I MADE A VIDEO ON INSTAGRAM

[Bongo]

Instagram insisted on making a video of my face before they would let me back on my account. I resisted for a few days then finally gave in because I wanted to keep the name.
After doing the video I think if you put on a good rubber mask that looks human - you might be able to fool it. Wish I had tried that first.
Although they claim that they'll delete the video after 30 days.

Now I want to do a complete revamp of my page, just showcase a dozen or so of my better paintings that have a common theme or that have some easily recognizable relationship.

like I said in a previous thread, don't care about likes or followers, just want to have something to show if asked.

 

[PaintBoss]

I wish they could just keep it simple.

 

[brianvds]

Have you been able to work out why you were banned in the first place?

 

[Bongo]

Have you been able to work out why you were banned in the first place?

​ ​ from IG : ​ We noticed a login from a device you don't usually use. ​ ​ If this was you, you won’t be able to access certain security and account settings for a few days. You can still access these settings from a device you’ve logged in with in the past.

​ but no matter what I did/ which device, account etc. - I was stopped at the first page and required to take a video selfie to go further. Couldn't get on IG period.

​

 

[PaintBoss]

That’s interesting. Maybe it’s a scammer he got into your account. Or thinking back to like 12 years ago or so on Facebook all of a sudden I had a devil of a time signing in. It didn’t matter what I gave them -pictures, id- but they wanted it all. At least three different ones and they were calculating the measurements on my face on each picture and I could see that. At the time they weren’t admitting to anything. In fact, they were denying there was anything going on. I think like 5 years later it came out that the government had hired them to test out a massive facial recognition program they were building. They chose Facebook because they had the largest group of people -like 1 billion using it- and all that information went in and it’s still there. The government did try to bring it into the culture, but the US society would not tolerate it like they do in China. So anytime they keep wanting more pictures and they’re never satisfied -whether it’s a video or not, I am now suspicious. I couldn’t figure why I kept giving all that stuff and they kept taking all the information and nothing happened. They just wanted to make sure I was who I said I was. So they said. Instead, they were getting all the information they needed.

 

[Bongo]

First, I didn't use a different device, all that is bogus. I think they just wanted my image. My guess is everyone on IG at some point will be getting this so they can collect faces.

I think they will delete the video, but only after their facial recognition software gets all the points off it, it needs to identify you. They don't need the video, just the calculations.

 

[Hermes2020]

I am quite happy that I don't need to use Instagram or any social media like Facebook in my life. I am a member of Creative Spark and only one other forum (not an art one), where I rarely make any contributions, but check in every day to see the latest communications from other members. There is a WhatsApp group of residents in my suburb, where we share things like recommendations for good plumbers and other news.

 

[brianvds]

​ ​ from IG : ​ We noticed a login from a device you don't usually use. ​ ​ If this was you, you won’t be able to access certain security and account settings for a few days. You can still access these settings from a device you’ve logged in with in the past.

​ but no matter what I did/ which device, account etc. - I was stopped at the first page and required to take a video selfie to go further. Couldn't get on IG period.

​

Rather weird. I also think it is possible that you may have been hacked, but then, now that social media companies let artificial "intelligence" run everything, this sort of thing is bound to happen.

There is a thin line between a login procedure that is too simple (making it easy for hackers to get in) and a procedure so secure that nobody can get in, including the account owner.

Anyway, as you note, IG can be useful to serve simply as an online presence where people can see what you do (Cara is perhaps even more useful for that, because they have a portfolio feature, but they're currently virtually unknown). Apart from that, there's probably little point to bothering with IG.

 

[brianvds]

I am quite happy that I don't need to use Instagram or any social media like Facebook in my life. I am a member of Creative Spark and only one other forum (not an art one), where I rarely make any contributions, but check in every day to see the latest communications from other members.

Social media marketing is mostly hype; now and then, an occasional lucky person makes a success of it, mostly via sheer luck, and then he'll tell you endlessly what the "secrets" are. Indeed, some of them even write books or offer courses on it. Almost all of it nonsense. A book absolutely everyone should make time to read is Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness.

Now social media can be fun; I have been on Facebook just about forever. But the trick is NOT to try desperately to market yourself. One should do precisely what the powers that be at Facebook don't want you to do, namely to put the "social" back into social media: be FB friends only with people who are actually your friends, and engage with them socially, not commercially. In practice that means you cannot possibly have more than a hundred or so FB friends - no one can keep track of more than that amount of people.

That's how I did it for many years, and I could never understand why people complained so much about FB, until I discovered the complaints were all from people who had thousands upon thousands of FB "friends." Well geez, OF COURSE you're going to see all kinds of horrible and boring and irrelevant and irritating stuff on your timeline that way.

But what about social media marketing and networking? Don't you need lots of online "friends" for that? No. See my point above about social media marketing. It might actually be better to have fifty FB friends who know you and appreciate what you do and therefore regularly share your posts than to have ten million who each ALSO have ten million "friends" and therefore likely never actually see anything you posted on their timeline.

I eventually discovered a little hack one can try on FB: it has a feature by which you can mute a friend, so you remain FB friends but you no longer see any of their posts. I began to accept friend requests from people I don't know, and then simply mute them the moment I see one of their posts. That way they possibly still see mine, but I no longer see theirs, so I can continue online relations with my real friends without having my timeline contaminated by posts from people I neither know nor want to know.

It made little difference anyway; I seldom get friend requests from anyone.

I have found FB moderately useful (once actually sold a painting thanks to FB!), but it's mostly just a fun social media tool. I'm a member of several FB groups (another potentially fun feature) ranging from wildlife to art, where I often see much that is interesting.

But on the whole I would agree that one can (and probably should, really) actually live perfectly well without any social media whatever.

There is a WhatsApp group of residents in my suburb, where we share things like recommendations for good plumbers and other news.

Now THERE is where I draw the line. I once had WhatsApp on my phone. But I am dirt poor and cannot afford cellular contracts and stuff, so I only use prepaid. And found to my consternation that WhatsApp messages burn through my prepaid at an unsustainable rate.

Apart from that, it drove absolutely, utterly, batshit crazy: the phone starts beeping absolutely non-stop, day and night. I could not focus on anything else anymore.

My fondest wish is for a life where I no longer have any phone, whatever, of any kind, apart from maybe an old-fashioned landline, and in that case, I'd probably take it off the hook most of the time.

 

[Artyczar]

I don't think it's true that you can't keep track than more than 100 or so people/friends. I don't have Facebook anymore, but when I was there, I found that 2000 was a good amount to keep as a limit. I didn't accept more after that. My page was for both friends and "fans," and I limited my feed to just close friends (you can do that--or at least you could when I was there).

I always kept my page public so anyone could find me and could read whatever news I posted. You're right about being able to live without any social media at all. BUT, if you're an artist who is trying to promote yourself, I believe you need at least one. That doesn't mean that equals success, but you will be easier to find. Galleries want you to have an Instagram page because they have one, and their assistants will look you up and follow you if they like what they see on your profile. They will look there before going to your website. That's just a fact.

I have artist friends that sell via Facebook and Instagram. They do limited sales on certain days, and that works for them. I, myself, had made sales on Instagram and found new repeat collectors. I never really post things for sale. I often post things that have sold a long time ago. There's no real rhyme or reason. I don't advertise "this one sold." I don't say, "This one is xx dollars." Occasionally, I may mention my book prices if they are running low in stock, but only if they are affordable. And every blue moon, if I'm having a discount on my work, I'll say so. I also will promote exhibitions. That is the number one best way to get people to come out to the shows, and pull people to your website as well. Instagram is good for a lot.

Still, I don't like Instagram for many other reasons: the "likes" and the upkeep and participation in order to keep and gain more followers. That is a fulltime job for a lot of people. I do the bare minimum, which is why I don't have that many followers. But sometimes, it's not the quantity of the people who follow you; it's the quality. Same with your collectors. One doesn't need thousands of collectors or even hundreds, just some loyal ones. There are great artists of the past who we all know that survived on one or two collectors. We'd all love to have a couple of patrons like that. Maybe that's a very rare situation, but if some of us had a couple dozen close to that, that would be something, yeah?

 

[brianvds]

I don't think it's true that you can't keep track than more than 100 or so people/friends. I don't have Facebook anymore, but when I was there, I found that 2000 was a good amount to keep as a limit. I didn't accept more after that. My page was for both friends and "fans," and I limited my feed to just close friends (you can do that--or at least you could when I was there).

Yes, I accept friend requests from anyone, but promptly mute them, otherwise my feed becomes unmanageable.

I always kept my page public so anyone could find me and could read whatever news I posted. You're right about being able to live without any social media at all. BUT, if you're an artist who is trying to promote yourself, I believe you need at least one. That doesn't mean that equals success, but you will be easier to find. Galleries want you to have an Instagram page because they have one, and their assistants will look you up and follow you if they like what they see on your profile. They will look there before going to your website. That's just a fact.

In the early days of the web, you had to have a website. And then blogs became popular. Now it's social media. It's not that one necessarily gets a lot of traffic, but yes, you "don't exist" if you're not on social media.

I have a blog as well, but I eventually abandoned it. It became more and more of a chore to post my new stuff there, and I don't think anyone ever actually visited. But I didn't delete it; simply made a final post directing people to everywhere else where I might be found nowadays.

I have artist friends that sell via Facebook and Instagram. They do limited sales on certain days, and that works for them. I, myself, had made sales on Instagram and found new repeat collectors. I never really post things for sale. I often post things that have sold a long time ago. There's no real rhyme or reason. I don't advertise "this one sold." I don't say, "This one is xx dollars." Occasionally, I may mention my book prices if they are running low in stock, but only if they are affordable. And every blue moon, if I'm having a discount on my work, I'll say so. I also will promote exhibitions. That is the number one best way to get people to come out to the shows, and pull people to your website as well. Instagram is good for a lot.

Still, I don't like Instagram for many other reasons: the "likes" and the upkeep and participation in order to keep and gain more followers. That is a fulltime job for a lot of people. I do the bare minimum, which is why I don't have that many followers. But sometimes, it's not the quantity of the people who follow you; it's the quality. Same with your collectors. One doesn't need thousands of collectors or even hundreds, just some loyal ones. There are great artists of the past who we all know that survived on one or two collectors. We'd all love to have a couple of patrons like that. Maybe that's a very rare situation, but if some of us had a couple dozen close to that, that would be something, yeah?

I can't work out how people gain so many followers on Instagram. One is practically invisible there, because IG's hashtag search function no longer really functions - if you search a hashtag, you only see the ten or so "top posts." I.e. chances are virtually zero that a new artist on there will be seen or noticed by anyone.

Now I could gain followers, I suppose, by interacting a lot. But just about the only followers I ever get are other artists, which is, from a commercial point of view, of very little use to me. IG seems to me to be more or less irrelevant to success; I know several commercially highly successful artists who have fewer than 300 IG followers, despite the fact that they regularly post there.

But I do social media anyway: it's fun to follow artists whose work I enjoy, and to get some feedback now and then, and if one doesn't spend too much time on it, it certainly doesn't hurt. It's like a quite cheap gamble; the investment of time and energy is low and known beforehand; the potential payoff unknown but also potentially virtually unlimited.

In summary, I seldom manage to sell anything anyway, social media or not, but as I grow older, I care ever less and less about it. My advice to other artists would be, by all means do social media, but be careful about getting sucked in by it. It's way more fun to use it to socialize with friends; frantic attempts to market there are unlikely to be successful, and will become ever more burdensome.

 

[Artyczar]

In the early days of the web, you had to have a website. And then blogs became popular. Now it's social media. It's not that one necessarily gets a lot of traffic, but yes, you "don't exist" if you're not on social media.

I agree. That's how it seems, and that's actually how it is for the most part.

I have a blog as well, but I eventually abandoned it. It became more and more of a chore to post my new stuff there, and I don't think anyone ever actually visited. But I didn't delete it; simply made a final post directing people to everywhere else where I might be found nowadays.

I still have both a blog and a website. The website is where all my art is, my CV, my statement, and all that stuff. I consider it the "hub" where I try to get everyone to wind up eventually. It also has a backend (no one sees) where I keep track of my work, sales, etc. So, what people see is queried from that database. The blog is used for work in progress and a lot of studio journaling. I get a lot of reader, but they don't necessarily comment, which is fine. I'm not really writing to anyone in particular.

I can't work out how people gain so many followers on Instagram. One is practically invisible there, because IG's hashtag search function no longer really functions - if you search a hashtag, you only see the ten or so "top posts." I.e. chances are virtually zero that a new artist on there will be seen or noticed by anyone.

I have no idea how people get so many followers there either! For the life of me. They must have spent a ton of hours participating, and I think it's mostly other artists. That doesn't translate into sales. I try not to pay attention anymore or I will compare and feel bad about myself. It really baffles me. Maybe they BUY their followers and likes, which some people do.

But I do social media anyway: it's fun to follow artists whose work I enjoy, and to get some feedback now and then, and if one doesn't spend too much time on it, it certainly doesn't hurt. It's like a quite cheap gamble; the investment of time and energy is low and known beforehand; the potential payoff unknown but also potentially virtually unlimited.

Exactly.

In summary, I seldom manage to sell anything anyway, social media or not, but as I grow older, I care ever less and less about it. My advice to other artists would be, by all means do social media, but be careful about getting sucked in by it. It's way more fun to use it to socialize with friends; frantic attempts to market there are unlikely to be successful, and will become ever more burdensome.

Yes. I too care less and less because I have to. Every sale is a huge surprise on Instagram and elsewhere. I'm just grateful when it comes my way. I used to get them more often, and sometimes they come in stints. You can never predict it.