
Why I decided to become antisocial
The realisation has hit me that social media is a time sink that I can ill-afford right now.
It’s July. The year has rattled past, high-speed training its way from Winter to Summer, and as with every July for the last four or five years I find myself wondering where the time went, and if I can get any of it back.
I’ve been largely avoiding social media, except for brief spurts, for the last few months. Whilst I haven’t used Facebook for several years now, I’d always maintained to myself the idea that Twitter and Instagram were necessary evils. I am, after all, always on the look-out for clients — for bands, for PR folk, for brand managers. Social media seemed the place to find them — or rather, the place where they could find me.
Except that I can count the number of times that I’ve been found on social media by a potential client on the fingers of a blind butcher’s hand. Sure, I’ve been able to get in touch with people through their social media profiles, and I’ve been able to set up collaborative shoots, and one or two of those has led to commissioned work, but I can’t honestly say that I’ve actually gotten out of social media what I’ve put into it (provided that there’s some ROI on cat memes and sweary tweets, that is).
Instagrouch
Instagram is in many ways the worst social media network that I’ve used. It’s allowed me to share my work, sure, but it’s utterly impractical to use in the way that I generally want to use social media: as an automated broadcast service. There’s no API, so unlike Twitter I can’t just automate the posting of my images. Instead I have to use Buffer to schedule the posts, then faff around on my iPhone to ensure that they get posted correctly. If I miss the notification, the post never happens.
Not only that, but several times now I’ve had work copied from Instagram and reposted under others’ accounts without credit. And sure, that’s a thing that can happen on any platform but for some reason it seems more prevalent on Instagram. And, honestly, fuck that noise.
And — this being a big one for me — following your heroes on Instagram leads to the inevitable comparison of your work to theirs, followed by finding your work wanting, followed by never wanting to post work again. Over and over. And that’s just the kind of internal fight I don’t have time for anymore.
Switching off
So I’m turning it off. I’ve disabled my Instagram account — more as a barrier to myself than to others — and I’m leaving Twitter to be entirely automated (I have various IFTTT triggers that run things there). If someone DM’s me then I’ll get an email and that’s fair enough. Otherwise, it’s broadcast-only from hereon out.
It’s time to stop resting on Social Media as a crutch — and to stop blaming it when it doesn’t support me in the way I want it to, too. Already this year, having reduced my SM usage, I’ve noticed that I have more time on my hands. This is just an extra step along that route, and it’s one that I’m quite excited about.
Marketing, the other social way
One of the things that worried me about leaving social media behind is that I wouldn’t be able to market myself effectively. I don’t have a blog at the moment (after a bunch of Wordpress issues that I’ve yet to have the patience to delve into) and I’m not really looking to restart that. So, what to do? And then it hit me: I need to actually Get Off My Arse and Knock On Doors. Emails, phone calls, networking events… All that stuff that I’d kind of convinced myself I didn’t need to do, provided I was Social-Media-Savvy enough. Well guess what: I’m either not S-M-S enough, or else that doesn’t actually matter and I need to actually meet people.
So that’s the next stage: meeting people. Getting out, networking, sending my portfolio around. Marketing the old-fashioned way. Printed mini-books and leave-behinds. Postcards. Personalised notes. An email list. Trying to stand out from the constant Social Stream by not standing in it in the first place.
And sure, maybe it’ll backfire. Maybe I’ll come to regret trying this. Turns out that I can always go back; I can always reactivate my accounts and start again. But I need to do this for me, right here, right now. And that’s what matters.
It occurs to me, as I schedule this for publication, that I’ve really written this as a means of convincing myself more than anything else. So far, I think I agree with it.
And after writing the paragraph above I find that Wil Wheaton is also taking time away from Twitter, for perhaps not entirely dissimilar reasons.
