How Did I Decide Whether To Keep My Instagram Profile Public Or Private?
After reading about 20 articles on this and changing my mind as many times
As a content & digital consultant, and a woman, the thought of making my Instagram profile public has crossed my mind a gazillion times and I have weighed the pros & cons of both without coming to any conclusion for months.
If we think about it, my profession calls for me to keep my profile public, right? It’s almost antithetical. How else will I create my personal brand, give proof of my ability to connect with my audience? If I do it, it’ll be huge for recruiters. However, it would also mean that I will have to constantly engage with my audience. Will I be able to maintain that consistency while working a full-time job? Because if I don’t, what’s the point of keeping my profile public.
Having a social media presence today is as important as having a social life, physically speaking. With communication having shifted to digital in the past decade — more rapidly in the last 1.5 years, thanks to Covid — everyone has started to rely on the internet for communication, even parents, who we’ve seen partaking in cringe WhatsApp forwards & Facebook reshares. So unless you wish to be a social pariah, there’s no reason why you won’t have an active Instagram account. But Instagram when it comes to sharing personal info is a demanding platform, arguably more than Facebook.
Do you remember the good-old days of sharing jokes on each other’s Facebook walls? Or when the only wall-activity you had was when random people on your friend-list wished you a happy birthday? Despite coming online once a month, you were still ‘active’ on Facebook. I for one miss the commitment-flexibility that platform gave me.
Instagram, since it gives you access to the otherwise covert lives & lifestyles of VIPs, is a space you just have to be at. And once you’re there, the FOMO leads you to engage in activities such as liking, DMing and eventually, posting.
For me, posting on Instagram has always been tricky because it’s so…permanent, as opposed to Instagram stories. And also in terms of the medium. Do you share pictures (that are the basis of Instagram), or text (which regardless of the recent boom we’ve seen in content, is still in the getting-there phase)?
And it’s always this decision that gets me to overthink. It’s easier for me to lean to content because it’s what I do professionally. When I think about sharing pictures however, I’m at a loss. Historically, sharing their own flattering pictures has gotten women more likes and responses, both welcomed and unwelcomed. Sure, if I was marketing myself as a fashion influencer, sharing pictures would’ve worked, but that’s not the case.
This indecisiveness is not the only thing that stops me from making my profile public. It is also my intent of using social media. While I follow brands and notice their marketing tactics closely, I also follow friends, relatives and crushes. In fact, if I’m honest with myself, I’m on Instagram mostly for fun. For work I’m anyway operating my clients’ business accounts. If I give away what little time I have to myself to catch up with the world & read complete nonsense just because I can, I’ll lose what’s left of my personal life (have I mentioned I’m highly introverted?).
And here’s the thing about putting yourself out there — you might not care about exposing your private life, until you do. Is there even a way to have that uncaring, Rakhi-Sawant-like attitude on social media in general? As humans, we’re designed to seek external validation. I have realized I’m generally content with myself, until someone compliments me. Compliments uplift me, prove to me that I’m someone worth appreciating. And in that process of letting the compliment validate me, I lose my own sense of self. Who am I without those compliments? The lack of them, then, makes me insecure.
There’s no single answer to this question of choosing to make your profile public, because it has to be customized on the basis of who you are in that time frame and what do you want out of this experience. Are you in a good mind-state to be detached from public opinion so it doesn’t affect you? Or do you plan to share more of your private life that you’d only like your close friends to have access to? It’s just that once you make a decision, you should try and stick to it as a general rule of thumb. If it’s a public profile & you want it to be part of your work-showcase, the commitment is perhaps too huge to switch it back to a private profile. In the reverse scenario, your private account hosts memories from your life that you value, so it makes no sense to make them all public.
And that decided it for me.
I have been over this about a million times. One day I’m fully convinced a public profile is it for me and another, I am certain it will disrupt the privacy I’m trying so hard to maintain. Have you ever spent a long time looking for a pencil when it was in your hand the entire time? Look at me writing an unnecessarily long article about making this decision, which in itself is proof that I can’t possibly let go of my privacy, else I’ll go crazy. I’m your classic overthinker.
I’ve been fairly staunch in my belief that Instagram ‘Influencers’ should be more careful in what they’re communicating to their audience, ruthless even in my judgement. I can’t imagine having my life analyzed by complete strangers for gossip, or even innocent entertainment for a single day and it gives me newfound respect for those who are able to do it.
On a final note, since you’re reading this, how did you reach a conclusion for yourself in this situation? I would love to hear about it. Comments, and suggestions are all welcome! You can write to me at himani.sri@gmail.com
Thanks for reading,
Himani
