|
|
Post by al on Dec 7, 2018 15:06:03 GMT 10
Somewhat recently I decided to finally start posting on Instagram, despite having had an account for the past seven years. Beyond there genuinely things I’d like to share, this is also a social experiment for me. I have yet to tell anybody about this account, though it’s not on private, so the only way I have accumulated any followers is via my own likes and posts. I have been finding it highly amusing how many followers I gain, and how quickly I lose them. People I didn’t at first understand why were following me. And then upon looking at their profile, it becomes evident they are seeking followers themselves, and are doing it via the “follow for follow” method.
Personally, I find this tedious and a bit silly. Is a follower really interested in your content if their follow is self serving? Maybe for pages looking to monetize, every number counts. But is that really value added? I don’t see how having thousands of followers is impressive when you follow thousands yourself.
But this issue goes deeper, to the point where I’ve seen it cause rifts in friendships. There can be hard feelings over not liking or commenting on posts. In some circles people feel almost compelled to make a grandiose or superfluous comment just because it’s expected. Maybe this is too suspicious of me, I ultimately expect that a lot of the “gorgeous” and “amazing” things being said are in order to receive something similar in return.
Whether it’s “follow for follow”, “like for like” or “comment for comment”, what do you guys think about this social media behavior? Is it annoying, or just something we have to expect now?
EyewitnessTV likes this
|
|
|
|
Post by SharksFan99 on Dec 7, 2018 15:31:29 GMT 10
I think it's something that we unfortunately have to expect, because social media has become very market-driven and the importance of "impressions" has only increased in recent years. Ultimately, that mindset has trickled down into the minds of average social media users, whom believe that their account stats are more important than the quality of their content.
I personally think that it's an inauthentic way of building your audience and establishing a presence on a social media platform. You can have a million followers on Twitter, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of those people are going to see or even like the content that you post on your Twitter account. It's just an unnecessary form of behaviour, IMO. Unfortunately though, it's something that has actually been ongoing for almost a decade now.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but back in the Early 2010s, there was a trend on YouTube known as "sub 4 sub" and the basic concept of it was similar to the premise of people following each others accounts on Instagram; it was based on YouTubers subscribing to each other and building each others subscribers count. YouTube videos were flooded with comments from people looking to "sub 4 sub" with others.
al likes this
|
|
|
|
Post by al on Dec 7, 2018 16:10:59 GMT 10
I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but back in the Early 2010s, there was a trend on YouTube known as "sub 4 sub" and the basic concept of it was similar to the premise of people following each others accounts on Instagram; it was based on YouTubers subscribing to each other and building each others subscribers count. YouTube videos were flooded with comments from people looking to "sub 4 sub" with others. Every platform seems to have its own version of it. It does seem to have faded on YouTube, at least in the comments section, where it was getting incredibly annoying to weed through “advertising” before you’d find a legitimate poster. Initially on Instagram I would see people’s photos with hashtags like “follow4follow”, inviting it in a way, but it seems seems that most anything is fair game for that now. This is an area where I feel a bit dumbfounded in regards to how this advertising works, even as someone with a Marketing degree. Because of that maybe, I don’t see how these methods really attract potential viewers (which translates to buyers) of substance. I can view it under the principle of “it takes money to make money”. If more people follow you and your reach incrases, so does your potential to find the right customers. But I also feel as if there’s no target here. It’s sort of like a commercial playing on every station, hoping there will be some interested viewers out there somewhere. Or they could just match the demographic of the show they advertise on to their product. I will give credit where it is due, and say that there are many to seek those with similar content themselves who may be a compatible follow. But it should be more commonplace than it is. I suppose this is why the amount of interactions on social media is frequently measured beyond just followers for paying advertisers. However, it still rubs me the wrong way to assume everyone’s behavior, in how much “liking” or “commenting” they do and how frequently they log on. At the end of the day though, business matters aside, this is all contributing to a strange era in which we know what each other thinks of us at a higher rate than ever. Maybe not always accurately, but the threat is looming. And maybe it’s that we’re just another number to them. I’m not sure how good it is for us, even if it were transparent. It all just makes our relationships and connections seem less organic, and more about completing a spreadsheet.
SharksFan99 likes this
|
|
|
|
Post by skullmaiden on Dec 11, 2018 13:44:48 GMT 10
Somewhat recently I decided to finally start posting on Instagram, despite having had an account for the past seven years. Beyond there genuinely things I’d like to share, this is also a social experiment for me. I have yet to tell anybody about this account, though it’s not on private, so the only way I have accumulated any followers is via my own likes and posts. I have been finding it highly amusing how many followers I gain, and how quickly I lose them. People I didn’t at first understand why were following me. And then upon looking at their profile, it becomes evident they are seeking followers themselves, and are doing it via the “follow for follow” method. Personally, I find this tedious and a bit silly. Is a follower really interested in your content if their follow is self serving? Maybe for pages looking to monetize, every number counts. But is that really value added? I don’t see how having thousands of followers is impressive when you follow thousands yourself. But this issue goes deeper, to the point where I’ve seen it cause rifts in friendships. There can be hard feelings over not liking or commenting on posts. In some circles people feel almost compelled to make a grandiose or superfluous comment just because it’s expected. Maybe this is too suspicious of me, I ultimately expect that a lot of the “gorgeous” and “amazing” things being said are in order to receive something similar in return. Whether it’s “follow for follow”, “like for like” or “comment for comment”, what do you guys think about this social media behavior? Is it annoying, or just something we have to expect now? That happens to me all the time on Insta! If I post a new picture, I'll get a new watcher among the likes, then I'll lose them again in a few hours or over the next day or so. I follow someone if they have common ground with me, not for the sake of numbers. Thousands of followers doesn't mean the content is worth watching. It's very annoying. These people don't know the meaning of "quality over quantity." I'm only on social media like IG, Tumblr, Twitter, etc. for fun and to interact with fellow fans of the things I'm into. When you worry about numbers and how much of an audience you can reach via these apps, it becomes constant work worrying about how much attention you get in order to make a name for yourself online and truly enjoying the interactions with people is lost. Social media should be a break from real life's hassles, not about creating more.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
|
0 |
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2018 15:09:55 GMT 10
Reciprocity and equity have always been a fundamental aspect of healthy relationships. The way this translates online seems only natural to me in the case of "like for like"/"comment for comment". Of course there are many people who follow me who I have no interest in following back. Hmm, hopefully they take the hint 
EyewitnessTV likes this
|
|
|
|
Post by EyewitnessTV on Dec 11, 2018 22:07:22 GMT 10
Reciprocity and equity have always been a fundamental aspect of healthy relationships. The way this translates online seems only natural to me in the case of "like for like"/"comment for comment". Of course there are many people who follow me who I have no interest in following back. Hmm, hopefully they take the hint Or “Sub 4 Sub” even. Oh, that’s so cruel Slowpoke. People are just sharing the love and you just ignore them. Edit: To answer, I always reciprocate where possible - unless the person(s) really shit me off.  
|
|
|
|
Post by skullmaiden on Dec 12, 2018 8:48:03 GMT 10
Reciprocity and equity have always been a fundamental aspect of healthy relationships. The way this translates online seems only natural to me in the case of "like for like"/"comment for comment". Of course there are many people who follow me who I have no interest in following back. Hmm, hopefully they take the hint But it's not fair when someone follows you only because they want to increase their number, not because they actually care about your content or want to friend you.
|
|
