I’ve learned a lot from some fascinating people here, who seem to have one thing in common: small followings.

People with big followings are those who have devoted the most energy to grabbing attention — liking, commenting and posting like crazy — or are celebrities of some sort.

Unfortunately, celebrities are mostly just ordinary people who are extraordinarily lucky, so taking their advice is a bit like asking a lottery winner what numbers to use. And people with hours a day to spend on social media are often not the top experts, who are too busy doing whatever it is to chat about it.

There are also formulas for writing crowd-pleasing posts: tales of virtuous behaviour and triumphs over adversity, or sharing truisms that are inherently agreeable. So the easiest way to build a large audience is to say very little of substance at all. Yet the nature of social media makes it easy to confuse personality with character, fame with ability, and popular opinions for insightful ones. None of which is good for society in the long run.

Fortunately, there is amazing wisdom in the fringes so that’s where I’ll be looking. Thanks to the amazing people in my network who keep the quality rather than the frequency of their content up. Small is beautiful. Please keep sharing!

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