There's a lot of negativity out there about social media and the impact it has on the world, so I thought I'd share a quick, uplifting story about the positive impact my dog's Instagram has had on one of his followers.
Back in October, 2015, my friends were thoroughly sick of me constantly posting photos of my new dog to Facebook (my revenge for all those baby photos I had to endure!), and I had also developed an interest in the idea of building an "insta brand", an entire business built around a single Instagram account.
So, deciding to kill two birds with one stone, YahtzeeDog was born! Now I'd have an outlet for that burning desire to post photos of my awesome dog, and at the same time have a platform that I could use to learn the ins and outs of building a successful instagram account.
I did a fair bit of reading in the lead-up, and it didn't take long for my dog's account to start growing rapidly... and not only growing in followers, but high-engaging followers. By December 2016, having run the account for a little over the year, I had about 15,000 followers and was regularly hitting top posts for #germanshepherd and other 'big' hashtags in his niche.
But like most of my business experiments, once it had run its course and proven my original hypothesis, I kind of lost interest. I'd worked out what I wanted to work out, and was confident I could grow an Instagram account again.... so one day I just stopped posting and kind of forgot about the account.
But then something strange happened... I had expected to lose followers, because I wasn't posting, but what I didn't expect was how many people would reach out to me after I stopped posting. Sure, there had been a few regulars that you could always guarantee would comment on any post you made, but I never stopped to think about just how much of a part of people's lives I'd become.
It's been over a year now since I've posted to the YahtzeeDog Instagram account, but I still have people checking in on me. This one, in particular, is the one I wanted to share with Steemit today.
Not only did someone care enough, after a year to reach out and check to make sure my dog was doing okay, but they related to me that during a time when they weren't doing so well, me posting random photos of my dog to Instagram helped them out.
To me, that is simply mind blowing.
So, next time someone tries to tell you about the negative impact social media is having on the world, relate to them this story, about how a German Shepherd from Australia helped someone on the other side of the world cope with their depression.