Fighting formulas
Homes must be built according to sound architectural principles, but that doesn’t mean they are all the same. (Image by travelwithzhuk)
You can tell the people who are really super into Instagram by how they display their story highlights on their profile.
Instead of little round thumbnails showing auto-generated images from the videos and photos they’ve shared in their stories, these folks feature brand collateral in the tiny circles: their signature colors and typefaces, custom illustrations, and so on. They’re sending a strong signal that they are devoted to the platform and to thorough branding.
This is part of what can make social media so frustrating for someone who is not at the leading edge. Someone might start an Instagram account to promote their business or art and discover that the standard isn’t just sharing pretty pictures—you have to share stories, and then you have to capture your story highlights, and then you have to make those highlights into little branded icons. Oh, and then there are reels, and you’re supposed to make your gallery pretty and use hashtags—it quickly gets exhausting.
Pick any platform, from YouTube to Pinterest, and you’ll see the same thing. Innovators keep innovating, and others feel a responsibility to follow. This would be fine, except for how demoralizing it can be to those who don’t have the time, money, or energy to keep up with the trends. They then fear being left behind or decide that it’s not worth the effort to try at all.
Even worse, in my opinion, is the illusion that following in the footsteps of the innovators, doing exactly what they did, will get you the same results in terms of fame and followers. But copycatting someone else’s clever idea doesn’t guarantee that you will reap equivalent rewards. All those teenage girls who wore fingerless lace gloves in 1984 didn’t become Madonna.
And even worse than that is the calcifying of certain moves into formulas that are seen as “the right way” to do it. This is how your website headshot has to look. This is how you launch a product. This is the script to follow on your sales call.
It’s nice to have templates to follow; that can be a helpful shortcut to learning. However, it’s even better to comprehend the principles behind those templates. Simply following a procedure without making an effort to understand why you’re doing it is not likely to lead to long-term success. The formula won’t save you. Those who have spent a lot of money on online programs with big promises and weak returns know what I mean.
At any given moment, there are formulas that are wildly popular. You might hear all of your peers recommending the same book or course. But that formula isn’t scripture. It’s not sacred. It’s someone’s attempt to reverse engineer a given result and show you how to achieve it. It isn’t the only one. If you proceed in a different way, you’re not wrong.
The thing you build out in the wild doesn’t have to follow a formula. Most basic principles, which can get lost amidst formulas, are accessible through common sense. You’re allowed to experiment and do your own thing. You’re also allowed to copy someone else’s way when it clicks for you. There are no rules.
If you’ve gotten bogged down trying to create the perfect brand statement or design the perfect lead magnet, I invite you to step away from these overwhelming standards and look away from intimidating examples. Instead, consider what’s working for you and build on that. From there, take the next tiny step toward where you want to go, which could be as simple as adding one sentence to your website or reaching out to a colleague. That’s not a formula—it’s an ongoing practice. I’m not going to say it works every time, but it does work. Little by little, through experimentation and evaluation, you’ll move toward what you want.
