Goodbye Instagram?
Last week, my Instagram account got deactivated, for “breaching the community guidelines”. There was no explanation, simply: “error, you cannot log in”. I’ve spent some time trying to get the account back but it’s getting clearer by the day that that is not going to happen.
At first, I was a bit upset.
I’ve been trying to build a community there and it has been, especially in COVID times, a welcome source of entertainment and relief. It allowed me to meet legends such as John, Simon, and Andy and to be a part of a small photographic community here in London. But the more I thought about the platform itself, as objectively as I could, I realised that in many ways, it is a limiting way to present photographic work. And since sharing my work has been my main goal ever since I opened my account, it does in retrospect seem a bit pointless to continue with it.
In one conversation with Josh, he mentioned that he actually much preferred Twitter as a photography-sharing platform. I’ve never been on Twitter much (other than the shameless self-promotion of my papers) and without knowing the platform, I could only really see the drawbacks of it. I took the time before writing this post to learn a bit more about how it works, in order to analyse the pros and cons of each platform in my mind. This post is really my notes from what I've learned in the process.
Before I start though, an answer to two obvious questions:
1. why not Facebook?
Facebook is, for me, something personal. I only keep close friends and acquaintances I try to stay in touch with on a somewhat regular basis and tend to share personal information on there. I do not mind my friends seeing my public work (they see it anyway), but I do mind having the public see my personal info.
2. why not both?
There is only so much time and energy in my life for social media. I can either do both half-arsed or keep them for their separate purposes (basically only use one for occasional use). Maybe other people can, I cannot.
Instagram - the good:
Instagram (IG) is in a way an OG of photo-centric social media platforms, and many photographers used IG as an effective tool for self-promotion and marketing so a lot of communities exist there and are forming every single day. It is built around images. Furthermore, sometime in 2013, people my age decided that Facebook was not cool anymore, and all migrated to IG. As a result, a LOT of my friends I can only keep in touch with through the app.
So to summarise:
Photos first - visual content is key (which can be good or bad I guess)
Communities and photographers are on there - it’s easier to get in touch and build communities
All my friends are there
Instagram - the bad:
Despite being the photo-centric platform, I find the format actually being limiting. IG forces a specific format for the posted images, and it loves verticals. For my style of shooting, that can be very limiting. Then there is a question of sequencing images. I love the art and science of sequencing and building a visual narrative. That is easy to do on IG in theory, but in practice engagement on carousels is much lower. This is especially true if the first image is not attention-grabbing. Finally, there is a crowd of people - because there is a lot of photography (and sometimes even good photography). It is very hard to stand out on IG. Even if you get noticed by people with some sort of influence, they often have to go out of their way to actually share your work. IG is not designed to be used as a sharing platform this way.
Summary then:
Formatting is limiting
Overcrowded, so engagement ends up being low and superficial
Sharing is hard and unintuitive
The app is the only interface
Twitter - the good
Twitter is in many ways a mess, but there are two specific things it is good at; sharing and formatting. There is no easier way to share something with a group of people than clicking retweet (or sometimes even only like). The formatting is what pleasantly surprised me with twitter. You can only post 4 images, but you can sequence them however you like Crucially, you can post them in whichever format you like. This is huge, as it opens up a possibility to actually create a visual narrative that can be seen in a single place (post). Look at this beauty from Josh:
London, 2017 pic.twitter.com/vgNyaY0loo
— Joshua K. Jackson (@joshkjack) October 10, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
So a summary:
Sharing is easy
Formatting has potential
Interaction somehow feels more natural
Can be done from a desktop!!!
Twitter - the bad
Twitter is, in many ways, a mess. Here, I’ll only be focusing on the mess from my (and your typical photographer’s) perspective. First and foremost is that it’s crowded and it’s hard to curate your feed thanks to the overwhelming (and often overused) share options.
It would be ok if it was only retweeting, but for some reason, I’m seeing every freaking thing everyone that I follow has ever liked. This is not what I want. Also, very few of my American friends are actually active there. Somehow, IG is still the king in that respect (I guess it is because Donnie is not on there).
From a photographers perspective, however, there are really only two things to complain about. The number of characters is often too small for a meaningful caption, and having an option for a gallery (in a rare moment when 4 photos are not enough) would be nice.
Summary:
None of my friends are on there
Cluttered with other interests/topic/news
Character limit can be too short for captions
tl; dr: what will I do
I hope the IG thing works out - especially as most of my friends are on there. However given that it doesn’t look promising, I think that from now on, you’ll be able to find my photography on this blog, and on twitter. Cheerio!