Ep 3: How to maintain a social media presence as an introvert

In the latest episode of the Mind of the Crochet Designer podcast, I delve into a topic that I feel isn't spoken about enough: maintaining a social media presence as an introvert. Recording this got me rather emotional and I hope it will help those of you that feel like the fact that you 'need to be on social media' is keeping them back from following their crochet design dream. 

As crochet enthusiasts, can we admit that we are genetically at least 1/3rd part hermit? Haha. So how can we honour that? Let's dive into this topic together with the latest episode.

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Transcript

Microfoon (YXC usb audio): 0:50

Welcome creative and beautiful soul at the mine of the crochet designer podcast. I am your host, Christina holidaying. And. Today. I want to talk about. How to maintain a social media presence when you are an introvert. So let's dive into today's topic. I hope you are doing well, working on amazing and unique designs as you do. Let's get started into today's topic. So the reason I want to bring this up is because I feel like so many of us are pressured. Into maintaining a social media presence when we actually don't. Feel like being online 24 7. And we feel pushed into a direction we don't want to be in. And also doesn't at all feel aligned to how we want to live our lives. But there are stairs. Algorithm, all these bots, all this code that are saying to us, Well, if you want to get seen, then you really should post every day or post to reels dance to them, even though you don't feel like it look happy, even though you are not. And so. I feel social media right now is very toxic. It doesn't reflect at all, how we actually feel. And how we would like to. Express ourselves. As people and as define beings. Esther magical creative creatures dead. We actually are. And I feel it's just such a waste. Off time off energy. To spend so much of your magical creative mind coming up with reels and posting every day. And. Feel the pressure of having to be online so much and it doesn't come natural to me. And I feel that we are just sick and tired of. Being pushed in a direction. We don't want to even go in. And sick and tired of trying so hard to be something we are not. And so that's why I wanted to talk about. How to actually maintain a social media presence. As an introvert. Now for a little backstory. I want to talk about my own experience because when I started as a crochet designer, Instagram and social media was wildly different from what it is today. And. I really want to. Let you know that you actually don't need social media to grow your audience. There are other ways. And I already talked about this in another episode about how to sell your patterns, even if you don't have an audience and it doesn't even really include social media. So if this is of interest to you, please. I'll listen to that episode as well. If you haven't already. But I really want to talk about doing social media. As an intro for it, because I feel like a lot of crosiers and crochet dishonors are by nature. Introverts. We get energy from spending time. By ourselves and just reading books or doing our crochet. And that's how we recharge. And we really don't recharge by. Doing happy dancers on Instagram. Or talking all the time or just creaming into a void. And spending all this precious energy, not getting seen. And I just know that I am. Born as an introvert. It's in my human design. And I feel that when fr I look at the description of an introvert, it really is me. So I'm really comfortable calling myself an introvert. Now the thing is that. I'm also struggling with social anxiety. And this is something that I was not born with. I mean, as a child, I could remember that I played with all the neighborhood kids. I was having so much fun, just playing with my neighborhood friends and just enjoying myself. But somewhere along the lines people decided. That. They didn't like me in elementary and in high school and actually my whole. My whole school career. I was bullied and I was told I was ugly and I was made fun of, and I was. Made to feel like I was a waste of space. And I really, I want to get clear that I am not talking about this to get your sympathy. The reason I'm talking about this. It's not to get your sympathy or to make you feel sad for me, I want to talk about it because there is a distinction between being born as an introvert where you really get your energy from spending time alone, fursonas. You not feeling comfortable in front of a camera because you feel ugly. You don't want your picture taken? Because I really had that and I was feeling horrified whenever my mom would call me. Oh, you're so pretty. And I was like, well, you're my mom. You're supposed to feel. I'm pretty, but I don't really believe you. And. Every time she wanted to take a picture, I was really horrified. I didn't want to I spent like my whole crochet design career up til now behind the carer, because I really didn't want to have my picture taken. And there's a big distinction between debt and being an introvert. And. I just want you to know that if you recognize anything that I'm seeing right now, I want you to know from my heart to yours. And I'm even getting a bit emotional saying this, but I want you to know that you are worth it to be seen and to be heard and to be loved. And you have a unique voice. You have a unique. Take on crochet the sign and. I don't want you to hide in any way. So if it feels like social media is draining to you, because you feel like you. Aren't worth it to take up the space or you feel so uncomfortable. Standing in front of the camera then please. No. That you are worth it to take up your space. And I don't want you to feel like you need to dampen dead bride light of yours. And be something you are not. I do want to say one less thing about not feeling comfortable in front of the camera. Because you might have followed Christina crochet code for a rather long time. Maybe even since the beginning. And if you can remember last year I started with live Q and A's on Instagram. And. This is coming from someone who would get horrified, having her picture taken. How can she go from debts to doing Instagram lives weekly? And so. The thing that really helped me is I have a business coach. It's James Wetmore. He is amazing. And. He really helped me overcome so many fears and perfect. Perfectionism and people pleasing and so much. But anyway, The one thing he said about that, about hiding behind a camera or behind your keyboard. Is that everything is just skills. And skills can be improved upon. And I was always like, well, I'm just really good at writing. And I'm not so good at talking. So it just suits me better too. To just do written posts and no reels and no video. And then I heard what he said and I was like, well, of course I'm better at writing because I've had so much more practice. At writing then talking on Kara. And what I did is I. Just accepted that fact that I was at the beginning of learning a new skill and that when I showed up on video, that it was going to be far from perfect. So the first thing I did is I just did stories. I talked on my Instagram stories and. Just really silly things about my herb garden or whatever, just these silly things. And I was like, this is a great way to practice because even if my perfectionism is creaming, like, ah, this really is so bad then after 24 hours, it's gone anyway. So this is a great place to start. And I really knew I wanted. To do crochet Dishon coaching so bad. I really want to help aspiring core shady signers. Tap into that magic of theirs. And I was like, I can do that with an ebook. I really need to get in front of the camera. So. There was this huge gap between doing coaching through sume. And where I was at. So I was like, I need to do Instagram lives. And the funny thing about Instagram lives is they are alive. So it's not perfect in any way. And I could just do it live and then posted, set it and forget it. And. This worked so well for my perfectionism And. getting myself out there and actually helping other crochet designers. So having said that. I want to take you through social media strategies I've been doing. To grow my Instagram. And I just want to say, before I go over this. That it's so important. That you do whatever feels right for you, you know, what's best for you. And you just need to listen to what is sustainable for you. For me personally, posting every day is not sustainable for me. And I can push and pull or I want, but it's just not going to happen. I've tried it. And. I just feel so drained and the posts. Are getting so uninspired. That I just let that go. It's not for me. So it could be that, that isn't for you as well. So, what am I doing? So I can focus most of my creative and precious energy on my crochet, the science, and on getting great crochet coaching products for you guys. Instead of spending it on social media. So the first thing. Actually a big mistake that I made when I just started as a crochet designer, is that I thought that if I posted it once. That everyone would see it. And if I would post it again, it wouldn't have value. Well, I could not have been more wrong because what you have to know is that you grow your social media over time. And so you will get new followers all of the time and they haven't seen your past posts. So really make it a point. Of repurposing old posts. And it's really important that you shine your light on your amazing crochet signs and give it the love. It deserves. So what I would do is I would spend like an hour or two or whatever. Taking physios of old crochet, the science of mine, because they do deserve a spotlight, even though. They've released like four or five years ago. It doesn't matter. They are still great designs and they deserve. Your laugh and attention. So I would now, and then just spend some time taking videos, short clips of the design side already have. I would also even repurpose the same post and just posted again. I mean, it's just so easy and new people will see it or even. Your existing followers that haven't seen dad, because you are so far down there. Timeline. It really is good practice to spend some time every. Certain amount of weeks or months just looking at what the signs haven't. I Giffen the laughed I deserve. How can I repurpose? How can I re shoot some of the imagery? How can I give this the laugh it deserves? And that really works well for me. What I also do is I shoot a lot of B roll clips now. I actually had to like look up what B roll actually is because again, I'm really not that good at doing social media. Because I really don't like. Doing social media. So maybe this isn't even a very good episode to do for me personally, but just, just take from this episode, whatever suits you. But anyway, I'm shooting a lot of B roll clips these are just very standard fairy stock video footage. Of me pointing like to the left. And me pointing to the right. And me waving Emmy smiling. Or just me crocheting. Me looking up, me looking down. Smiling and the camera or whatever, just this, the standard clips and every two or three months or so I do a whole bunch of them in one sitting. And then I just juice them for the next months and I just cut them into little clips. I used them for general posts and I've think it's a very effective way of I'm doing social media because I just. Batch create, which is another social media term. I just, one day I'm just shooting a lot of video and then the next day I'm editing them. And the next day I am writing copy for them. And. And so there's this process I'm following an ed really helps me to just batch create in one sitting and not make one social media posts on the same day. I am. Posting it. Another advice is what really works for me. And it might or might not work for you, but it really doesn't help me pushing. Fru to get a certain number of posts. I need to create. It's the same with crochet design. I really need to create from an inspired place. And if I'm not inspired to create, I can push and push and push, but nothing good will come from it. And this is where I get to do the repurposing. So if I don't feel inspired, I just repurpose old posts, but. Every now and then. I get this surge of inspiration for social media posts. And so I just ride all these ideas down. And when I feel like I have the energy and it's all flowing for me, then I actually create them.

Microfoon (YXC usb audio)-1: 17:55

Another thing that can really help when you have zero inspiration and you really don't know what to post and it's not flowing at all. Is to subscribe to standard prompt surfaces or subscriptions, or you can find all these free prompt PDFs dead. We'll just give you a list of 40 prompts and for two days or whatever that you can just use as inspiration for your own posts and. This can be great to get your ideas flowing, to get your decides, seen. Without spending so much time reinventing the wheel, because I really feel that so many of us. Try to reinvent the wheel when that's such a waste of your precious time and energy. When there are people out there. That are so much better in thinking about creative ways to promote your patterns or. That come up with new social media posts. So this can actually be a great thing to use for your own social media ideas.

Microfoon (YXC usb audio): 19:01

And the last big. Tip I have for you is what really works for me. Is to repurpose long form content into short form content. Because social media is so fleeting. I'm sorry. I can't. Make a 42nd reel that is really in depth about crochet design. I just can do it. And it also doesn't really give me any energy or inspiration. And so what I really like to do is create like, An email newsletter or like this podcast, or you can do flog so on YouTube. And use that. Long form content and created into smaller clips, smaller tips. And this is also. Part of the repurposing. Is how can you use one piece of content and turn it into all these other types of content? And this is really a deal breaker, a real time safer. And also S my personality S my energy type. I really need to speak it out. I need to ride it out. I can do short form content, and I really tried. And it really wasn't going anywhere. And so. One thing that really helps me is to. Except dead I am not made for this type of social media content. And that it's okay to not be. Because crochet and crochet the sign. These are slow crafts. And social media is so fast paced that it really doesn't. Fit. So we have to think of ideas. Where we can. Make it fit where we can. Create content that really lights us up. And you have so much to say and so much to show that it would be such a shame if you would hide because this social media thing really doesn't give you energy. Think about our ways. On how you can show up and where it is sustainable for you. Week after week. And I can. I say so much also regarding the whole, you need to be consistent and you need to post every day and you need to do this, or you need to do that. And I'm so sick and tired off. All these things we are supposed to do. We just need to figure out what works for us. And I just know dead. Once you have found it and you can show up. I'll ventek CLI S yourself, that things will flow for you because it's sustainable for you and you get energy out of it. So that was it for this episode. I really hope that it helps you create your own social media strategy. I know. There isn't a one size fits all. I mean, I'm so stubborn myself. I really know that I don't usually take advice from others. I just do what works for me. And I want to empower you to just do the same. Do what works for you. Don't get caught up in the algorithm. And you will notice that it's much easier. If you could just do what flows for you. So. I'm going to leave it at that. I want to wish you a very nice week and talk to you next time on the mind of the crochet, the signer podcast.