25 Comments
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Patrick Walden's avatar

I walked away from a facebook page for my therapy business with 132k followers. It’s so nice and liberating and quiet. How I actually want my life to be. I read something recently that our businesses aren’t on meta to make our businesses successful, they’re on meta to make meta successful. Today I’m starting planning some promo material to swap with the business around me, in person.

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

Yes, agree - 'on meta to make meta successful'. Bravo to you to walking away. Was there a 'last straw'? Enjoy your day outside and working :)

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Pablo Naboso's avatar

Wow. 136K followers, which cost you so much work over years. This is brave but also, I understand and appreciate the sense of liberation you talk about. In the same time, this shows something crucial: Instagram owns your contacts, not you. If you quit, you cannot take them with you. In Substack instead, you own your audience. I wrote a short piece to explain this: https://open.substack.com/pub/4two/p/how-to-own-your-audience

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Claire Fox's avatar

thank you for all you've shared on ig! i found your account in 2016 and it helped set me on a path toward becoming an archivist. so now that i am an archivist (lol), i'm wondering - will you preserve your account and/or the images & text? (fwiw - i don't think you should feel obligated to do so! just curious.)

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

omg, that's incredible! i'm not deleting the account. i've always argued social media is fleeting - i never saw it as an actually lasting archive (you'd know more about that than me). i'll keep it up for the memories. i actually did a 7min tiktok walking down herstory IG memory lane yesterday :)

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Claire Fox's avatar

aw yay! just watched the tiktok, love it -- and glad you’re leaving the account available in the ephemeral ig realm <3

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Marina Roca Díe's avatar

Wow, congratulations on walking out of such a number of followers!! I really admire your courage, I don't dare to leave it just yet but I want this to be the year. The people from there who wants to come along to my newsletter are more than welcome. I wrote this piece on how IG affected my field of industry, which is painting. Just if you feel like reading it :)

https://open.substack.com/pub/marinarocade/p/instagram-changed-contemporary-painting?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=9218i

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Sarah Centrella's avatar

I just quit all other socials but IG this weekend. God knows I’d love to quit Instagram, but it’s still where my customers come from. But I am so sick of feeding that machine

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

I bet you could find customers through other means, too. I understand, it's a wire to balance. I feel similar to LinkedIn, if I look back on where I found actually work - it's LI through networking. Unfortch.

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Alexandra Falagara's avatar

Thank you for creating a marvelous account!

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

You're very welcome

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Ally | Open Relationship Coach's avatar

👏 👏 👏 Inspiring. Looking forward to when I can do the same.

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Jaime Derringer's avatar

Congrats!

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Diamonde's avatar

Yesss! This is encouraging! Go you!

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AverageFelix's avatar

rip

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Anna Cosentino's avatar

Congratulations!

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

thanks it feels good to make a decision

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lindsey case's avatar

bravo! with herstory and personals both you really created magic. and that platform just isn’t conducive to magic anymore. but ✨you✨ are. thank you for sharing all the things!

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

thank you lindsey! you're so kind to say this, i needed to hear it. platforms can mess with your mind!

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Devany Amber Wolfe's avatar

Also did this with over 100k followers recently. The cons do end up outweighing the pros for many of us.

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

I feel free

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Seth Werkheiser's avatar

You did it.

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Kel Rakowski's avatar

I love it

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Dec 3
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Kel Rakowski's avatar

Thanks Cody!! We were IG buds back in the day

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Dec 3
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Kel Rakowski's avatar

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 I love this. Thank you for sharing - pumped to have you as a Sub bud now 😝

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