The Power of Social Media and Its Impact on Our Lives

In today's digital age, social media has become an integral part of our lives. We use it to communicate with others, share our thoughts and experiences, and showcase our personalities. But have you ever wondered how algorithms work behind the scenes to make social media platforms so engaging? Unfortunately, these algorithms are not publicly published, and their creators don't want people to hack into the system. However, by using the platform and engaging with other people, we can increase our own visibility.

One of my favorite examples of someone who is brilliant at this stuff is Gary Vaynerchuk. He's a media adviser, social media enthusiast, and a bit of a spaz. I love him! He eats social media for breakfast and is completely nuts about it. If you want to learn how to use social media effectively, check out his channel in the show description. Gary does an amazing job of getting people pumped up about social media and teaching them how to create content that resonates with their audience.

But what really got me thinking about social media was talking to some big photographers on Instagram. This has become a phenomenon, and there are many talented individuals who have built huge followings by showcasing their work. However, the reality is that most people won't become influencers overnight. It takes time, patience, and effort to build a following and monetize your online presence.

Take Tyler Sharp, for example. He's a photographer from Dallas who has interviewed me on an audio show in the past. He's got an enormous Instagram following, and companies have started hiring him as an influencer. What he does is attend events like South by Southwest, where they want a strong online presence, and takes over their Instagram account for the day. This not only increases the quality of their content but also brings in some of his followers.

The lifespan of social media posts is another fascinating topic. Most people who post once or twice a week will see a drop-off within 24 to 48 hours. That's why it's so important to stay on top of trends and engage with your audience regularly. If you want to learn from successful people in the industry, look at their posting frequency, engagement rates, and what types of content they post.

I also think that social media needs to become more natural and intuitive. The current interface can be crude, but I hope it will evolve into something better. Maybe we'll see a future where still images and photography come to the forefront, rather than just text-based posts. Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain: social media is here to stay, and we need to learn how to use it effectively.

So, what do you guys think? Leave me a comment in the little box below, and let's discuss this topic further. Don't forget to subscribe, share this episode with your friends, and give me all the engagement! I'll see you guys in the next video until then...

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI want to talk a little bit today about social media and photography and a couple videos ago I said something that I've been quoted on that I want to clarify and to paraphrase what I said it was something to the degree of when you're trying to create meaningful work or work that has value it's not a popularity contest and don't worry about the social media and I do mean that when you were trying to create meaningful work work that has value the drive should not be in the popularity side of it the drive should be in the Integrity of the work now several people in comments had quoted me on that and said and then then it kind of escalated into yeah I deleted my Facebook account and uh you know y yada the issue here is that social media if you want your work to be seen it's extremely important because it's the system that is in place right now and I know those are two different things completely there's sharing your work and there's getting your work seen and there's creating your work and that's what I wanted to delineate because I do think it's two different things if you don't care that your work get seen then you don't need to worry about it and yes social media in some ways can be a very frustrating experience there are number of reasons why I think it's very unnatural for photography and this is why the world is changing drastically these days in that context I think that if you in there trying to show work that has Intelligence behind it that has something special to you that that you want to share and communicate you have to realize that you're in there with PE kids of or photos of people's kids at the pool uh cat photos all that that stuff and the definition of photography is a lot different in the social media World in some respects because photography is a tool in the social media world and is not always done with Fine Art intentions or showcasing a commercial portfolio or whatever that is so that is very unnatural for one now it doesn't mean you can't do it and it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it you should what the amazing thing about social media that you have to understand is when you consider what the world was like before the internet and you know back in the 1980 for instance um it was very difficult to distribute your work to a wide range of people you could do a show somewhere at a gallery or coffee shop maybe and that would reach a limited number of people but other than that you either needed to work for a magazine or a newspaper or I remember um for commercial photographers back in those days there was this thing called blackbook which was and there was another one called workbook but they were these big uh books that were distributed to uh art directors and graphic designers and people who might hire photographers and you could buy ad space and it was very expensive but you could put a little you buy a full page and put your portfolio in there and that was how you got the word out that has changed completely and there were a lot of Gatekeepers in those days that don't exist anymore so social media empowers you to use this directly and to allow your work to reach a greater audience now is it hard yes it didn't make it easier it just removed The Gatekeepers and it made it an equal playing field and anybody can participate and so I think that's important to understand it's also important to understand how social media tends to work and I know it's not perfect but it's kind of an algorithm-based environment and this is where another thing I think is very unnatural to photographers the when I mean algorithm it's essentially when I log into Facebook let's say or Twitter or whatever that is the things that it's going to show me when I log in it's not going to give them to me an order necessarily it's going to use a mathematical equation or an algorithm to determine what posts are getting the most engagement and so these could be likes these could be shares these could be comments and I think that's a really unnatural way when you're considering work of meaning um to Define that using math and to I don't think it's possible I don't think there's a way to use artificial intelligence definitely at this point in the history of the world to replicate like how people are going to respond to an image cuz honestly everybody's going to respond to work differently it's largely opinion a you know there's work that I like that you may not care for and vice versa so there's really no algorithm to predict um your taste versus mine now they can get dangerously close they gather a lot of information on us when we're using the various platforms but I think that's a very awkward um environment for photography to exist in so knowing that you need to learn how to use the platforms and I think that's really important I know a lot of people who Express frustration with Instagram or Facebook or whatever but I also know those people log in maybe once a month once every other month they'll throw up a couple portfolio images and be gone and then when they come back a month later to do the next they realize they didn't get any comments or likes or you you have to use social media and a lot of that algorithm and I'm guessing at this the algorithms are not publicly published because they don't want people to hack into the system but I would guess that in my experience that using the platform and engaging with other people is going to create or it's going to increase your own visibility so for instance if I go in there I try to communicate with people I comment on things I try to just use the platform like things occasionally share things occasionally that you think are interesting and try to be sincere because that's what they are trying to replicate so you really have to get in and use that and if you want somebody who is brilliant at this stuff who is a little bit of a spaz and he's crazy but he is a genius is go check out Gary vaynerchuk I'll link up to his channel in the show description and this is what Gary does he's a media adviser he Embraces social media he eats it for breakfast and he's completely nuts and I love him he's wonderful and he will get you pumped up about all this stuff and learn how to use it but like even with my stuff I have people who come to me all the time and say Hey you know you have uh your videos get a lot of views on YouTube and and and maybe you could give me some advice on this and my advice is I did I mean I didn't throw a video up and it gained traction I mean it was a long slow process and I had to learn how to create things that people would engage with and I had to engage with other people and you have to it's this whole world that has to come together with that and you have to be patient and it's very difficult but all hope is not lost and let me give you one more example because I think it's it's brilliant if you go look at some of the big photographers on Instagram and this has become a phenomenon there's some people on there that are very good that do very well on Instagram now Instagram does not monetize um directly but for instance uh gentleman that I know who's a photographer from Dallas his name is Tyler sharp and I interviewed him with my friend Wade on an audio show that I used to do years and years ago but we were talking about this and he has an enormous Instagram following he's quite a good photographer and he has become marketable as what they call an influencer and so this means that companies will hire him to be an influencer so what he'll do is they'll send him to South by Southwest or something um where they want a presence and they will have him take over their Instagram account and because he's good that will increase the quality of their work it will also bring in some of his following and he's paid money to do this and that is an occupation or at least a freelance opportunity that didn't exist at all 5 years ago probably not very much through three years ago so there is New Opportunities within all this stuff now Tyler didn't get to do that by just posting an image once a month in fact if you look at the lifespan of social media posts I mean even stuff when I've posted that has been very popular within 24 to 48 hours it's kind of over with and so there's it's kind of like the news cycle of immediacy and you've got to stay on that and I mean it's worth it to go look at people who are successful on various platforms and look at things like what is their posting frequency um what kinds of things do they post what is their engagement frequency do they follow other people do they you know it depends on the platform all that but I can guarantee you that Tyler does not post once a month he probably posts multiple times a day now I say that not having checked in with him in a while but he's a great photographer and that's an opportunity for him so there are opportunities out there and I'll end it by saying this they're crude and they're weird and I hope that social media is going to involve into something that is way more natural to converse with that works better for still images and photography and video all these things in the future nothing is more crude than here's a post and here's a little box to write a comment in that's strange but it's what we've got and that's how people interact right now I would like to know what you guys think and so leave me a comment in the little box I know it's crude but uh I this is I think this is worth discussing and it's worth noting and talking about and I know it can be frustrating for some people and I don't think it should be anyway so that's where we are for today um if you enjoyed this episode like it share it with your And subscribe give me all the engagement and I'll see you guys in the next video Until then laterI want to talk a little bit today about social media and photography and a couple videos ago I said something that I've been quoted on that I want to clarify and to paraphrase what I said it was something to the degree of when you're trying to create meaningful work or work that has value it's not a popularity contest and don't worry about the social media and I do mean that when you were trying to create meaningful work work that has value the drive should not be in the popularity side of it the drive should be in the Integrity of the work now several people in comments had quoted me on that and said and then then it kind of escalated into yeah I deleted my Facebook account and uh you know y yada the issue here is that social media if you want your work to be seen it's extremely important because it's the system that is in place right now and I know those are two different things completely there's sharing your work and there's getting your work seen and there's creating your work and that's what I wanted to delineate because I do think it's two different things if you don't care that your work get seen then you don't need to worry about it and yes social media in some ways can be a very frustrating experience there are number of reasons why I think it's very unnatural for photography and this is why the world is changing drastically these days in that context I think that if you in there trying to show work that has Intelligence behind it that has something special to you that that you want to share and communicate you have to realize that you're in there with PE kids of or photos of people's kids at the pool uh cat photos all that that stuff and the definition of photography is a lot different in the social media World in some respects because photography is a tool in the social media world and is not always done with Fine Art intentions or showcasing a commercial portfolio or whatever that is so that is very unnatural for one now it doesn't mean you can't do it and it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it you should what the amazing thing about social media that you have to understand is when you consider what the world was like before the internet and you know back in the 1980 for instance um it was very difficult to distribute your work to a wide range of people you could do a show somewhere at a gallery or coffee shop maybe and that would reach a limited number of people but other than that you either needed to work for a magazine or a newspaper or I remember um for commercial photographers back in those days there was this thing called blackbook which was and there was another one called workbook but they were these big uh books that were distributed to uh art directors and graphic designers and people who might hire photographers and you could buy ad space and it was very expensive but you could put a little you buy a full page and put your portfolio in there and that was how you got the word out that has changed completely and there were a lot of Gatekeepers in those days that don't exist anymore so social media empowers you to use this directly and to allow your work to reach a greater audience now is it hard yes it didn't make it easier it just removed The Gatekeepers and it made it an equal playing field and anybody can participate and so I think that's important to understand it's also important to understand how social media tends to work and I know it's not perfect but it's kind of an algorithm-based environment and this is where another thing I think is very unnatural to photographers the when I mean algorithm it's essentially when I log into Facebook let's say or Twitter or whatever that is the things that it's going to show me when I log in it's not going to give them to me an order necessarily it's going to use a mathematical equation or an algorithm to determine what posts are getting the most engagement and so these could be likes these could be shares these could be comments and I think that's a really unnatural way when you're considering work of meaning um to Define that using math and to I don't think it's possible I don't think there's a way to use artificial intelligence definitely at this point in the history of the world to replicate like how people are going to respond to an image cuz honestly everybody's going to respond to work differently it's largely opinion a you know there's work that I like that you may not care for and vice versa so there's really no algorithm to predict um your taste versus mine now they can get dangerously close they gather a lot of information on us when we're using the various platforms but I think that's a very awkward um environment for photography to exist in so knowing that you need to learn how to use the platforms and I think that's really important I know a lot of people who Express frustration with Instagram or Facebook or whatever but I also know those people log in maybe once a month once every other month they'll throw up a couple portfolio images and be gone and then when they come back a month later to do the next they realize they didn't get any comments or likes or you you have to use social media and a lot of that algorithm and I'm guessing at this the algorithms are not publicly published because they don't want people to hack into the system but I would guess that in my experience that using the platform and engaging with other people is going to create or it's going to increase your own visibility so for instance if I go in there I try to communicate with people I comment on things I try to just use the platform like things occasionally share things occasionally that you think are interesting and try to be sincere because that's what they are trying to replicate so you really have to get in and use that and if you want somebody who is brilliant at this stuff who is a little bit of a spaz and he's crazy but he is a genius is go check out Gary vaynerchuk I'll link up to his channel in the show description and this is what Gary does he's a media adviser he Embraces social media he eats it for breakfast and he's completely nuts and I love him he's wonderful and he will get you pumped up about all this stuff and learn how to use it but like even with my stuff I have people who come to me all the time and say Hey you know you have uh your videos get a lot of views on YouTube and and and maybe you could give me some advice on this and my advice is I did I mean I didn't throw a video up and it gained traction I mean it was a long slow process and I had to learn how to create things that people would engage with and I had to engage with other people and you have to it's this whole world that has to come together with that and you have to be patient and it's very difficult but all hope is not lost and let me give you one more example because I think it's it's brilliant if you go look at some of the big photographers on Instagram and this has become a phenomenon there's some people on there that are very good that do very well on Instagram now Instagram does not monetize um directly but for instance uh gentleman that I know who's a photographer from Dallas his name is Tyler sharp and I interviewed him with my friend Wade on an audio show that I used to do years and years ago but we were talking about this and he has an enormous Instagram following he's quite a good photographer and he has become marketable as what they call an influencer and so this means that companies will hire him to be an influencer so what he'll do is they'll send him to South by Southwest or something um where they want a presence and they will have him take over their Instagram account and because he's good that will increase the quality of their work it will also bring in some of his following and he's paid money to do this and that is an occupation or at least a freelance opportunity that didn't exist at all 5 years ago probably not very much through three years ago so there is New Opportunities within all this stuff now Tyler didn't get to do that by just posting an image once a month in fact if you look at the lifespan of social media posts I mean even stuff when I've posted that has been very popular within 24 to 48 hours it's kind of over with and so there's it's kind of like the news cycle of immediacy and you've got to stay on that and I mean it's worth it to go look at people who are successful on various platforms and look at things like what is their posting frequency um what kinds of things do they post what is their engagement frequency do they follow other people do they you know it depends on the platform all that but I can guarantee you that Tyler does not post once a month he probably posts multiple times a day now I say that not having checked in with him in a while but he's a great photographer and that's an opportunity for him so there are opportunities out there and I'll end it by saying this they're crude and they're weird and I hope that social media is going to involve into something that is way more natural to converse with that works better for still images and photography and video all these things in the future nothing is more crude than here's a post and here's a little box to write a comment in that's strange but it's what we've got and that's how people interact right now I would like to know what you guys think and so leave me a comment in the little box I know it's crude but uh I this is I think this is worth discussing and it's worth noting and talking about and I know it can be frustrating for some people and I don't think it should be anyway so that's where we are for today um if you enjoyed this episode like it share it with your And subscribe give me all the engagement and I'll see you guys in the next video Until then later\n"