Social Media for Freelance Writers In an Era of Complicated Social Media

Today, we want to talk about social media in an age of complicated social media. This is more about how we focus our efforts on social media when there is a lot of tumult in the space. You hear about people getting off of Facebook and Instagram or X, whether it's due to political concerns or their own mental health concerns. We've heard of new social media platforms like BlueSky spinning up. We know that younger people are not using Facebook. All of these platforms have become politicized to a degree. So…how should freelance writers be thinking about it in 2025?

Emma: I want to hear from you about what you're thinking about social media today versus how you saw it, let's say, I don't know, three years ago.

Kaleigh: I think it has changed a lot. And I really always focused a lot of my time and energy on Twitter, now X. And it has changed so much in the last five years. It is definitely not what it used to be. A lot of people have left the platform. They've gone to Threads or BlueSky, like you said. I think it's interesting though, because I do have clients more than ever who want help with the distribution piece. And so they will ask questions like: is this a value add that you can offer to us where you'll post what you’ve written for us on your X account or you'll post it on LinkedIn? Or like how can we get some organic boost out of this through your sharing? I think it's something that a lot of freelance writers are probably asked about as well. How do you think about it? Because for me, it's something I'm starting to consider more as a potential way for me to earn a little extra income. If I can add this as an upsell or another value add to further validate my very high rates, which I'm finally getting pushed back on. 

Sometimes with a platform like LinkedIn, which is something that I just use for my professional work, I don't have a lot of resistance to that. Sometimes I don't have anything to post anyway, and it's good exposure for me, so it feels like a win-win. The Twitter following is one I hesitate on a bit more with, because it's not great for sharing links anyways. And I think that this is a big piece of this puzzle, too, is that sharing links on social media these days doesn't doesn't really add anything. They're just so minimized within the algorithm. It's something you need to think honestly about: what is the value in me sharing this? What do I lose by posting it, by giving up this control over my own platforms? 

Is this something that you have ever offered as an upsell or an add-on or anything like that? Because distribution is a huge piece of the puzzle for people who do freelance writing and the people who hire them.

Emma: No, it's not something that I've offered and I never will. I just have zero interest. It's not something I'm super comfortable with because I don't feel like it's in line with my personal brand to be sharing something about like random thing about cybersecurity or something. If it was like a case study where I was saying I worked with this client and these were like the results we achieved or even just like I really admire how this client did X, Y, and Z, that’s one thing, but something I wrote for them…no. I just don't want to offer that because like I don't want to get into the slippery slope of sponsored content. I also think that you need a relatively large following to do that anyway.

I will say that I am working with a friend right now and potentially building out her community slash brand and there is a push to sell sponsorships for that. And you and I have sold sponsorships for this podcast, right? And I feel like that it's sort of similar, but I'm a lot more comfortable with that because I feel like it's It's very clear where the lines are of, like OK, this is like a sponsorship and this is what we're offering. But to post on my own, I don't know. And technically, legally, if you do that, and it's like part of what you're offering, like legally, you have to say, like this is sponsored content.

I would be curious to know if you find clients often ask for this. And if so, do they want you to share the piece of content or promote the brand and share how you're using it?

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Kaleigh: No, it's it's always like: “The post is live. Can you share it on your LinkedIn and tag us in the caption and in the little blurb that you write about it?” And I think I think that's like you said, that's a really slippery slope. I think even people who work in house now are very much being asked to leverage their personal LinkedIn accounts this way.

It’s often either video or their storytelling, but it's very much promoting the company that they work for. Everybody can figure out their own deals and how they feel on that. But I do think it's something that's happening a lot more now. The thing that I have found that's actually more valuable that I can offer and not make any promises on, is I use a lot of external third-party resources to get quotes and analysis on different trends and things like that that I see emerging, especially for the journalism work that I do. 

But I reach out to them and say, hey, this piece is live. Thanks so much for chiming in. Here's the link. And the benefit and the value add to that is that sometimes they do post it. And so there there is a little bit of a distribution boost organically there. That's something I can talk about with clients and say, I have this great network of people that I integrate into the work that I do. I let them know, on my end, it's not extra work for you. And that's a nice add-on to, again, validate my very high rates. I don't make promises, but it's useful.

Emma: So when you do that, you're baking it into the rate and what you offer is like, hey, here's why you should go with me. Like I have a network of people. I have like a large following and I can leverage that for like some potential opportunities to get like quotes from really great people who might share this or, you know, like so is that how you're doing it or are you like adding it as like an added on service?

Kaleigh: Nope. In that very first email that I send, I say, "This is part of my rates, and it's on my rates page." And again, I don't say every time I send these emails, every person that I send it to you goes and posts it. It’s just a piece of distribution work that I do on my end without them having to ask for it.

I do want to shift gears quickly and zoom out and ask, how are you feeling about social media in general? I asked this question because you were one of my favorite people on social media and you have she chosen to take a break from it, as you have a lot on your plate right now, so it totally makes sense.

But I wanted to ask you, what is your relationship with it right now? Because you have made such a hard pivot away from it and it was something that you were so good at and it seemed to come so easily.

Emma: Oh my gosh, this is really interesting for me to talk about. it And you're you're forcing me to talk about something that I don't think I've explored that much. But it definitely is mental health related for me, and when I was making these decisions about pulling back from social media, that's when we recorded our last episode.

A lot of it had to do with becoming a parent. And of course, when I was like a new parent I used to post all kinds of crazy stuff that was going on with my kid, and it was always like some wild adventure. I think that's why my content resonated with people and my husband I used to joke that like I had like a following of Emma fans who were people who I kind of like randomly knew from different stages of my life who like loved the sort of crazy content that I would put out. But I think for me, it wasn't about what I was posting and those really great interactions that I was having with people on social media. It was that what was being shown to me were not the people I knew. It was just sponsored content that was causing the doom scrolling.

And so I would click into it once and as many times as I would click “don't show me this, don't show me this,” they kept popping up. I was like looking at people's lives and it was like, even though I knew it was like fake, it would like make me jealous or I would just feel like I can't like perform in that way or I'm not as beautiful as that.

A lot of people on social media that have these large followings, they they look really beautiful or their house looks really beautiful. And I know we've talked a little bit about the vulnerability there. And I actually think why my content resonated with people is because I was so not that. But it's still really hard for me to see. It's almost like going into like a school cafeteria and like having to sit next to the table of like the super popular kids. I felt like I guess I have to be the class clown because that's like my role here. I would feel bad about myself.

Kaleigh: I think that's a very big problem with social media right now is that the sending memes back and forth feels like connection and friendship, but it's it's really not. I mean, it's a form of that. It's a form of checking in with somebody and saying, Hey, I'm thinking about you. This funny thing made me think of you. But it's not a conversation. It's not a, hey, how are you doing? It doesn't have the same element of humanity. And i I feel myself beginning to resist that quite a bit because the phase of life I'm in, I'm so desperate for feeling connected and feeling plugged in with people.

The illusion that I'm getting through platforms like Twitter and Instagram; it's not scratching the itch. And so it's forcing me to get out of my comfort zone. I'm somebody who struggles really hard with, and Emma, you know this, like I don't want to burden anybody with my need for like connection. And so I hold myself back quite a bit, but I'm trying really hard to be better about, like you said, reaching out over text messages or calling somebody and making plans to meet up with them in person. Because that's where all the best things happen.

Emma: That is so interesting and it's interesting because you and I met on social media on Twitter so many years ago and I think for you, you were living in a very rural area and you have told me that like you didn't feel like you had your people where you were living. And perhaps why you were much more successful with it than me is that you were relying on it for connection in a way that I wasn't as much.

Kaleigh: No, I mean, I needed it more. I needed it more because I wasn't able to find it. However, I do want to say, I don't know that I've talked about this on this podcast before, but I want to say it for anybody else who's listening to this and thinking about their relationship with social media and feeling like me and really wanting that connection. I found a group of women who are about 10 to 12 years older than me in the small town that I was living in. And they had a little book club group. And even though I'm outside of their cohort, essentially, we're very much in line mentally and a lot of their kids are grown or getting ready to go to college.

I don't have any kids. And so I raised that point to say. I think social media often makes you think, again, about your peers and about people your age.But the real best connection I've found was I had to step out of my bubble and think a little bit more broadly. And I found a group of people that I really connected with. But taking it offline from there was how I was able to find my people.

Emma: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that this conversation has like started with social media, and how it's complicated and has pivoted to kind of saying the in person connection really matters. And when we talk about being social and its purpose, the purpose of being social for our hearts and our minds and our mental health is for the community and connection piece, not because we like media. So that's kind of where I land with that.