aren’t the ones who chase virality. They’re the ones who build trust over time. And trust isn’t reach—it’s built by showing up consistently for the people you seek to serve, drip by drip, working to add real value.
Before chasing more exposure, ask:
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- Are these numbers translating into real opportunities?
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- Is my audience growing in a way that strengthens my business or creative work?
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- Am I creating content I’m proud of, or content designed to just game the system?
3. The Power of Smaller, Deeper Tribes
The myth of social media is that bigger is always better—more followers, more likes, more engagement. But human connection doesn’t scale infinitely.
Dunbar’s Number suggests we can only maintain meaningful relationships with about 150 people. Beyond that, interactions become more transactional, more surface-level. This is why many successful creators, entrepreneurs, and freelancers focus on mattering deeply to dozens and dozens of people, not thousands of people.
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- A musician doesn’t need a million followers—just 1,000 true fans.
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- A freelancer doesn’t need to go viral—just a steady pipeline of high-value clients.
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- A podcaster doesn’t need millions of downloads—just a loyal audience that listens, spreads the word, and keeps coming back
Are you optimizing for numbers, or for impact?
So, What Are You Building?
Social media isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s a tool. But like any tool, its value depends on how you use it.
Before you invest more time, step back and ask:
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- What is this for? What do I actually hope to accomplish here?
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- Is this platform serving me, or am I serving it?
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- Where else can I build stronger, more lasting connections?
Social media can be part of your strategy—but it shouldn’t be your foundation. The strongest builders don’t rely on rented land. They build assets on their own land.
The question isn’t whether social media works. The question is whether it’s working for you.
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