Just a handful of Instagram followers? Great!

"If you don't do the following 5 things for your business, you will fail."

Everyone wants your attention - online and offline

This is more or less how many LinkedIn posts or Instagram Reels, which we constantly see in the apps these days, begin. You can see how absurd this has become with the following AI generator for LinkedIn posts. Very entertaining.

I personally enjoy using social media. Many of the platforms are fantastic, especially for companies or organizations. They offer real added value when it comes to networking and staying up to date, for example, when events are taking place. In January, at the Max Ophüls Festival in Saarbrücken, you could virtually follow live on Instagram when and where films were showing in theaters and easily connect with the filmmakers and participants. This led to some wonderful contacts for me and... oh, what can I say - you know how it is. It's helpful.

What bothers me personally is the reward system that big corporations like Meta and now even LinkedIn have hidden on their platforms. Endless timelines with clickbait, i.e. video clips that serve only one purpose: to stimulate the brain's reward system. More and more, faster and faster. The goal is to keep people on these platforms for as long as possible in order to collect as much data as possible and make money from it. Anything that leads to this goal is allowed. Even cat videos! Yes, you read that right. I'm more of a dog person. Oh, how cute are dogs when they clumsily fall backward off the sofa when they're—oh, a motorcycle accident, oops, that was a close call. A 20-year-old life coach wants to give me tips on how to rent a museum for myself. For 50,000 euros. Aha? You see the problem. Where were we? Oh yes: clickbait.

Now let’s get to the good stories.

So how do you avoid creating internet garbage? First, you have to ask yourself: Why does everyone seem to say I need this? I think, for one thing, it's primarily those who belong to this Meta-TikTok-content industry and, like the platforms, profit financially from constant posting. It works well, too. Many people make a lot of money there. Just probably not you (or me).

To put it a little less provocatively: It depends, as always, on your intentions and your target audience. Sure, you can sell a lot and make money this way. But you don't have to post 24/7. Look at your Instagram followers. Much less than 1,000? Less than 100? Good! That doesn't mean you have to post more. It also doesn't mean you have to switch to other platforms. It might just mean you need a different approach.

Focus on good content that showcases your values. This could be, for example, a film that tells your story (or a relevant one). Stories with a dramatic structure work best. Just like children's stories or Lord of the Rings. The structure is basically always similar.

Stories can be retold.

If the story is well constructed, you can retell it the first time you hear or see it. It stays in your memory, at least for a while, without any effort. This is a gift of evolution. It helps us as it helped our ancestors to communicate in a community.

And it's the exact opposite of Instagram Reels, which you watch alone at home on the toilet and then forget about immediately after flushing. Kind of a fitting place for clickbait content, don't you think?

In English, the saying goes "cut through the noise" when it comes to standing out amidst all the (online) noise. This is becoming increasingly difficult, and a social media feed has become like Times Square with its garish advertising. What's left to stick around? Only the person who shouts the loudest. Do you want to be that person? I don't want to be that person.

So, what story do you want to tell?