Why would you ‘unclap’ an article?
A lesson in developing a thick skin
In Ray Dalio’s book ‘Principles’, he discusses briefly how creators need to put themselves out there. It is a part of the evolution process where it makes you uncomfortable and vulnerable but that’s the point. Putting yourself in a difficult position will force you to adapt in new ways.
Over the last year, I have followed this path of vulnerability. A children’s book with my name on it. A gamified fitness app. 50 Medium articles to go along with it. Each of them is sharing aspects of my life that make me feel a bit more transparent.
Amongst all the glowing engagement that has happened through various channels, there are a couple of grey ones that are worth mentioning.
Here we go.
Facebook ads are a farce?
You can reach over a thousand people with ten dollars on Facebook. It has never been easier to get a sense of how far your ad money is going (in terms of metrics).
One of the campaigns we had run was using one of the first animations that one of our freelancers had developed. It may not be the best, but we love it. Obviously, we are biased.
In the ad campaign, we were requesting players to sign-up for beta testing, if the idea was appealing to them. We received close to 50 sign-ups based on the advertising, however, I noticed one of the reactions to the video was an ‘angry’ one. Even though, just one person, it kind of took me by a little surprise. There was nothing in the video or we weren’t asking anything offensive to warrant such a reaction.
So, I looked up the person. It was a fake profile. Or at least looked like a fake profile. Quora has several articles on this topic. A lot of advertising on Facebook is ‘Liked’ by fake profiles. Although Facebook vehemently goes after such profiles to protect their ad business and customers, I have only seen fake engagement on almost all the ads I have run. It almost makes me question, if there’s any value in customer engagement through Facebook ads.
Medium, on the other hand, is very different. The depth of engagement with like-minded people is to a much finer and richer level. As a channel to stream my consciousness on a variety of related topics, this medium has been pretty convenient. In that spirit, I had recently penned a long article documenting our progress so far. The article was picked up for distribution which made the effort even more endearing.
Given the special place, the article was in my eyes, I watched interactions on it like a hawk. One of the observations was someone had ‘clapped’ for the article to show their appreciation. But, a day later, they ‘unclapped’ it. I was amused that this person really cared so deeply about their claps that they went back to roll it back. Plus, I don’t know how to ‘unclap’ on Medium! So, an interesting experience in itself that was worth documenting.
YouTube has recently made a move to hide the number of ‘dislikes’ that are on a video. It’s a sunny move to de-weaponize groups that could be targeting creators with ill intentions. Personal attacks and non-constructive feedback tend to erode many creators.
It is a balancing act of re-assessing why you want to create something. Something that you deem is of value to your fellow being. A negative feedback process forces the creator to learn to adapt and innovate. As long as it’s not fake feedback but comes from a genuine place, even harsh criticism might have its place in shaping creativity. Sometimes a harsh criticism just hides the fact that the person truly cares. In that case, we should embrace it.
But, this is not an invitation to troll.
