Is Instagram A Tool ?

 Is there anyone that doesn't know of my hatred for social media ?

   Over the last six months I've had quite a few conversations about how artists can get their work seen without having to resort to social media. There are those that agree with me and have since given up on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Ello. Then there are those who say that social media is a tool that I'm ignoring but most of those already have anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 followers but just how truthful are those numbers after you eliminate the dead accounts, fake accounts and bots. The reason I question these numbers is that someone with 35,000 followers struggles to get a couple hundred "likes" and just how many of those "like" numbers are fake. I don't care about likes and I would rather focus on view numbers which is something I doubt Meta would ever let happen. But even more important I would want engagement by comments. Somebody actually willing to take the time to type a response to a photo besides the scammers and their "promote it on ..." and "DM it to..." bullshit that has infested the platform.

   As for me I began an experiment 5 days ago that will run until I finish taking photos at Devil's Pool. I will give 100% to this experiment but I look forward to the day I can tell the people who say I'm missing out that I told them so. I believe there is no way to build a good following of meaningful engaged people at this point with Instagram or facebook even with researching countless articles on how to succeed on the platforms. I've studied the best times to post. That you should only post once a day and liking and commenting on others posts are a must. Oh and let's not forget about hashtags. Now after some more reading I'm learning that if you like or comment too much Instagram will punish you for a day because they thinking you're spamming. Also when it comes to hashtags you can have as many as 35 but you better not use more than 20 or they punish you again by throttling down the amount of users who see that post. Makes sense doesn't it ?  NO IT FUCKING DOESN"T ! My biggest disappointment so far is the lack of community amongst other photographers. They don't seem to follow many of their peers but they do follow the Icons. Is it because they're afraid it would take attention away from themselves?

   In the end there's too much to think about, too many rules, spam, scams, ads, and then there's that fucking algorithm that dictates your life on social media. So is it worth all this? Absolutely not judging by the first 5 days but I'll stick with it until the end of this project.

https://www.instagram.com/michael_penn_photography/