A change of heart
Only just a month ago I would never have imagined that I could have anything bad to say about Instagram, I thought that as a photographer there could be no better alternative for getting my photos out there and appriciated. I have been posting on the platform constantly for over a year and I am starting to grow a pretty substantial following currently at 13,787 people across my three accounts. My engagement is pretty good at the moment but I am starting to see that engagement on Instagram is very hard to do anything with.
There are two ways that I know of to make an income with Instagram and I'll share them briefly.
Drive traffic from the site to a 3rd party platform like your blog or website to monetize the traffic there. (an arduous task involving detailed analytics, A/B testing, setting up email lists, setting up your website, it's a complete nightmare.)
Gain 100k+ followers and cross your fingers and hope that a brand wants to work with you so you can begrudgingly sell your soul to them.
From what I can see here on Steemit all you have to do is post cool shit that people love and the people you interact with decide what your content is worth which is as close to a free market society that you can get! It allows you to take it easy and only focus on creating quality content that you are passionate about.
I think the days of big corporations dictating what can and cant be said online (by outright banning controversial users) is over. It's time for the people to speak up and to be heard, we should have the right to express any idea we choose and let the people decide if it has merit or not and I think we are getting close to living in that reality.
The decentralized blockchain model is cutting out the middle man while cutting operation costs of running a social media site substantially and we are finally starting to get a glimpse of our true worth as content creators! When we post content on behemoths like Facebook and Instagram we are pumping ad revenue through their cold dying hearts.
We are moving towards an era of advertisement free content creation and I am glad to be at the forefront of this with all you fellow steemers!
I would love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts and any ideas you guys have below, is my head in the clouds or am I onto something here? The world moves so fast that sometimes it's hard to tell up from down!
P.S how many times have you pressed that Resteem button so far? One more time wont hurt, try it out ;)
The problem with instagram in my opinion was the soulless drive for followers and fakeness that consumed it.
Everything had to be perfect, posts had to be generally short, the right tags, the right time, and people were obsessed with following each other simply for a follow back.
There was no real community in my opinion, at least as of recently.
There was just tons of people trying to get famous or get a nice shiny big following...even if nobody that followed them cared, was active, or got anything out of their posts.
Instagram I never experienced silencing, but on youtube and the like it's rampant. That's one reason I like this site too, you can say anything, anytime, and at worst you'll get a little reputation hit, but probably not even that, more likely just a "hey you're rude, relax."
I'll do the big three for you mate :)
thanks for your support!
I can sadly say that I have been a part of that soulless drive for followers, buying bots etc. making sure that my post was THE best to stand out from all the noise. But to what end?
It's true that there wasn't much outright banning of people on IG but there was a lot of shadow banning meaning that from your perspective it looks like you're posting just fine but nobody else can see you.
With the recent demonetizing of "controversial" content on TY I can see the floodgates opening for content creators pouring straight into Steemit :)
I can give this a resteem. It's important.
IG was pretty good until they started the algorithm. I had done pretty well in a short time (up to 700 followers or so in a relatively short period), but was too late in the game, and just gave up after the change. And it rewards falsity and stupid strategies like follow/unfollow which I refused to be a part of.
Thanks for getting the word out.
Yeah, lately when I am on Instagram I am actually spending more time strategizing my content than creating it, like using the optimal hashtags, figuring out the best times to post etc. Basically trying to "Beat" the system instead of spending all that time on creating content that is appreciated which I assume is what we all want to do!
I gave you my first restreem buddy. I am going to redirect a lot of my network to this article to get them to spend more time on a platform that actually rewards their time and artistic ability. Thank you for writing this.
Hey man that's much appreciated! What do you mean by your network? Are you focusing on bringing people in from other SM platforms?
Yes sir I am trying to get my mentor Gary Vaynerchuk on this platform, and this article is a good, quick read to help provide evidence to him and any other person thinking about joining Steemit.
Dude Gary is my hero! He has changed my attitude and work ethic so much! He's always talking about web 3.0 and this is it man.
For anybody reading this check out Gary's Youtube channel here, he's a real inspiration!
https://www.youtube.com/user/GaryVaynerchuk/
Righttttttttt thats epic you know him. He is a huge hero of mine as well. O weee once he hears about this platform its game over.
Damn straight, back to his twitter days when he was #1 most followed!
for realllll. He is an OG for sure
Another quick question since I am new to Steemit. Is it proper etiquette for me to upvote your previous reply? Just trying to learn the norms. Thanks
I just joined yesterday man I'm not sure.
I upvoted you because you resteemed me haha
I think that when your account grows more of a following your upvotes can actually give people a good chunk of change, I've seen some comments on other posts that have been upvoted by like $4.00
Haha I appreciate that buddy. but gotcha gotcha makes sense (cents).
I asked this my second day, here is the discussion to that- Gtg summed it up very well https://steemit.com/steemit/@arbitrarykitten/voting-question
Thank you :)
you are right, this made me think. Why i never meet steem before.
So true, steem has given me a new lease of life, I enjoy creating content again :)
I actually think Instagram is more profitable if one understands affiliate marketing and how to direct the traffic
True. I was a part of that world for a while, but what I'm saying is that I think affiliate marketing in its current form will be dead in the water when Steemit has 700,000,000 active monthly users like IG and people are getting paid for just posting their content and being genuine. Affiliate Marketing on IG is totally where all the money is now but for how long?