So long, Instagram!
A few weeks ago, I archived all but one of the posts on my public Instagram feed. I enjoy using Instagram as a fun way to share life stuff with people I personally know and follow along with those peoples’ lives in turn, but when I made my original Instagram account private and set up a public account for my work, things got pretty overwhelming pretty fast.
I struggled to find a voice for the public account and wondered what I should post there. With the exception of curatorial projects, my practice doesn’t generate any imagery, which poses a pretty significant problem on a platform that is basically 100% oriented around photos and videos. I spent a lot of time in 2020 and 2021 posting information about voting, resources to manage financial losses due to the pandemic, and opportunities for artists and art workers. And along with offerings in my practice, I promoted unionization efforts at arts organizations, amplified voices of color in the contemporary art field, and highlighted events, programs, and services that might be relevant to the 1500 or so followers on the account. What I eventually realized is that a small fraction of those followers were seeing my posts. From a community perspective, I wasn’t achieving the kind of reach with these posts that Instagram can offer. My Instagram marketing efforts weren’t helping from a business perspective, either. My client surveys have helped me see that, of the 200+ people I’ve worked with in private consulting and workshops since 2019, only a few people found my practice through Instagram. I’m really glad that those people found my work, but the vast majority of people who work with me are referred by someone they know and trust, or find me through this newsletter.
Meanwhile, posts were taking me so much time and energy to conceive and produce that it was having a detrimental impact on the rest of my work. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to continue to enjoy what I like about social media—the social part—via my personal account and leave my public account behind.
Why am I writing about this here? First of all, almost every client I work with has questions about using social media. Most of them are referring to Instagram, and most of the questions are coming from a place of unease, a sense that if they don’t use the platform as a marketing tool, they won’t have an art career. Even though I believe this idea to be false and toxic, I have experienced these feelings and thoughts, too. I thought it might be helpful to share my process of disengaging from using Instagram as an outreach tool; maybe it will encourage some of you reading this to re-think your engagement with social media and consider whether it’s useful and what it’s useful for, for YOU.
I’m also sharing because I want to acknowledge your support of my work and ask for your continued support. My practice is thriving because so many of you find value in what I do, and that value inspires you to recommend my work to others. Nearly 75% of the people I’ve worked with so far this year have been referred by a former or current client. Others report that this newsletter led to their interest in engaging my services. I don’t know how many of you are actually reading, but my analytics indicate that 70-80% of you regularly open these emails. To put that in context, marketing professionals typically say that an open rate of 25% is at the high end of what to expect from email newsletters. Wow. The gratitude I have for your referrals and readership is infinite. Without a social media presence, I’m counting on you more than ever to spread the word, forward my newsletters, and encourage friends and colleagues to subscribe.
THANK YOU
Below: In Dear CP, a reader asks: “Do I have to be on Instagram?”, and I offer a quick recommendation of William Deresiewicz’s The Death of the Artist.
Dear CP, Do I have to be on Instagram? It seems like so much is happening there that I have to use it, but it makes me really anxious and upset when I try to think about what to post. I hear about other artists making connections and selling art on Instagram, so I worry that if I don’t participate, then I’m not going to have the kind of visibility for my work that I really want. Help!
Do you have to be on Instagram? In a word, no. But also, maybe… yes. Read the rest of my response here.
Ideas & Resources for Art Workers is an ever growing and openly shared (and admittedly subjective) list of articles, platforms, organizations, etc. of interest to artists and art workers. This month, the list item I’m highlighting is William Deresiewicz’s book, The Death of the Artist: How Creators are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech. This deserves a longer note, but I’ve already taken up a lot of your time, so I’ll make this brief. This book is essential reading for artists and anyone else who is interested in contemporary art, working artists, and the figure of the artist in our society. Deresiewicz outlines this figure through the past and into our present moment, which he characterizes as a transitional era leading from the artist as professional to the artist as entrepreneur. The internet, of course, plays a starring role in this “evolution,” and social media is its co-star. In our neoliberal social media age, we are all entrepreneurs, branding ourselves to the world and monetizing everything we enjoy, businessifying our deepest passions and vocations even to just communicate with other humans, let alone try to make a living doing what we love. Deresiewicz makes an earnest plea that we ask serious questions about the quality of the work produced and the stability of the systems through which art is created and circulated under these conditions. His Atlantic article The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur is a capsule of the book’s detailed and nuanced (if also somewhat romantic) argument, and Hua Hsu’s New Yorker review offers thoughtful context and counterpoints.
Till next time…
