Why am I on Social Media?

I have been asked several times over the last month about why I do social media. My generation grew up with social media, consuming it daily in alarming quantities and discarding the old platforms once a new one became more popular. Social media sounded cool but I also knew there was bad stuff and effects from social media. I was halfway through high school before I dove into the social media scene, starting with Twitter, which was barely still a thing. I liked that Twitter was dominantly just words. Words were my thing. Eventually I installed Facebook to keep in contact with friends and family. With college around the corner, I knew friends could be moving away. I also started attending writing conferences and Facebook allowed me to keep up to date with fellow writers. At a conference, one of the courses was about building a platform and I was encouraged to get on Instagram, which is dominantly pictures. Pictures are not really my thing. But for the sake of growth, I took the challenge and made an account with a business mindset. I posted every day for a year so that I could learn how it worked and experiment with what kind of content I wanted to put out. 

I knew from the start I would not use filters and I would always be honest. Social media is full of fake and I wanted reality, the beautiful, the messy, the authentic reality of life. I'll admit it, some days it felt like a chore or I doubted if it was worth it. So I prayed about it. I did not want my social media to become another "look at me" profile. I wanted people to actually get something from seeing a post. I wasn't doing it for the comments or the likes, although it is cool to see the range of people who do interact from time to time. My hope was that someone somewhere was blessed, encouraged, or inspired. Jesus gave me the perspective to see social media as a ministry, a way to love others, a method to give to others. A reason to smile. An encouraging word. An inspiring photo. When there are days I need encouragement of my own, I'm honest. We all have struggles, bad days, crazy moments. So I get real. Perhaps that, in its own way, can also be encouraging. Maybe it shows someone that they aren't the only one. Or it inspires them to share their own story. That's for Jesus to decide. 

I put the content out there and Jesus gets to use it as He sees fit. Social media is a place where I can interact with others with the mindset of "How can I give?" not "What can I get?". It's not a chore when it's an opportunity to show love. 

How do you approach social media?