Before you read on I encourage you to face this question honestly: are you a photographer or an influencer? With the recent Stories feature addition to Instagram, your answer will determine how you invest your time, your energy, and your money moving forward.
If you see yourself as an influencer, we can talk about how to take full advantage of this change in a future article (Hint: deleting your Snapchat isn’t the power move).
Here, I want to talk to the photographers. I have known I was a photographer since before social media ever grabbed my creative interest. What started as a hobby grew to a passion, and ultimately an obsession with developing this unique craft. If you’re a photographer you know it without question. You may not be great yet, you might not even be good or have developed your own style yet. I could give you a checklist of how you would know but I’d rather share this simple proverb: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Social media has made photography a trend. With an app like Instagram, not only could you receive mostly positive feedback on photos you shot, but every photo you looked at trained your eye. The average social media user started to notice if a horizon was straight, they joked about a photo being “too HDR.” They started to ask, “Was this shot with a phone, DSLR, or mirrorless? Which brand, which lens?” In the four years I have been shooting serious photographers got 500 pix serious, and the mobile phone photographer had already jumped to full frame mirrorless setups. Everyone has a camera and everyone is looking to upgrade.
Instagram Stories will alter this craze. This is not dependent on the success of Stories or how much of the social media share they regain from Snapchat. Whether or not Instagram had released Stories, photos on Instagram had already been repetitive and too serious/curated. So many photographers boxed themselves into a creative corner and out of fear of losing even one or a few followers they wouldn’t dare alter their content. If you’ve tired a bit of looking at the same content over and over imagine how the photographers felt creating the same content over and over. The only saving grace was that consistency, along with a few other social media tricks, maintained or increased their influence. But the influence had already been dropping for a variety of reasons and the masses had moved to Snapchat where we could be ourselves, be a little extra, and not feel boxed in. Basically, photographers could use the app like everyone else, no “Photographer” in the bio, just a usually random handle and mundane but sometimes interesting sharing. Cameras had kept up with Wi-Fi SD cards or built-in Wi-Fi features so you could share the best of what you shot instantly. But without saying they’ve abandoned photography, Instagram Stories will leave your photos feeling less engagement soon. No one can keep up with both photos, instant sharing now on two apps, and add FB live to the mix of what competes for people’s attention. Any hopes from Instagram that this would kill Snapchat are gone so now we are seeing two stories from each person we follow. Time has run out on the photography trend but not on photography and the need for photographers. What’s the move so to speak?
Step 1: Don’t quit anything. Don’t close any avenues you have of reaching people with your work. Don’t expect crazy growth or engagement in your work but Instagram is still a more and more acceptable portfolio.
Step 2: If you don’t have a website, get one. If you have one, get it and keep it updated. Snapchat already allows for website links in their messaging and Instagram allows you to put a web link in your profile.
Step 3: Diversify what you post. The biggest mistake I see people make at various times when photo engagement drops on Instagram is posting less, or posting only their very best -maybe even reposting some classics in hopes to keep engagement. Stop cornering what you’re capable of. If you’re known for telephoto nature shots, try landscapes; if landscapes are your specialty, shoot urban. Are portraits your biggest engagement? Mix in some food/lifestyle photos. Diversify and focus on the new followers you will attract rather than any followers you may have lost due to past low engagement.
Step 4: Invest. As influencers and prospective influencers lose interest in photography, look to upgrade on your gear. Prices have shifted even lower on some amazing equipment, including drones and really powerful mirrorless cameras. The better phone cameras get the more your professional work has to compete with. It was always a huge compliment when people thought my original mobile work was taken with a DSLR or Mirrorless but you never want it to be the other way around. Phone cameras are amazing but if you’re not seeing a distinction between those and your professional work that might be an indication that you need to spend more time learning to push the limits of your professional equipment.
Step 5: Don’t Stop Shooting! I’ll always be thankful to photo-sharing based apps that led me to this beautiful craft, but those apps lit an interest and passion that I never doubted would last beyond the popularity of the apps themselves. I personally prefer instant sharing like Snapchat and now Instagram Stories to just photo sharing in social media. I love creating an interesting Snap Story but it hasn’t and never will replace what I experience with photography.
