I Do Not Understand Social Media

I know I’ve made a few blog promises by now that I haven’t followed through on. I want to write one about my high school photography experience, but the photos I took back then are all stored somewhere in my parent’s attic (or at least I hope they’re still there). It will take some time to get around to finding those, so until then I have many other topics I can talk about. Today, it’s social media. Do I understand it? No. Do I like it? Not really. Do I need it to have a successful business? Absolutely. If you’re in for a random stream of thoughts about social media, then this blog is for you. Otherwise, I’m so sorry for cluttering your inbox, please forgive me!

I have spent an annoyingly long amount of time this week on trying to understand how to make and post an Instagram Reel, because apparently Reels are the cool thing to do right now. Instagram recently changed its layout so that the “explore reels” button is right where the “create new post” button used to be. When I click on this button, I get the most random assortment of videos from people I don’t know featuring babies, dogs, and gender reveals. I have not once clicked on a video of a gender reveal, so maybe Instagram is just generalizing me as a 30-something married female and dropping hints that I should be having babies by now (sorry to break it to you, Instagram [and mom & dad], but that’s not happening any time soon). None of these videos sparked joy in me, so as Marie Kondo would say: dispose of it. Except I can’t because Instagram has embedded into my brain and I can’t stop looking at the mess.

“Visible mess helps distract us from the true source of the disorder.”

— Marie Kondo

Side note: when I was searching for Marie Kondo quotes, I found this one and I’m deeply offended: “If sweatpants are your everyday attire, you’ll end up looking like you belong in them, which is not very attractive. What you wear in the house does impact your self-image.” — Marie Kondo

A gentle fuck you to Ms. Kondo. I can wear my Costco Christmas sweatpants in September and still feel fabulous, right? …right?

Can Someone Please Tell Me, Why Reels?

According to Instagram: “Reels invites you to create fun videos to share with your friends or anyone on Instagram. Record and edit 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects, and new creative tools.” The main use of Instagram, in my opinion, should be to share photos and videos should be secondary since other platforms like TikTok excel in the short video category. However, since they have been pushing Reels, my theory is that regular posts have been sort of cast aside and aren’t as “important” in their algorithm.

I manage a total of five Instagram accounts, only three of which I currently post on (and I’d like to post on the fourth a little more). I regularly post on my personal account, my photography business account, and my dog Brie’s account. I also have an account where I badly rate beers that I try, even though I don’t really like beer that much and I know nothing about it. My friends will joke that I should always get sours because one time I tasted all the sour beers a bar offered and didn’t like a single one. That poor server. And finally, I have an old account for the late Whiskey, Scotch, and Rye rats that I now use to increase the likes on my photography posts in hopes of it increasing their importance in the algorithm.

Some Reels Are Better Than Others

My first ever Reel was last week on Brie’s account where I just put the song “Move Your Feet” by Junior Senior over a video of her being cute crawling out from under the bed. The video itself is just 9 seconds long and within an hour of posting it, it had over 4,000 views and almost 150 likes. Now I know that’s nowhere near going viral, but as a comparison, a regular video I posted on that account last month got only 20 views and 7 likes. One interesting thing to note is that I did not use hashtags on either post, so somehow the Reel ended up in more people’s feeds than the video.

I also made a Reel on my photography business account this week and added 30 hashtags, which is the maximum number allowed. People who search or follow these hashtags should theoretically have this video show up in their feed, as well as any random person that this algorithm picks to see it.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it really quick here (it’s only 15 seconds long) so you’ll know what I’m talking about. I unintentionally worked for a really, really long time on this Reel. The first animation series that repeats twice was created from 17 different still photos. Since I didn’t have a tripod with me at this shoot, each photo had a slightly different angle and position from the natural movement of my body. Each of these photos was individually straightened, edited, and then overlaid on top of each other so that the same tiny speck of sand lined up with all the other photos. It’s not perfect, but I got it pretty close. All of that work for a 3 second animation (which I love, by the way):

My point here is that this Reel only got 61 views and 14 likes (4 of which are from my own accounts). Why is my dog Reel with no hashtags getting more views than this one with 30 hashtags? Is it because Brie’s account has more followers than my personal account and my photography account combined? That’s probably it.

How Do I Get More Followers?

I’ve tried all the “tricks.” I went and followed over 500 photography accounts. This usually results in people following you back, but I only got a handful from doing that. I use all the hashtags, I share my posts on all my other accounts, my friends have shared on their accounts (thank you, by the way, you guys are the best). I do stories and polls in my stories to try to increase engagement to get my content to more accounts. My bio is clear about who I am and what I do, I’ve been posting almost every single day for weeks, my post captions are thoughtful and usually ask a question or tell the viewer to visit my website or my blog posts. I’ve used hashtag generators and engaged with my followers and commenters. I’ve commented and liked countless posts from the other accounts I follow. I’m so grateful for the 134 people who have followed me, but how in the world do people get even 1,000 followers? My first thought is that I’m just not a good enough photographer, but then I remember I’m actually really proud of my work and I think it’s pretty decent. I know I’m nowhere near as good as so many photographers out there, but I’m happy with my growth in portrait photography in even the last couple of months since starting this business. I think I just don’t understand social media and I don’t think I ever will. I have a newfound respect for some content creators out there… this is so much work.

Why Do I Want More Followers And Likes?

Will more followers = more business? I highly doubt it. Yet I still want people out there to see my work. I want to inspire people like all the 500+ accounts I follow have inspired me. I want a community of people to support me and I support them. I guess I already have that with my friends and my family and all of you reading this blog, if you made it this far. At the very least, I’m so grateful that social media allows me to share my work with my family and friends. Thank you to all my followers out there. Your support means the world to me.

Let’s create some memories.

Kim