Why should I be contrarian about social media even if I don't like it?

I despise social media personally—I’m a social media marketing expert and I post nothing, I don’t like it. But I’m contrarian about it. If we were in the fishing business, we’d meet at the docks at 4 AM, load the boat, and drive it to where the fish are. The fish are on smartphones. I don’t get to pick where the fish go, and neither do you. You drive the boat to where they are. If you go outside right now and count how many of the first 20 people you see have their face glued to their phone, it’s probably all of them. That’s not changing anytime soon. Social media is just a proxy for storytelling on the one device that matters. Even if you do everything offline—in-person shows and fairs—everyone is still on their phones. That’s where the fish are, so we have to get good at storytelling there.

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Asked by synthesized from teaching · Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-05-27