Instagram - A grind or for pleasure ?

jasonsony735 · 23 Oct 2019 at 12:59

Instagram - A grind or for pleasure ?

I know we shouldn't look at numbers and likes but its getting to me that I generally feel my work deserves more credit than what it gets from looking at other profiles on Instagram , I know we shouldn't look at it like this but it does bring a slight downer on things especially when you go out most evenings and weekends to capture views only for other profiles to to have a lot more following ,

Prime example I started about 3 years ago and a new guy starts an account 1 year ago and takes over my profile by 5k more followers when I would say my work is better lol ! May sound big headed but I'm sure im not the only Photographer with this issue , its got to a stage where I feel like I'm just grinding away for nothing in return , I generally want more people too see my work but its hard to get that fan base , Maybe I need to TRY out YouTube and see if that gets my page noticed more who knows.

Generally like to show my work of for people to view and enjoy and its nice to have positive feed back but that Numbers game thing does my head inn.

Angst · 23 Oct 2019 at 13:24

Its a saturated market, you have to be exceptional or lucky or both i would guess.

snips86x · 23 Oct 2019 at 13:26

There are other sites you could use....Flickr, 500px, National Geographic. I've had more luck there than Instagram.

Spleen Sauce · 23 Oct 2019 at 13:41

You're wasting your time with Instagram. Its saturated with half naked women and wasters doing silly stuff which is always going to get more 'likes' than anything you, me or anyone on here posts. It's not about photography any more, its about people showing a very filtered version of their life, and most trying to sell you something.

Stop playing the likes game. I think you need to decide what you're doing the photography for - if it's just 'likes' then thats a vanity game that very few actually get anything from. If you're going out every night and taking photos just to get some false verification from people you don't know to tell you that your work is good then you are better off on a photography site as Snips has suggested, at least you're getting 'likes' from like-minded people in that case.

If you believe your stuff is that good, why not try to sell your work and get something back from it other than some stranger giving you a thumbs up?

tom_e · 23 Oct 2019 at 14:07

Don't forget there's buying of followers/likes as well.

Rroff · 23 Oct 2019 at 14:09

tom_e said:
Don't forget there's buying of followers/likes as well.

And people who'll sit there endlessly inviting any and every account they can find.

GSXRMovistar · 23 Oct 2019 at 14:29

This is a good article which I think summarises well:- https://petapixel.com/2019/10/01/why-your-instagram-isnt-growing/

I only started using IG this year and have a tiny number of followers but I only use it for fun and more importantly getting ideas/inspiration from others. Most processed content goes up onto Flickr for sharing and then a subset onto IG.

@jasonsony735 out of interest can you link to your account?

jasonsony735 · 23 Oct 2019 at 14:44

jasonsony735 · 23 Oct 2019 at 14:52

GSXRMovistar said:
This is a good article which I think summarises well:- https://petapixel.com/2019/10/01/why-your-instagram-isnt-growing/

I only started using IG this year and have a tiny number of followers but I only use it for fun and more importantly getting ideas/inspiration from others. Most processed content goes up onto Flickr for sharing and then a subset onto IG.

@jasonsony735 out of interest can you link to your account?

Fantastic read that

Kinda makes a lot of sense.

And · 23 Oct 2019 at 16:04

I've got an IG account and I've been thinking of uploading a photo a week to it. In reality it's print sales and workshops I want to be pushing and I'm not sure IG is the right medium for that, plus I've given up on FB as I just don't like using it and fear IG would be more of the same. But any additional exposure would be great escpecially considering my avoidance of FB so there's pros and cons from my POV. Anyone got any thoughts on that?

@GSXRMovistar nice read, cheers.

@jasonsony735 great set of images there.

Spleen Sauce · 23 Oct 2019 at 16:30

jasonsony735 said:
Fire away , Constructive feed back is valuable. https://www.instagram.com/jason_sturgess

I think it's important to remember that everything creative is subjective, so what appeals to one person won't appeal to another. My thoughts on your instagram account:
- Most recent three photos are of the same thing, similar editing. The following 4 out of 5 images are again all of the same thing. Not to say they are bad shots at all, but its a bit 'samey'. Scrolling through your profile, everything looks very very similar. If you have followers who see all of your posts, are they going to like the same sort of thing over and over again?
- You're following over 6000 accounts... is this playing the 'like for like' game? Might not make a difference but just an observation.
- I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter, bored of golden hour high-vantage-point landscapes and I'm not into ships. Thats just me, so therefore your profile doesn't appeal to me, might be the same for others.
- Some of the photos you've got that I'd actually consider 'poor' - with bad composition for example have just as many likes as some of your other photos, which is interesting.

I know the above probably sounds hugely critical, its just meant to be some observations. My advice would be to concentrate on quality and not quantity - posting the same thing over and over again with slightly different angles or editing makes for a boring profile in my opinion.

jasonsony735 · 23 Oct 2019 at 18:30

And said:
I've got an IG account and I've been thinking of uploading a photo a week to it. In reality it's print sales and workshops I want to be pushing and I'm not sure IG is the right medium for that, plus I've given up on FB as I just don't like using it and fear IG would be more of the same. But any additional exposure would be great escpecially considering my avoidance of FB so there's pros and cons from my POV. Anyone got any thoughts on that?

@GSXRMovistar nice read, cheers.

@jasonsony735 great set of images there.

Thanks mate

Keep loading the photos on Insta , its a good platform to view others work and learn

jasonsony735 · 23 Oct 2019 at 18:33

Spleen Sauce said:
I think it's important to remember that everything creative is subjective, so what appeals to one person won't appeal to another. My thoughts on your instagram account:
- Most recent three photos are of the same thing, similar editing. The following 4 out of 5 images are again all of the same thing. Not to say they are bad shots at all, but its a bit 'samey'. Scrolling through your profile, everything looks very very similar. If you have followers who see all of your posts, are they going to like the same sort of thing over and over again?
- You're following over 6000 accounts... is this playing the 'like for like' game? Might not make a difference but just an observation.
- I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter, bored of golden hour high-vantage-point landscapes and I'm not into ships. Thats just me, so therefore your profile doesn't appeal to me, might be the same for others.
- Some of the photos you've got that I'd actually consider 'poor' - with bad composition for example have just as many likes as some of your other photos, which is interesting.

I know the above probably sounds hugely critical, its just meant to be some observations. My advice would be to concentrate on quality and not quantity - posting the same thing over and over again with slightly different angles or editing makes for a boring profile in my opinion.

Don't all the Top Instagramers use the same colour preset ?

That's cool man like you said we all have different tastes , I'll take what you said on board and change up the photos so they are more different.

Spleen Sauce · 23 Oct 2019 at 18:35

jasonsony735 said:
Don't all the Top Instagramers use the same colour preset ?

Haha if they’re trying to push their Lightroom Preset packs I’m sure there’s probably some truth in that. What they won’t be doing is posting the same subject in succession. If they are a portrait photographer then they might keep their ‘style’ but it’ll be a different model or a completely different pose, etc.

Donnie Fisher · 23 Oct 2019 at 20:53

The notion that your competing for likes through comparison with others falls right into the notion that comparing yourself against others will only lead to disappoint ment .... Which is bearing out in your post.

As above, and as per the linked article, you really have to ask yourself what are you trying to achieve, what returns will you get from that and be wholly honest about whether that is really worth it.

jasonsony735 · 24 Oct 2019 at 00:48

Donnie Fisher said:
The notion that your competing for likes through comparison with others falls right into the notion that comparing yourself against others will only lead to disappoint ment .... Which is bearing out in your post.

As above, and as per the linked article, you really have to ask yourself what are you trying to achieve, what returns will you get from that and be wholly honest about whether that is really worth it.

Like most photographers I know we want people too see are work , I'd like to do it fall time If I am honest but to do that you need to be able to make a living from it , A lot of the people that do make money from it have a big following tho , that's what I hope to get to one day , its just getting there., I generally think I can get there its just grinding and putting in all the effort and making my account attract more people I need to work on.

I know you mentioned some are a bit Samey but there a reason I went for Glastonbury Tor because it gets a lot of attention... more than any other of my photos.

jasonsony735 · 24 Oct 2019 at 00:53

Spleen Sauce said:
Haha if they’re trying to push their Lightroom Preset packs I’m sure there’s probably some truth in that. What they won’t be doing is posting the same subject in succession. If they are a portrait photographer then they might keep their ‘style’ but it’ll be a different model or a completely different pose, etc.

I've generally been pushing out Glastonbury Tor more as its popular and gets a lot of engagement, thats my thinking behind that but I see your point of view of mixing it up more also. The Ship photos are New to me also that was a part of me trying to mix my account up and give my viewers something new they don't see everyday

strang3r · 25 Oct 2019 at 08:15

I think with Instagram you need to let go of chasing likes. There was a period last year when I jumped from getting 500 likes to between 1k and 5k one each post. It's gone back down now to 500 or 1.5k on a very good day even though i have a few thousand extra followers. Instagram will limit who sees your posts due to the amount of accounts out there but if you have loyal followers who like everything you post they will be pushed your content. What's the deal with following 6k people, is this follow them in the hope they will follow you back? If so then you will end up with thousands of followers who aren't going to like your work and this will hit your engagement. I tend to not follow anybody no unless I know them personally or really like their work. I don't do anything to try and gain followers, it just slowly creeps up naturally and on the back of features.

jasonsony735 · 25 Oct 2019 at 10:10

strang3r said:
I think with Instagram you need to let go of chasing likes. There was a period last year when I jumped from getting 500 likes to between 1k and 5k one each post. It's gone back down now to 500 or 1.5k on a very good day even though i have a few thousand extra followers. Instagram will limit who sees your posts due to the amount of accounts out there but if you have loyal followers who like everything you post they will be pushed your content. What's the deal with following 6k people, is this follow them in the hope they will follow you back? If so then you will end up with thousands of followers who aren't going to like your work and this will hit your engagement. I tend to not follow anybody no unless I know them personally or really like their work. I don't do anything to try and gain followers, it just slowly creeps up naturally and on the back of features.

I'm slowly deleting the people I follow , I did try the follow for follow trick but didn't help much , can only delete 200 an hour so been deleting the ones I don't enjoy in the evenings so will get it down to about 1k account or less.

I'm ganna try and mix my photos up more and try an engage more with my followers and see if that helps as I dont do that many stories or questions but I think people like this stuff they want to see a face behind all the photos.

iamtheoneneo · 25 Oct 2019 at 10:44

It doesnt matter, even if you are doing it professionally as long as you have a website. IG is fluff.
Some of the best international + print worthy wedding togs out there have low rate IGs compared to some random country amateur that doesn't even have half the skill.
Guess who is still getting the juicy paychecks when all is said and done....