Just finished watching Cooties, a horror movie from last year. Halloween is the season for that category of movie, isn’t it? Elijah Wood is back in horror and in a school, grown up now though and a sub, but still, kind of, a member of the faculty. I still like that movie better though, the Faculty. It has it’s moments though, some attempts at humor. Not really scary, and the only thing that I found too much is the first bite in the beginning. If you’ve seen it you know what I mean, if not, never mind. I’ll never eat chicken nuggets again though, that’s for sure.
Today has been a bad day, the only walking has been out to the balcony to get a picture of the fascinating color of the sky at sunset. Like an orange. Hmm… It was orange. The only pictures I’ve taken was those pictures from the balcony. Another Instagrammer from my part of the world got an amazing picture of a rainbow, or two. One very bright and clear, the other one fuzzier. I missed that because I didn’t sleep at all last night. Again. Three daily challenges that I have failed today.
Talking about failing, or maybe not. Social media can make you very obsessed with the numbers. People follow me, people like my pictures, favorite my tweets, read my blog and to get those numbers you try to figure out what it is that people want. Why did that picture get more likes than that one, which ones get the most likes, which blog posts get the most views? And the you start chasing that result again, you try to take that type of pictures, if that’s what people like. You try to write those blog posts that seem to interest more people. The problem is it doesn’t work. Trying to repeat something that did well before does not necessarily make it equally good. The sequel is mostly not as good as the first movie. Cooties is not as good as Faculty.
When I started working as a taxi driver one of the bosses compared the taxi job to a strategic game. To get the best results you need to know where to find the customers. The town and the surrounding area is divided into districts and whoever is in the right district will get that job. So most new drivers start making lists, trying to remember when and where the steady customers are. I did that too. To a point it worked, but it was very stressful. Part of the reason why you do is because as a taxi driver your pay is a percentage of what you take in, the more customers, the more money you bring in, the more money you get. There is a guaranteed salary, but it’s very low. Eventually I had had enough of the chasing. I gave up, said okay I work for the guarantee pay and have a less stressful job instead. That’s when it all changed. I still had some feel for where to go and when, but I didn’t chase anything specific. I was one of the best drivers my boss had, one of them who brought in the most money. Because I gave up the chase, but still did the job. I did my thing, my way. And that worked.
I came to think about that because I am checking my numbers on Instagram too much. I want one picture to get more than a hundred likes. Some kind of milestone. Silly, but that’s what social media does to you. I looked at the photos that got the most likes, amongst my pictures. And I tried to do get that type of pictures that seemed to do best. Guess what! It didn’t work. It’s impossible to predict what people will like. I gave up on that. I only tried once, got disappointed and then I realized that I have to do my thing. I have to post the pictures I like, not what I think others might like. I haven’t been taking and posting pictures that long and I only have my phone and my tablet. I’m doing what I can with what I have. I’m showing, anyone who wants to view my photos, the world from my eyes, how I see it. I have to take the photos I want, do it the way I want to and choose the ones I want to share. And guess what! That seems to work a lot better. That day or two when I was really obsessing at getting those high numbers were not as much fun as my days had before that. Of course I still check my numbers, but I’m not chasing them. I let them come to me. I show you what I can do and you may like it or you may not. More and more people seem to like them.
Another arena for chasing numbers is this blog. Lately there have been days, or nights, when I’ve been to tired. I’ve written, published and gone to bed. Not checking any numbers until the next day, sometimes being very happily surprised. It’s a lot less stressful than publishing a post and then checking the numbers every ten minutes, being depressed if it doesn’t seem to do as good as previous posts did, but lately it’s been okay. There’s a lot of reasons why there are variations. I try to publish about the same time every day, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the optimal time every day. On the holidays people have a different schedule, some have more time, some have less. Sometimes I find the right headline that interests people, sometimes I don’t and I have no idea in advance which will work and which won’t. There are some rules you can follow that always interests people, but this isn’t that type of blog. I’ve said this a long time and I guess I have to keep to that story, I am doing this for me. I’m going to have to do this my way as well. If there’s one reason why I should write and publish at all is that no one else can tell my story and no one else can see the world the way I do.
Thank you and have a nice day!!! Don’t forget to smile!!!
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