"Likes & Gains"

jacetylerxxx
Feb 10, 2022
3 min read

Updated: Feb 9, 2023

Some of you reading this blog might have been directed here out of curiosity via my social page(s) and posts. Probably from the fairly-recent www.facebook.com/JaceTAdamsAuthor page, which I keep particularly active. Over the past few months, I’ve seen my ever-increasing following more than double itself, which is a very good indication that people actually like my little jokes, book previews, memes and musings. I’m flattered!

For the relatively new, emerging indie author that I am, this is going tremendously well. I have just a few weeks ago hit my 10,000th follower. I have to remind myself of this whenever I’m tempted to be jaded by comparing my audience now as an indie author to the truly massive online audience I had in my modelling days.

It was great! It didn’t rule my life. It didn’t go to my head or get me down. I didn’t take ‘selfies’ or obsess about every comment, whether they were sycophantic or otherwise. My opinion is that you get out of social media no more or less than you put into it. What you get is what you give! But its promotional importance cannot be underestimated. In my aforementioned modelling days, for example, I eventually found new websites and magazines that were contacting me and offering me work through my social media, instead of it being the other way around and me contacting them. And that was largely down to the professional pages of social media. I could be flown half way across the world for some glamorous work opportunity just because someone had liked my social media handling and online persona. They wanted to hire someone to do the job, of course, but also someone capable of promoting their work, in a professional and effective way. A genuine audience (not paid bots) are worth their weight in gold. You might think it sounds frivolous, but in order to compete in business – in the arts, and especially the business of being a writer – it is a necessity to brand yourself. There’s simply no avoiding it if you want any realistic chance of competing in the arts. The actress Jennifer Aniston touched upon this recently, when she was quoted saying, “(Acting) is not the same industry that it used to be. It's not that glamorous anymore. It's slowly becoming about TikTok and Instagram followers. It's like, we're hiring now based on followers, not talent? Oh, dear. And I'm losing touch. I'm not great at going, ‘I'm going to stay relevant and join TikTok’”.

Sounds a bit grim, doesn’t it? But it really doesn’t have to be treated as a necessary evil. Those of us who aren’t Hollywood A-listers already might find that it can be a very effective way of helping to launch and sustain a new career path with all kinds of new potential.

My advice for any self-managed artist, creative, writer or whatever else you might be, is to make yourself accessible. Learn how to promote your work with as much vigour as you learnt your craft in the first place. Your career will benefit, and you never know where it might lead to, be it a prospective new reader, a potential new job or the trip of a lifetime. And don’t forget to respect your followers! No-one ever, ever, ever actually wants to hear a whine or a moan!

On which note, I’d like to thank all those who are supporting my pages. Please keep doing what you’re doing! Your little “likes” and interactions can really help to keep careers like mine going. Taking even just a second to interact with a professional’s post can make all the difference to them.

So if you like someone’s work – let them know it!

- Jace T. Adams