Things that lost me fans on social in 2022.

 In 2022 I gained many thousands of fans on our five accounts totalling nearly a million followers on IG, as well as on FB where we have upwards of 12 million fans on 65+ pages like Elephant Family, Elephant Green, Mindful Travel, Elephant Journal, Elephant Meditation, etc…

…and I lost many thousands of fans, too, sometimes thousands from a single post.

Here’s what I’ve learned and how I’ll change my approach in 2023. Hint: not much. Hint: may it be of benefit! 

1. Wanting to be safe for self & others, both (masks, vaccines, boosters)
2. Daring to care about voting for climate change action, infrastructure investment, healthcare, sanity, decency, voting rights…
3. Veganism: an easy yummy way to take aggression & pain out of our heating world that’s better for our health.
4. Mindful Sponsors that may not be that mindful. Some of our sponsors piss readers off, understandably, and when the sponsors don’t go to bat for themselves, the hate or anger hits Elephant squarely in the…trunk. That’s all fine—most of our sponsors, if not all, are wonderful, but some will always be controversial. I always remind folks: you don’t stop watching basketball or Netflix or whatever because of one commercial or product placement. Elephant is free to read for our first few reads because our sponsors pay for those reads, effectively, and help me to pay our staff a living-and-better-hopefully wage.

What I’ve learned: nothing. I’ll continue to post about things I care about, even if they knee-jerk offend some of us, or are awful and sad to look at and face up to. I’ll dialogue respectfully with those who dialogue with genuine intention, not lies or conspiracies.

How to gain followers: who cares. What matters is trying to be of benefit. Genuine. Being open-minded but discerning, both. Give a care in 2023 and you got me. Engagement and a willingness to dialogue outside of choir will always matter more than “being popular” and “offending no one” by just posting happy-happy safe “content.”

*Toxic Elon taking over Twitter cost all those who give a care about not-hate speech and truth and facts over lies and spam Elephant’s 5 accounts as I decided to stop posting (temp quit) many months ago, until such time (which will likely never come) that he relinquishes control and Twitter improves back to where it was: a half-toxic site trying to be better.