(no subject)

[olivermoss]

Long, long ago when I used to post pictures on multiple platforms I was very aware of what would work on each. I'd kind of forgotten that. A lot of my pictures that I put in a folder for my instagram experiment aren't great pictures for insta. I realized this as soon I went to post some in the app. I like all the pictures, and some have been well received elsewhere, but the size / format / etc of insta really favors certain types of content and composition, and also much higher contrast shots. I am going to keep at the insta thing, but it's... not going great.

I get the most out of posting here of anyplace, but I do also want to post elsewhere. But where?

* Tumblr I don't want to mess with again for photography. Establishing new accounts there sucks.

* Twitter... I need to post more.

* My website is great and I need to update it and link-seed it.

* I am banned from the train subreddits because my content was so popular they thought I was doing paid vote manipulation. I am banned, my website is site banned, a site I used to write for is site banned and a few other people are banned because they think it's my alt accounts. All because my content was so popular *faceplam*

The Portland sub technically disallows self-promo. Some people get away with it anyway, I've only ever gotten chewed out.

* Facebook has turned into a hot mess. I usually get between 200-3,000 notifications from posting in the Hidden Portland group, but they've got new mods and are rejecting every post I make. They are approving stuff that's like 'look at this cute figurine I saw in a a shop', particularly pretty houses and ... restaurant interiors? It's turning into 'portland is a nice place to live if you have tons of money'. It's super frustrating, but there is nothing I can do it about. I am just not going to post.

I am old and out of touch and don't know how I should be posting my content online anymore. Or maybe I should just literally only care about here and my website.

Comments

[mxcatmoon]

I've got a photographer page on Facebook, have you done that? It thinks I'm trying to sell my photos so sometimes asks me if I'd like to pay to reach more people, which I'm not, but other than that it's not a bad place to post them. I've gotten quite a few followers with literally no promotion on my part. For me, it's more about just having a place to host my images rather than put them on my personal FB page, easier to organize that way.

[olivermoss]

I tried that on my older FB account and never got any views because I don't have personal connections over there, so I've got no traction. I only get seen if I share to the right group, and it's hard to find FB groups that aren't dead or feral.

[mxcatmoon]

Sorry you haven't been able to find a good group. I belong to a pretty nice local photography group on FB. They host in-person events sometimes too, although unfortunately, I haven't been able to attend any yet, for pandemic and other reasons.

[olivermoss]

We do have a local group, but the person who runs it asks people to sign over posting rights for images from the group challenges and it went from free to attend to costing 10 dollars a week. I attended it at first, but then it became clear she had a specific agenda and was using the group to boost her own visibility.

[mxcatmoon]

Signing over rights?! Yeah, that would be a big no for me, too.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it started chill, then started to get weird and MLM vibes.

Anyway, even if I don't have a good outlet besides here for a while, I can just focus on getting more work done.

[lokiofsassgaard]

Honestly, I have no idea how the internet works anymore either. 15 years ago, I could game any site, but now like, I don't understand any of it. Like, what do people want? What's popular? What am I doing wrong?

[olivermoss]

I know that TikTok high a higher traffic rating than Google for a month last year, but my content isn't right for there.

When my content gets places it tends to be popular. Like I said, literally thousands of likes and also I am banned because my popularity in some subreddits was deemed suspicious and it wasn't even me who posted my work there! It's literally a drama that unfolded while I was down the street eating a salad at a food cart.

Part of the problem is that to get started on most sites you need a few connections, a few family members on FB who will like your stuff, etc and I've never had that.

I'm going to keep on making stuff and hope if another shake up of the major websites happens I can get a toe in.

[lokiofsassgaard]

Yeah, TikTok is great if you want to put your face on the internet. I've heard fandom has a huge presence there, but idk how it works.

But I've also noticed overall that sites that rely on shares and engagement to push content are terrible, because nobody wants to share or engage. And I super don't feel comfortable asking my family to share my posts for me, cuz ick. The whole thing feels like a giant MLM honestly.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, the systems we have are all hot messes but ... we live in a society.

When I've looked at fandom tiktok, it's been like call out posts in video format. Every look I've had has been terrifying. I'm sure parts of it don't suck and I don't like not being on the big platforms but ... no, just no.

I did actually have a plan to grow my photography by having a YT channel showing how I get to secluded and out of the way spots in Oregon using mass transit, but that got derailed hard.

[mistressofmuses]

I hate feeling old on the internet. :(

I am mindboggled at the idea that you're banned from a subreddit for... having too much good content. What the fuck. I feel like that's a shitty achievement trophy.

The shitty content creep of that FB group sounds extra shitty. I'd be really annoyed even as a "spectator" in the group for it to shift toward the more mass-produced feel-good commercial squeaky-clean stuff it sounds like they favor now.

[olivermoss]

I found the banning funny at first, but it's really kneecapped my ability to get my content out to people who would enjoy it. I thought I'd find other options, but most train picture forums do not allow my type of content.

Yeah, I am pretty annoyed about the group since it would get me like 3k likes... but it's also futile to try to do anything. I need to find other venues somehow...

[mistressofmuses]

There is a crappy dark humor to "my stuff was just too good, and they had to ban me lest I become too powerful", but... yeah. It's actually just pretty shitty that it disconnected you from your potential audience.

It seems that for as many theoretical avenues as there are for sharing content (all the must-have social media), it's all... shockingly bad at actually doing that. I know that isn't surprising, and plenty has been said about that, but... it's still frustrating. Because there are so many people who would enjoy your content, and it's garbage that the places allegedly set up as the ideal ways to connect with them end up hamstringing you instead.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, these platforms are not my friends. It's such a tangle, with over-worked, often obsessive mods workings butts off for free or banging my head against an algorithm. I used to be able to navigate all this, back when I *wasn't* serious about content... and now that I have a lot of content I am old netizen yelling at clouds.

I used to be a power user and helped so many others deal with new media and now I am ... pretty lost. But I will just focus on making stuff for now. It's important to keep a balance between content creation/promotion. Like, a 95/5 balance or more if possible.

[mistressofmuses]

I definitely get that old netizen yelling at clouds feeling. I just don't *do* social media, or even things like reddit. I feel like it didn't used to be this weird and difficult to wade through! (And then I realize I'm absolutely getting into "When I was your age..." territory, lol.)

Agreed on the necessity of keeping a good content vs. promotion ratio. The content is always more important, even as much as you want to be able to get that content out to an audience.

[olivermoss]

Chasing ways to get your content out there can do your head in. Ask in photog spaces and they start going on about Flikr which is such a dead site. It's good for hosting. Also, you'll get an earful about how trying to build your audience makes you a bad person.

Yeah, it used to be easier to find your niche. Now with the way results and algorithms work it's harder to find specific things. It's always returning results for 'more popular thing with similar words'. The net used to be very about indexing and disambiguating so people can find the specific thing they are after, and now it's all steering people towards the same few topics.

[mistressofmuses]

It definitely can. There really *isn't* a magic formula that works all the time, or that isn't subject to the whims of other people - community mods, grudge wank reporting, changes to site algorithms, etc.
Oh, Flikr. I still see that promoted as ~the~ photography site, when... that doesn't really seem to be the case. Or at least not beyond... people who are still insisting Flikr is the the photography site, lol.

Finding your own niche as a creator, or even the niche that you're interested in from an audience perspective, does seem to be a lot harder. Which feels like a complete paradox, because there's so much MORE available on the internet now. But yeah, everything seems way more interested in steering you to what's most popular and kinda like what you want... rather than what's the closest fit to what you want. It's frustrating!