I maintained a very minor presence on Instagram in the early days of DARK ACRE, circa 2010 to 2013. It had always seemed better to me to post my photography on Flickr (I’ve since moved all those images to this site, CMON1975.COM) and back then the strange exchange of the influenced and their influencers hadn’t fully birthed from whatever hell-womb it gestated in.
I closed that first account after running afoul of its direct messaging system. I couldn’t deal with being “left on read” and “ghosted” by half-strangers. I still can’t. I’ve long since pruned my digital social circle down to people I either met in the flesh or know so long that I can’t not trust them. That’s like, three people.
I re-opened the account at the start of January 2023, alongside a then-Twitter account, to promote my 365 project. I posted the project entries every day, alongside the relevant hashtags, without fail for an entire year. I didn’t engage with the site, though. I had—and still have—far more important ways to spend what little time I have left. And that approach proved disastrous.
One simply can’t “fire and forget” when it comes to modern social media unless they’re already famous. You must take the time to repost, leave comments (genuine or not, it really makes no difference, just leave a lot of them), and forge virtual connections. The trouble with all that is how much attention it takes up. My advice is hire someone to do it for you. It boils down to marketing, after all, and if you’re serious about pushing your product you’ll have a budget for these activities.
At any rate, I closed both the Instagram and Twitter accounts at the end of 2023 and haven’t looked back. I feel better for doing that, better than I ever did about killing the Facebook account, but your mileage as always will vary.
2023.01.01 – 2023.12.31