The Pros and Cons of having a mixed profile
A lot of people have multiple interests, it’s actually much rarer for someone to only be active in one field, even if that’s the field they only talk about. And it’s really great that you have many hobbies, it makes you look like an adventurer with an open mind, and these people are mostly praised in society! However, not every audience want to know about all your side hustles, especially if you sell (or want to sell) products. Here’s 3 pros and 3 cons – with some marketing tips in-between.
Pros
Generative AI
It’s more difficult getting scraped by an AI program, if you have many different topics and therefore images on your profile. Most artists/illustrators on Instagram, who’ve been ONLY posting their art on their grid, are also the ones whose style GenAI could replicate easily – especially those with 100+ posts and one, unique art style.
Me, on the other hand … I not only have multiple art styles and draw both digitally and traditionally with different art supplies/brushes, but I also post a lot of other stuff in-between. In 2023, I for example started with book blogging, so, even though photography is art too, it’s still very different from my digital or traditional illustrations.
If an AI program wants to replicate my style – good luck, cause, first of all, I don’t even have one style, and second of all, probably not enough images for an AI to replicate in the first place. But if the AI program scrapes it itself, it’ll lump all the photography and other non-illustrations in too, and will create … what exactly? Certainly not “my style”, but rather, “my grid”, if anything.
And if a human searches for my posted illustrations on Instagram, looks through all 500+ posts, well … what a waste of time for them. Nothing but laughable.
Too. Many. Accounts.
Many creators fall trap to this (I’m one of them, don’t worry) – making an account on every social media app/website to get a community everywhere or to find out where you best fit in. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with that and almost necessary in today’s world. However, it can feel extremely energy-draining to constantly switch from app to app, to stay updated with your home feed and your notifications, and also your posting schedule … now imagine you have multiple interests, all so varying, that, from a marketing-perspective, it seems to be a better idea to separate them. Then you get 2+ accounts per app, which doubles your time waste on the internet.
Having only 1 profile still means you need to create an account for every app, but you at least don’t have to switch in the apps themselves! And that’s beneficial, once you found your community on one app or the app that works best for your marketing strategy. One home feed, one notification center, one grid, one posting schedule. It’s especially benefiting if you have A LOT of interests, like me – illustrating, crafting, video editing, writing, voice acting, animating, asmr, podcasting, blogging, activism, photography, designing, reviewing, …
No decisions for your fans
It goes hand-in-hand with the above. Having 1 account where you post all your stuff, means your fans only have to follow 1 account. Some people don’t want to follow too many accounts, so if you tell your community that they can follow 10 accounts of yours, but also that they now have to decide which to follow, they likely won’t, even if they really like you.
And what if you aren’t equally active on them all, and what if they’re interested in all your topics? Most people following their favorite creator, don’t want to make decisions (nobody likes them!) when hitting the subscribe button. They also want to make sure they can stay up to date with your work – and that means knowing on which account you’re the most active, not having to scroll through all 10+ accounts and figuring it out themselves where you’ll likely post important updates. (Sounds so frustrating!)
It’s an entire different topic, if you have, let’s say, an account for an adult-only community and another account targeting kids. Then it’s: definitely separate them! But if you entertain a general audience in all of your businesses (which is the case for me), it not only takes a lot of stress from your shoulders, but also makes it easier for your community to stay up to date with you.
There are always details to consider, of course. Like: how much your interests differ, what the target audience is, how actively you pursue them, and whether the brand names differs.
From a consumer perspective: I once found a product which didn’t have many images on the internet so I went to look for the creator. I was about to give up, when I found out the legal name of the creator and that they posted their product – occasionally – on their personal account with 250+ posts. They had a large following count, sure, but I had to scroll through at least a hundred posts to find some images. I wasn’t eager to buy the product in the first place, and I certainly would’ve given up on my search if I weren’t bored on that day, but I didn’t get the product either way. The product photos were good in itself, I just didn’t feel like it was worth getting after having to look for such a long time just to get a shot from above.
And the thing with sales is: Most people buy on a whim. They see something, and they buy immediately, because they’re swept away by the “I need that in my home right now”-energy. Having time to think about whether you really need it, is the enemy of marketing – very similar to religion, actually. If you have the need to question it, it’s not persuading enough.
Cons
The algorithm
SEOs like as few tags/categories as possible, just like humans. They want short pitches and they want to know by the title or the first word what your product is about. No one has time these days for a 5 sentence explanation.
Also, every SEO has a limit of tags. If you write in a very specific genre, you want to use all available 5 tags for items associated with your genre – items, that your target audience usually looks up.
Let’s say you have 6 different topics on your account but only 3 tags available to categorize your profile. Some topics can be lumped together into a broader category – but broader categories aren’t always good for marketing, cause costumers want to know the details and how you differ from other accounts in that category. (There’s not even a fitting category on Substack for my profile mix! Not even a broad one! The algorithm gave up on me before it even tried.) Or you could only use the 3 main topics you post about – but what if you don’t have any regularity (like me) when it comes to your topics, and what if they’re all equal on your profile?
You could also go by what’s more trending right now, but if you don’t post as much as other people, who’ve mastered the trends, the algorithm will push you to the background. Cause the thing is – you not only have to make sure your profile is searchable and findable by the tags and the items your costumers look for, you also have to compete with other sellers, who likely don’t have a mixed profile and therefore more tags they can use for their product.
Confused audience
I’ve said above, that fans, if they like you, would want to connect with all of your interests. However, that’s not true for everyone.
A lot of people are looking for one specific niche, and are not interested in other stuff. If you’re unlucky, they might not feel the need to stick around with your mixed topics, if you don’t post their interests regularly. And for a lot of people, “regularly” means every day or two. That’s likely more than you generally post, so if it happens to be one of your rather sideline-hobbies, no matter how much quality or effort you put into them, if you don’t post them often, people will lose interest. And that’s one of the cases where having separate accounts is better, cause that fan might want to follow that account where you post that hobby, even if it’s not that regularly.
Sounds ironic? No, it makes sense. While you might remember who follows you because of what, most don’t. Some follow over one thousand accounts, they absolutely do not remember who they follow for what – except for their favorite creators, of course. If they followed you for your crocheting but then you don’t post any crocheting in over a month, they might see your other posts on their home feed and, without clicking on your profile to be reminded why they followed you, they simply unfollow, confused why and when they ever subscribed to your page in the first place.
You definitely don’t want that, because your audience, your community and your fans – THEY are the key for a better algorithm. You can be a tag master with one specific niche, but if you don’t have the audience, the algorithm will give up on you as well.
But finding an audience who have the same many interests as you is incredibly difficult and also so rare!
It’s sometimes even difficult to find queer friends in your circle, and now you’re looking for people who are not only queer, but also are vegan, environmentalists, like art, movies, books, take walks in nature and maybe also do photography from time to time?? Good luck with that! That’s why people with low standards have a more fulfilling life.
If your audience is confused, so is the algorithm. Instead of showing it to some people who are generally interested in the tags you’ve chosen for your account, but since you aren’t actively posting within the categories, the algorithm will end up not sharing it to anyone anymore. Algorithms aren’t set in stone, sure, but picture yourself a confused AI … No one works well when they’re confused, AI isn’t any different from us in that regard.
No aesthetic, no portfolio
A lot of social media apps are used as an online portfolio nowadays and a lot of employers will take a look at those before hiring you. Having no aesthetic is okay, since you can still gain points with the quality of your posts. And, unless you have favorite colors that shine through every interest of yours (i. e., you crochet blue bears, draw blue fish, and design blue book covers), your aesthetic of your profile grid gets more lost the more interests you have.
I already don’t have an aesthetic with one interest – it’s no surprise that my profile looks straight up chaotic and messy in an unpleasing way, with my 10+ interests. The only app that somewhat looks appealing is Cara, where I mostly post illustrations – it’s still quite colorful, but in a good way, more or less. My Instagram’s the opposite.
If your portfolio looks chaotic and unorganized at first glance, it’s a turn-off not only for employers (who usually take more time to make sure you’re a good fit for the job), but also and especially for possible clients. As said above, clients want a pitch in one sentence to know what you’re selling and what they can buy from you – without getting the time to think about the necessity of your product, while scrolling through your endless timeline, until they finally find an image or info post that they were looking for. But by that time they likely already decided against buying or even following you. And that’s the last thing you want, if you do sell stuff.
Both Pros and Cons are very persuading. You gotta decide for yourself what you want to achieve with your business and which arguments have more weight for you. It’s different for everyone.
For me … well, I’ve listed a lot of marketing strategies, so you may wonder, how I know all of this in theory and yet still fail to implement it for my business. I decided for a mix account, mainly because the GenAI issue is important to me, and as an activist I also have a bit of different views on my business. I might write an article about it.
If you found yourself represented in the examples I gave for what consumers/costumers are looking for, then, congrats, cause that’s the first step of seeing our overconsumption problem. Sit back, relax, don’t buy on a whim, and most importantly: question what the market doesn’t want you to question. Question the hell out of it! And don’t see decisions as something annoying. Believe it or not, but decisions are privileges. Some people would love to be able to decide their life, yet can’t. If you still can, it means you have more freedom than you’d think.