I agree, I enjoy looking at portraits on Insta since I don’t get to take them often.
007Boarder wrote:
Running through to add people as well. I enjoy looking at what others post. It’s an easy way to quickly see a wide variety of styles. See what I can try. Often times you can only search for ideas you already have, with instagram it’s nice to see many other ideas people have come up with for photography.
Www.instagram.com/r9images or click off to the left under my username.
I've got a love/hate relationship with Instagram. I like sharing my work and seeing other work, and I've met a lot of cool people on it. I've seen things I would otherwise not have seen and met people I would otherwise not have met, and that's had a strong influence on my work. IG is especially great in cities because there are usually meet-up groups for various genres. My city, Boston, has several portrait groups alone.
If you're using it for financial reasons, though, success often seems to involve cheating (following/unfollowing to jack up stats, etc) and "partnering" with brands. Automated comments and robo-followers are annoying, and the viewing algorithm is inscrutably opaque.
All that said, it's a great place if, as John said a while back, you know what you want to get from it and use it accordingly. So yeah, love/hate but mostly love at this point, now that I've reconciled myself to its faults.
I like your two tree account, that’s a novel idea! David Cartagena wrote:
I have 3 a private, obe for fun, and last but not least my main one, for my photography print sales.
Main account. www.instagram.com/@davidcartagena.dk
Just for fun and photographed with my Samsung phone in RAW and edited with LR.
www.instagram.com/2_small_3s
Right now its just travel stuff from various locations around the world, but I stopped posting when I passed through Moscow - on a trip from Beijing to Paris - as my account mysteriously started to follow lots of large breasted Russian models. Getting ready to reboot it since I'm now getting paid to photograph Florida and I'm close to launching a travel blog about my Florida travels and my round the world trip - so my IG will feature lots of images from the a7r2 and a73.
I only signed up at Instagram to follow my brother when he started working as a train driver and would post his shots there. I still don't really like it, but discovered that it's a great way to attract attention from (mostly local) businesses and it has lead to a few unexpected sales, having photos in a local magazine and Lensbaby asking me to beta-test a new lens, so I try and post a few times a month.
Overall I prefer Flickr, but it's clear that it's losing traffic to other photo sharing sites.
It's the "here today, gone tomorrow" setup of Instagram and Facebook that I struggle with. I like to do things long-term and those sites are the complete opposite. Photos get a short time in the spotlight, then they are forgotten. ...Show more →
I completely agree. I also hate the "here today, gone tomorrow" think of insta. Great insta you have👌🏼👌🏼
I’m always interested in monetizing social media, so I’m curious how you secured a sponsorship with 500 followers. Most everything I’ve read says that 10,000 is the default minimum for paid sponsorships.
Look forward to seeing your travels.
Trek_of_Joy wrote:
Lots of great accounts by other FM'ers, here's mine. Comment if you follow and I'll follow back.
Right now its just travel stuff from various locations around the world, but I stopped posting when I passed through Moscow - on a trip from Beijing to Paris - as my account mysteriously started to follow lots of large breasted Russian models. Getting ready to reboot it since I'm now getting paid to photograph Florida and I'm close to launching a travel blog about my Florida travels and my round the world trip - so my IG will feature lots of images from the a7r2 and a73.
RoamingScott wrote:
I’m always interested in monetizing social media, so I’m curious how you secured a sponsorship with 500 followers. Most everything I’ve read says that 10,000 is the default minimum for paid sponsorships.
Look forward to seeing your travels.
My gig is not because of IG, I'm being paid to create photo and video content for tourism promotion. I certainly didn't mean to imply that what I'm doing is a result of IG. I'm just going to reboot my account with a dual focus on Florida beauty shots and my travels, instead of just my travels around the world, since I'm close to going live with a blog. Apologies for any confusion.
I work with agencies and you don't always need 10K+ followers, but you do need at least a few thousand with high engagement that fits a niche. Smaller organizations work with people that have less than 10K, but high engagement. Many want rates at 2.5%+, and if you have higher engagement rates you're more appealing even if you're less than 10k. If you have a blog and/or YT channel + high engagement, even better since many "influencers" are instagram only and really can't offer anything in terms of a long tail or a place for links to sponsors. There are people with 200k followers and engagement rates well below 2.5% that aren't worth much of anything to brands or those looking for influencers because the ROI is rubbish. A good media kit is a must, since many think the way to find clients/sponsorships is a DM.
Ah, I was misunderstanding your original post a bit about your relaunched IG. That's awesome that you got that gig!
Totally agree about having multiple outlets for your presence. Video and youtube of course is the big one, but as a hobbyist, I just don't have the time or resources to devote to a totally different skillset like video. A blog would be much more doable.
I've been working hard to nurture a strong rate of engagement on this new instagram account, I'm about 45% rate of engagement which I'm very happy with. It's super obvious when a 10k account has bought all of their followers and I'm trying really hard to have an organic, actual following. It's been an interesting and fun month growing this thing.
I appreciate your insights and sorry if I came off the wrong way! Happy travels!
-Scott
Trek_of_Joy wrote:
My gig is not because of IG, I'm being paid to create photo and video content for tourism promotion. I certainly didn't mean to imply that what I'm doing is a result of IG. I'm just going to reboot my account with a dual focus on Florida beauty shots and my travels, instead of just my travels around the world, since I'm close to going live with a blog. Apologies for any confusion.
I work with agencies and you don't always need 10K+ followers, but you do need at least a few thousand with high engagement that fits a niche. Smaller organizations work with people that have less than 10K, but high engagement. Many want rates at 2.5%+, and if you have higher engagement rates you're more appealing even if you're less than 10k. If you have a blog and/or YT channel + high engagement, even better since many "influencers" are instagram only and really can't offer anything in terms of a long tail or a place for links to sponsors. There are people with 200k followers and engagement rates well below 2.5% that aren't worth much of anything to brands or those looking for influencers because the ROI is rubbish. A good media kit is a must, since many think the way to find clients/sponsorships is a DM.
All over the place, typically landscape-esque though. Focus on astro usually, but can only get out to shoot it so much, especially during these winter months when the core doesn't even rise. So, a bit of everything else in the meantime!
