How to gain followers on Instagram...

That was the first thing I Googled when I decided to finally spring for a shiny new Instagram account one year ago. And you know what I learned? There are tons of articles about how to represent yourself by posting uniform content and using the same filters so that people will easily recognize your brand. Also, posting at a specific time of day when people are most likely to see your content is another tip I came across over and over again.

And you know what I thought about those suggestions? No freakin' way. The thought of using the same color schemes and filters just so my page will look uniform and "pleasing" makes me want to cringe. I want to post whatever I want, whenever I want. If that means I don't gain thousands of precious followers, then so be it. I don't want to do what everyone else is doing or what I'm "supposed" to do in order to become popular. I'll do it my own way, thanks, because it's my account and my name's the one on it.

I want variety. I hate it when everything is uniformly the same. Variety is my whole motto, especially when it comes to writing. When I wanted to write something clean and wholesome and all about young, innocent teenage love, I wrote Falling Awake. When I wanted to write something action-packed and full of gory bloodshed after watching Game of Thrones, I wrote Hockey Gods. Sure, I could have written these departures from the Contemporary Romance genre under a different pen-name, but I didn't think I should have to. If you like my writing, it shouldn't matter what in the world I'm writing about. I guess I'm just complicated like that.

Anyway, back to the Instagram thing. Now that I've been posting for my first full year, I look back at my feed and I like seeing the variety of content there. In fact, I love seeing that it's not all the same "perfect" photos because that's not what I'm all about. I might not have gained thousands, or even hundreds of followers in the last year, but that's no big surprise to me. I didn't win any popularity contests back in high school and I'm not shocked that my only-ever-positive thoughts and posts aren't a big hit on social media now.

So, come on over and check it out. You won't find photo after filtered photo of me posing with my back to the camera while I stare out at some exotic location. You'll find all kinds of things, from writing tips to pics of my adorable cat to quotes from my books and close-ups of my backyard flowers. It's real and it makes me happy and I can't see the point of doing social media if I've got to be all systematic about it.

Let's follow each other, be unique and true to ourselves and live happily ever after! Who's with me?