The Truth about Instagram, Algorithms, Influence, and Art
It all started in November of 2018. Well, technically it started much earlier. But we’re going to use November as a starting point. But let me catch you up.
A Narrative
When I was in high school in the 90’s, I use to take pictures with a Canon AE-1. I think. It was a really retro and cool camera. I say I think because I don’t exactly remember if it was this camera, but I’m pretty sure it was. Irrelevant for the story, though. Just to establish that I had a camera in high school.
In college, I bought my first DSLR. It was a Nikon D50. Later I upgraded to a D80. Went through a hard season (read about it here), and lost it all. A little later, re-entered photography with a Nikon D3100. It was around the time of the D3100 that Instagram came out, and I was an early adopter. I mean…check out that date.
Didn’t think much of it, though. Used the app sparingly for years, dropping mostly life moments. No bangers. Eventually traveled alot and got tired of carrying the DSLR and just used my iPhone.
Ok, now we’re at November of 2018. I took my family out to the PWN and for old-times-sake, borrowed a Canon 6D and a 50mm lens. I don’t know if it was the location, the lighting, or the nostalgia of holding a DSLR, but something happened on that trip. I fell in love with photography again. Between the art of composition, chasing the sunset, and editing on the couch while my kids were playing, I was hooked. I shot a couple thousand photos during that week. There was no turning back.
With 2019 on the horizon, I was going to be doing alot of traveling. I picked up some gear and started getting really familiar with the camera again. I also started a new Instragam account. Why a new one? Because my original one had 7 years and almost 2,500 random “life moment” photos. I wanted to completely curate this feed, only offering composed and stylistically edited photographs. And with that, the new account was born.
In January of 2019, it started growing fast due to the use of hashtags. Using Display Purposes, I was able to strategically tag my photos to reach new audiences. Hit 1k followers within 60 days, with 15–20% engagment. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. Traveled to Ireland and Israel in February. Continued to grow. Traveled to Iceland in April. California in May. Alberta in June. The southwest in the fall. New England in the winter. It was a big year. And throughout the year, my following continued to slowly creep up to around 3k.
Since 2020 hit, it’s continued to creep up to 4k. But it’s totally different now. Somewhere along the way, I think in the late summer / early fall of 2019, something completely changed about my account. Even though hundreds of new people started following, my visibility began to decline. So did my engagement.
//Pause. Let’s define two things. Visibility = what Instagram calls “Reach.” Engagement = Likes & Comments. Unpause.//
When I hit 4k followers earlier this year, I noticed that my visibility started landing at around 10% of those who follow me. That means only 1 in every 10 people who landed on my page, saw my beautifully curated feed and photos and clicked “Follow” actually see my posts. That’s wild to me. Then there’s engagement. Around 2%, no longer 15–20%. Out of curiosity I did a quick check, that’s the same rate as Justin Bieber, Khloe Kardashian, and Beyonce. Check stats here.
So what gives? Is it me? Is it Instagram? Maybe it’s SATAN.
Now let’s talk about another platform I heavily invest in, and that’s Unsplash, an industry-hated yet user-loved platform. I absolutely love Unsplash. I put my best work up there, and anyone can download hi-res images of mine for free and use them freely for whatever they want. I don’t love photography because of what I can sell. I love it for how I can contribute. And to Unsplash I’ve nearly contributed 150 photos, had many features by them, and I’m in the top 1% of most viewed and downloaded photos. Free content with Unsplash even led to me licensing (not for free) images to Target (be checking those new Magnolia picture frames this fall!), and some other smaller brands too.
So my reality is this: I’m crushing it on Unsplash and being crushed on Instagram.
The Algorithm
Have you ever seen those “learn to beat the algorithm” articles or classes? Yes, classes. Everyone is convinced that no one knows how the algorithm works, and everyone is sharing tips to try to beat it. But I know how to beat it. I know exactly how to get more visibility and engagement. I don’t need to post at the right times, have the right captions, or any of that. You don’t either. There is absolutely one and only one way you’re going to beat the algorithm. You have to pay for it.
Starting me right below every single post I make on my account is this bold, blue button. Promote. If I click that button, I’m taken to a process that asks me where I want people to click to: my profile, a website, or DM me. After that, it asks if I want to specify my audience or “automatic”-ly let Instagram find likeminded people for me. The next screen it asks me my daily budget and how long I want it to ride for, all the while showing me my potential reach. For this article I clicked through so you could see that rather than order a pizza for my family tonight, I could potentially reach 4,700–12k people from my post today. That’s a temptation right there. *For the love of all things good, please know I’m speaking sarcastically and that I would never let my family skip dinner for the INSTALIKES. It’s important to me that you know this.
That’s it. There is nothing else you need to do or can do to beat the algorithm. It wasn’t designed as a conspiracy to keep you down, hurt your growth on a free-to-use platform, or make you feel like Kip Drordy. It’s designed to make Facebook money. That’s it. If you want high visibility and high engagement in 2020, you’re going to have to pay for it. Period.
But…My Influence!
Yes, you could easily think that your following is influenced by your account. Meaning, you could believe that numbers = influence. To some, they do. But I’d argue that many those people already had influence anyway. You’re going to tell me Kylie Jenner is a “self-made” billionare, Forbes? Come on.
Somehow our society has been tricked into believing that literally being a commercial, something we pay Hulu to skip, is the ultimate dream job. Read that again, slower. Maybe the cable companies did this to troll our society for cord-cutting. You can’t prove they didn’t. We use to turn the television down during commercials. My kids only know them as “ads,” and we recently started paying to get rid of ads ourself. Yet when I hop on Instagram, I’m somehow being sold that being an ad is something to aspire to. Well, not me directly, but you get my point.
If your influence does not exist outside of the platform, then your influence is likely not real inside of the platform either. And that’s why you are being sold a Promote button.
So the process goes like this. You create something. You put it out there. You pay to get visibility and engagement. You grow your platform. Then a brand or two reaches out to you, and you become a commercial. In return, you get some free stuff. Well, technically you paid for that stuff, it’s just you paid Facebook instead of the company that sent you the stuff.
I believe I entered Instagram with my creative account right at the very end of the organic season. The algorithm has been around for many years, but something was different until the second half of 2019. I was fortunate that my relationship with Socality (attending Socality Camp last year) and Unsplash got me some connections, and I’ll even admit that there are a couple of companies I post for. But I love their products, believe in them, and would post stuff even if they didn’t send me things to photograph. Aside from that, posting isn’t even why I have the relationships. My photography style is. Which leads me to my final point.
Please, Just Be an Artist
I’ve finally been watching a show I started two years ago but didn’t have time to focus on. Yes, it took season 3 finishing before I could even get time to watch season 2. Being a father of two small children will do that to you. But there was a incredibly well-written line that stuck on me in the episode I watched a few nights ago.
“You only live as long as the last person who remembers you.”
I’m almost at the halfway point in life. I’m about to start the statistical back nine. My children will forever have stories of me. Hopefully their children too. Doubtful their children’s children will, but maybe. And then it’s over. Done.
Yet to-date I’ve written and recorded about 100 songs, many of them released into the public at some point, and not only have them backed up digitally, but in a few different formats that even the sessions could be remixed one day. I just re-mixed some old songs from 2008–2013 for a recent project.
I recently released my first book, which will be available for many generations to come. This is a written record and account of a personal journey.
As of today, my photos on Unsplash have been downloaded over 135k times. They’re out there in the wild, hopefully being enjoyed as desktop wallpapers, article images, and in picture frames on-sale at your local Target in the fall of 2020. (This is the photo Target licensed, by the way!) This one particular photo accounts for over 10k downloads alone. I have no idea what it’s doing out there, but it’s going to out-live me.
I’m not going to stop creating, either. I don’t travel to new places, hike sunrises and sunsets, and chase my kids around for Instagram likes or influence. I do that to be present in this beautiful world that has been created all around me. I don’t write and record music so I can be a full-time musician. I just love the art of it. I think we’re all capable creating something. It’s in our metaphysical DNA.
We must create for the sake of the art. For the sake of preserving life and identity. Your future generations, and possibly even the world wants and demands this of you.
I still can’t remember if it was a Canon AE-1 or a Pentax or something else that I started with over twenty years ago. Today I’m shooting an old Leica film camera a Sony mirrorless camera. I still daily post on my Instagram, mostly just highlights of cool locations I’ve been. It’s a highly-curated feed. Some of my posts get a lot of engagement. Others not at all. Who cares. I’m still going to keep firing that shutter, and I’m still going to keep pushing that + button.
