To Instagram or Not To Instagram
I originally wrote this essay about my decision to opt out of social media over a year ago. And then I wrote this essay about my experience re-engaging with Pinterest last summer. I still stand by all those feelings and think I want to remain a person who generally stays off social media.
Yet here I am, considering the option to get back on Instagram. I’m trying to parse out if I should do something because it’s a “thing to do” even though it doesn’t feel like the totally right thing for me. And I’m interested in exploring if there is a way to engage on Instagram in a manageable and meaningful way. Here’s where I’m at…
For transparency
I sleuth around on Instagram occasionally from my laptop. If someone sends me a link, I watch it on my web browser. And sometimes at night, Lee Singer and I snuggle up on the couch and scroll on his phone. I simply cannot resist a sausage dog video, and the parodies on gentle parenting make me LOL and feel less insane.
Some days, if I’m honest, I feel like I’m missing out on connections. Since moving away from Nashville last year I’ve lost touch with people. That feels inherent but I also feel lonely. And there’s a part of me that wants some validation from people on the internet. This, I don’t know if I will ever truly untangle.
The Substack of it all
I started my Substack in October of 2023, shortly after Notes launched (This is their version of a social feed). In general I feel like it's a platform that is more gentle and kind. Participants on there genuinely seem to care about the craft and community of writing. Of course, there are trolls and assholes, it is the internet after all, but I have been enjoying my mild participation.
So am I really a person who’s not on social media? I guess that’s now debatable. Am I already giving “person on the internet’? It seems to be so.
The Brand Strategist’s Business Strategy
Pivoting feels like the essence of my career existence and doing business online in 2024 is really weird. Honestly, showing up on the internet in today’s world feels really fraught in all categories.
The whole question of To Instagram or Not To Instagram got really loud about a month ago because I’m rebranding. I’m feeling a need to try some new efforts to see if I can create new growth and connections for this little one-woman show.
In an attempt to put myself out there and make connections in real life, I’ve been attending some monthly meet-ups for women business owners in my new local area. At the most recent event, the first activity upon arrival was to write your Instagram handle on a board. I watched people chat, and instead of exchanging contact info like phone numbers or emails, they handed over their iPhones to follow each other on Instagram.
Can a brand or business exist without regular social media participation or consumption? I totally think that’s possible. It means that other strategies and efforts need to be dialed in and worked hard on. And I do those. My business is built entirely on referrals, the majority of my projects have come from word of mouth. I got about 11 new email subscribers the last time I posted about my newsletter on Instagram, I’ve only ever gotten 1 project from an Instagram post and only 1 project directly from my website.
I don’t have all this outstanding data to back up the idea that being on Instagram is essential for my growth. And the work that I do with brand strategy and messaging is built on the idea that telling a consistent and cohesive story across platforms (whatever those platforms are for the particular brand) is a solid way to make an impact and grow.
So there is this part of me that wants to have some current information on my Instagram profile. It feels like maybe a new part of my strategy is to have pinned content on my profile that showcases who I am, what I do, and why being regularly active on social media isn’t my thing.*
For a while, I was set on creating a 9-Grid strategy. It’s a great and solid idea from Kristen of Going Ultra Violet. You essentially turn your profile grid into a landing page, with each of the 9 posts telling an intentional and visually creative story about your brand and services.
I love an intentional and creative story. Hi it’s me! So I got into creation mode and designed the grid, wrote the captions, made the carousel slides, outlined reel scripts, and put the whole thing together. When creation mode ended, I was left with resistance and confusion about actually putting it all out into the world.
The tension and the pushback were trying to communicate something: This is a lot and a lot is not necessary.
Are things too shitty?
Perhaps we’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole of this social media experiment that we’ve passed the point of it holding any goodness anymore.
Tara McMullin writes about this in her great article, Sorry (Not Sorry), Self-Promotion Doesn't Work, saying:
"I believe a much bigger factor is the rapid decay of the digital environment and its contents—decay that's driven by what Cory Doctorow calls "enshittification."
"Enshittification" describes the predictable lifecycle of social media platforms.
First, platforms are super generous to users; then, they squeeze users and behave super generously to advertisers; then, they squeeze advertisers to create a super generous profit margin for their shareholders. What started as a cool new place to hang out online becomes a shitty shadow of its former glory.
For people who use social media platforms to consume content, enshittification neatly encapsulates why a favorite platform goes bad. But for creators—people who make content for social media—enshittification doesn't just make a platform unpleasant to use. Enshittification changes what creators make."
Instagram has come so far from the simple photo filtering and sharing app it launched as back in late 2010. And of course, things are going to evolve and change, a lot of times for the better. But in our fast-paced tech-driven world, enshittification is absolutely a thing.
When I do use my iPhone to see the latest of what’s happening on the Gram, sometimes I feel like I’ve stepped into a brightly lit casino and my eyeballs are being assaulted with a constant slot machine of information.
Not to be a self-righteous asshole on my high horse but I really do notice a difference in the way I engage in the world when it comes to self-talk, marriage, friendships, and parenting. It’s taken a long time and a lot of practice not to absentmindedly reach for my phone and scroll.** It feels like freedom and my own small act of resistance.
I spent over a week creating a slew of content to fit a certain something. I knew it wasn’t great, but I felt like it should still “go out” because it’s “what you do to grow”. It wasn’t until I paused for a second to actually assess WTF it is I’m trying to say and accomplish that I changed course to be more aligned with what works for me. My friends and colleagues Brooke and Tristan get into this topic so well on episode two of their podcast Re-imagining Online Business.
At the end of the day, whether or not there will be a cost (monetarily, mentally, emotionally, etc.) is yet to be seen.
What does it say about me?
Historically I’ve been a people-pleaser, letting my insecurities fuel what I follow. Being on social media amplifies those parts of myself. And as I’ve gotten curious with my inner dialogue I’ve been able to build some resilience and care a bit less. But as social media has become the hot communication platform for advocacy and activism around the true disaster and grief that is our world today, I’m not sure I know how to show up inside all of that.
I believe in values-focused work (both professionally and personally) that hopes and strives for a more equitable and inclusive world. My advocacy and activism don’t feel impactful in the realm of the internet. It’s for my home with my family, and in our local community. It’s for those I have actual IRL relationships with. I stand for peace and liberation for all of humanity and I am vehemently against genocide. As a person with a lot of privileges and proximity to power, I want to live my values and do something even though I can’t do everything. Still, that feels like not enough for what’s happening online right now.
What does it mean to re-enter a space that’s got a lot of heightened energy? What does it say about me if I’m choosing to be less courageous and outspoken with my platform? What does not doing it mean?
I don’t think I will be able to stay in a sausage dog video paradise if I open the floodgates of Instagram. lyz lenz writes: “It’s the summer of caring a lot, but not giving any fucks.” I care deeply and I want my give a fucks to be on vacation when it comes to how I’m “supposed” to be showing up.***
I’m inspired by those who use a platform like Instagram or Substack to propel movements forward, to organize and amplify information. I don’t hate on anyone who makes a living creating content or being an influencer.**** I absolutely get that we buy way more stuff than we need to because of the immediacy, persuasion, and manipulation that we are bombarded with through the tiny computers we carry in our pockets.
If I’m pushing my envelope on what I value and how I spend my attention in the name of “well that’s what everyone else does”, am I out of integrity?
Have I even reached a decision?
Two statements hit me right on time as I was making the final edits to this essay. The first from J. Rycheal*****:
“In this social media era, where everything is about instant gratification and consumption, that becomes a challenging position. I don’t want to be consumed. I want to be witnessed.”
And the second from Kerra Bolton:
“Stop playing games in spaces that frustrate you. Leave, observe the rules, or subvert them to achieve your aims. You don’t have to wait to be chosen – whether you’re in digital or traditional publishing, independent film, music or anything else.”
Just like with branding and marketing strategies in business, we can’t predict or know the results until we get in there and implement. So will I re-enter Instagram and see how things start to unfold and make a choice from those in-the-moment results? Or will I stay soft and cozy in my relatively blissfully unengaged bubble and that will be that?
I haven’t landed firmly in one answer or another. I’m so back and forth. I want to give myself time and space to listen and make a choice from a place of knowing. When that comes or what that actually looks like is also yet to be seen.
And to check my internet-influenced ego, does anyone even care?
*LOL telling the people on social media why I’m not on social media.
**I am not a perfect human. I pick up my phone to check my email, look at the weather, check out Spotify, and other dumb shit that is distracting all the time.
***This feels like my privilege showing.
****If I’m honest I have certainly judged. Which isn’t always totally fair because even 14 years in, it’s the Wild West out there and capitalism is gonna capitalism.
*****It was Kerra’s essay, the one mentioned after this quote, that brought me to the work of J. Rycheal.