It feels really good when someone is supportive —when they respond to your efforts positively and show with their actions that there is a resonance. This is our responseABILITY as soulpreneurs —to maintain and share generously as well.
Many of my clients and peers are creating and running their businesses in a soul-guided way and facing much resistance with using social media as a platform for marketing and client interactions. Over the past few months, especially, I have noticed an upswing in this topic of conversation, so I’ve compiled my thoughts on the subject as I interpret it through the language of soul wisdom for you here.
Let's remember for a moment the origins of social media. Take a trip back to the early days of MySpace and Facebook, even think about the name, Face Book. Back before there was Facebook or even cell phones, we would keep phone numbers and addresses of people we wanted to stay in touch with in a rolodex or an address book. I remember these days well. I also remember how not easy it was to stay on top of this data and how impersonal it was. I moved around a lot and have memories of friends showing me their records attempting to keep track of my whereabouts. I sometimes took up entire pages under the C section of their address book.
With the arrival of digital photos, we were suddenly able to more easily capture the precious moments that we once could only recall in written or spoken documentation if we were not savvy enough to have thought to have a camera on hand, as well as sufficient enough film. Even then, there was a good chance that our photos would return overexposed or a combination of accidental shots and crap images. I digress.
The point is that along with the ease and excitement of the digital age for being able to track data and connect with our loved ones also came the ease of dehumanizing our contacts. How much easier it is to accept a quote-unquote friend request from someone we kind of know or might want to stay in touch with at some point. It is also much easier for our true friends and loved ones to now get lost in a sea of numbers.
Social Media Engagement: where do you think this term came from? Think about the word engagement —it means to engage or be involved. We also use the term as a way of noting a commitment to a human we intend to marry. We are committed to and stating publicly that we want to be connected with this person on a deeply intimate level.
How interesting that this also is a word we use to reflect how many times strangers scrolled by our words and creative offerings — distilled down and flattened into a bunch of pixels — and touched their finger to a screen to acknowledge that something in this brief interaction resonated with them. Mere seconds most of the time — I know I do this often without actually taking the time to even notice who posted it, or read the captions written to accompany the image, or click to read the post linked to it… On the flip side, I get frustrated when I pour my heart and soul into creating my offers and attempt to appropriately capture their essence within the tiny image or 30-character email subject line that statistics tell me will be best received.
Here's the thing — I believe that what we are truly looking for is the feeling we get when someone genuinely sees us. When they receive us in a way that hits home and they reflect that back to us in a way that gives us a feeling of validation. This is a human response — one that is very natural and written into our human blueprint. The problem is that we have lost touch with the human part of this connection.
I am an expert at interpreting soul wisdom languages — the ways we authentically receive information and express ourselves. When I look through this lens to interpret the language of social media, I find that it's not that difficult to decode. Imagine that each action you take whether as the poster or the receiver/engager it is an actual physical reaction.
Saving a Post
When you save a post, you are showing that this has real value to you — so much that you want to save it to come back to it later. This may or may not happen but it doesn't matter. This is more valuable than walking by and flashing a thumbs up or making heart hands to show approval as you pass by. When something is extremely valuable to you, you want to have it near you — in your personal collection or space. You often trade money for this kind of exchange. Money is representative of value in our current cultural practices.
Sharing a Post
When you share it with your friends, you are saying this is so good that I personally recommend it to people I care about. This is tied to your reputation as you endorse it by sharing it in your personal space. How valuable is your reputation to you? Can you see why this would hold value in the language of social media as well?
Commenting on a Post
When you engage in a conversation, you are expending your personal energy resources to engage. You are spending time with this person and with their ideas, and time is our most valuable resource.
Content Creation
Think about your content from the perspective of being in your own position as you await the next song release from a favorite band, new movies in a series you follow, or the posted hours of your favorite coffee shop arriving in your community. Think about how you feel when these things show up consistently in your life. Think about how disappointed you would be if you didn't have the opportunity to engage with them. Think about the role they play in your world. How excited you are when they are there. How you rely on their regular presence to be there when you need them.
Be you. Do social media the way you do life. The people that truly resonate will find you and stay engaged because they want to. This is soul-based business strategy. This is listening to your inner wisdom to inform how you show up and express yourself in ways that are true to you. Give yourself a break from stressing out about algorithms and content strategy and be more present in who and how you are showing up for others. The more you are a conscious responder, the more you will learn about how you want to be engaged with. Let this inform how you show up and where.
I don't claim to be a social media expert. I do claim my ability to see energetic patterns and interpret languages that speak through our soul wisdom. This is how I understand it. You may understand it differently and if so, I encourage you to ask what wisdom is there for you and follow that.
I have a large collection of Soul Wisdom Vistas—channeled artwork that I create as a part of my devotional morning practice. They each come through first as visual artwork. I receive insights from the way the materials interact and how the image is formed, layer by layer. Eventually, a theme emerges, and with it a message.
I keep them in a drawer in my desk and occasionally rotate them on the walls of my office. I like to have them close by as they often come to mind or make themselves known in my awareness as I work with clients, run workshops, and various other interactions that I engage in within my day-to-day.
Recently, they have been collaborating with the messages coming through in my journal practice—another element of my devotional morning practice. The theme of this blog post has been bubbling around in my recent conversations, journal entries, dreams, and likely other forms that I'm not thinking of at the moment. When I completed this post, I turned to my drawers where I keep the Soul Wisdom Vistas and started flipping through until I felt a resonance with one. I do this just by looking at the images rather than the messages at first and then flipping it over to reveal the theme and message that came through with it.
The message that accompanied this piece is so in line with the theme of this post. I have a collection of these works and their messages on my YouTube channel. Here is the video for A New Dawn. Enjoy!