From Visibility to Peace

To wrap up these reflections on social media, both for myself and here on paper as I try to put my thoughts into words, I want to reflect on one last thing that's been on my mind for the past 6 months.

For the last 4 years, I've been trying to build an audience on social media, both for business and for my personal brand. I've already talked about other aspects of the experience, especially the relationships and the psychological impact, in the previous posts.

If I ask myself today whether these 4 years on Instagram were worth it, did they actually lead to something meaningful? Did I achieve enough to justify everything I gave in return?

I would say yes.

I built meaningful relationships through social media, and I did a lot of business with people I met only through Instagram. The whole model of building an audience to generate business clearly works. I've been making a living from it for 4 years.

But would I recommend it to someone else?

Would I tell someone they need to be active on social media and put themselves out there to build a business?

If you had asked me 4 years ago, I would have confidently said yes. I genuinely believed showing your face online was the right way to build a business because that's exactly what I was doing.

After living through that experience tho, I can't recommend that path anymore for many reasons, especially the psychological ones I already talked about throughout this blog.

Trying to look at it as objectively as possible and remove myself from the equation, I think social media is only truly worth it if your business is product based rather than service based. At least that's where I've landed after all of this.

My business has always been service based, whether through consulting or freelance work. Before a client hires you, they first have to buy into the version of you they've built in their head. That image, the perception they have of you, becomes part of the service itself. It can literally make or break the deal.

With a product based business, it's different.

The customer's experience is judged primarily by the quality of the product itself. If they love the product, they'll come back. If they don't, they simply won't buy again. The focus stays on the product, not on you.

You don't have to constantly share your lifestyle to sell it.

You don't have to expose your personal life.

You don't have to be expected to comment on every social issue, and if you choose not to, be labeled as someone who doesn't care.

You don't have to constantly convince people that your expertise is somehow better than everyone else's before they'll even consider working with you.

There are so many layers of persuasion that naturally become part of a service based business on social media, even if you never wanted to play that game in the first place.

Most of those problems simply don't exist when you're selling a product.

That's why I don't think I'll ever build another service based business through social media.

The same applies to startups. If I ever build one again, I'd much rather build a B2B company than a B2C or Business to User company because I've come to believe that real world networking and prospecting are far more effective than relying on digital prospecting and inbound content.

And that's exactly what I went back to after stepping away from social media and taking some time to reset.

I returned to what I used to do before social media ever became part of my life.

Networking.

Prospecting.

Meeting people in real life.

It's less visible, but far more efficient.

There were moments when I thought I had started hating branding itself.

After reflecting on everything though, I realized I never hated branding.

I hated the business model that depended on social media, constantly trying to convince people that branding even matters.

Looking back, I think that was my mistake.

Instead of spending my time trying to educate people from scratch and convince them that branding is valuable, I'd rather work with people who already understand its value.

It's simply a much more peaceful way to work.

Ironically, that's exactly how I worked before I ever went public on social media.

So despite everything, I still consider it a valuable experience.

The good and the bad both taught me something.

There was also a deeper religious side to all of this.

Many business practices within branding involve things that are either clearly prohibited or exist in morally questionable areas.

During my time away from social media, I revisited everything.

That's when I realized something important.

I get to choose who I work with.

I get to choose the projects I accept.

I get to practice this profession in a way that aligns with my beliefs.

Once I understood that, I stopped seeing branding itself as the problem.

The role of branding is to give value to something that genuinely deserves it.

The problem begins when you're hired to make something bad appear good, when your job becomes manipulating reality instead of communicating it honestly.

But that isn't an unavoidable part of branding.

You can simply choose to work with businesses that already create good products, services, or ideas. Then your role becomes presenting that value clearly, helping it reach the people who need it, and giving it the representation it deserves.

The moment that shift clicked for me, I stopped seeing my profession as something that conflicted with my principles.

That was a huge win.

It might not sound like much from the outside, but anyone who's gone through that internal conflict knows how heavy it can become, and how freeing it feels once that weight is gone.

Alhamdulillah 3alla Koulli Hal.

If there's one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that people learn.

They struggle.

They fall.

They heal.

They take lessons from those failures, get back up, and build again.

The difference is that they don't start from zero.

They start from experience.

There's a quote I once saw on Pinterest that has always stayed with me.

"Congratulations on your failure. Most people don't even try."

I honestly don't think I've come across a truer quote.

Life goes on.

The only thing you can't afford to lose along the way is your values and your Deen, because those are our real capital, and our true investment is the one we make with Allah.

May Allah grant us righteousness and admit us all into Jannah.