I thought this image was appropriate for the topic I want to write about today.
We’ve all been using social networks for years now, but are we using them in a very social way? I’m not saying I know the best way to use each network. I’ll try to put into words what I’ve observed, and continue to observe.
How We Engage
We’re engaging with each other in ways that require minimal effort. We follow, we like, we favorite, and sometimes we comment. Notice the 3 most frequently used actions of the 4 I’ve named, are passive. Nothing more than a touch of a button is required. Even that is too much for some people. I routinely bump into people I know, who tell me how much they love my photos, but they never interact at all on whatever social network they’re following me on.
Self Promotion
I’ve noticed that a lot of people are out there promoting themselves and chasing likes, in hopes of getting more exposure. You know the type. They like and favorite everything, or leave the same generic comment on every image, in hopes that the recipient of the interaction will look at their work and like, favorite, or follow them back.
I’ve tried this disingenuous approach before. It works and doesn’t require much effort if you’re pretending to like everything you see, but its empty. I’m a genuine person and I don’t enjoy pretending to like stuff that I don’t think is very good. You’re not doing anyone any favors by lying to them.
Now You Have Followers…So What?
What good is a follower, if they offer nothing more than a statistic? Have you seen the video on FB fraud, put out there by Veritasium? After watching it, I was mad that we’ve been duped. People, in foreign countries, get paid to like pages, and offer nothing more than a statistic to you.
I’m caring less and less about the number of followers now, and find myself more interested in engagement. Btw, Facebook has all of their business page owners held hostage right now, not allowing them to reach more than a tiny percentage of their followers, unless they pay money to promote their post.
For argument’s sake, here is a great article that takes issue with the Facebook Fraud video. He makes some great points that could help avoid the fake likes.
My Ideas For Improved Social Networking Experience
Talk to each other. Seriously! If a couple of photographers, or iPhoneographers, are following each other, theres a great chance that you’ll get along well since you share the same passion, especially if you’re both into the same type of photography. I’ve made some great photographer friends that I can bounce ideas off of, ask their advice or opinion, or just talk shop. It’s great for my creativity and motivation.
I believe we excel when we come together. Our creativity and production reaches another level when working with other creative people. A little friendly competition can be great. (Maybe its time for another photo challenge, Shannon.)
Speaking of competition, we don’t have to compete against each other for exposure, or sales. I’ve seen some amazing photographers form elite groups, and instead of fighting for sales, they promote each other and work together. After talking with some of those photographers, they’ve all experienced jumps in business and satisfaction with their photography experience.
Moving Forward
Having said all that, I plan on sharing other people’s outstanding work more often, leaving genuine comments, and trying to start more conversations with people. I must have around 4000 followers and friends, across all the social networking platforms. Its a shame how few of those people I’ve actually talked to. I know I’ll never be able to chat with all of them, but one or two a week should be reasonable.
I have a great network of photographers on my personal facebook page that share awesome photos everyday, and I plan on sharing more of their work over there. If you want to see that, you can add my personal fb, here. I promise I won’t spam your news feed with junk 🙂
If I want to see a change in social networking, I’ve got to put my money where my mouth is, and start acting the way I want others to act. Hopefully, it doesn’t go unnoticed, and spreads. Should you feel so inclined, I invite you to join me in my efforts.
iPhone Photographer | David Pasillas 
Incredible photo! And an honest, personal comment on something I have been thinking about a lot. Thanks!
P.S. I love collaboration. I’m collaborating on a novel right now and it’s the most I’ve ever enjoyed writing. My co-author and I met on social media.
That’s great, Nia. I love to hear that there are other people out there trying to collaborate. I think it’s a fantastic way to work.
Marvelous image.
Thank you, Sally
I must leave another comment to respond to your observations and concerns. I absolutely agree. This obsession with the numbers becomes less and less a force in my journey into cyberspace. Truly, it’s about building a community, which is why I’ve spend more and more of my efforts on the Phoneography Challenge that I manage. It’s fulfilling on so many levels. The exchanges are expanding, and that is more and more what drives me. Your comments fit right into my own evolution on this journey through the known and unknown. Great post.
I think the obsession of the numbers is useful at first. It gives you some drive and motivation to work more and improve, but at a certain point, it becomes clear that its not that important.
Community is very important to me. Its one of the main reasons I want to move out of the bay area for Southern Oregon. The sense of community there is infinitely better than where I’m at now.
I think its about time I take part in more challenges. It would be good for me to try to shoot different things and be a part of something. Thanks, Sally.
Please think about joining the Phoneography Challenge.
I was just looking at it, actually. Trying to figure it all out 🙂
Let me know if you have any questions.
Have you ever tried creating a gallery of the submitted images on your page instead of a link to the blogs where they’re located? It’s probably more work, but its more visually appealing and saves visitors the trouble of having to click them all. I ran into more than one broken link =\
I do not even know where to begin to create a gallery. Someone else mentioned a similar idea.
I know there are wordpress plugins for galleries, but I think they only work if you bought your website. I don’t really know.
One option would be to add media by URL’s, which would be from where they posted their image on their blog. Another is to have people upload to something like flickr, where you can get an embed code that you can copy and paste to your post.
Terrific post David and I agree. I genuinely like other peoples work when I give them a “like” but sometimes I wonder how engaged some of my followers are.
I have to admit that sometimes I just don’t have time to engage in everyone’s work that I follow. That seems to be a full time job these days.
Sadly, I usually forget to check your blog out, but I do enjoy and respect your work, Edith. I also appreciate all of the comments you’ve left here.
You articulate very well something I have been thinking about a lot. The photo is amazing. Thanks!
I’m glad I’m not the only one bothered by this.
Amen, Brother! It’s why I follow so few. Everyone tells me I have to “spread the love” but to me, liking something I don’t really like is NOT spreading love at all. Love the first pic, BTW.
Thanks, Suzanne. That “spread the love” attitude works for some people, but I don’t have time for it. We can all tell when a photo is good or not. It can be frustrating, sometimes, when I see bad photos receiving tons of recognition from the “spread the love” crowd. There’s nothing I can do about that, and I’m not going to join them since I can’t beat them.
Thats why I stopped posting to Tadaa. I still have 1200 followers there, but my photos struggled to get any likes unless I would like their photo first. It was all a silly game where everyone pretended to be friends because they liked their photos.
Excellent though on a nice photo. I dońt reach for fake followers so i agree With you.
Photo challenge = yes! Always! 🙂
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A very thoughtful post David–I know when I first started, I used the likes and follows to work harder on my blog-but then I started to feel like I was losing track of what I wanted to do–which was to post a photo a day for me-so now I work more at building and maintaining conversations with other photographers whose work I admire–thank you for articulating so well what many of us feel out there-
I agree. It’s so easy to lose track of what you’re doing. That’s sort of where I’ve been at recently. I haven’t done much Nikon work lately cuz I still need to refocus on what I really want to do with it. There’s also still a small gap between what I’m creating and what I want to create. Such is the life of an artist haha.
My first photo editing experience was when I downloaded IG a couple years ago. Ever since then I’ve fallen in love with editing/shooting photos on my iphone/iPad. At first I was consumed with wanting more likes and followers until I realized it was all pretty much BS. I’m no longer worried about likes/followers as my IG experience is now aimed more towards looking for inspiration and trying to learn new photo editing and shooting tecniques for my idevices. Although there is a lot of crap on IG now I still find it helpful and useful when I can find users that are willing to share and give feedback. This leads me to my question; why are so many people so secretive or private and sometimes mean when you ask them about how they get a certain effect or what apps they use etc. I understand they want to be unique and original but I’m not looking to mimic their style, I’m still searching for my own style and learning this massive culture of iphoneography. It’s always nice when I do stumble upon helpful and nice people on IG.
I think some people think of their editing techniques as trade secrets that you should pay to learn. Even if you tell people your workflow, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to replicate what you’re doing.
I’m with you, in wanting to know what people are using and how they’re creating their images. That’s why I’m always happy to answer questions and share what I’m doing.
Whats your name on IG btw?
My IG name is ceggs