Hey there! I have had a dilemma in mind about this topic for quite sometime now and so I decided to post this here for some insights. Last year, I made a decision and I deleted my Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook accounts. I was sick of it. I felt like I was getting sucked into this technology black hole. I felt like I was doing things, designing things and living only to post it online. I only maintain a Twitter account now.
The dilemma is about whether I should get back or not, keeping in mind that I am a design student and I should probably put my work out into the world. Everyone seems to be putting themselves out there. Does it really work? Will it take me a step closer to success? How did people become successful designers before the boom of social media?
Any sort of insights or thoughts would really help!
By doing good work, networking, word of mouth, etc. That’s typically true today, as well.
Today, strategically using social media for these things can help, but it really does need to be part of a bigger strategy. Just putting things on Instagram, Facebook or whatever isn’t, by itself, a strategy.
I completely understand your gripe with social media. I can’t stand it anymore myself.
However, consider making a business facebook page, keep it professional, and you shouldn’t encounter to much drama, and/or pictures of people’s lunches and cats.
Looking at social media statistics, comments, “likes” can become something of an obsession. I think it’s good to be on all social networks and I recommend it. When you decide you want to start getting work, you will have created a following which may want to hire / commission you for work.
Here’s some rules you may want to use.
Post as often as you like.
Post with a good description, keywords and hashtags
DON’T check Stats/comments until the after your next post.
Hi! My personal experience with social media has been mostly positive, but I can see why some people prefer to do without it. I agree with some of the previous responses, who have said that you can create a social media account only for professional use if you are worried about sharing your work with others. I don’t usually post anything personal on my social media (except twitter), and this has kept my online life drama-free! And if you still don’t like using Facebook or Instagram, I think it would be fine if you made yourself a Linkedin or something, just so that you had a place to keep your online portfolio. I also like dribbble.com, if you want to check that out and haven’t before. Good luck!
I don’t use social media enough, mainly because I don’t like it. I know it’s important for networking and showing your stuff. But I just haven’t seen a social media platform that I like much.
Linked-in is probably the most important social media platform for professionals, and yet I barely use it because I don’t like how much they keep trying to connect me with people I’d like to forget.
I never had a myspace account. I have a facebook page that I only use for advocacy and to see other people’s facebook. I don’t post personal pictures or portfolio pieces on it. I have a flickr account that I only use to see other people’s photos.
My teens made me hate instagram before I even knew what it was. I don’t see any point in having a snapchat account unless you are a teenager with stuff to share and hide simultaneously. I don’t even let my kids use snapchat. I’m not even curious enough to check out what pinterest is all about. Whatever it’s worth, its necessity has failed to grab my attention.
I have 2 twitter accounts, 1 for following politically interesting people, the other for following professionally interesting people. I tweet less than once a day on the former, and less than once every 3 months on the latter.
I know if I’m ever going to clime out of the grave, I’m going to need to use social media more. But for now, it just seems so overused and ridiculous. It’s squandering too much of everyone’s time in shallowness. It’s killing respect for privacy. I’m old-school. I like to talk (voice) on the phone and meet people face-to-face. I still have a landline. I’ve had a cell phone since 1999, but didn’t feel the need to get a smartphone until last year. When I’m at home, my smart phone is usually turned off. And as you can see, I prefer on-line discussion forums for deeper more meaningful on-line conversations.
That’s why I said “not enough” instead of “not at all.” I put discussion forums in a different category than most of the social media platforms out there.
If you want to get technical, every medium is a social medium.
I deleted my Facebook account years ago - I realised their business model is gathering information on me to sell to advertisers. This was before twitter and the rest of them really got going. I never bothered with any of them.
That being said, where I work we have a lot of activity on social media and we get a lot of work from it. If you use it solely for business you can make it work for you.
I would suggest you set up a new account on as many platforms as you can using a company name (make one up - you can incorporate later) and keep the personal stuff out of it.
+1 on that. The venerable message board format is not the same product as the much newer “social media,” platforms which seem so firmly rooted in self-indulgence. Even when a forum like this one hosts postings that could only be construed as social media style look-at-me/look-at-mine likes and friends harvesting, they simply don’t get play. In fact, such activity is much more likely to leave the poster unfulfilled here here than it is on the younger platforms.
Designers can use social media as a business tool. You might have great success or it might be a waste of time. The important thing is to be purposeful and strategic about it. Don’t think that you can throw up some work samples and that means that clients will be beating down your door.
You need to define who your market is and create a strategy to reach them. For example, do potential clients look at dribbble? I don’t know. If they do, great, go for dribbble. If, on the other hand, it’s simply a convenient place to post an online portfolio that will mostly be seen by other designers, it might not be worth your time.
When I had a FB account, I didn’t do any professional promotion. It started out as strictly social. As the company did more and more that I didn’t like, I used the platform less and less. The last straw for me was an article I read on Wired about FB trying to get access to user’s banking information. My account was deleted that day.
All of those social media platforms were data mining from the get go. Saw that right from the beginning and refused to participate.
Other major platforms like Google and Amazon go far beyond those in their data mining capabilities. There you are not given an obvious choice and cannot shut off their data mining if you want to use their services. Not to mention everything is web based these days, and everything gets hacked. You have no option to tell the IRS, Adobe, or your Dentist not to keep your data online. Privacy rights are gone. Not even considered in the digital age any more with nothing more than a slap on the wrist if a company has a data breach. If that.
The company I work for has a Facebook account for more of a “current projects” type of portfolio. It’s kept maintained and active but only because it’s expected that a company have a Facebook account. It doesn’t bring in much business by itself and most of the followers seem to be former customers.
Google was issued new patents for home automation devices (sensors and cameras mounted in every room) that will track users throughout their home and analyze what they’re doing.
