It has been a rocking relationship with Instagram since Facebook bought it. What was once a safe place to post anything you wanted, soon became a money machine and my love for it went on a rapid decline.
Since treating it solely as a business tool rather than a platform of freedom of content, only then did it start rewarding me with aesthetics such as numbers (likes/followers). I have been a blogger since the very beginning (2010/11) and never did I think I would get caught up in a rat race of people hungry for success on something as simple as an imagery app. It wasn’t exactly the life I chose but I have always been creative in some way, whether it’s how I dressed, the colour of my hair, the style of my bedroom… so I think I would have always fallen prisoner to it at some point.
I have been in the industry for my entire 20’s and what I have learned over the years of trying to crack the code, beat the algorithm, be valued, become an entrepreneur… is to have control of IT and not the other way around. It is so easy for it to start consuming your life, your present state and then without realising it, creating content takes priority over just living. So my advice is to make sure you are in the driving seat of your life, treat it as a creative extension of yourself and PLEASE do not let likes and followers define how great you are as a person or at your craft. It is a game, it can sometimes be about luck, the right place at the right time or how long you spend on it at day and lets face it, I believe we will all get to the point where we may regret looking at life through the ig lens and not our own.
So, what I have learnt is: (grab a little notepad dead quick) figure out what you are good at, what is your passion and what you have to ‘offer’ the platform, find your niche *it’s key! Then find a way to display that niche in a unique way to what others are doing, as you will need to stand out over the other millions of users on that platform doing the same thing as you. Have a consistent voice, style and tone and hopefully (fingers and toes crossed) people love you for YOU. Best of luck x
P.S also the best bit of advice I can offer is to remember why you started, remember what your style or passion was at the very beginning and TRY not to lose sight of that when you are focusing too heavily on what other people want of you.
