Find Your Tribe: The Unconventional Way to Sculpt Your Social Media Feeds for Growth and Inspiration (with free tool)
Find Your Tribe: The Unconventional Way to Sculpt Your Social Media Feeds for Growth and Inspiration (with free tool)
It’s Not What You Know, it’s Who You Follow.
Read time: 20 mins
Hi friends 👋
Before we dive into this conversation, just take a moment to reflect on your relationship with social media.
⏳
With that in mind, can I ask…
Are you happy with how you use social media?
If you’re not, perhaps you:
😔 struggle to control when and where you use it
😔 compare yourself with others and feel inadequate
😔 feel guilty when it distracts you from your loved ones
😔 regret wasting time on it and missing out on opportunities
😔 get overwhelmed with false, extremist or conflicting information
Well, I think you’ll find today’s newsletter helpful. I'm gonna show you how you can use social media as an incisive tool to feel inspired and develop your career. How to turn your feeds into a carefully seasoned “diet for the mind.”
It’s a 20-min read so grab a cuppa and nestle down in your favourite chair.
By the end, you’ll have a bespoke tool and a step-by-step guide to making social media work for you. No more doom-scrolling. Just inspiration, opportunities and good vibes.
Enjoy!
Anti-social media: Why I avoided social media for a decade
Before I give you the good stuff, you need to know…
I spent a decade avoiding social media.
It always felt like this massive black hole of a time-suck. I read that people scroll the height of the Eiffel Tower every day! To me, social media meant being antisocial and wasting my potential.
When I had to put my business into hibernation (we ran out of cash), I lost a big chunk of my professional network. I went from regularly working with about ten clients, investors, and mentors every day to speaking to one person every two weeks: from working with a team of three brilliant and energetic people every day to working alone. I started panicking about how I'd make my next career move.
At the same time, me and Corina left London to become digital nomads. Going fully remote was exciting and I’d highly recommend it if you can. But after the initial honeymoon period wore off, it started to feel isolating.
I was craving new connections – both personal and professional.
Eating my tweets: How online influencers helped me change my perception of social media
Instinctively I felt my best chance of finding work opportunities would be online.
I started to think: "FFS! I'm gonna need to go on social media, aren't I?" With few other options, I dipped my toe into LinkedIn.
I had used LinkedIn in the past to post essays about the business. But I'd never used it to get closer to people or find work opportunities.
I started scrolling for things that stood out…
There were one or two people I found (like Ali Abdaal and Steph Smith) who were putting out useful how-to videos and podcasts about productivity, business and lifestyle design.
Through their content, I was learning how to touch-type and build systems for organising my thinking. There were posts with ideas for side hustles and guides for choosing homes abroad.
It gave me new ideas about what is possible with a computer and a Wi-Fi connection.
Gradually, I started to believe social media could offer me more than I'd been willing to admit. Started to wonder whether I'd thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Then I read an NfX essay called The Lifecycle of Uncomfortable Tech and, boom, I knew I’d been doing social media all wrong.
Settling in for the long scroll: How I came to accept social media
The NfX essay was about how some people go through five stages of comfort with new tech.
🥱 First, during the "toy" stage, they're not taking the tech seriously. It's just something harmless that could be considered a joke.
😑 But as the tech starts to get adopted, they feel uncomfortable and enter the "decrying" stage, ridiculing others for using it and warning of impending doom (realisation: this was where I was with social media).
😱 Next, it’s the "fear and grief" stage where they start to feel afraid they’ll get left behind if they don’t jump aboard.
🤫 Somewhere along the line, they accept the tech lets them do new and powerful things and they enter the "secret bandwagon" stage, adopting it but perhaps secretly.
🤗 Until finally, finally, having made it part of their lives and having swallowed their pride, they reach "acceptance."
The NfX essay was a punch to the stomach.
There I was, stuck in the decrying stage of social media. I was embarrassed.
With other tech, I had embraced it when it launched, and pretty much jumped directly to the acceptance stage: like Airbnb when it was still generally considered risky to have strangers in your home; and ChatGPT and other AI platforms. I’ve been using them ever since and having a blast.
With my tail between my legs and with the reluctant enthusiasm of a laggard, I ventured into the realms of LinkedIn and Youtube and Twitter and Instagram, looking for more people like Abdaal and Smith. I found plenty. I learned loads.
But I also found a lot of crap.
And since everyone’s lives on social media are unbelievably “awesome” (it’s hard not to compare yourself), I started to feel envious and shitty about my own life.
It quickly dawned on me: if I was gonna make my next career move using social media in some way, I was going to have to control what I was reading.
I had to find a way to beat the algorithm and become a sculptor of my own feeds.
The person behind the profile: Using social media for personal and professional development
Have you heard of the idea that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with? (Note: your internal voice is one of those five people!)
Well, I wondered: why is it any different on social media?
Who are you if you’re the average of the five most prominent posters on your Instagram feed?
It was important that the people and ideas I was surrounding myself with in the digital world could help me to grow and develop.
“The information you consume today becomes the raw material of your thoughts tomorrow.” – Shane Parrish, Former Intelligence Officer
If who and what I follow is going to help me get my dream job, I also began to wonder, then why shouldn't it also help me:
✅ get healthier
✅ have more fun
✅ manage anxiety
✅ deepen relationships
It struck me that with so much free personal and professional development content emerging online, I could learn from others like Abdaal and Smith and become my own writing tutor, my own relationship therapist, my own careers advisor.
The sheer scale of opportunities online is described in the context of a generational point-in-time by the Economist Tyler Cowen:
“Put time into having a wonderful Twitter feed. It’s worth investing time in. And do a lot of it because today is the golden age for that. For the first time in world history, there’s this new thing: internet culture, internet ways of learning, internet modes of writing. Right now is to that what the 1780s were to classical music, so enjoy it, it’s incredible. Online education as we have it is one of the world’s greatest achievements ever.”
I wanted to know what else beyond work I could sculpt using my socials.
From berating to curating: Making my social media feeds reflect the full breadth of Life
Ever since reading Susan Jeffers' brilliant book Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway, I've often come back to her Whole Life Grid to remind myself about the full breadth of life. It’s especially helpful when things get out of balance.
I realised I could use Jeffers' grid to sculpt my feeds so that I was following people across a “whole life” variety of factors from love to work to play.
With a few tweaks, I remade the grid to reflect my own key life categories:
Notice I went for the breezier "work" instead of the more serious "career.” I don’t like using the word career as it implies that I know what I’m doing, that every choice I’ve made is part of a predetermined plan when, actually, it isn’t. I’m just following my instincts and trying my best to pivot when I think it’s needed.
And I added "curious & contrarian" to my grid, too, to try to avoid living in an echo chamber.
Now that I had nine clearly defined categories to follow people in, the next question was: "How many people should I follow?"
To answer this, I used Dunbar's Law – a theory that says people can only have a certain number of close relationships, and it’s about 150. That seemed sensible.
I divided 150 by nine, but realised it was an awkward number, so I added a tenth category: news & politics, to stay plugged-in to current affairs.
10 categories each with 15 gaps to fill. It was starting to feel like a proper curating process. An empty gallery waiting for art.
From quarrels to quality: Sculpting social media for deep focus and clarity
At this point, I want to mention some ideas that have been influencing me about the importance of focus. One is a lecture by William Deresiewicz (author, essayist, and literary critic) about the fallacy of multitasking. His experiments show that multitasking makes it harder for you to focus, pay attention, and remember things.
According to Deresiewicz’s work, even people who think they’re good at multitasking are not actually good at it. They're just better at switching back and forth between tasks.
When you're multitasking – which is kind of like when you're scrolling a mishmash of social media content – it's hard to think for yourself, come up with new ideas, and make good decisions. It’s better to focus on one thing at a time and give your brain time to think.
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.” – Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple
What I liked about this process of sculpting my social media feeds in this way was setting myself up to think about – and focus more deeply on – a manageable number of goals. In my case: finding dream work, and learning how to thrive as a digital nomad.
And, also, I liked the idea of not having my feeds and my thoughts contaminated by all the quarrelling, clickbait and vitriol that saturate unrefined feeds.
“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” – Herbert A Simon, Political Scientist
Jeffers' Grid and Dunbar's Law could help me to think clearly as I charted my course through the socials landscape.
Avoiding the Pleaser's Paradox: Using social media to build a focused business strategy
This targeted approach had a particular significance for me off the back of losing my business. If I was to choose one big reason why I didn't manage to make my business work, it was this: I tried to please everybody. Workers, supervisors, site managers, middle managers, directors, executives, my investors, my team – the lot.
People would often ask me, "Yeah but Harrison, who specifically is this business helping?" And I'd bat it away with, "We're addressing communication problems on-site that affect all stakeholders, so our app needs to cater to everyone."
Looking back, that was a massive mistake. By trying to serve everyone, I ended up serving no one, because nobody believed the product was speaking directly to them about their unique challenges.
“Everyone is not your customer” – Seth Godin
As a result, every function in the business became harder. With marketing, it was harder to determine which channels to use, what message to communicate and how to appeal to people. With sales, it was harder to identify needs and pain points and build the right solutions. With fundraising, it was harder to create a unique proposition and demonstrate a competitive edge.
On top of that, we had no way of measuring if we were moving towards or away from success.
I gained this knowledge from painful experience – and because of this (and the fact I ignored smart people who were nudging me to do it) – I have a far deeper appreciation of defining your audience now.
In sculpting my social media feeds, then, I was determined to avoid that mistake by being clear about who I was following, who I wasn’t following, and why.
Your personal Board of Directors: How to choose the right people and organisations to follow on social media
Social media's not just about individual people. There are companies, charities and organisations worth following too. So I took each category and divided it into:
five people
five organisations
five gaps for future discovery
You can start to see how focused it was. Five people isn’t a lot.
With the stage set, it was time to start choosing my tribe; my personal "board of directors." The following questions helped me to choose:
What TED talks have I enjoyed?
Who unsettles or fascinates me?
Whose ideas or quotes do I cite often?
Who has influenced my choices the most?
What things would I like to know more about?
Who would I most like to have at a dinner party?
What Youtube likes and subscriptions do I have saved?
Who would I recommend an imaginary son or daughter to follow?
As I added names to my list, it began to look like my world's best dinner party. All my favourite people in one room!
I filled some categories more easily than others (like "work") because it’s a current priority. In fact, I had an oversupply of potential work followings. I didn't overthink it; I just slotted them into "hobbies," "me time" or "learning & development."
Some categories will inevitably overlap. It depends on what areas you’re really focused on (I'm lucky enough that work often intersects with hobbies and learning).
Here’s a shot of my Socials Sculptor mid-curation.
Where I had gaps, I did some Googling to discover new people and organisations. Here were my search queries, based on things I wanted to learn more about.
With about 75% of the gaps in my spreadsheet filled, I then had to decide which platforms I wanted to follow them on.
I went for: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. And because I was curious (and trying to be “down with the kids”), TikTok too.
Following 100+ people across 5 platforms takes a while; as does unfollowing people. I had to do it all in stages (Instagram only lets you unfollow about 10 people a day. Grrrrrr).
A note on unfollowing: I chose to unfollow anybody not on my list including friends and family, and even my girlfriend. It didn’t go unnoticed and I had to explain my reasons. But I was committed to trying this out properly. I wanted to test my hypotheses as best I could.
My hypotheses were:
By sculpting my socials, I’ll be able to think and write more effectively because I’ll be:
focused (fewer distractions) on specific interests; and
going deeper will lead to novel insights.
In turn, thinking and writing effectively will help me to spot opportunities, build relevant projects, attract and discover my tribe.
And finally, I’ll feel more connected to people and less isolated while I’m gallivanting around the world (next stop: the Caribbean 🌴)
Here’s a shot of my completed Socials Sculptor (you can get yours below!👇)
From distraction to discovery: How curating your social media feeds can help you find new opportunities
It’s been a few weeks since I reset my socials and swapped uneasiness, time-wasting and narrow views for self-awareness, self-actualisation and momentum.
Here’s how it’s helped me so far:
🔬 I found research about a potential cure for a previously incurable autoimmune disease Corina suffers from, and we’re now aware of the people and the lab leading the way on that.
🌱 I discovered a world of one-person businesses on the internet underpinned by writing, I’ve enrolled on two writing courses, and I’m building out a writing-related business plan of my own.
📣 I discovered Substack (the platform I’m using to publish these posts) along with some great writers who share the best of what other people have already figured out.
✍️ I’ve been able to plan, research and write this very newsletter using writing frameworks I’ve picked up from my new followings.
🧮 I’ve learned how to use the all-powerful Notion to better organise my life.
There’s more cool stuff every day. I’m not wasting time or being distracted. And I’m getting a shot of inspiration every time I get my phone out.
There are already enough signals that if I keep sculpting, I’ll soon be reporting back to you on dream work I’ve found (or created) and new networks I’ve built.
My advice is: have nothing in your feeds that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
Questions/concerns/things I’m still working through:
Is 5 platforms too much?
Is 150 followings too much?
Can I really beat the algorithms?
What should I put on my own profile?
How often should I spring-clean my list?
To save time, is there a way to automate/batch?
What criteria am I using to decide who’s in and out?
How much time should I spend on social media per week?
How do I reconcile topic-focus with living in an echo chamber?
Should I act to make my followings more diverse and representative?
Social media: A razor blade of opportunities and threats
With the internet economy growing at a whopping seven times faster than the overall US economy between 2017 and 2021, according to Harvard Business Review, it's clear that the digital age has brought about unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation.
The internet is creating opportunities not previously possible or even conceivable. The Institute For The Future (IFTF) says 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven't been invented yet.
Social media is an essential tool for making the most of internet-era work as the reach and distribution are already there. But we need to use it with care.
Social media is a razor blade. Dangerous when misused, it leads us to feel distracted and envious and overwhelmed and angry and other feelings that don’t serve us. We need to use it skillfully.
“You become who you consume. So consume in accordance with who you want to become” – Dan Koe, Writer on human potential
If we’re clear about what we’re using social media for, and who we’re following and emulating, it’ll bring us closer to our tribe and the work that feeds our soul.
What are you using social media for?
🧐 finding work?
🧐 teaching skills?
🧐 building networks?
🧐 inspiring other stories?
🧐 transforming perceptions?
🧐 [add your mission statement here…]
It’s 2023. Time to get a new address book and calibrate it to put consistent value on your dashboard. Sculpt so you’re not the one being sculpted. Wrestle back your precious attention from the algorithms and advertisers and direct it towards the fulfilment of your own goals.
Take control of your social media experience: Get the Socials Sculptor
Now it’s your turn!
I admit this is quite a labour-intensive process. Good choices are expensive. But bad choices cost a fortune, so it’s definitely worth investing time in now.
To help you, I’ve put the whole thing into a step-by-step guide called the Socials Sculptor, which you can get below 👇. Go ahead and make it your own, fill in those gaps and let me know how it impacts your life.
Knowing who to follow is half the battle and if you’ve got a lot of gaps, you could look at my followings for some inspiration (you’ll find them in the Socials Sculptor). Don’t forget to ask your followings who they follow too. Great minds think alike.
I’d love love love to hear from you if you do this, and see who you follow. Would you be happy to share it with me? Let me know and I’ll get in touch with you so we can share tips.
Good luck and lemme know how it goes!
Speak soon.
– Harrison
🎁 Get the Socials Sculptor here
PS While I have you! It took me weeks to build the Socials Sculptor and write this newsletter, but you could share it in seconds. My goal is to make a living with my writing and by sharing this with others, you’d be helping me get closer to achieving my goal.
PPS In today’s attention economy, long-form writing like this puts many people off, so thank you for persevering – it really means a lot to me. As a little thank you, I’m sharing the prompt I gave Dall•E (an artificial intelligence app that turns text into images) to create an illustration to accompany this newsletter.
See you next time!
Dall•E prompt: A digital nomad clutching a laptop and a Mai Tai launches into space on a rocket fuelled by inspiration and ideas, he is surrounded by social media content, digital art in the style of a comic book.
Hungry for more? Learn the secret to finding your creative niche →