Today on the 5: While listening to the most recent episode of TWiT, the subject of social media came up. That discussion reminded me of some comments I've seen from creators lately in terms of social media promotion declining. It's pretty depressing since i'm not sure if there's any real replacement to those avenues for independent creators to use for advertising themselves.
Ozone Nightmare
The Self Promotion Vortex
Welcome to the Daily Five for Thursday, July 11th, 2024! I was listening to the most recent, at least as of this recording, the most recent episode of This Week in Tech over on the twit.tv network, and one of their discussion points was around social media, specifically the warning label system that I don't know if it's been implemented or if it's still just proposed for social media, which I'm not getting into that. That's not what this five is about. You can go listen to that show and you'll hear a much better discussion that I would give you in a five anyway because I pretty much agree with everything that they had said. But it reminded me of something I've seen posted on at least the platforms I'm still on. Now I'm not on all of them. I'm basically on blue sky, Twix, Instagram, and depending on whether you count Discord as a social media platform, I really don't, but you could say Discord, but I really could say that more of like a community chat program or platform or whatever. But regardless, that's all I'm really on. Now on threads, I don't use TikTok. I did fives about that. They basically shut me out of that, not Snapchat, nothing else. I'm so I'm pretty limited. But I've seen the same people tend to show up on a lot of these platforms. There's overlap. And many of the people that I follow are independent creators, whether it's filmmakers like Len Kabazinsky or photographers like Anne Pruitt or illustrators like, oh boy, I follow so many who would I pick out of here. Luke, Luke Ridge, this Northern boy is his name on most of the platforms, I think. And I've seen these people, Amy Ray Hill, the sculptor, a lot of these people have been posting over the last particular six to 12 months that these platforms, and this is of course, we're in a completely different type of world now with social media. It's become so fractured. And each platform feels like it's own niche now that I think some of it is that, but it also feels like some of it is related to even though it's not a direct one to one connection to the drop off in advertising for podcasting that's been happening all over the place. And a lot of these creators have been saying, hey, I'm not seeing nearly the engagement and the returns from posting on all these platforms that I used to. And many of them, because they depend on their creative work as they're living, many of them feel compelled to post everywhere where it's almost a job in itself, where you have to manage different platforms and have different expectations and different types of content that works better. And they have to post on everything, hoping that it might lead to some work, you know, and that it is really sad. It's actually made me start to have a level of guilt, where I don't feel like if I like somebody and I see them post something, I have to stop and repost it and like it, you know, even if I don't really have time to, I feel like it's almost the thing where I feel like I'm being damaging them by not doing that, because I want to provide whatever exposure I can, it's a weird headspace to be in. But I hate seeing creators under pressure like this, which and creators always are. This is the other thing. It's not as if it has ever been really easy for people in creative spaces to make a living. It generally isn't. But it felt like for a while, there was a symbiotic relationship between these platforms and the creators where the creators benefited from the engagement because it brought them sales and the platforms benefited from the engagement to their users because it showed that they had an active user base and encouraged growth. So it really worked on both ends when, you know, it worked properly. Now it just feels like there isn't that the users, the creators aren't getting anything out of the platform anymore. The platform still get the same thing, but the creators are not seeing the same returns they used to. And it makes me wonder, where do they go? Where do you go after this? Because, you know, there's Patreon, but you have to promote that. Patreon doesn't just suddenly get you an avenue to people. You still have to promote, which is generally social media, where if you're not seeing engagement and people coming over and you're not getting any sales or any, you know, subscriptions from it, again, where else do you go? Most of these people can't afford marketing firms or agents. They can't go out there and do a promo blitz. They're relying on these tools that are now starting to fail them. And where do you go after that? And it really, it makes me really sad. I have to be honest because I want to see creators doing better, not worse. And, and I have had an optimism around the internet because of its ability to break all the barriers between creators and the people who enjoy their work for a long time. But when I see this, I'm wondering, is that enough? I don't know. And I don't have an answer. I don't know what comes next. I really thought social media was going to be one of the, not necessarily, you know, Twitter or Facebook, but some service like that. And Patreon is probably the closest. But again, it's still relies on a promotional element. And if those tools are gone, or if they're just not working anymore, I don't know what creators do. Like I said, I don't have an answer. Maybe if you have anybody, feel free to run and buy me. I can't think of one, but I just know I see a lot of this coming up lately. And it bums me out because I want to see creators succeed. And it seems like it's just getting harder for them to do so. Later.