I've been thinking a lot recently about Instagram and what all this internet business means to me. That's right folks, this week we're talking about
Social Media
I've been posting content to Instagram almost daily for about a year now (I know, impressive...), and I feel that is long enough for me to have an opinion about it. There's something I hear over and over about the platform and how you should be using it to its full potential. It's usually something along the lines of "If you want your Instagram to stand out" or "If you want to maximize followers that are engaged" your feed should have a theme. I'm sure you all have heard this, too. I have mixed feelings about it.
I heard this pretty early on in my journey of taking Instagram seriously. It seemed legit to me at the time - I saw all these successful accounts that posted images that fit a specific theme. There is no denying that there is legitimacy to the concept, but do I agree with it? Kind of.
I started off posting only my interior photography. I mostly gained followers that were people I already knew - which is fine, but my page wasn't growing. It became boring quickly, my interests in subject matter started to shift and I then became unsure of what to do. I had spent all this time dedicating my feed to interior photography - surely a sudden change would deter my followers. At first, it did. I felt discouraged and that I screwed the whole thing up. I considered deleting the unfitting still life and urban photography, my new work that I was excited about. My feed was no longer cohesive. This annoyed me, and yet I had this thought:
Why would I not share work that I'm excited about?
Just because it doesn't fit this theme I've created for my social media account? I realized that letting my Instagram dictate my work was not conducive to my success as a photographer. I decided to make a new theme for my Instagram: things that I like to shoot. It's so simple.
BEFORE // AFTER
Making that shift in perspective has worked well for me. Most of my success has been from posting the urban and portrait work I was afraid of "ruining" my feed. The positive impact has not only been in engagement, but in finding a community of amazing support. Yeah, maybe to some my feed is an unorganized menagerie of work - and while I do care about that to some extent, scrolling through it makes me happy. Isn't that the most important thing, anyway?