balancing social media use as a photographer/artist

[nintendowii99]

I've been spending the past year or so really rethinking my social media use and the way it makes me feel. I've had a hard time with photo-sharing social medias, especially Instagram, because I am a photographer and have a decently large account.

At this point, my online persona has essentially become the same as my work persona as well. I only have one instagram,tik tok, facebook, etc. and it has all slowly become a place to share my photography instead of a place for me as a person/individual. I feel like this takes away my enjoyment of being online and my enjoyment from photography.

I've thought about just deleting my accounts and starting completely fresh, but I don't think i'm really ready for that step, and I do like the idea of there being an archive of all of my work. At this point, i've had some of these accounts for almost 15 years.

I'm thinking about creating a flickr account or a blog for my photos instead, but i'm curious to know what other artists/photographers do about this issue. What are your thoughts?

[Onio]

I relied heavily on Instagram for sharing my photography and building my audience - it's becoming increasingly difficult as well with the shift to video. It has definitely affected my output in the past, and I hesitate to post things that I really like that I know won't suit my audience. It can make it a bit of a drag, but it's still a useful tool. I decided I would keep my studio work on Instagram, but lately I've been posting the photographs I create just for the enjoyment of the process and creating on the indie web. It feels more personal, I don't feel the pressure to perform, it's nice to have a more recreational expressive outlet as opposed to the profiles and portfolios I tailor specifically for my audience and customers.

I know there have been quite a bit of artists quitting Instagram and moving over to YouTube. It might seem a little counter intuitive as a stills artist, but hey, if we're pushed to do video content, why not produce video content in a meaningful long form once every couple of weeks instead of 30 second dopamine pumping trends every single day? From what I've seen, artists on YouTube are able to grow their audience at their own pace, and their posts have a far longer lifespan. Ever get recommended a video that's 3 years old, and has comments from within the past couple weeks? I know I have on YouTube, but I rarely see anything over a week old on Instagram unless I'm specifically checking out someone's profile or it's trending massively.