I’m stunned 
This is a previously april fool’s day video right?..
It´s the only social media landfill I kept because I had the biggest “network” on that platform and managed to get that without many posts or paying any money for exposure.
To this day I click away every single ad, sometimes even report it as spam or inappropriate even when it´s from artists or companies I actually like.
There is no end to this obviously since every 4th or 5th post is an ad but at least I hope the algorithm will just think “fuck that guy” in the end and won´t be able to predict me. Usually I only spent a few minutes on there until I´m annoyed by the ads.
Unfortunately for all my fellow scratch nerds that I met over the years you don´t exist without any social media. When I quit FB I texted everyone I know personally and exchanged contact details. The result is that if I text someone via SMS ( I also don´t use Whatsapp anymore, only two other messengers in which I text with like 1 or 2 long time friends because everyone else can´t be bothered installing another messenger) or email I barely get any responses or it takes sometimes days or even weeks. On Insta it only takes a few hours…
But despite the shit happening in the background and who owns it (Suckerberg and his crew didn´t develop it, they just bought it up and forced their agenda on it) it´s actually the format of all social media I like best. I found many interesting artists on there and also browse for some inspiration once in a while when I feel like doing some lettering. Used to use Pinterest for that but if you think IG/FB are bad with ads then you haven´t used Pinterest.
And if I post something I just give it a short caption and then…
.
.
.
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#hide #the #hashtags #like #this (meaning everything below the caption will be hidden until you tap to see more)
so I don´t bother anyone with this stuff but that is needed to get at least some views outside of your followers.
It sucks that you need some kind of social media exposure as an artist these days or you´re basically not existing. Especially if you´re into “underground” music and given the current situation you can forget about building a fan base with live gigs.
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They absolutely side with authoritarian regimes, yes. Facebook is worse than Insta in that regard but they haven’t been split up yet.
I started the whole Instagram thing 1.5 year ago for the same reason and it definitely helped widening my audience and increasing my “music revenue” so that’s cool. I never commented or followed people to get attention, I think that’s inefficient and pointless. Just post some quality content with relevant hashtags, reply to comments on your post and hope for the best.
I recently started a new strategy that someone (with many-many more followers than me) explained to me : delete the app as soon as you’re done with your promotional stuff and re-download it when you have new stuff. That way you don’t waste your time endlessly scrolling through cute dogs/girls/drum machine pics in-between. Sounds a bit stupid but it’s been very helpful so far!
Also I think there are some positive stuff there too, the music/gear/modular community is super cool and supportive, I got into some great collaborations through Instagram!
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I have been purposely avoiding the whole insta shenanigans and it helps contain GAS. 
Some profiles are top notch rando/political meme/video feeds. Incredibly entertaining…I laugh harder at those than most shows/movies these days.
It amazes me the number of “normal” people who post nothing but selfies on instagram still, I’m like “oh look you have a face, congratulations, so does everyone else, do you have anything interesting or is it just the face?”
No problem with the occasional selfie especially if actually doing something, but what makes these people think that their particular face is anything that other people want to see? I don’t get it.
Spurred on by the followers who feel obliged to like it I guess.
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we wanna see body parts!
Yeah, this… sooo much this.
I’m also perplexed by the people still doing 2007 style Facebook posts I.e “just went to the gym, gonna grab some food now”.
Okelidokeli, thanks for sharing…
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The trick is to not care. So start an insta, post some gear shots, short video previews, etc, every now and then. Follow some hashtags like #elektron for example. If you see anything you like from a quick 10 minute scroll through once a day, follow them. If they follow back, cool, if not, who cares. Don’t try to use it to gain listeners specifically, just post every now and then and dip in to see other people’s jams etc. Let things happen organically.
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I also noticed lately I’m getting a lot of crap in my feed, some of it is related to what I follow but some of it seems pretty random or worse sponsored shite from some wannabe with no talent. Quite funny in a way.
But yeah you have to be selective what you post, no-one really wants to see the sandwich you bought, but if you made a nice sandwich and show the recipe different thing etc.
I know IG is owned by Facebook, but I’m still quite surprised that a big percentage of people still have an actual Facebook account these days, I think it is mainly older people or less tech savvy people mostly though these days, most young people don’t as far as I can tell.
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Gotta get your 5G conspiracy news somewhere 
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Hate Facebook with a passion, but I really like Facebook Marketplace and come up on deals there quite often. It’s the only reason I keep that garbage.
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Yeah. The whole IG experience comes off as desperate as fuck. And hashtags too, hilarious.
But honestly, aren’t forums like this one just another form of social media?
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I love going through threads like these. Really cool to read different takes and approaches on the social media thing.
Personally, I still kinda like Instagram. Been using it for quite a while but I don’t have a huge amount of followers. And that’s also not really why I’m on there, although to be fair I recently did change my account name to match my artist name so my profile would do better for music-related searches. I post about stuff that I’m into so my feed a mix of plants, cats and music(gear). I use the stories to show more personal things and to post short snippets of beats and work in progress tracks. I only follow, comment on and like stuff that I’m into. If you’re not pretending to be something you’re not Insta is also a great way to casually get in touch with producers and labels and build a bit of a network in your scene.
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No, its a real phenomena. There are ten thousands of ASMR videos Out there. Ppl seem to Like them more than music. 
There is no person behind the AD machinery. Its all AI driven. You will never Beat it.
I wrote that there is no end to it, I just hope that I won’t be easily predictable for the AI/algorithm when I flag all the ads as irrelevant or even spam.
No need to go follow for a follow. I hate that and have never done that.
Using good tags under your post is possibly the most important thing to grow an audience. That combined with good quality video / image. And even better is to explain something about what you upload. A key element and how you created it. So people can learn.
For video Instagram is okayish but not really meant for it. If you want to create videos go youtube.
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Yeah, it’s totally not for me, I’ll stick with Bandcamp, YouTube and SoundCloud.
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