Social Media Back in 2010 I joined Flickr, can’t remember why, but it’s been my main photography oriented social media platform ever since. As I recall, it was the only platform that seemed to cater to photography interested people like myself at the time. Thru the years I’ve also tried 500px and Google+, but I never grew too fond of them, so my level of engagement slowly died out.

A lot has happened in my personal life over the past three years, I became a father to twins, got a new job, moved to a new apartment (twice), so my general involvement on social medias has been less than impressive. So now that I find myself having energy and time for my personal interests, I discover that the number of media sites available to photographers have multiplied significantly.

Now you have:
Flickr
500px
Google+
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Tumblr
Pinterest
YourShot (National Geographic)
Stocksy
VSCO community
Ello
EyeEm
...and many many more that I can't remember or know about...

When I discover a new platform, my first thought is always "I've better create an account and use this" but why on earth would I get involved in yet another social media platform. It seems that the amount of aspiring photographers is very high, it must be in order to support so many platforms. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the dreamers are represented on nearly all of them, which leaves me to wonder how they find time for photography. If you have a dream of one day making it as a photographer, the best way to spend your precious time would be photographing and improving your skill-set, not maintain 15+ social media accounts. Try to do both and you will either give up or end up stressing yourself.

If you look up to people like Chase Jarvis or Joe McNally, who are both present on many social media platforms, then bear in mind that they made it before cameras were digital, at a time when it took 50 minutes to download a song with Napster using a 28kbit dial up modem (remember those). Both McNally and Jarvis were self made photographers long before they got involved with social media, even long before social media as we know it today existed. I bet that they have someone on their staff who handles their Twitter-, Facebook-, Instagram-  and Google+ accounts because they are more wrapped up in shooting, elsewhere.

Taking pictures beats drowning in an ocean of social media.