After trundling through the results of my Instagram experiment it’s pretty clear that my strategy didn’t go entirely to plan. At least this gives me something to reflect upon and learn from my experiences. Being a statistics based studio and research project, I have plotted the yields of my Instagram experiment below:
There were two key reasons why I experienced a severe drop off in followers after the first few posts I have been able to identify.
The first is that I didn’t allow freinds to follow my account. This was a willing approach on my part as aforementioned in post 1 even though I knew it would help, and looking back I wish I didn’t put this in my guidelines as I feel it significantly limited my growth potential. In fact, upon setting up my account as a ‘business page’, Instagram gives tips to grow your following, and one of them was to get your friends to follow you as a means to push your account up the chain. Upon reflection, I wish I allowed this to happen. For comparison, I allowed 10 close freinds to follow my other Instagram photography account and I ended up with 32 followers off just 8 posts, compared to 16 followers from 25 posts this time around. The difference is that building up a rapid inital following amongst friends assumes to Instagram algorithms that your a rapid growth account, and therefore it encourages them to put your content in greater circulation, and I didn’t allow myself this opportunity.
Another issue was that I found myself using repeat hashtags due to limitations in being able to go out and shoot fresh content in unique locations. It started out okay when I was able to upload from different locations which was when I experienced the most growth, however, I very quickly found myself uploading images from same day shoots around the Geelong region. Ideally I would’ve liked to have a day where I went on a road trip and shot content all across Victoria, but this wasn’t possible. Extending from this, I also found it a real challenge towards the back half of the project to even find content worthy of posting given the limitations in place for flying drones at the time, which resulted in increasingly apparent downgrades in quality.
One positive of the experience was my reach, in which my numbers were actually quite high, and this tells me that my hashtagging was working to an extent. Likes were not massive but they were consistent amongst a loyal bunch of followers, which means the following I did have were consistently engaged by my content. But the best part of the experience is now having an account that I can link to potential employers to showcase my work to them. This is a powerful tool when it comes to finding work and having the backbone of a portfolio I can show off will be paramount to gaining future employment. The content itself I am really proud of given the limitations of the COVID-19 virus.
Social media is the backbone of modern communication, it wouldn’t be an understatement to say that literally everyone with an internet connection uses it in some way. Being able to make yourself stand out in such a saturated market is a skill and one that im certainly still working on. I learnt a lot from this experience, and the important takeaway is that I’ve been able to identify where I feel I went wrong. Heading forward, with a fresh thirst for content, I will get out and shoot more, and continue to push my creative boundaries, as well as share my account amongst friends to give it a real popularity boost into the future.
I’m an extremely grateful for the opportunity I have been presented through this studio to explore something that I’m genuinely passionate about and has real-world implications that I otherwise would’ve glossed over. I will continue to apply my findings long into the future. Thanks for a great semester Mark.