Staying safe as you grow

Hey creators. My name is Megan Jayne Crabbe, and I'm here to talk to you about staying safe as you grow. My platform blew up pretty quickly while I was talking about body positivity and I didn't have anyone showing me the ropes, how to stay safe and how to take care of myself. And I am really, really glad to be here talking to you now and telling you what I've learnt. So, let's get into it.

Silencing the noise

Lesson number one, it's a big one. You cannot please everyone. It took me a really long time to realise that trying to please over a million people every day was impossible and it was bad for me mentally. When you put content out online, you are opening yourself up to every single person's opinion who sees it. And sometimes, it's important to take on feedback, but sometimes, you have to protect yourself. Sometimes, you have to close the door and say, "Enough is enough. I can't take in any more people's opinions today". And that's where I use tools such as comment moderation, such as only allowing people to reply to my stories if I follow them, such as a block button if someone is really pushing one of my boundaries. There is nothing wrong with using those tools to take care of yourself.

Making privacy a priority

Lesson number two, keep yourself physically safe. I know that it might not seem like the most natural thing to have to consider where you are posting and how much detail you're putting out there, but it is so important. Just little things, such as not putting out a picture that is in front of your house or the street that you live on or remembering to turn off your location. And if you want to post your location, maybe do it after you've already left the place. Remember, if you do accidentally put something out with too much information, you can take it down. Thank you. Thank you for allowing us to delete things, Internet gods.

Taking breaks is OK

Lesson number three, take breaks. I learnt the hard way that trying to be constantly online, constantly scrolling and constantly creating is not healthy or sustainable. It's OK to tap out sometimes, to take breaks, to put your notifications on mute. We still have to invest in our life offline. We still have to take care of ourselves in the day to day. I love that we now have tools such as the daily limit tools. So, you get a notification once you've spent a certain amount of time on the platform. And you can be honest with yourself and check in about how you're feeling and when do you need to take a breather. I take so many more breaks now and some of my friends take every single weekend offline, just focus on their everyday lives and then come back fresh in on Monday. Whatever works for you. OK, those are my main lessons for staying safe online as you grow, but I'm going to leave you with some reminders and these are reminders that I tell myself all of the time.

Key takeaways

1/ First off, claim your space. You built your platform. People can come and they can visit it, but it is on your terms. If they are disrespectful, if they are abusive, you have every right to show them the door. You wouldn't accept someone barging into your actual home and shouting at you and not leaving you alone and not following the rules that you set. So why would you accept that online? And there are so many tools that help you in setting those boundaries, such as hidden words. It was a good day when Instagram introduced the hidden words tool. Mine is quite full, not going to lie. There's a lot of stuff that I don't want to see and you shouldn't have to either if it's going to make you uncomfortable. Speaking of making you uncomfortable, you can always report someone. If a block doesn't quite go far enough, you can report an account anonymously and hand it over to Instagram. They can check their Community Guidelines and see if something's been violated. So, you have options for claiming your space.

2/ Second reminder, put a limit on the super personal stuff. It sucks that we have to consider our physical safety online as creators. But if you are a woman or a person of marginalised gender especially, you've got to do what you've got to do. So, think twice before you put something out that has lots of very personal information in it.

3/ Next reminder is protect your mental health. You can be grateful for the platform that you've built without sacrificing your entire well-being to it. Set your boundaries, preserve your energy. Take breaks; know that you don't have to do it all. And you know what? None of that is selfish – it's self-preservation.

4/ And one more quick tip is to request verification for safety measures. Lots of people think that getting that blue badge is just an ego boost and I'm not going to lie to you. It did feel good, it did, but it's also really useful as a safety measure for things such as preventing impostors; letting your audience know that it's really you. And you can request verification in your account settings.

All right, creators, that is it from me. I hope you are feeling more confident about staying safe online as you grow. Thank you for being here with me in this weird and wonderful and sometimes overwhelming Instagram world. So, I hope you feel inspired to go out and create what you want to create and I will be cheering you on, fellow creator.