I’m continuing my series on social media, influencers, and the impact of personal mass communication. Last week, so many of you reached out via email and shared your amazing insight. Though I can’t respond to all, I read each one. Thanks.

The Implicit Formula

We are a people awash in opinion. With the proliferation of social media, writers, pundits, politicians, and the average Joe have been avatarized, turned into digital talking heads. And for some--those in the publishing industry, for instance--cultivating a social media presence is an occupational hazard.

As I wrote last week, we’ve entered a brave new world when it comes to personal influence, and industry professionals know it. In publishing, for instance, a robust social media following locks up the next book deal, influences the next periodical pitch, and drives the next collaborative decision. Why? Because of these implicit formulas:

(F)ollowers + (a)bility = (I)nfluence;

(I)nfluence + (c)ontent = (S)ales

Without the (F), all the (a) in the world won’t move the people. And without moving the people, the content generated by the (a) won’t sell. (Notice, I have capitalized (F), (I), and (S); these are the variables valued most in marketing departments.) But to generate sufficient (F) to move the social-media (I) and (S) needles, a social media player must follow the rules of the system. And if you’re really savvy, you learn how to game that system.

Gaming The System

Consider your social media experience. You scroll past photos of a friend’s wedding or their trip to Paris or the stack of books on their bedside table. These photos evoke minimal reactions, perhaps lead you to like the photo or leave a quick comment. It’s a quick-hit interaction, after which you continue scrolling, only to see

(a) a post decrying a politician who’s sure to bring about Doomsday,

(b) a photo of a city on fire during a #blacklivesmatter rally,

(c) a Tweet about the danger posed to society by those who refuse to wear masks, or

(d) a recasting of some QAnon conspiracy by your hyper-conservative aunt.

These posts grab your attention by the throat. They spool you up, get you hot under the collar. Before you know it, you enter the fray, engage in the latest soap-operatic episode of As the World Burns. And an hour after being sucked into the vortex of anger, fear, and pride, you emerge, feeling hollowed out.

In this scenario, who wins? The person who commanded the attention of the crowd, who led the masses of social media into an orgy of negativity. And the larger the crowd the influencer gathers, the more the algorithms of the platform reward that person. What’s the reward? More (F), and potentially, more (I).

For ages, marketers have known just how anger, fear, and pride (which is to say nothing about lust, greed, and envy) appeal to the basest instincts of humans. (Consider this article on the 7 Deadly Sins Used in Marketing.) Now, social media platforms have trained the masses to use these emotional drivers to command attention and build their own marketing machines.

And this highlights the problem as I see it: By encouraging writers, businesses, politicians, and the like to build social media platforms, we’re incentivizing them to play to the basest instincts of human nature. Put another way, if you play the social media game right, you’re participating in a massive, turmoil-inducing Ponzi scheme meant to generate (F) so you can use your (I) to increase the (S) of some other corporate entity (often, the social media company itself).

A Word on My Experiment

I’ll write more about this in the days to come, but this is why I believe independent avenues of publication are critical. If we want more thoughtful, engaging, grassroots, person-to-person engagement (instead of crowd-based communication), we have to build different systems and encourages publishers to stop incentivizing the Implicit Formula. It’s why I’ve taken a month off social media to see whether I can build this network on a more grassroots level.

How’s that experiment going?

Last week, you all came through. You responded to my questions via direct emails. In those emails, you showed an incredible depth of great thinking and shared amazing ideas (as opposed to terrible ideas often advanced on social media). You shared the experiment with your friends, too, and many signed up here. And in the days to come, I hope to share some of your experiences so you can read some of the feedback I’m receiving. You all really are amazing, outside the box thinkers.

I want to continue hearing from you. Today, shoot me an email and let me know what kind of social media posts are most likely to grab your attention.

And please, share this piece with those who might want to read along (change the email address in the form). Ask them to subscribe. Start a discussion with them about the social media ride America finds itself on, and together, let’s plot a different path forward.