Shine your Light Inwards

Let your charity begin at home

As 2025 wrapped up, many content creators, which by the way is now everyone and their grandmas, were stating the number of followers they had and how many they had expected to reach by the end of the year, the call to action for most of these posts/videos was “ Please Follow Me so i can reach my number goal”.

While this in itself might not be bad, I think it’s an unhealthy way for anyone to want to grow their social media following. Its giving “pick me” and in this case, pick me even though you don’t know me, pick me even though my content might not resonate with you, sha pick me…

In my opinion, even though a content creator’s content might be for everyone who has data and is on that social media platform, your community shouldn’t be everyone. It’s not a call to entry just for numbers sake. Community is built overtime, for the select FEW that actually rock with you.

The people in your community should at the very least like you, they should be aligned with the values you stand for and portray through your content, they should know how to disagree with your opinions without bile.

When I see influencers being talked down on or condescendingly opposed in their own comment sections by people who follow them, i’m wondering why are the people following someone only to antagonise them. You might as well unfollow them if you can’t stand them and their take.

One of the many reasons can be that these followers were canvassed for, Community building was appealed for under the guise of, “help me reach a certain number of followers”.

I think the reason apps call them FOLLOWERS is cos they kinna have to like you and be interested in following what you’re doing.

So this is my 2 kobo to everyone, to content creators, to influencers, to those whose means of livelihood is dependent on content creation, to those who enjoy it as an art of creative expression, to those who feel like that have a voice, a message and need an audience, to those who like the exposure and fame that being in people’s faces gives them, to those who do not care much for the title but just want share parts of their life and their thoughts every now and then without pressure from an audience, everybody involved, dress come, class is in session

“Don’t be so focused on the number metric and its algorithm that you lose sight of your bigger purpose in life and you use your hand to buy a dog that you cannot tame.”

Your real influence is within, your true followers are at home and any impact that is not grounded purpose is wasted.

So I hope that as you’re keen on building a large social media community that you remember that the real community is your family, your friends, your church members, your cousins, your hair dresser’s son, the teenage girl that lives on your street, the POS lady outside your office building, your children’s nanny, your cousins, your colleagues, the artisan that fixes things around your house, the petty trader you buy stuff from, your estate estate gateman, your neighbours, na dem oh, na dem be your real people.

So whilst it’s okay to want to build a large following on instagram and TikTok, i hope we remember that these platforms is not real life.

I hope we remember that we’re called FIRST to those in our immediate circle of influence.

We tend to want to shine our lights outwardly even when there’s darkness inside.

You have no business looking to build a community on instagram if you do not speak to your siblings.

You have no business doing online giveaways if you do not send money to your parents.

You have no business wanting to mentor anyone online if you’re not impacting at home.

But, if you’re doing these, and the numbers on the gram or TikTok isn’t as much as you’d like it to be, my encouragement to you is, you’re doing well, your light is shining and it’s shining first from inside your house, which is a good thing.

Have a great day!