I picked up photography as a hobby about a decade ago. I haven't pursued it as a career but I love clicking pictures and sharing them across the many photography sites. That is the best way to showcase your work and also get some work if your photographs are really good. I've been posting on Instagram primarily but I also post on Flickr and 500px.
Off-late I've noticed something strange though. I have been doling out picture after picture and trying to keep my Instagram grid as interesting as I possibly can but I keep noticing way too much deviations in terms of my followers. I keep using the right hashtags and also keep the title of my photo interesting but I cant seem to contain the ebb and flow of my followers. Look at my grid for example:
All the pictures in my opinion seem quite vibrant and are well composed. The theme is also quite constant. It mainly revolves around travel, automotive and some of my running stuff.
Off-late I've noticed something strange though. I have been doling out picture after picture and trying to keep my Instagram grid as interesting as I possibly can but I keep noticing way too much deviations in terms of my followers. I keep using the right hashtags and also keep the title of my photo interesting but I cant seem to contain the ebb and flow of my followers. Look at my grid for example:
All the pictures in my opinion seem quite vibrant and are well composed. The theme is also quite constant. It mainly revolves around travel, automotive and some of my running stuff.
But still something seems amiss and I don't quite understand what. This got me to do some research and the below is what I found out.
There are a million reasons for why one keeps losing followers but the below are some of the most common ones.
1. The baiters:
These are the people who follow you with the hope or rather hidden intention of wanting you to follow them back. I've had a few instances when some really awesome people, people I dont expect at all to follow me only to revert their like after a few hours or on the very next day. Im sure they would've done that even if I had followed them back. I've noticed this pattern and dont follow them back on purpose because I know the outcome. If this seems to be your case, dont despair. Im sure genuine followers will follow you and stay for your work rather than just baiting you to follow them back.
2. Instagram Purge
Apparently Instagram does a purge of all the fake accounts every once in a while. Im not really sure about the frequency but it does happen and in the process you will loose these fake accounts which follow you. Remember those "Follow me and get 1000 likes" or some random accounts like that? well they follow you and when these accounts get purged, your follower count reduces.
3. Bad Content
Since my interest revolves around photography, I follow a lot of photographers and I notice how high quality their photographs are and because of that I am able to draw a comparison with other profiles whose content isn't at that level. When you have that comparison aspect, you naturally tend to unfollow other accounts which have mediocre content. Most importantly, the screen resolution of our phones have also advanced so much that the content really needs to pop out on those screens to keep the user engaged. Reduction in follower count is inevitable if the content isn't.
4. Good Content
This is purely a personal opinion but I do notice that people who have great subjects in their photographs also tend to have an increased number of followers. By subjects I mean either some incredible cars and bikes or someone who clicks models (**clears throat**, you know what I mean). They have great skill of course but what works in their favour is the subject in the frame (could be themselves also). Profiles which don't have these will slowly start loosing followers.
5. Too frequent or Infrequent posts
This can be quite confusing actually. Who or what determines a reasonable time interval between posts? Is posting daily too much? Is one post a week ok? Whats the bench mark? There is no set formula for this. So it purely depends on your luck and of course the content. So if you fall into either of those extremes you end up losing followers.
6. Irrelevant or irritating Hashtags
This in my opinion is the most important way to get the reach. Random hashtags or a sentence without spaces converted to a hashtag doesnt work. #Travel is a valid hasthag #Iclickedthispicturepleaselikeit is just not a valid hashtag. I wrote another blog about how hashtags work. Check it out here. Random hashtags wont get you the reach and somehow reduces the follower count as well.
7. Time of Posting
This is another very important aspect. Considering your audience is in different time zones, the timing of the post plays a key role. Instagram is a constant feed and your post gets pushed down eventually. Some of your audience gets to see it, some don't and this impacts your engagement and subsequently the follower count.
The above in my opinion are some of the most important reasons why a profile can either gain or lose follower. I still struggle with it and I would love to hear your opinion about what might or might not be a good strategy to follow.
You can checkout my work here:
Instagram : https://instagram.com/nitinpaulk
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/nitin_paul/
500px: https://500px.com/nitinpaul
I'd love to hear from you.
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