How to Make Your Work Stand Out on Instagram

Not so long ago, Instagram was the perfect platform for photographers, but not anymore. How can you make your still images stand out on a platform that’s now all about Reels, handbags, and freebooting?

Unless you’re already lucky enough to have established a large following, trying to generate any engagement on Instagram through posting photographs is hard work. The dreaded algorithm has zero interest in static images, and a video of your dog is likely to get more engagement than if you were posting award-winning photographs.

Evan Ranft is familiar with this battle and has put together a few ideas of how to get people to spend time looking at your individual posts and thus convince the algorithm to show your work to more people.

Another question photographers face is how often to post, and if you’re pondering whether it’s worth uploading photographs to Instagram every day, be sure to check out this article. If you’re finding the entire experience frustrating, have a look at these wise words from Fstoppers’ Alex Armitage who has some ideas to make your approach to Instagram far healthier.

What else can photographers do to make their work stand out on social media? Let us know your ideas in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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2 Comments

Thanks for the reference Andy!

👊🏻