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Instagram - helpful? waste of time? or worse.
I know I'm very late to the Instagram game. I've been trying to not get involved with social media that much. From my experience with Friendster and MySpace. It is a fad that will eventually die/change. A total waste of time. I also dislike publishing photos on the internet due to total lack of copyright protection. But recently. I've been coerced by a model to join. She swears by it and I'm sure she is telling the truth. However, I also am aware that what works for a model may be totally different for a photographer. Just wondering if any of you are having success in bringing in new revenue through Instagram. Thanks for sharing. Apr 15 15 04:36 pm Link I've booked a considerable amount of work through my instagram in one way or another, often through direct messages in the app as silly as that sounds. If you told me three years ago that this would be the case, I'd say you were high. Yet here we are. In fact, many agencies in NYC are starting to list IG usernames right on the women's board, alongside name and measurements. This past fashion week, I handed out maybe two business cards, but shared my IG name maybe three dozen times, and have booked work/collaborated on projects accordingly. It's become a business card/portfolio/contact point, whether you like it or not. Apr 15 15 06:17 pm Link I have booked more work through ig than Facebook this last 6 months. I am one who swears by it. Just post something everyday. Don't worry about having to do it many times a day. Once you are connected to everyone you will see people will respond better than fb in my experience. I have switched to mac and everything now works very seamless. I am not a computer person. I didn't have a computer for almost 10 years. I bought my computer only two years ago and I am very happy to see the social media. I work at a tiny desk in a mall and probably am on social media 3 hours a day. I know it is a lot. Good luck. Apr 15 15 08:15 pm Link mccStudio wrote: Friendster? Myspace? Apr 16 15 08:45 am Link Just because she "swears" by it doesn't mean she is correct. Apr 16 15 09:00 am Link The agencies that are doing it are doing it more in the light of "get to know our model julie" rather than as some kind of professional extension of their portfolio. I won't use IG because you can't do it from a computer (only mobile device), which sort of precludes posting real work easily. Now if I start doing iphone videos and snapshots as a behind-the-scenes thing, I would probably participate. Apr 16 15 09:06 am Link Facebook is my most important social media marketing tool with far more interactivity, messaging, and booked shoots than Instagram. Instagram is more "hip", but brings me less messages and booked shoots. Since its far easier to post photos, send messages, and overall use Facebook- I put the majority of my marketing efforts there rather than Instagram. Apr 16 15 09:28 am Link Loki Studio wrote: Since Facebook changed reach (pay vs. non pay), I have had much better exposure through Instagram. Apr 16 15 09:42 am Link For those of you who are saying you are getting bookings through Instagram can you elaborate on the specifics of that? What kind of bookings/shoots exactly? Who are your clients? I'm on IG but I totally cannot wrap my head around how it can be useful for me in any way. My clients aren't models at all so I'm struggling to even understand the elementary uses of how it can benefit me in any way. Many people swear by it but I have seen little evidence on how it can benefit my business in the least. Apr 16 15 10:57 am Link JBerman Photography wrote: The difference for me is that I get 10-15 personal messages a day on Facebook and 1 per week on Instagram. I book on average 2 shoots a week on FB and I have never booked a shoot through IG. Apr 16 15 11:19 am Link Shot By Adam wrote: most of the people i follow on instagram aren't models. Apr 16 15 12:02 pm Link Thanks for all the input. Now I'm confused more than ever. lol I see conflicting reports. I am also wondering how people are getting booked through IG. Like I would need to know a detailed scope of the project before even giving out a quote. All that through IG is impossible and too public. So I'm assuming that you made the contact through IG and gave them your email or phone number and went about it that way. Just hard for me to imagine that the potential client just happen to see your IG and just happen to be in your neck of the woods. That is an alignment of stars if I ever saw one. Apr 16 15 04:57 pm Link IG has been beneficial for me, because I'm terrible at Facebook and Twitter, which are probably much better. I haven't made a ton of money directly through Instagram, but I have made some good connections that have led to paid jobs. I can't survive on an IG diet, but it's a good supplement. Not wholly a financial supplement, but I still enjoy its sharing, caring and time-wasting aspects  I have way more stuff on IG than I do on my site or here on MM, so I tend to refer people to my IG account. FWIW. Apr 16 15 11:58 pm Link mccStudio wrote: If you can get in and network with the right people, the platform doesn't matter. Apr 17 15 12:21 am Link No thank you to Instagram, just one more annoying social portall to annoy me, lol! Apr 17 15 12:30 pm Link Jon Macapodi wrote: The truth is told! Especially in major fashion markets Apr 17 15 02:46 pm Link Very interesting topic!! I've always wondered too.. I've not tried it yet... Have just created an ID so far... And many of my model contacts have referred me to it... I guess clicking selifies and posting them on insta (as they refer to it) is easy and they get hooked!! And that then becomes their world... Apr 17 15 10:53 pm Link Depends. For my photography it hasnt done squat. I get my commercial work the old fashioned way. But I also run a rental studio and social media has been bringing in the masses. Everyone who comes here tags the studio, people check it out, word gets around. Its great that way. Apr 17 15 11:03 pm Link A fashion designer friend of mine signed me up and looked after my instagram account but I've only recently started to take over it. I also feel late and lost in the game learning the rules, do's and don't but slowly getting there. I see very high quality work from other people which recieve only less then a hundred likes then I see total rubbish from a female instagrammer and has over a thousand to even 30K of likes and comments so hard to understand what works and what doesnt. I also struggle not being able to post from a computer as I truly hate typing messages from a phone. I find myself typing posts into google keep to paste into the phone instead so time consuming task. Did find a site the other day http://www.latergram.me/ which supposedly allows you to write and schedule posts from your comp. Anyone have experience with this one? Apr 18 15 06:47 pm Link I am pretty late getting into the social media game. I got my fb account about a year ago. I like ig just because it is so much easier than fb. I don't have to think much to make a post. and I am not as good at twitter even though i follow twitter much closer than ig. I think the slow minded of us like ig better. Most people here in the philippines have ig and fb accounts but not everyone here has twitter. My target audience for jobs is 25-35 year old brides. That could be a difference too. Right now I think it is a good success. I also love pinterest. I don't know too many photographers though that use it. How my ig works. It's not hard. I pass out brochures in the mall everyday. It is allowed at my mall. if people are interested in talking with us we also have them fill out a form with ig and fb accounts. Then when we post they can receive it. We always need to find new clients because I am a wedding photographer and only get hired once or twice by a person. I think I sign up about 10-20 people a day. It isn't much but it adds up. It is much cheaper than doing fb promotions. I do that too but on a very small scale only. I get more brides that say they see me on ig than fb these days but maybe that will change in the future. I also collect ig accounts at local churches and promoters who put on weddings. When you combine everything it is pretty powerful advertising for me. I tried other methods but people tend to lose business cards and your name and who you are pretty quick. I have many other promo ideas but they all seem to be a lot of work to do. This is easy for me because I am there already. I just have a clipboard. I am mostly a one man show so when I am working i just try to think of just doing as much as I can handle. Apr 19 15 02:33 am Link I was thinking like you at first when Instagram came out and I was starting my photography work, but I must admit since I been posting my photography work on Instagram I have grown my reputation tremendously. Also, magazine companies that are on Instagram have helped me showcase my work to gain an amazing reputation, and not only on Instagram, but towards my other social media sites and main portfolio. As long as your images are watermark with your logo do not be scared about people stealing your photos. When you grow your fan base, and reputation that will help protect your work, because then everybody will recognize your work, and it will be harder for haters to steal your work and try to use it. Check me out if any of you all are on Instagram. @stunnaful_photography Craig Spratt Stunnaful Photography Apr 19 15 06:11 pm Link I just gave up today on using instagram for my photography for the maybe 10th time in about a year (I have an IG account with one photo). Unusable for anything other than posting selfies you took with your mobile phone. God I hate this thing. Everything is cropped square if you don't format it first square with borders to get around it. You can't post from a computer. You can't even post from drop-box - arghhh. Die instagram Die. Apr 19 15 06:37 pm Link I do it just for the fun of it. Have met a few models through it, but they live in places like Russia and New York City where I never go. Apr 19 15 06:38 pm Link I don't think it is necessary if you live in a place like a western country but here in the Philippines internet on a computer is scarce. Most people that use the internet here use free wifi and are poor. They only use a mobile device that costs around 100 US dollars. Also, a lot of us spend time in provinces. I spend a lot of time on my farm. I think fb and instagram and pinterest are a lifesaver. I don't really use google plus but one day I might. I also hear it can help a lot. i am up to my ears in social media already. I just like it because it is easy. I don't really use twitter for my business much because I don't really know what to say and I don't blog. I use twitter to follow UFC. and the Lakers and UCLA football. Apr 19 15 11:07 pm Link J O H N A L L A N wrote: What mobile device do you have? I simply shoot on my camera, load it onto my computer, edit, drop into dropbox then download it into my ipad from dropbox. Post on IG, delete, and enjoy the fact that I can post my regular shots on IG. It's a roundabout way of doing it, but I load all my client photos into dropbox anyway, so just download whichever I want. Not too much extra work. Have run into the format annoyance here and there, but most of the time it works well enough! Apr 20 15 04:34 am Link J O H N A L L A N wrote: Yet another phone app I've had to get which let's you maintain the aspect ratio for both stills and video, but it's a pain to have to use it each time, and it makes the image smaller. Or you can use a diptych app to combine 2 or more images. Apr 20 15 12:28 pm Link J O H N A L L A N wrote: J O H N A L L A N wrote: It's quite simple to post a "real" image to Instagram. Edit as usual then save to your Dropbox folder then on your phone export the image from Dropbox to Instagram. Simple and painless. Most of the images I post on Instagram are from my Canon 5D Mark II with occasional shots from my actual smartphone camera. Apr 21 15 07:10 pm Link J O H N A L L A N wrote: Instinct Images wrote: There is no instagram listed in the export options on my dropbox app for iphone ios 8.3. There's facebook and a couple others but no instagram. Apr 21 15 07:49 pm Link Well, I've been looking over IG account from the list provided by MM in the forums. Over 60%+ of the models are no longer active. I think that says something about the longevity of IG. Apr 21 15 08:25 pm Link Instagram is the (not so) new thing. In a couple of years, it'll be something else. After that, it'll be something else. But consider if its longevity is only a couple of years. That means it is a vehicle to reach people for a full 24 months. Do you want to not be a part of that? Does it make good business sense to ignore something that can extend your reach for that long? In that sense, it is worth your time. I have a very small but highly curated following on Instagram. I follow graphic designers, art directors, magazines, fashion designers, stylists, models, filmmakers and photographers. That's it. That seems like a lot of names but that's pretty narrow in scope. When I'm on set, I take a picture. Usually of my tethering station and aux monitor while one of the images I like is up. Then maybe a day or two later, a work-in-progress. After that, I'll put up a final version. I have my Lightroom workflow setup to send a square version of select pictures to a Dropbox folder. Because I have the app on my phone, I can select a picture and post it to IG, so it's not a photo with my iPhone as much as a sample of my work. I get shoot requests from designers (lookbooks and such), had some magazines reach out as well. Connected with a few models and a stylist or three. I'm not one of those people booking a ton of work off of it but when I was creative directing for last magazine I worked for, I would find people on Instagram all the time who I'd seek out for editorials. Eventually I was like, "If I'm coming across them like this, surely someone may come across me in the same manner." That was when I started taking it a little more seriously. You can disregard it if you want. I have pretty much stayed out of the Twitter thing almost entirely. Tumblr does well by me because I've seen the return on time investment in terms of magazines and websites seeing my work and reaching out. Yes, many are primarily digital publications but NEWSfuckingFLASH: everything is moving that way. I'm not saying print media is dead because that not the discussion at hand (I'm not making a statement on that either way) merely that the shift to a digital base makes things like tumblr and instagram and others all the more relevant to our respective business operations. You don't have to do the instagram thing but I think it is worth it to take part. Again, two years is a long time to brush something off and it's been around longer than that and it's growing. For whatever that's worth. Apr 22 15 05:00 pm Link mccStudio wrote: I think it says more about the longevity of models here on MM. Apr 24 15 03:30 am Link Every social media platform is a tool - if it has a decent number of users and some of those users are people you want to reach, surely it's a tool worth considering? You're always going to have people who failed miserably at something and people who are successful. It's like saying 'cameras, what do you think - good or a waste of time?' You'll have people telling you their camera paid for 3 houses and put their kids through uni, and others telling you that it put them in debt and ruined their marriage. Look at early adopters like Dan Rubin and what he's built on the back of his following, look at how businesses are using it and whether the use results in conversions, and decide whether you have the time/resources to actually make it work for you. Apr 24 15 03:41 am Link |
