When your post blew up on social media...
So my post today when received an unexpected surge of interaction thus getting semi-"viral", and I would like to discuss the psychological response and how I treated this event.
The post have received 18k likes on twitter and 4-5k on reddit thus far, and there have been a large amount of comment and significant follower growth on these platforms. The typical "respond to all comment" also start to fall short when faced with this condition.
The main emotional feeling is of recognition and affirmation of the work put into the drawing. Since most previous posts attract 5-10 likes on average with some outliers up to 50, it created a very positive emotion that "it worked". In this situation, content creation also leans towards gambling since you never know which post would blew up and hit the "jackpot", reinforcing you to stay on said platforms.
Unfortunately, this is seldom a lasting effect. The next post on those platforms will easily return to the normal level of interactions with a slight increase since the follower base have grown. The only way to press for better outcome is to figure out the "formula" that made the post successful. But that is not of today's scope, so we won't expand on it.
Responding to all the comments also gets more taxing with the number of comments received, so far it is very manageable, but if it keeps growing at the current rate, I might spend a whole morning responding. That means to shorten reply time and get through most (and not all) of them.
Another uncommon experience is the negative comments. Since one of the nature of the post is deemed controversial, there are some comments that would be negative. It is very important to remember the amount of positive that you also received and to respond politely asking their reasoning. In some case the comment is resulted from misunderstanding, but most are just difference in preference. So remember everyone is not the same, and it's fine you don't please everyone.
-Rui
Edit: I also got 2 commission requests from the event and will be getting some of my first clients.
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