Hi!

Last time I shared with you my tip on how to make content creation less overwhelming and now let’s talk about finding meaning again in this whole social media thing. 🤔

One of the reasons people experience burnout is because there is an inner conflict between what they are doing and what feels meaningful.

We turned social media into a hungry monster that you need to constantly feed with content to beat the algorithm and to focus on grabbing people's attention, as all the self-proclaimed social media gurus tell you. 😤

And somewhere along the way, we lost the original purpose of SOCIAL media, which was to CONNECT no matter where we are located. 💁🏻‍♀️

• We started chasing the numbers and collecting followers like Pokémon to prove to the world that we are relevant.
• We started optimizing our activity with automated comments and messages to capture people’s attention.
• We obsessed over what works for the algorithm and forgot about our audience.

No wonder we are burned out. It feels like a mindless chase of something that’s just outside of our reach. Always. 😔

But what can we change and how will it impact our socials?

Lemme show you what's my approach. 👇🏻

When I launched my creative project Lenka On The Run 🏃🏻‍♀️ on Instagram and YouTube, I decided to experiment with tactics and strategies that go against what I described above.

1) I started with a strong why.

The whole intention of this project is to have a positive impact on people who’d like to start running, but never quite felt like “athletes” or “runners” because of the way they look or their abilities.

As someone who has never looked like an athlete, who got picked last for any team sports activity at school, and who was never objectively good at running or any other sports, I just decided to do it and show it’s ok. You can still enjoy the activity for what it does for your health and you don't need to be “good” at it (whatever that means). 💪🏻

Knowing my intentions (my why) gave me meaning for both content creation and for interacting with the running community. ❤️

2) Community over followers.

Speaking of the community, I decided to build genuine connections with others and treat my profile as a safe space for the community I’m a part of. 😊

One of my daily priorities on Instagram is to meaningfully engage with others. I make sure to leave thoughtful comments that make someone’s day. I never seek attention or try to get someone’s followers to come over to my profile (as these gurus often recommend). That gives me a major ick. 🤢

Here are examples of some of the comments I left on people’s content.

(Turn on images in your e-mail provider if you can't see it.)

​

The feelings I want to make people feel are: seen and heard, entertained, encouraged, and supported. 🫶🏻

The result? I’m meeting amazing people every day and I have a reason to show up. Engaging with others doesn’t feel like a chore and it’s something I look forward to. And I’m able to be naturally consistent with it.

3) No posting or editing for the algorithm.

I’m only making content that is relatable and relevant for my audience (runners). 🏃🏻‍♀️

I only jump on trends when I find them genuinely entertaining and I can think of a way to add some value to it instead of just copying what everyone else is doing.

I even dare to have periods of time when I’m not focused on making a lot of content and mostly (not only) just repurposing stuff. Instagram is now in my Maintenance Mode (as I explained in my previous email).

Did it "hurt my numbers"? Not really, my Instagram is still organically growing and people are engaging with my content. And my reach is even higher than in the previous months when I had Instagram in Growth Mode.

See the pic. Not bad for a new-ish account that doesn't do the usual growth-hacking gimmicks. 😊

​

All three points have helped me feel like my content creation is meaningful. ❤️

• I no longer dread showing up.
• I don’t feel resistance to creating content.
• And I’m excited to talk to people.

Hope this was helpful and lemme know if you are going to try this.

Stay creative,

Lenka

P.S.: Do you know of someone who'd benefit from reading Creative Coffee? Send them this page where they can check out my newsletters before subscribing to see if they like it. Thank you! 🥰