We’re back with a final installment of Daniel Bedell and Tropico Photo’s Michelle Norris and Forrest Aguar, giving some parting thoughts about Instagram and the best way to use it.
DB: “[Michelle] do you think that getting featured on Instagram’s page gave you this big bump in followers but they are kind of empty calories? I’m just scrolling through both your and Forrest’s [Instagram] accounts and looks like Forrest, who has under half your number, gets more feedback a fair bit of the time, even though you have a larger number. It makes me wonder if you get featured somewhere or even pay for followers, [as in] pay for advertising on Instagram and stuff, do you think that’s even effective? [Or] are they ‘empty calorie’ followers?”
FA: “That is something that we talked about after Michelle got that boost. It definitely helped, but then we started talking about this concept of quality following as opposed to numerical following. It’s what Michelle is talking about, you really have to build those loyal followers who are invested in you.”
MN: “Also, as someone who I feel has been interested in Instagram for a long time, when I got that boost I got to 12K followers. So a lot of what I’ve built since then is separate. However, Instagram now, since the algorithm changed, is really different in a way. When people have a lot more followers up to a certain point, what I now consider people with a lot of followers, like people with over 100K, what it really changes is their max potential for likes and engagement, not necessarily their regular [engagement].
“Another thing too, Forrest posts a lot less and sometimes people say posting more gives you more engagement. I don’t think that’s actually true at this point. I definitely post a lot more ‘willy nilly,’ so I post pretty much every day. It makes it to where there is a huge fluctuation. I can get as low as 200 likes, and then my most popular posts have almost 2,000 likes. Forrest’s max likes is nowhere near where mine is, but his average is pretty close to what mine is.
“So it’s a weird where you’re factoring in so many different things. You’ll see these accounts where people have huge engagement, so many comments, and when I’ve talked to those people, what they’re really doing is interacting with their following all the time…basically building personal relationships with these other people. I would qualify that as a very important thing if you’re looking to be an influencer. But how you treat Instagram has a lot to do with what you’re wanting to get out of it.”
FA: “And what you’re willing to do.”
MN: “Well, yeah. What you’re willing to do.”
FA: “It ends up being a lot of work.”
MN: “Yes…if you’re using Instagram to full potential. Like you want to be an influencer and you want Instagram to be your main voice, then you’re looking at the need to spend hours on Instagram every day because you’re posting regularly, you’re wanting to respond to every comment, you’re wanting to interact with followers, you’re wanting to go after people and invest in their lives. That’s a whole world other than wanting, ‘I’m trying to maximize my general reach on Instagram in a casual way.’
“My Instagram has morphed a lot into just wanting to share stuff I think is fun. My personal Instagram is more like a personal diary in some ways, and I share things like: ‘I took this. I like it. I’m sharing it.’ And I think Tropico’s [Instagram] gave me that freedom. But Forrest definitely curates his [personal Instagram] more – “
FA: “I’m a perfectionist, and I also struggle with social media. It feels more of a chore to me, and I feel like Michelle is really having fun with hers. It’s reflected in how often we post and the kind of content we post.”
MN: “Yeah.”
DB: “Do you feel like you’re getting everything out of Instagram you want because you get so much work either directly through it or that’s how people are interacting with finding you the most? Or is there a larger goal of, ‘Hey, if we could get into that influencer number, then we can not only be your photographer and stylist but you can be advertising [through] us?’”
FA: “I feel like we’re pretty satisfied with where we ride because we want to be professional and editorial photographers, but we still do get hired for a decent amount of commercial social media, which has significantly higher budgets than actual influencer work, and I feel like it carries a little bit more clout.”
MN: “That just doesn’t have to do with Instagram though. They are still paying a commercial budget, and they’re not asking you post on your account or anything.”
FA: “Exactly. So, I feel like what we’ve been able to do is build a great following and really nice relationship with our blog and our followers on Instagram. It also functions as a professional portfolio that allows us to be found for the kind of work that we want to be doing and still get to be playful. But I personally don’t feel like we want to be full-blown influencers.”
MN: “I actually think that we’ve pretty heavily avoided when people try to combine our commercial work with influencer work. We’ve tried to be very clear about the fact that Tropico Photo is not an influencer and will not be one mainly because I think it’s a complicated world in which when people get in those really big numbers there is real earning potential there. I still think in general ‘influencers’ is sort of this word that’s used to undervalue real work. When people are going and doing essentially the job of an ad photographer, I think when ‘influencer’ is attached to it, it still puts them in a realm where they could be making less for that than if they were doing it purely for the company and not giving some kind of endorsement on their page. That’s an area I think people have to careful about. It’s really easy to be taken advantage of. There are these new media digital agencies who [represent] influencer work, and some of them are shady. You just have to be careful about doing that kind of thing, that you’re not getting taken advantage of in some way or undervalued because you’re going in as an influencer.
“Right now, the Instagram for Tropico does exactly what we want it to. It’s a great online portfolio that people can casually follow and find us, and it gets us the type of work we want. Our personal Instagrams do exactly what we want right now. For mine, I get free clothes, and I get to share photos of my outfits and the places that I go, which is all that I’m looking for out of it. And Forrest gets… what do you get out of yours? (laughing)”
FA: “I mean, I get satisfaction. I enjoy really dialed-in compositions and figures which engage with that. So, I’m just trying to edit down and narrow down, so the kind of work I’m making through Tropico or when we’re traveling, that I’m most excited about, and just put it out there. Because underneath being a commercial and editorial photographer, I also just want to be an artist. So, it’s my art.”
MN: “Yes. I think there’s a lot of danger on Instagram right now. It has so many positive things and is an amazing tool, but I think it’s really important to have a check from time to time and think, ‘What am I trying to get out of this? Why is it important to me?’ And figure out what you need to do to attain what you want out of it. But there is definitely a danger to becoming obsessed with affirmation from strangers that actually won’t help you in any way. So I think it’s a balancing act.”
DB: “So, speaking of that, can you give me a little bit of the nuts and bolts of your strategy as far as people who are looking to build their accounts? If they’re photographers, they don’t necessarily want to become influencers, but they want to be seen by people who will hire them. What are some of the things you do? Is it important to tag the people you’d like to be hired by in your photos? Is that something? Are hashtags important? Are there things you see as important to building the right crowd you want?”
FA: “In my opinion, it really boils down to having a very clear curation, vision, and consistency, because to answer your question, I’m not 100 percent sure how a lot of people find us. When we ask, they say they just stumbled upon our Instagram. I think a big part of that is we built an incredibly wide network we do work with and tag other creatives West Coast, and we travel a lot, so our work pops up all over the place in other countries, in strange ways. Then we also have work that will be on the cover of an editorial, and we’ll tag that editorial then the editorial will post us and tag us. It kind of functions as a landing page for all the work we’re doing. We’re found in such an organic way from all over the place. But then, when they find us, they look at it and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is really nicely curated. Wow, there’s a link to their professional website.’ They go there and they think, ‘Okay, maybe I can hire them for something.’ That’s how I imagine it going, but I don’t 100 percent know.”
MN: “Yes, I think part of when we started our Instagram we only followed other people who were in our industry we had worked with or other creatives or agencies whose work we really liked. So, we do interact with their accounts and like things that they post and comment. That sort of thing which I think builds traction in the arena you’re trying to be found in. But outside of that, we don’t really hashtag on Tropico Photo. We’ve actually found hashtagging less effective since the change in the algorithm. I feel like you end up with some kind of spammy stuff. —”
FA: “Instagram is expanding at such a constantly high rate there are always diminishing returns because there’s just so much stuff out there, and it’s happening on hashtags all the time. The hashtags that have less posts in them but are more tightly curated are sometimes more beneficial than more widely used hashtags, where if you post something it instantly gets lost.”
MN: “Yes, I would say early on we found things like Noise mag, which is very different now. It was a curated feed of outdoor minimal photography. That was a very niche account. It had a hashtag associated with it. Through ones like that I think you can use a hashtag for something more specific and have success, and more people who would actually be interested in what you’re doing and keep up with it find you. I think avoid hashtagging things like #girl #cloud, stuff that’s not really going to lead to anything at this point. I think looking for those unique groups on Instagram is important, and there are really fun ones, like #accidentallywesanderson is a really cool one that has good curation and small enough it only has 100,000 hashtag posts. Things like that, you’re going to get a lot more success; you’re will be found by people who are actually interested in what you’re doing.
Another thing is putting in the time to curate a feed. We use tools; I think it’s called Unum?”
FA: “I mean, we use Unum; there are a lot of different ones.”
MN: “There are a lot of them, but you know, you can plan out your grid ahead of time so you can make sure it all looks good together because that is how it’s going to be seen, front facing. We do try to respond to people’s comments and things like that.”
FA: “Honestly, I feel what’s worked the best for us is just having really tight curation. Because in this day and age, where everyone has an Instagram, and a lot of them are just snapshots of their dogs or food, there is just so much stuff that is so ‘social media,’ that having more of a portfolio and curation shows an artistic vision and helps separate us from what a majority of the content. I think it’s essential but also, organically developing your network, which takes a lot of time. I can’t think of what a faster route would be, honestly.”
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