One of the things that I've noticed over the last year on Instagram is just how little of an effect most of my efforts make. A few years ago, we were quite literally receiving thousands of likes and hundreds of new followers daily. Today, I'm lucky if I get anywhere near a hundred likes on new posts, and my follower count remains pretty stagnant.
In his latest video, Gary Vaynerchuk discusses how the days of organic growth on Instagram are well and truly over. Now, I'm pretty certain that most of us here have probably heard something or experienced something similar. This is of course not anything new and not a groundbreaking statement by any means. What's interesting, however, is how Vaynerchuk discusses another social media platform called TikTok. I personally have little to no understanding of what this platform is all about, but based on how Vaynerchuk describes it, I'm well and truly intrigued. I can appreciate that many of us may be apprehensive when it comes to social media and some of us may even disdain the whole idea of it. The problem is that as we sit back with our upper lips curled looking at all the "influencers," they're out there doing something useful. It can be difficult getting an audience for the work we produce, especially now when there are so many more artists vying for the same. I believe that my previous mentality on social media may not have been effective and could have prevented me from progressing even more than I have. For this reason, I'm interested to see if a platform like TikTok could be beneficial to photographers and the industry as a whole.
If you have experience using this platform already, I'm very interested to know your thoughts and perspectives.
I've been actively trying to grow my audience on Instagram for a year. I gained 300 followers, but saw the engagement drop significantly. It's sad. This and the extreme use of ads made me delete my account without even doubting it. I'm a happier person now, but I'm struggling to share my stories in photography now. There's not really an alternative.
Personally speaking, the best platform I've ever used is YouTube. Have you given that a try? It does require far more effort but it's well worth it. Plus it's the only platform (as far as I'm aware) where you can actually make money.
I find it odd that engagement with other Instagram users has dwindled for you.
I started my Instagram account 10 months ago, and I am amazed at the amount of engagement I encounter there. Some days I receive so many detailed Direct Messages about various wildlife photo opportunities that it is hard to keep up with them all!
But of course you get what you give, so the engagement I find on Instagram is probably due to the fact that I write lots of detailed, insightful comments on my followers' posts. And I do lots of research on Instagram and am continually messaging people who are successful at various kinds of niche wildlife photography and asking them about locations, gear, logistics, and techniques for different kinds of wildlife photography.
I suggest that if you want more interaction with your content on Instagram, that you start to get real chatty with others who specialize in your niche or genre. Once you start a lot of conversations by asking very detailed questions, people will start to respond to you and engage with your content more regularly.
I actually saw my engagement grow whenever I commented on others' posts. But it's hard work and takes a lot of time. For me the positives didn't balance out the efforts. I will give it a go again in the future as I'm more focused on photography then when I started the effort.
If you want to see how to market yourself as a photographer on TikTok just check out jordi.koalitic He's got an epic TikTok channel with four times more followers than on Instagram.
After hearing all this noise about declining organic reach I said to myself, post more and more and more. In the last month, we've grown by almost 1000 followers just on organic reach and actually being active with people! It is social media so get social. Dont just post and hope something happens. Go out and interact with people, give them value! Between Tik Tok is an immerging platform lets hope it's something useful for photographers as of now there's not mich in it for us
Majority of the "influencers" in my IG feed are college age and don't have a mortgage....
Great Article .. Keep it up :) :)
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