George Kao says creators should stop chasing likes and post from authentic truth instead. Social feeds amplify only popular posts, which distorts how creators see themselves. His four steps: reconnect to your self-worth, post authentically, step away after posting, then review metrics later to learn, not to seek approval.
Have you ever posted on social media and wondered, how come I don't get as many likes as I see other people do? Well, you have to understand how the algorithm for most social media platforms work. You see in the newsfeed, in the home screen, when you log in social media and just browsing, what you see are the popular posts. You don't see the 99% of the other posts that were also posted today that didn't get popular, that didn't get as many likes. So you think you're the only one getting one or two likes or whatever might be for you. Whatever low means for you, is it zero? For some people who have a bit of an audience, maybe 100 likes is low for them because they're usually used to getting several hundred or thousands or whatever, and now they're only getting a hundred and now they're wondering what happened and they're getting discouraged. For those of us who are just starting out, maybe low is just a few likes or zero likes or something. But if you're wondering if you're comparing yourself with the other posts and how many likes they're getting in the home feed, you are comparing your, your normal stuff with everybody else's most popular hits. And the fact is, if you keep posting stuff, eventually you have a few things here and there that also become popular, or at least get more likes than you typically do. But if you keep posting hoping for those popular things or you keep posting wanting to be as popular as what you're seeing in the home feed, you are always going to be in a losing game because like I said, you're just seeing everyone's popular stuff. Okay? So you have to realize a couple things. One, when you are posting for likes, when you are concerned about likes and comments and shares or whatever it may be, what's happening is that you're giving a bit of your power away each time. And the more of your power you give away, the more of your uniqueness you give away. You have got to create content, not caring whether people are going to like it or not. But do it because it is your truth, because it is something you feel is important to express, because otherwise you won't get to express it. And that's what you're here to do in this life, is you're here to express what you believe is important, what you have come through, the experiences you've come through, the insights you have, the peak experiences you have, the problems you've solved, the things you've helped. Otherwise, the things, things that you genuinely believe are going to be helpful for others, whether or not they then find that to be helpful, it is your calling to share it anyway. And if you do share from there, every time you share from there, you are doing it in your authentic power and you are, you're going to become. Your content is going to become unique, not like everybody else's. If everyone is just. If you're just trying to post based on what's going to get more comments and shares and likes, then you become like everybody else's comments and you know you're everybody else's content. So let me offer you a simple kind of several steps to to do it. When you're posting on social media and doing authentically, okay, step one is to take a moment. Instead of just posting the thing, take a moment and reconnect to the source where you find your self worth. Because your self worth cannot be tied to how many likes you get for this or for that. If it is, you're in trouble and you are going to always be giving away your power and you can't ever build a presence based on your real authenticity. Okay? So step one is you, whatever practice, spiritual practice, personal growth practice you need to do to just take. For me, it just takes 30 seconds to do that. You don't have to spend a long time doing it. Just spend just, just a few seconds, a few minutes curry connecting, reminding yourself that you don't need anybody else's approval. Okay? Step one, step two is to post based on what you believe is, is, is true. What you believe is important regardless of what anyone else is going to think about it. Okay? Because that is going to be the most you sometimes when you post things and people don't get it yet, you're just ahead of your time. You really are the world, your network doesn't understand it yet, but one day, as you grow your brand and your presence, people are going to look back on some of your earlier stuff and go, wow, she or he was wow. You know, pretty ahead of. Ahead of what? Where society was amazing, right? So, so step one, reconnect with your source. Step two is to post your authentic truth. Not oh, I'm going to post this because it's going to get a lot of likes and shares and stuff like that because you're just giving your power away and you're going to become tied to needing to live by other people's approval, which is, which is going to be a recipe for anxiety, discouragement, depression, etc. So don't do it. Okay? Reconnect to your source. Post from your authentic truth. Post your authentic truth. And three, after you post, after you do your social media thing, you post your content, step away and do something else. Don't sit there and go and check to see who's going to be the first liker, who's going to be the first commentator. Oh, did I? I just posted the thing 10 minutes ago. Did anyone like it yet? By checking so frequently and checking within such a close time, you're giving your power away. You're giving your power away. Okay? You're giving your power. You're tying your sense of acceptance and happiness based on what other people are saying about your content. So that's step three, step away, do something else. Okay. Step four, after enough space, okay, then come back and check the metrics. But when you're checking the metrics, you're not checking to see, ooh, am I? Are people? Do people like me? You're comparing based on your other posts and seeing. Is this topic that I've said understandable by other people? Is it understandable by other people? Are people resonating with it? And then you have a choice to say if people are resonating with it. Maybe I should think about doing more stuff like that in the future if it's resonant with my authentic truth, not because I'm trying to be more light. So I hope this is helpful for you to create more authentic social media content. I wish you well.
