So since my last post (two posts down I think, about making separate accounts) I've been forging ahead and have added 150 followers (in the 300s now...woo hoo, ha ha) and gotten some great feedback. I've also followed and liked a ton of other accounts that inspire me and I really enjoy the flow and community I find on Instagram.
That leads me to my next question. A few photos I've posted have gotten likes and comments from some large, curated accts. The kind I really hope to get featured on because I feel they are the secret to adding more followers and hopefully generating business.. As a recap about me, I'm a "noun" photographer shooting people, places and things with an emphasis on engagement/wedding and landscape/travel photography. And those are the two areas I'm getting what I call "big player" likes. Of course I'm happy for every like and comment I get. But if some major site does like or comment on a photo is that some secret industry hint? Should I do something other than say thank you with grateful emoticons? :) Some of them I haven't hashtagged or anything, and if they like a photo or comment on it, I'll edit in a hashtag to include them. I've been featured on a few smaller to midlevel curated sites and those always garner me a few followers.
I hate being so clinical about this kind of thing, but I also hate wasting time and social media has always been a time sink. So if I should be doing something specific to help this along, I'd love to know what it is. I tried to work facebook for awhile, but finding sites to share to and sharing and tagging and scrolling and searching just got very old and took me away from editing and shooting, so I quickly made it a place to showcase work for clients so they had an easy option for sharing, and don't do a lot of "platform building' there. Instagram seems a lot more workable and visually driven, which suits me much better. Any tips or advice appreciated:
What I've been doing so far is: Post two pics a day, one people/wedding and one landscape/nature. I post quality content and while my subject matter is all over the place, I try to keep my look and editing consistent and clean. I tag in the first comment under my post and I tag a lot but trying to keep everything relevant.. I tried using selective tagging and keeping tags down, but I get more engagement with more tags, so I'm doing that now. I scroll hashtags and comment or like posts that are truly engaging to me. I follow people back who are posting things relevant to what I am trying to build. I try to pay it forward to others. It's a slow process, but it seems to be speeding up. I'm getting some encouraging signs. Any tips appreciated! :)
It sounds like you're on the right track. Don't read too much into getting likes from big pages though. The reason they're big is because they spend hours a day liking every photo that gets posted on every photography hashtag.
For me, curation pages are the worst thing to happen to instagram in a long time. I find my work posted on TONS of those pages with no credit back to me, or crediting a different person altogether. And usually when I call them out on it, they just block me. For people with smaller accounts, I can see the appeal of getting posted, but I personally hate the fact that these "curators" are building these huge pages off of my hard work. It's getting to the point where I don't even want to post new work because someone with a million followers is just gonna repost it and take credit. The people at IG are aware that this is going on, I just hope they find a way to deal with all these pages.
Hey, thanks John! I actually read about you while studying how to post on IG. Good input. Thank you. At this point any regrams only help me as long as they give credit, but I do see some photos by other bigger IGers that are posted everywhere and some don't credit. That sucks. Thanks for the heads up.
PS I don't know if it makes a difference but a lot of the likes and comments I'm happy about were brands, names or companies I liked and knew of pre Instagram who brought their brand to Instagram, not just IGers who made it because of IG.
John is correct, it seems you are doing everything right. The feature accounts are great and all and I see pros and cons of what John is saying. They rarely yield great return in followers like I think. I have worked with various sized brands with 50k followers all the way up to 1 million. Sometimes the lower guys get me better return than the larger guys. Just depends on a few factors including subject matter and what those people that alreayd follow that brand would see if they come to my page. So if I get featured on a shoe account and people come to my page and its all portraits they will likely not convert.
I would just push more comments, dont just say "great shot" "awesome" but rather engage with a solid sentence. That will help you stand out on both indivudals pages as well as brands. They see those big comments over the "greats" and "awesomes". Just keep hammering down on the consitent posts and prime times for post times. I would recommend changing up the hashtags too just to get a variety of people to see the work. Dont be too generic like "tree" but rather specific tags to styles of shootings or brand tags.
Great input! Thanks Andrew! I get excited about many smaller acts if I know they're relevant to my content. I love getting follows and shares from respected vendors and businesses here, as it's a convenient way to network and let them know I would enjoy working with them, and often they get me the followers most likely to become clients. One site is a popular local tourism site that I worked with pre IG on Facebook. Every time they share my pic I get a very nice follow return. These are mostly people who love pretty pics of Montana, and that's a big target audience of mine. As a bonus their page is followed by some of the most respected wedding vendors in the state. So even though he doesn't post my wedding pics it still helps me there too. Good point on commenting. I'll keep that in mind!
Yeah and also to echo Andrew here, everyone's audience reacts differently. Last year I did work for The Hundreds and WIRED magazine. They each had about 200K followers at the time, and when they posted me I think I got like 10 followers from The Hundreds and over 1000 from WIRED. It was insane. You'll get to know your audience as well and that always helps in getting solid engagement.
As a side note, I posted a photo yesterday that got reposted by at least 5 other people that linked back to me (who knows how many more reposted without credit.) One of them was even a brand that said something to the effect of "Thanks for making this image for us" like they paid for it or something. This new culture of IG theivery is getting a little nuts lol.