Today’s Post by Joe Farace
‘Wherefore art thou’ is one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, spoken by Juliet in his play Romeo and Juliet.
For those of you who’ve been following me on Instagram, right about now you may be asking, “Where you been?” The truth is that these days, the main reason I’m posting at all is to let people know I’m still alive. Another reason is articulated in my post Is Social Media Helping Your Photography Business or Just a Waste of Time? but if you don’t have time to read that post its essence can be boiled down to: It’s not doing anything for me.
I haven’t been on Facebook in many years. Ben Kenobi could have been talking about Facebook when he said, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Zuckerberg would like to you to think of it as a place to share pictures of your new puppy with a sister in Cleveland but it’s a place that indulges the darker side of humanity in the name of making Zuck richer. Facebook’s Instagram used to be a place to share photographs but it’s turning into Tik Tok in a further move to increase the Zuckster’s drive to own the state of Hawaii. They changed the company name to Meta to try to remove some of the stink associated with the Facebook name. It won’t work.
Some photographers have migrated from Instagram to Twitter since they have more relaxed rules about the kind of images you can post and even permit nude images, something that evidently would make the rest of Zuck’s hair fall out. But when it comes to being a “hive of scum and villainy,” Twitter is number 2.
The big question for me was does social media drive any traffic to my YouTube channel or Photography How-to Blog? The answer is not so much. I do know some of my Instagram followers do read my blog if I post something they’re interested in on that social network. And I really would like to thank those special Instagrammers who do that. Thank you so much. As far as I can tell, Twitter readers and followers don’t seem to do that. Pinterest? Nope.
Look, I’m just a guy who wants to share what he’s learned over lo, these many years that I’ve been a photographer and it would be sure nice if, from time-to-time, somebody would buy one (or more) of my books on Amazon or even be a subscriber or comment on my YouTube channel. But the truth is that Social Media does not seem to help even that modest goal. As photographer Dusty Wooddell wrote in that previous post, “my Facebook page currently has around 6,500 followers. My Instagram account has just over 2,000. With over 8,000 followers, it kind of feels like I should be booking more than the 35(ish) shoots per year that I book.” He doesn’t and I feel the same way.
UPDATE: In an earnings call—Meta’s profit was down 36% to $6.7 billion—Zuckerberg said that he expects AI recommended content from people you don’t follow to make up about 30% or more of users’ Facebook and Instagram feeds by the end of 2023. As Instagram continues to deteriorate under the weight of “suggested” post and more ads,
I’m open to any comments or suggestions you might have about using social media better. If you have any ideas, please click the Contact button and tell me about it. And the comment section of my recent YouTube video has been opened for your thoughts too. Thanks for reading.
PS: Just a reminder: My video Why Film, Why Now is live now on my YouTube channel, Joe Farace’s Videos, featuring a look at a my reasons and philosophy about why I’m currently a (somewhat frustrated) film photographer. Also Podcast #5 is now available as well.
If you would like to send me some 35mm film to review or any other film photography gear that could be used for these posts and in my YouTube videos you can mail it to: Joe Farace, PO BOX 2081, PARKER, CO 80134