Instagram is dead for photographers

[The Maverick]

Hi everyone,

I joined Instagram last month and started posting my photos daily. It was going well with increasing number of engagements day by day until from last week my engagements drastically ,dramatically fell down!! I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it? With many platforms like Flickr and Instagram dead what do you think should we do stay at Insta and wait for an alternative (could take a while) or leave Insta and focus on 500px, Twitter etc.

 

[Hello123]

I'm not a big fan of social media, but if you're running a business, you need to be on social media. I have never had any success on Instagram, but I still keep the account open in case something changes later down the road.

 

[Lensmate]

Hi everyone,

I joined Instagram last month and started posting my photos daily. It was going well with increasing number of engagements day by day until from last week my engagements drastically ,dramatically fell down!! I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it? With many platforms like Flickr and Instagram dead what do you think should we do stay at Insta and wait for an alternative (could take a while) or leave Insta and focus on 500px, Twitter etc.

Flickr is far from dead. I avoid instabrag and facetwit like the plague!

-M

 

[sybersitizen]

... I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it?

I've never used Instagram in my life ... but what I picked up in the last 10 minutes is that not a lot has changed. It's just that the company's spying and control policies, most of which have been in place for a long time, are now described in more detail.

https://hacked.com/instagrams-terms-of-use-update/

Loading…

www.republicworld.com

 

[Lensmate]

... I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it?

I've never used Instagram in my life ... but what I picked up in the last 10 minutes is that not a lot has changed. It's just that the company's spying and control policies, most of which have been in place for a long time, are now described in more detail.

https://hacked.com/instagrams-terms-of-use-update/

Good article and that movie documentary is a must see!

-M

 

[theworstphotographerontheinternet]

If you're not enjoying it, walk away - life's too short to give yourself headaches over social media, imo.

That said, I've been on Instagram for about two years now, and personally I've found it to be quite a good community - it has allowed me to connect with other photographers in my area who I otherwise would have remained unaware of.

Engagement rates are pretty hit-and-miss, but that's only half the story really - it allows me to discover lots of interesting new stuff really easily. It's not everyone's cup of tea, certainly, but there are still lots of people on there who use it to share stills photography.

 

[Mika Y.]

Hi everyone,

I joined Instagram last month and started posting my photos daily. It was going well with increasing number of engagements day by day until from last week my engagements drastically ,dramatically fell down!! I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it? With many platforms like Flickr and Instagram dead what do you think should we do stay at Insta and wait for an alternative (could take a while) or leave Insta and focus on 500px, Twitter etc.

Frankly, I'd say that in the fickle world of social media judging a service to be dead for photographers based just on personal one week's engagement statistics is quite premature.

Incidentally, looking at my own fairly sporadic Instagram activity, a photo I posted there this week seems to have the largest number of likes for any of my posts since March, but I don't expect that to tell much about Instagram's status for photographers, quality of my photos or anything else.

 

[Ellis Vener]

And you are on Instagram as? I’m there as EllisVenerStudio

--
Ellis Vener
A working photographer since 1984.
To see my work, please visit http://www.ellisvener.com
Or on Instagram @EllisVenerStudio

 

[peter826]

I suppose it depends on what you want to use it for.

I post photos, but I also find it to be an incredible research tool. Before a trip, I'll follow some of the big aggregate accounts for whatever place I'm going, and use the shots I see to find good locations to visit myself. It's incredibly useful for that.

But yeah, it's hard to gain traction. Posted a photo from Maine and got 60 likes. Another account shared it and got over 4,000 likes. I have no reach...oh well.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Thanks for the detailed description of whatever policy you are referring to.

 

[justmeMN]

Thanks for the detailed description of whatever policy you are referring to.

I guess he means this:

Instagram Tests Making it Harder to Reshare Content into Stories | PetaPixel

and

Instagram Head: 'Instagram is No Longer a Photo Sharing App' | PetaPixel

 

[The Maverick]

Me too, I also don't particularly like social media or Instagram. It was actually the first platform I thought of sharing the photos, but in just 2 weeks of using it. I felt it was destroying the joy and purpose of photography except for the part that you get a lot of inspiration from there.

Do you guys have any idea of a similar platform for marketing purposes.

 

[fferreres]

Hi everyone,

I joined Instagram last month and started posting my photos daily. It was going well with increasing number of engagements day by day until from last week my engagements drastically ,dramatically fell down!! I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it? With many platforms like Flickr and Instagram dead what do you think should we do stay at Insta and wait for an alternative (could take a while) or leave Insta and focus on 500px, Twitter etc.

Those sites are all a scam. It's worst than the lottery. They are at first very straightforward places, and what needs to be noted is the dynamics it rides on. First, they start creating celebrities, they actively encourage that by trending photos and things like that, and suggestions. Then get the entirety of the network as value, and each person gets a tiny piece, but all post and promote and promote their site and bring outsiders to the place. Their publicity is who's there, and the stories of overnight celebrities created. So one actually does all the promotion for them, but one ends up with no right at all. The TOS can and do change all the time, and the business model, once network is mature is:

Chip away things slowly, measure if it kills the hosts (users and contributors), and find all the things they can chip away, or in what order to do it, so at the end of the day, you end up in an awful place that is nothing like what hooked you originally. When you are done after all the abuse, you lose every single follower and viewer. They never belonged to you anyway, even though you brought most of them there.

The second is that you information becomes the product, and in the case of instagram, you were not only their marketing, their product, you are also the product the sell to others, and not just your most precious things that is time, but also any information they could gather, and they do so in reverse auction mode, so you are sold as many times as possible for as much as anyone would offer.

It can't be worst than that, but they always outdo themselves and can go so low that we've discovered numbers than much smaller than minus infinity. Really, they break our current number systems.

To me, TOS should be illegal. Only the internet itself should have a TOS.

 

[The Maverick]

What do you think about those Instagram accounts that charge money to post your stuff in their feed as a promotion and the Instagram promotion feature , do they work or are they more of a gimmick.

 

[absquatulate]

Social media is just a honeypot for big data to know everything about you, by the time they build social credit scoring they'll have everything they ever need to know about you already. Who knew people would literally invite big brother into their lives?

 

[Toronto Photography]

... I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it?

I've never used Instagram in my life ... but what I picked up in the last 10 minutes is that not a lot has changed. It's just that the company's spying and control policies, most of which have been in place for a long time, are now described in more detail.

https://hacked.com/instagrams-terms-of-use-update/

Good article and that movie documentary is a must see!

-M

long live sefdom!

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

What do you think about those Instagram accounts that charge money to post your stuff in their feed as a promotion and the Instagram promotion feature , do they work or are they more of a gimmick.

You still have never said what Instagram policy you are actually talking about. It’s not obvious.

 

[The Maverick]

I'm talking about last to last week's headlines in which the CEO declared Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app.

 

[Mika Y.]

I'm talking about last to last week's headlines in which the CEO declared Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app.

That sounds to me a little too literal interpretation of his comments. Sure, for better or worse they are planning to embrace video significantly harder and be more "entertaining" (whatever that is supposed to mean). But it doesn't mean people who are more into stills can't or won't use it to share and view photos just as before, or that Instagram doesn't want users to do that anymore.

It's not the first or last change Instagram has gone through that has little to do with photography; just think of the inclusion of the shopping functionality a while back as an example.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Hi everyone,

I joined Instagram last month and started posting my photos daily. It was going well with increasing number of engagements day by day until from last week my engagements drastically ,dramatically fell down!!

You're too late. I joined Instagram about 3 years ago but has been active for the last couple of years. My account grew up to 7500 followers and I was getting tons of likes and views but engagement drastically dropped a few months ago. It's now about 2-2.5 times worse than it used to be. It's a common problem I've seen complaints of from many photographers.

Right now it's too late to join Instagram if you're looking for exposure.

I heard of Instagram's new policy,what are your thoughts about it? With many platforms like Flickr and Instagram dead what do you think should we do stay at Insta and wait for an alternative (could take a while) or leave Insta and focus on 500px, Twitter etc.

500px has been dead for a couple of years but for different reasons.

Twitter is a relatively new thing for photography, I'm trying it now, can't tell much.

--
https://www.instagram.com/quarkcharmed/
https://500px.com/quarkcharmed