Notes on Cara and the engagement virus
I've been on Cara for a week now. All the images I put on my blog go though there. I organised my profile and portfolio, uploaded most of my backlog and developed a bit of a routine. But let's start with the beginning.
Engagement farming makes me not want to engage. I've been on both sides of the fence on this. I've had Facebook Pages and I tried making my Instagram and even Tumblr happen. They didn't happen. But I tried. I did all the stuff, the call to action, constant schedules, engaging to attract, clcik bait. You name it, I did it. And it burnt me out. It's terrible. Instead of focusing on my art I focused on how I would make the piece I'm working on be engaging on the internet so it would do well. So moving forward in this blog keep in mind that I don't look down or hate on any of the people I'll talk about cause I know the pressure, I know how hard it is to get a foot in the door.
On the other hand I do follow a lot of artists. I still have an instagram simply because most of my favourite artists only post there and I do want to check up them every now and then. As much as I love their art I get annoyed when they repost their work endlesly, multiple times a day. I lose al track of what I've seen and not, it drowns out others on my feed. There's thins constant scrolling to see if in the sea of reposts there's anything new.
Cara is quiet. Yet still, in the week I've been on there, I saw the engagement virus pop up here and there.
First couple days, as I uploaded my backlog, I added a pinned post apologising for the flood of posts. I felt bad about it but I had to get it out of the way. As I was uploding I noticed two accounts were likng my posts at the same rate I was uploading them. I knew Cara has a feed for new posts site wide and these accounts felt like bots set up to like everything that's new. It's clever way to engage with active users. We want validation especially when we put something new up. We're bound to check the profiles of the first few people to like our piece. Both of these accounts look like legitimate artists its not "just bots". I guess it's not as noticible now when I post now and then and the first two likes are always these two people. If I didn't know I'd think they're my biggest fans!
After I got all set up and apologised...again. I got aquinted with those sitewide feeds. I gotta admit that I love the explore page, especially the "latest" category. It reminds me of DeviantART so much. I found myself a bunch of artists I liked and followed them.
I set my home feed to be 70% artist I follow, 20% artists that the artist I follow follow (say it fast!), 10% sidewide random posts. I soon changed it to 100% just artist I follow. I go on the explore page myself anyway.
One account was very heavy on reposting? retweeting? sharing? I forget how it's called on Cara. And I soon noticed that these reposts were the same posts on the "latest page". Great, another automated account. I tried to ignore that and just use the "just following" tab instead to see my feel without all that cause I did like this person's actual art.
Amid the deluge of constant reposts I noticed a piece I adore. I imediately went to this artists page. I love all his work. It's maybe my favourite on Cara until now...but...BUT...
This gentleman had what seems to be the most annoying automation, or routine, tho I am inclined to think it's an automation. His profile reposted his art constantly. I don't want to exagrate, but I think his whole portfolio was being reposted per day. It even drowned the lady that was reposting the "latest" page.
I unfollowed thme both. Both artists that I really liked...unfollowed becuase they were going at Instagram pace on Cara. It's a shame that we got to the point where fantastic artists feel they need to resort to tactics like these to get noticed. And to be fair it does work. What all these profiles had in common was a follower count ending in "k".
I'm not giving any names or links here because I understand. I really do. This just sucks.
I bookmarked my favourite pieces from them so I can visit their portfolios from time to time and see what's new.
