So it’s been a bit
quiet on the writing about LEGO front, since my previous series of articles a
few months ago (that starts HERE)
which chronicles the times when I first started getting back into LEGO. But I
have actually been busy, mostly with taking more photos of LEGO and, especially in the
past few weeks, attempting to push thing more on the social media front.
After a few little
successes with my work and a growing following on Instagram, I thought it
would be interesting to write about my experiences and offer a few insights
into playing the social media game. Glib article title aside, I have gained a fair
few of ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ recently just by establishing a set game plan
for myself. I neither consider myself a social media expert, nor do I consider
myself a great photographer. But I am having fun doing it and thought it would
be interesting to document my process - with the focus mainly being on Instagram and how to cultivate a decent
following there.
Some points may appear
to be a bit obvious in hindsight, but for me it was all a gradual learning
curve. So, you want to be ‘Insta-famous’? Follow these tips and you can be too!
Step 1: Motivation
First thing you have to ask yourself is:
why are you doing it (i.e. posting pictures on Instagram)? If your answer is just ‘fame’ or ‘money’ then it’s
going to be an uphill struggle, as you will likely achieve neither. For me, the
social media platforms of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are
simply just avenues for self-promotion and to showcase my work. Each must serve
a specific function for you – and consistency is key (which we shall discuss in
depth later.
Everyone has different
uses for their various social media platforms (raising awareness, sharing jokes
with friends, reaching out to celebrities, self promotion, giving an insight
into their private life etc…). For me, Facebook is for personal stuff (on
the ‘friends only’ setting but even then I don't really moan about my personal
life or what I had for lunch that day and so on), but also self-promotion for
my LEGO photography and writing (these posts are set to ‘public’ so
anyone can see them even if we are not ‘friends’). Twitter is for
self-promotion only (LEGO and writing), Instagram is at the forefront of my
LEGO photo showcasing (I occasionally, but increasingly rarely, post non-LEGO
related photos); and finally, I have recently set up a Tumblr account as an
online gallery of sorts for all my LEGO photos thus far.
Decide what you want
each platform to do for you and stick to it! That way you know who to accept as
friends/followers on each platform and, more crucially, they know what to
expect when they decide to follow you!
Back to the theme of
motivation, my personal motivation for pushing the social media is just to get
more appreciation and recognition for my work. It’s not just about ego stroking
(well, maybe a little…), but I remember with a lot of my earlier stuff I was
often frustrated with how little feedback I was getting. This wasn’t because
people didn’t like what they saw. It was because enough people didn't even have the chance to see it in the first place.
So exposure became a priority for me. Most people love LEGO and photography –
so why wouldn't I get lots of good feedback? It was just a matter of me finding
a way of reaching a wider audience.
On a creative level,
having a wider audience adds fuel to the fire. Knowing that hundreds (or
potentially thousands) of people will view your work and the fact that even a
small percentage may leave a nice comment or even a ‘like’ is a great motivator
for me. I’m a creative person by nature (always have been, always will),
nothing will change that - but this increased level of feedback lends a sense
of validity to what I do, an expectancy of quality control and some discipline
in time management, that I may otherwise lack. So for me, exposure and feedback
is a good thing.
Step 2: Your Friends
So you've got an
Instagram account and you've started posting up your pictures. But whose even
going to see them? Well, as Instagram
is owned by Facebook you can get it
to automatically find and follow all your Facebook
friends that are already on Instagram.
But they need to follow you back too. Most will do so just out of common
courtesy, or perhaps they actually are genuinely interested in whatever images
you want to post - fair enough. But it’s not a guarantee. I’ve even had the odd
one or two friends (people I know in real life, mind you) that have unfollowed
me just recently (I know this courtesy of an Instagram companion app – which I will also briefly discuss later).
Whatever their reasons
for doing so, fair enough. But I find it hard to be interested in what they post
if they have actively decided to unfollow me and my posts. Although indirect, it
implies: ‘I am withdrawing my support for the thing that you are doing’ so why
should I carry on following them back? Click that ‘unfollow’ button.
As for the
actual reasons behind why they have decided to unfollow, in my case it could be
a variety of reasons: they dislike LEGO (I know the whole Shell issue puts some people off), they don't like a bunch of
sub-par toy photographs that I’ve ‘liked’ clogging up their ‘your friends have
liked’ feed, they simply don't like me as a person anymore (possible, yet
unlikely - heh heh), they think your account is just full of reposts (because I
don't really put much personal stuff up their anymore and they aren’t aware
that my foray into LEGO photography is genuine and all my own work), or that
their account has closed (in which case you wouldn't be following them anymore
either so it doesn't matter).
Whatever the
reasoning, don't dwell too much on it (like I evidently have), don't take it
too personally, unfollow if you have to, and just get on with it.
There may also be some
friends you have previously followed but they don't follow you back. Now this
could be because they are hardly on Instagram
at all (indicated by a lack of photos or any recent activity), they don’t know
you are following them (maybe they missed the notification) or that they actively
have chosen not to follow you (implying that sure, you can show an interest in my stuff but I don't care about yours).
In any case, you are best off unfollowing so you can maintain a favourable
ratio (importance of this to be explained later), as these people aren’t
benefitting you in any way.
Having said all that, I
personally have a few friends that I currently follow who don't follow me back
- as I’m still hopeful for them to follow me at some point. Maybe shoot them a
message, like or comment on one of their pictures or click ‘unfollow’ and then
‘follow’ again so that they get a follower notification (unconfirmed if this is
actually the case) to get their attention. If they still don't follow you after
that – guess what? Unfollow.
So how can you tell
who is following who, or when you have a lost a follow? Rather than trawling
through and comparing long lists of followers and people you follow, I
recommend that you get an Instagram companion app (free from the app store).
There are a fair few out there so I’m not going to name specific apps, but most
allow you to quickly compare your follows to your followers or if anybody has
recently unfollowed you. Very useful for managing your account and keeping track
of everything. The one I use also shows me which posts are my most popular and
other such titbits, which are also interesting to me.
You may be shocked at
what you find when using this app (in regards to your friends) but the best
thing to do is not take it too personally, do what you have to do and just get
on with it.
Now for randomers (ie:
people you don't actually know in real life) the rules are very different from what
I’ve outlined above, so set all that aside for a minute, and we’ll get on to these
people next.
(Note: if you are my
friend in real life, are following me but I’m not following you back and coincidentally happen to be reading
this, please get in touch and I’ll rectify the situation. Don't want to be
coming off as a hypocritical douche here.)
Step 3: Randomers
Some people are
content with just following or being followed by their real life friends.
That's fair enough. However for me and my LEGO photography, I want a worldwide
audience and exposure of my work to as many people that will care to look. So
that means having to go beyond just the network of my friends on Instagram.
I will outline how to
get a decent following of ‘randomers’ (this is not meant as a derogatory term –
just as a way of distinguishing them from people you know in real life), but
first let me set out the follow/following 'rules'.
For your (real-life)
friends, a follow-for-follow policy is highly recommended. As outlined above, I
follow all my friends (regardless or what they post) unless they refuse to
follow me back or have decided (for whatever reason) to unfollow me. But for
randomers, despite occasional requests from people commenting on my photos
with: ‘follow for follow?’, an FFF policy is not always the best way forward.
With friends, it’s a common courtesy because you know each other and it’s natural
to show support for whatever it is you are doing. But for strangers, I see it
more as a transaction: I offer something that they actively want to see
(quality/humourous/interesting/cute/whatever original LEGO photos) frequently and for free - the only ‘cost’ of
which being them having to click that button to follow me – the result of which
also means they should receive my updates (most of the time) on their feed.
If what you are
posting is original, engaging and (most importantly) consistent, then they should be happy to follow you without necessarily
being followed back. In return, my responsibility is just to maintain that
consistency with which I have originally presented myself to them with. (More
discussion on all aspects of ‘consistency’ later).
Now this isn’t to say
that you can’t FFF with any randomers
at all. I have followed some other LEGO photographers because I am genuinely
interested in what they post, regardless of whether or not they follow me back.
If they offer consistency and quality with their posts then why the heck wouldn’t
I follow them? What I’m saying you shouldn't do, is feel pressured into
following a stranger just because they have decided to follow you or adopt a
FFF policy as your main way of increasing views/likes/followers on your
profile. If an FFF policy is your main tactic, then you may end up with lots of
followers - sure, but often these people a) just want numbers and are not
interested in what you are posting at all (which is hardly rewarding), or b)
you will end up with a load of stuff you are not interested in clogging up your
feed on a daily basis. Neither scenario is really that productive for you and I
wouldn't be surprised if unfollowing (from you, from them, or mutual) occurs at
a later date.
Besides which, a high
number of follows and followers will
result in an unfavourable ratio.
Step 4: Your Ratio
You may be thinking: so what if your
follower/followers ratio isn’t that high? Surely if I follow thousands of
people then thousands will follow me back, right? Yes, that may be true – but
as outlined above, an FFF setup is not a stable one.
The main reason for
having a good ratio is a psychological one. Now on one hand this part may sound
a bit cynical but it’s true: people are more likely to follow you if you have a
good ratio on your profile. This is because it lends your account an air of
prestige (whether actually warranted or not) – the assumption being for the
viewer that there are many others willing to follow you (regardless of whether
you follow them back) because your content must just be so damn good.
Now, I’m
not saying you should always be aiming for the highest ratio possible (you
don't want to appear as some kind of aloof celebrity who barely acknowledge
their followers existence) but in my opinion, the best balance is to keep it
lean and efficient. Have no more than a 2:1 ratio of followers to people you
follow just to be safe – especially when first starting out. You’ll find as you
gain more exposure and followers this gap will naturally widen without you
having to force it. For that reason it’s not usual to see many successful
Instagrammers with thousand of followers yet only a few hundred follows. It’s
one of those things that gradually snowballs but if you can cultivate it early
on it will certainly help.
The flipside of this:
if you have a ‘bad’ ratio (eg: having a thousand followers but you also follow
a thousand people), this may communicate to others that you are an FFF policy
adopter (whether this is actually the case or not is irrelevant), and may even
result in some people being put-off from following you as a result.
Step 5: Consistency
For me, consistency is
the key to everything and perhaps the most important aspect to all of this.
Because the concept itself covers a lot of different areas in which you must
exercise consistency, I feel I have to dedicate a whole section on it.
As
outlined above, consistency is so important in the process of gaining (and more
importantly in the long-run) retaining a good number of followers. So lets look
at the different areas in which you need to be consistent.
Firstly: the content
which you post itself. This needs to be consistent in terms of quality
(whatever you establish that to be). This means maintaining a regular standard
of photography. My personal style is one of good colours, brightness,
interesting/humerous/cute set-ups that involve minifigures, sharp images and so
on. If I suddenly post up a dark, out of focus photo of my lunch, it’s safe to
say the majority of my followers will be nonplussed. Now that’s not to say I
can never ever post anything non-LEGO anymore, but maintaining a consistent
standard is what will get people to follow you and stay following you – its
because they know what they are getting (or will be getting regularly) if they
choose to follow you.
Other ways I choose to
be consistent in: no repeats of old photos (i.e. reposts of my own work),
all original work (no reposts of other people’s photos) and a regular posting
schedule (currently one post a day). Now these aren’t set in stone, but the
more consistent you are in these, the more successful you will be. I used to
post all sorts of random stuff when I first set up my account (check out my
oldest posts) and even photographs (but not reposts) of other people’s MOCs - but
having phased that out, I have found it a lot easier to gain followers.
(And remember folks, if you are reposting other people's stuff, make sure you credit
them!)
So whatever your
set-up/standard/theme of your Instagram – the golden rule: be consistent. If
you often post up nature photography, try to specialise in that. Pets, food or
selfies in skimpy outfits – whatever it is you post, don't deviate too far from
the theme you have established. Unless you happen to be some kind of
photography god that makes every random photo you take an utter masterpiece,
why would a stranger bother to follow you at all? The one exception to this is
if you a celebrity already (in which case people are likely to follow you
whatever you post) – but if you are one then what the hell are you doing reading
this?!
So the foundation to
having a good social media presence: consistency. Just think about any famous
website, podcaster, YouTuber, Facebook page, Twitter account, whatever. They
are successful because they are consistent in what they offer.
For me, one further
way I exercise consistency is in the way I post on my various different social
media platforms. As well as having a strict process and workflow when posting
things (outlined in a future article), each platform (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and
Facebook) has a specific purpose for me (already detailed in Step 1), and I
stick to that. As they are all interconnected with links (with the exception of
linking back to Facebook), anybody interested in my stuff can follow me via
whatever avenue is most suitable for them. Of course, each platform has its own
pros and cons – but I’ll leave that up to you to discover.
Step 6: Getting
Followers – Organic or Inorganic?
How to get followers? In
my opinion there are two main methods of growth: organic and inorganic. I’ll
outline them both, but I’ll state upfront that I’m all about the organic
method. To put simply, this is when you have a consistent output (in the
various interpretations of ‘consistency’ as outlined above), which when
targeted at the right people will naturally make them want to follow you. It’s
a gradual and more stable approach to getting (and keeping) a consistent
following.
An inorganic approach
would include things such as: using (or even paying for!) services that net you
followers, spamming your photos with non-relevant but currently ‘hot’ hashtags,
or adopting an indiscriminate FFF (follow for follow) policy. Now whilst these
seem like quick fixes and may quickly net you many followers, it's likely to be
unstable in the long run, as many followers also playing this ‘game’ may
discreetly unfollow you after a few weeks/days (for a more favourable ratio),
and that's not to mention that you will also constantly be spammed with hundreds
of stranger’s random photos on your feed everyday, drowning out the photos of
your friends and/or the people you are actually interested in following.
A further bonus of
having organic followers over inorganic ones is that the organic are more
likely to ‘like’ your photos, tag others in them and comment on them – all of
which results in the likelihood of your photos appearing on their followers’ feeds as well. It’s all
about getting good exposure. This is unlikely to happen when using the
inorganic method.
There are, however, two
caveats to everything I’ve discussed in this section. Firstly, if you are a
super hot girl (or guy) and you consistently post scantily clad photos of
yourself (as your theme) then the inorganic method WILL still work. This is
because there is no shortage of perverts on the internet and T’n’A always draws
a crowd. I guess this is actually the super-easy method if all you care about
is being Insta-famous. Just be consistently titillating.
The second caveat, is that I haven’t
actually used any of these inorganic methods (as described above) for myself,
so I cant 100 percent vouch for it working/not working through my own personal
experience. This is just based on listening to the experiences of others’ and
through observation.
The kicker for me on
organic vs inorganic, however, is on a much more personal note. If I have a
thousand followers, but know for a fact that the majority are not remotely
interested in what I post – then what’s the point? It does nothing for my
motivation. But having a few hundred followers (that I have grown organically) that
I know are actually interested in what I am doing and have actively chosen for
my work to appear on their feeds? Now that’s a much better motivation and worth
putting in a bit of effort for.
And it does require a
bit of effort on your behalf. No quick fixes here. Like a plant it needs to be
nurtured over time in order to grow.
Step 7: Growing
Followers – Like Others’ Photos
Now lets get down to brass tacks. The key
to growing organic followers (having first made sure you have established a
consistent posting habit) is to like lots of pictures. And I mean LOTS. There
is no two ways about it – you have to put some effort in here.
But it's not just
liking a load of random pictures that strangers post up. You need to target
those who may have a specific interest in what you are posting, in the hope
that they will follow you. That’s where the ‘search’ function on Instagram
comes in. As my regular go to, I search #lego, choose the display as a list view (instead of a gallery
view) and then scroll down all the results, liking lots of photos.
 |
| Not this view, the other view! |
Now a
blanket approach of liking every single photo with #lego isn’t always the best approach. I only tend to like at least
half-decent photos and only ones that prominently feature a LEGO minifigure or
creation. These are the ones that are most likely to be my target audience -
and consequently who are likely to follow me (or at least check out my profile
and like some of my other photos there).
What I avoid: incorrectly tagged
photos (#lego is a currently ‘hot’
hashtag, but also some people use it as a slang term for “let’s go”), generic
reposts (not original photographs) as these are banking on existing LEGO pictures or pop culture
references to gain likes, or photos that already have over roughly 30 likes
already.
The key
is to draw the attention of like-minded people. By ‘liking’ their picture they
will be notified and a high percentage will click on your profile to see who
you are. This is where your consistent posting habits will help you out first. Since
they posted something to do with LEGO it is safe to say they like it. They see
my profile (full of consistent quality and original LEGO photography) and may
choose to follow me to keep seeing these pictures on their feed as they come
out (my regular posting schedule means often they will often have a new one every
day).
If they don't follow, they may still ‘like’ some of your posts, giving
them a tiny bit more exposure (as it has a chance to appear on their ‘liked’
feed). Worse case scenario, they don't do anything – but all it took is two
seconds for you to have pressed ‘like’ on their photo so it’s not that big of a
deal for you.
The
reason I don't often ‘like’ photos that already have 30+ likes is because the
more ‘likes’ someone gets on a photo, the less likely they are to follow it up
with a ‘whose this?’ click on your profile. The exception to this is if I
recognise that they are a regular successful poster and I just feel like
‘liking’ their pic anyway in the hope that familiarity over time may lead to a mutual following of each other. But
don't force it – requesting ‘follow for follow?’ comes across as a bit
desperate and disingenuous in my opinion.
If you
don't have many posts/followers you may have to work on ‘liking’ quite a bit.
But the more followers/exposure you get, the less time you need to spend on
doing this. Currently I only need to do this maybe twice a day (spending about
5 minutes at a time scrolling through and liking a bunch of posts) which, for me, leads to a
daily incremental increase in followers.
Step 8: The Art of
Hash-Tagging
The
next step is the art of hash-tagging. You should use relevant hashtags on your
pictures when you post them, to do with LEGO in general but also specific to
the picture. I have a copy and paste list of hashtags which I nearly always use
which you can see below:
Where is says #custom, I substitute these
for picture relevant hashtags. So for example, in the photo below I have added
in #mechanic #car #repairs #mot.
This
gives you a good mix of general and specific hashtags for your photos. It’s not
advisable to add irrelevant hashtags (this may increase exposure but it wont be
targeted at the right group) or add too many hashtags as Instagram’s limit on
tags will cut some of them off or worse it will come across as desperate).
About the number that is in the above copy and paste picture is advisable as
the maximum.
The
final piece of advice to get people to look at your profile is to be social – it is called ‘social media’
after all. This means if you really like a picture, leave a nice comment. This
can range from just ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’ or to a more specific comment such as
‘I love the use of focus here’ or questions such as ‘where can you get that
(specific LEGO) piece’?
Unless the photo has dozens of comments already, that
person will 99% of the time reply to you and may well have a look at your profile
while they are at it. Similarly, if someone leaves a comment on your wall, get
back to them. If you show them that you are friendly, approachable and share
similar interests, then once again, they are more likely to follow you. Some may
even give you a ‘shout-out’, meaning they advertise your account to all their followers – which is always good exposure.
And
that’s about it in a (rather large) nutshell. I’m nowhere near ‘insta-famous’ at the moment
but have gone from around 150 to 530 followers in the past 2 weeks - all
organic, and with only 2 randomer unfollows in that time. So the stats speak for themselves.
My current aim is to get to around 1000 followers, then we’ll see where it goes
from there.
Step 9: Extra Steps
There are a few extra steps you can take if
you want that additional push for exposure. Firstly, change your profile
picture to something relevant to your theme. So for a LEGO minifigure
orientated account like mine, the avatar shows a LEGO minifgure representing
me. This is a quick mental shortcut for the potential followers to see that your
account is all about the LEGO. You can see mine below.
Another additional
step, much for the same reasons as above, is to change your account name to
something related to your theme. I personally have chosen not to do this (so
that my account stays in line with my other social media), but if pushed I
would change it to something like ‘Lego-Seb’, ‘Seb-Brickski’ or even something
more general as ‘Lego_Lover_99’ or similar. In fact, that’s why my recently set
up tumblr account (that just acts as a gallery for my LEGO pics) is entitled
‘Sebski-Lego’.
Of course you can also
go for some of those inorganic methods too such as the use of follower-boosting
services, loading your picture with unrelated but popular tags or just liking
literally every picture you possibly can. You may find that works for you, but
I prefer my slow, steady and reliable method.
Step 10: In Summary
So, to summarise, (or if you got bored of
reading through all my earlier ramblings and just want the short version), here
it is:
1)
Make sure your posts/output is consistent.
2)
Maintain a good ratio (follower management).
3)
Like photos of those with similar interests.
4)
Use hashtags well.
5)
Be social, comment and reply every now and then.
6)
Make sure all your social media is interlinked
well.
And that's about it!
Apologies if I went on a bit. In fact, there were a few more things I was going
to add but I’ll just put them in the next post.
Best of luck!
You can check out my
instagram account HERE.
Or read some other of
my LEGO posts by clicking on these links:
PART 1- Starting out
PART 2 – Gateway sets and Intro to Collectible Minifigs
PART 3 – How to identify Collectible Minifigs
PART 4 – Other ways of obtaining Minifigs
27th July 2014
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