Fyreside Newsletter - 9/2*/25

Hey Reader,

Happy Tuesday! I took yesterday off and I hope you did too. Plenty of people did not get the day off yesterday and that sucks.

I'm passionate about Labor Day because I am passionate about anything earned through blood, sweat and riots. And let us not forget that this progress would have never been made without the sacrifices of Black Sleeping Car Porters of the Pullman Standard Rail company. Here's a link to a great doc from WTTW, the Chicago PBS affiliate, covering that story.

Anyway, as with every long-weekend-holiday, I was genuinely appalled by how many companies I saw demanding the labor of their Social Media Manager while the rest of the team got in a final pool day. So today I want to make it abundantly clear to you, dear reader, that posting on social media is labor.

Let's define "labor"

Friend of the newsletter, Merriam-Webster, gives us four definitions for the noun "labor." They are as follows

Expenditure of physical or mental effort especially when difficult or compulsory.
The services performed by workers for wages as distinguished from those rendered by entrepreneurs for profits.
Human activity that provides the goods or services in an economy.
The physical activities involved in giving birth.

You don't need to time your contractions to post on social, so we're going to ignore that last definition. Still, I feel that the first three bullets all apply distinctly to the act of posting to social media. Yet, every year, I see dozens of brands and businesses posting some generic slop of a labor day post. While I'm sure some 50% of those dozens are wise enough to schedule that post in advance, I am wise enough to know that many of them aren't.

I graduated from college in 2016. Since then, I've posted professionally for three different companies. All three of them required me to log on to post for Labor Day.

Let's investigate why that sucks and all three of those companies should feel bad.

Compulsory Mental Effort

You can't measure mental effort as easily as physical effort. I understand the mental effort that goes into a brand social post, but I'm not sure it's common knowledge. To that end, here's a list of things that must be considered when crafting a social post for an employer:

What is the quality of the visual content
- What is that content?
- Who is producing that content?
- How is that person producing that content?
- When will that content be produced?
What is the message we're trying to send?
- What is the brand voice?
- Who is writing this message?
- Has it been checked for spelling and grammar?
- Does the message need to be optimized for a particular social outlet?
How will this post be constructed?
- Does anyone need to be tagged?
- What hashtags should be used?
- Do we need to specify a location?
- Does this post need to be approved?
How will this post be managed?
- Who is responsible for replying to comments on this post?
- What will the protocol for negative comments be?
- Who is responsible for responding to direct messages about this post?
- By what metrics will we measure the success of this post?

Hey so there's 20 questions that come before you ever hit publish. Is it mental effort yet? Lest we forget that, frequently, the person asking these questions is also the person responsible for answering or being the answer to all of these questions. Is it mental effort yet?

Making this post was likely a duty assigned by a supervisor, so it's already compulsory.

Performed by workers for wages

If posting on social media wasn't labor, you'd do it yourself. You wouldn't need to ask your SMM to "just log on real quick and hit publish" because you'd do it yourself.

But it's your day off, and you don't want to work on your day off.

Human Activity, Goods and Services

How much time did you spend scrolling yesterday? Personally, I spent most of my time scrolling yesterday. Content has to come from somewhere, folks. It does not grow on trees. It has to be created. "Content" is a good. Creating content is a service.

Posting on social media IS labor.

-MC

p.s.

Forward this to your shittiest boss that's made you work on Labor Day.
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