@baileyvidler Ugh! I'm so sorry to hear that your account got disabled. Like we needed one more way to feel futile about our marketing efforts, right?
I liked reading all your replies, because frankly, since IG went reels, I feel like it's the beginning of the end for artists there. I feel like everything social media is becoming flashing and noise competing for our attention until no one sees anything anymore. I get sensory overload and click out. I mean, ostensibly we're book people, right? Not entirely as a result of reels, but more because I am slow and because I actually traveled again this year, I haven't posted since spring either. Then again, I'm not working professionally and want to. And I am geographically isolated.
And it's not just IG. All my social media feeds have become a jumbled, overloaded, irrelevant mess and as a result I look at them less and less. I used to enjoy them before everything got so desperate-looking.
Newsletters seem interesting, though frankly I get too much mail and don't read most of it. I do like Jake's newsletter, because it's nicely curated. Here, by the way, is a recent NY Times article on "peak newsletter," thought I don't think it should discourage anyone. Just putting it out there for info. I put it in a "gift" link, which means you shouldn't need a subscription to read it.
This could be a good moment to have a serious discussion amongst ourselves, "With social media algorithms running amok, newsletters and art samples flooding inboxes, paper postcards dead, podcasts proliferating, and not everyone cut out for YouTube, what is the best way to actually get work these days?" Because as much as we feel frustrated for you, Bailey, the real thing you need is a solution that works.
My main criterion for promotion is simply that it not take up more time than the art! 