Starting a New Experiment - Videos!

Oh, I’ve been dreading this moment.

When I decided to start writing for a larger audience a couple of months ago, I was told it would be good accompaniment to have something of mine on Instagram and TikTok. Meaning visuals. Graphics. Videos. I had successfully avoided most social media until this moment in my life, so frankly I had no idea which platform would be most beneficial to help get my writing out to people. Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Medium, and an email newsletter. So many options. Hyah! Mush doggies! How hard could this be? (That was a snow sled reference, sorry non-Canadians out there).

I managed to start out on Medium, then create an email newsletter (thank you for reading), and then make posts on a few platforms, but haven’t done anything visual. I have a reminder in my Todoist app that comes up every day, “Record a video for Instagram”. And every day I snooze it to tomorrow.

Every. Fucking. Day. For two months.

Enough! Today I sat down and did a little IFS exercise. I closed my eyes and asked myself, “Dude, why are you so resistant to recording a video?” And the answer, unsurprisingly, came back as “Because it’s scary.” Well, why is it scary? I’ll spare you the entire conversation with my inner child, but what I realized was that when I write something and share it, I’m sharing a part of myself, but only a part. If people don’t like it, they only don’t like a part of me.

But when I contemplate recording a video and sharing it, it seems that if people don’t like it, they don’t like ME. How I look, how I speak, my mannerisms, and the content of what I’m saying. That’s a lot of rejection. And for what?

Well, it turns out that each platform has its advantages and disadvantages, and until I play around with them a bit, I have no idea which one(s) are going to work for me. Instagram is visual, but it’s really for people with a following. TikTok is videos, but it’s all about the algorithm. You can be super successful with good content even if you don’t have a following. So the answer to “for what?” is “for a larger audience.”

Same for the others. Facebook, X, and LinkedIn each have a different core audience and mechanism for reaching people, and I can already tell that I’m hitting a different segment of readers on each platform. And so far, I’m missing out completely on people who prefer visual content. No more!

So follow the links below to see a very small introduction to SanjaySays visual edition. Thanks for following me (anywhere), and if you don’t like ME, that’s ok. But maybe keep it to yourself.

1. SanjaySaysOfficial Instagram account, follow me!

2. SanjaySaysOfficial TikTok account (follow one or the other)