Introduction
Social media is truly a double edged sword in today’s world. In one sense it is a complete waste of time, not just for photographers’ like me, but for all people who waste hours of their lives daily scrolling through a sea of nonsense when they could be doing something productive like learning a new skill or reading a book; and a place where the worst human behaviors proliferate to and through a broad spectrum of people. In the other, better sense; it can be a very effective way of reaching a worldwide audience. However, balancing time spent on these platforms is something I am acutely aware of, and as of 2024 (before this actually) I spend very little collective time on them anymore. The reason for this is that the way in which, in particular Facebook and Instagram have tweaked their algorithm recently; unless you spend every waking moment posting and making reels and dancing to their tune; you simply don’t grow your audience. I still sell plenty of pictures that have been discovered by people via social media platforms such as these, so you can understand why I still reluctantly use them, albeit sparingly. There was a time were I was in a sense mildly addicted to these platforms. It is hard to avoid this problem because they are designed in such a way as to cause this to occur; also when trying to build and grow an audience it takes time and energy, so in order to do so you need to spend time on them. Like many photographers I stopped this endless need to interrupt life to check my phone. It is the most freeing thing I ever did. Now I am much more targeted in it’s use and put my phone away to watch films and don’t bring it out in restaurants (I actually never did that anyway, thankfully). Is it not slightly weird to see couples in restaurants staring at their phones? What a time to be alive. Technology should be used with caution.
Tagging Followers with @followers
I recently found out that I could tag followers on Facebook in particular, as my dwindling reach went down and down each passing month to the point that it was in question if I would even bother with the platform anymore. This was always going to polarize some people who have this thing about being tagged in a post. However, for me, it was either this or just call it a day. I am not spending the time to see 50 people like a post that took me a lot of effort to image and write a blurb for. I decided to make a post informing all my following on Facebook about why I had made this decision going forward; and why once per week (which is all I post now), I would be using the tag @followers which would again start showing my work to a decent amount of people. To give you perspective; it has gotten so bad that without this tag, my “likes” would approach 200-500 per post, but usually on the lower side of this for the most part. With the tag, I can get anything up to about 1.5K. (Admittedly a ways away from the glory days of social media when i got 5-15K per post). That is a massive upturn in overall reach, as not everyone that sees a post automatically “likes” it - so the numbers just made sense.
The Un-Following
Despite making this post I still have people commenting (it must be said it is the minority), that they just un-follow pages that tag them, with some sort of self righteous sign off and a “good day” at the end of their comment. I kindly let them know that this is not an airport: and that they don’t have to announce their departure! No one is forcing them to follow me. I’d rather have half the amount of people that follow me that I do, and people actually see the work and interact with them than this craziness that presents itself across these platforms now. I want people to get something out of this. Again need I remind them that this is totally free to them. They didn’t have to fuel my car, travel with me, spend hours editing, writing blurbs, nor in the end pay a fee to see these pictures. If it bothers them that much I would advise them to please leave (in peace).
That said…my post that I made on Facebook summaries my thoughts on these matters. I'll leave it below:
You will notice I have tagged you here, and many have reached out to me about this.
𝙋𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨, 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙠.
I've found in recent times that my work simply does not get shown to anyone unless I do this. I do not want to have to do this, I would prefer that social media platforms stopped hiding every post I make, but it seems no matter what I do, I get stealthed. I do not ask for a lot when it comes to social media. I have long since stopped posting three times a week as I used to: photographers’ and other artists helped to build social media platforms such as here, however here, like most of the social apps, are overrun with corporate greed. They'd rather bombard you and I with adverts. Remember, we are the commodity to be sold here. I have felt gagged here for years, because if I say certain things my post gets affected, blocked, hidden... I couldn't even say what I am in this post without tagging you. The 'machine' would instantly notice what I am writing and block the post.
Anyone I ask tells me they don't see their friend's posts or things that they are interested in now, it's just a sea of adverts and paid posts. I don't ask to take up your news-feed for more than one brief post a week, however lately, they go nowhere without this intervention. This is the reason pages similar to mine are doing this. If you knew about the amount of time and money I spend on this venture you might come to understand my views better.
The clincher, the difference I offer here is that if you follow this page, I post much more rarely than the average page does, and I do hope I offer you something different. I appreciate it might be annoying if you follow many people, however I don't post every day, so it is the price I am having to pay, once per week in order for anyone to actually see what i post. I don’t aim to spam your news-feed, and I don’t think once per week is a lot if you are interested in what I do. I at least hope it is not. It is regrettable that 'we' have to to this, however I have had many tell me that they simply would not have seen the posts if I hadn't. This kind of proves my point here...
This page has been around since 2013, and I have sometimes considered packing it in because of this practice. I appreciate the support of everyone following this page. Even if it is given a fleeting glance once per week, I am immensely appreciative. I hope you can understand my viewpoint on this.
Steve