I Posted on Instagram Every Day, for 365 Days. Here’s What I’ve Learned.
On this very day last year, 29th of November, I made a pledge to myself that I would post photography-related content on Instagram.
Every, single, day.
For one year.
Today is that day, one year later.
I’ve got many thoughts and opinions I want to share regarding the experiences I encountered the past year, doing this crazy experiment.
Who am I? Why did I do something so absurd?
At the tail end of my high school years and early into my college studies (this is more than 10 years ago, really shows you my age huh), Instagram began to spring up and the hype surrounding it got me hooked.
In particular though, I was especially hooked with the likes of local Aussie photographers: Demas Rusli, TK North, Pat Kay, Benjamin Lee, and those abroad as well: Elaine Li (from Hong Kong) and SamAlive (from Taiwan).
I was so visually and creatively inspired by the likes of their work, and I thought “wouldn’t it be cool if I could emulate that!?”
So, I picked up my family’s old point and shoot camera and tried to emulate what they did.
Long story short, turned out be a failure.
Not entirely true, I did learn the basics of camera settings, composition, etc., but my creative drive was short lived.
Even so, since then for the past 10-ish years, I’ve still admired their work from afar without participating myself.
One day on a whim though, after the events of 2019-21 (we know what happened) and Japan opened their borders, I said “screw it let’s take this seriously”.
I won’t get into a tangent, but Japan is a destination I’ve been to several times – and it never gets old. I’m fascinated in Japan for everything it is: the cuisine, the culture, the massive cityscapes, the serene landscapes, the mannerisms, the anime, and of course, for its photography opportunities.
So, I had a pre-conceived plan to pick up photography again in 2023, and post-trip, I’ll endeavour on my social media game.
Consistency vs quality
There is an age-old question surrounding those who want to play the social media game.
Consistency > quality? Or is it the other way around, Quality > consistency?
How many times should I post a week?
If I post once, or more than once a day, can it be subpar quality even though it meets the consistency goal?
Or should I post once, twice or three times a week, but the content is of higher quality?
These are questions I (and I am sure you) asked when planning to take the social media game seriously.
My finding is one that semi-aligns to the views of creators (who I look up to), and their thoughts on this too.
Consistency trumps quality, any day of the week.
But there’s a catch.
Consistency trumps quality, insofar over the long-term the quality of the work that gets put out into the social media stratosphere, improves.
There’s a direct relationship however, between the consistency versus quality metrics. So long as you show up, consistently (and it doesn’t have to mean posting everyday), and you take your craft seriously, the quality of the work inherently should improve over time.
This is akin to the 10,000 hours theory proposed by Malcolm Gladwell. To truly master (any) craft or skill, it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. The more you do it, the better you get.
And this effect was inflicted on two things I experienced:
1) My photography (composition, visual language, post-processing, workflow, etc.)
2) Social Media (scheduling, trend jacking – sorry not sorry, community building, etc.)
Key takeaway: one goal (post every day) – ultimately served two purposes.
Followers does not mean skill, and the reverse is true
Let me repeat the subtitle – Followers do not mean skill, nor does having the skills mean you have followers.
All this talk I want to remind you – I am no godsend photographer. But the following number may make you think otherwise. It’s not a huge following (but I’m super appreciative of every single of you), but it does not mean I have the best skills.
It’s human psychology.
If we see something that’s socially validated (doesn’t have to be in the millions), you’ll automatically think that the “thing” that’s socially validated is of better quality than the unknown “thing”.
Crudely translated in social media, someone with a million followers you’ll naturally assume, has better skills then someone with a few hundred.
This couldn’t be further from the truth I have found.
I’ve met so many skillful and talented photographers the past 365 days who do not have a large following (some without any following at all). Photography is a lot of times subjective, but I would deem the works of these people, really quality.
They may not be as insane as me trying to play this social media game, but the work I’ve seen from them you would never have guessed would be produced by someone who doesn’t have much of a following.
We live in a social media world where anything, and anyone can go stupidly viral. And the cause of that virality – more often than not is not because of a skill in a craft or art. More in this later.
Therefore, to repeat myself, followers does not mean skill. Nor does skill mean followers.
Key takeaway: Don’t judge quality from follower numbers, let the work speak for itself.
Followers does not mean real engagement
Back when TikTok was first launched, TikTok single-handedly caused a nuclear-bombed-size disruption in the social media landscape.
When I first fell in love with Instagram (10+ years ago), you followed those who you were inspired by, and you were shown their posts based on recency.
Then when TikTok came along, they created the “For You” algorithm.
This meant, users were shown content based on what the TikTok algorithm “thought” your interests were, and it’d be tailored over time to learn more and more about what you were interested in.
And it worked.
It got us hooked.
Shortly after, all the other platforms caught on to this. Now the likes of YouTube, (my beloved) Instagram, Facbeook, etc., all deploy some sort of interest-based algorithm.
This has severed the ties between who you follow and what you see when you open your social media app of choice.
You are fed instead, posts and videos that the algorithm thinks you’ll like.
What does this mean for creators?
What you post does not necessarily mean you’ll get good engagement if the post itself doesn’t get pushed by the algorithm.
Well, that’s not entirely true I can only speak of my experiences and I’m not a systems engineer at Meta or Tiktok.
But how social now generally works is (I think anyway), is your post gets displayed to a portion of your followers as a sample, and if the engagement is good there, it’ll be pushed to more and more non-followers.
It’s not like in the OG days of Instagram where once you post, almost all your followers will have visibility of that post.
The flip-side is, anyone, anybody, has the potential now to go insanely viral. Like stupidly viral.
The content that inherently goes stupidly viral would be content that triggers a shock factor, or something that is extremely funny, or something that is a unique never-seen-before concept.
But that massive following that comes after the viral post, isn’t loyal to you like it was back in the OG days of Instagram.
Key takeaway: virality could mean massive following very quickly, but does not mean the following are engaged supporters of your work.
The Virality Lottery
What is the virality lottery?
This is tied to the post consistently (or every day for those insane like me) topic.
There are two sub-theories I want to explain about the “virality lottery”.
First level of theory is, what makes a social media algorithm push (or subsequently not push) your post to non-followers depends on engagement, which comprises of:
Likes
Comments
Saves
And now what appears most important is Shares.
The second level of theory of what would make viewers share a post is dependent on the value of the post. That is, does it provide:
Education
Shock or humour factor
Inspiration
If a post nails all three, then you can expect that post to be shared by more people, then get pushed by the algorithm to the wider user base.
But you cannot guarantee a post goes viral even if you hit all of those metrics.
This is why I call it the “virality lottery”. How this ties into posting consistently is, because you cannot guarantee virality, you have to post and show up consistently enough, so that eventually one (or a few if you’re lucky), post goes viral.
Once it does, ride that virality wave to more followers and once that wave eventually runs dry. Rinse and repeat.
It’s essentially a game of keep throwing stuff at the wall until something sticks.
Key takeaway: show up often enough, to give yourself the best chance to win the virality lottery.
Community, community, community
I am naturally very introverted.
And very shy.
I think this is why I was first attracted to street and travel photography.
It doesn’t involve a lot (if any) interaction with my subject(s), like people in the distance, mountain ranges, cityscapes.
But what I never would have expected from doing this crazy experiment is, meeting warm-hearted, engaging, like-minded photographers and creatives.
I’ve met so many through the photography communities online on Instagram and talk stupid smack but have also had the enormous privilege of putting sone online names to real faces in person.
I’m not going to pretend that the people I’ve met now are life-long friends, but at the very least, it’s given me the opportunity to trade ideas, talk camera gear, go on photowalks, share memes but most importantly, it has made my 365 day journey much less lonely.
Feeling included is a good feeling.
Key takeaway: find your community, you’ll thank yourself for it later.
Find your why
I’ve done a whole heap of rambling.
It’s probably a lot of nonsense.
But if you take anything away, take the below away.
Find your why.
Why should you post every day?
Why should you even pick up a camera?
Why should you buy that lens?
Why do you want to meet other like-minded photographers and creatives?
Why play this social media game?
I can’t answer these questions for you as everyone is inherently unique. But I myself am still trying to fully find out my own “why”.
But I think what’s helpful is remembering all the way back to the impulse or feeling that made you want to pick up photography (or any other craft).
For me, as mentioned it was first being exposed to the OGs (Pat Kay, Demas, TK, SamAlive, etc.), and seeing their work that absolutely made me go…“holy ****”.
So for me, I think I’ve loosely pinned it down to three things:
I want to have the skill to produce pieces of photographic work, that makes the viewer go “wow, I want to do that too”
I want to educate those who are crazy enough to ask for my advice, because I was once them
I want a distinct creative craft outside of my normal working life
I haven’t mentioned this yet, but yes, I do have a regular job (like the majority of people). So given all I’ve said, I’ll give myself a pat on the back and acknowledge it is quite a feat to post every day despite the working schedule, the occasional travel, and everything else that life throws at you.
And we all know what a regular working life is like, you’re tied down 9 to 5. And my field of work is not particularly creative (think lots of spreadsheets). So even if there was creativity behind it, its in a completely different form (not visual creativity).
So photography has been such a nice contrast to this. It gives me creative fulfilment outside of my working life.
Key takeaway: find your why, or find yourself burnt out.
Lastly, if I haven’t already, I want to thank you sincerely to all those who have even given half a second to look at any pieces of my photographs the past 365 days, and especially to those who have left a like, a comment, or followed my journey.
If the 365 days of posting have done anything, it has at the very least built momentum, so maybe I might not post every day moving forward, but I for sure will continue to share my work with you all.
Thank you,
Henry
@jujushoots