When it comes to social media, Facebook reigns supreme.  Or, that's what I thought until recently.  

When you're trying to get your work in front of other people as an aspiring photographer, social media is a great tool to have available.  My Facebook page has been growing consistently and it just passed 700 followers.  That's organic growth without spending a single dollar on Facebook's pleas to run advertising campaigns.  So, 700 followers that get to see your new work: not great but not a bad start either.

Sockeye

Then it hit me: do those 700 Facebook followers actually get to see what you post?

No.

You've created your Facebook page with great attention to detail.  You spend a good amount of time interacting on Facebook (it's "social" media after all).  You create new posts regularly and try to get the word out.  Some people who see your posts go through the trouble of 'liking' your page and become a follower. 

And what does Facebook do?  They deliberately hide your new posts from the news feed of most of your followers.  Only 10% of the people who indicated that they WANT to see your posts, actually get to see them.  Great.  Now what do I do?

Why would Facebook do such an illogical thing?  That's easy of course: dollars.  Facebook isn't a non-profit nor does it care how many people 'like' your picture of a wild horse.  Whenever I create a new post on my "VangoPhotos" page, Facebook asks whether I want to invest some dollars so that more people - including the 90% of my followers who never get to see my posts - get to see them.  

I understand that Facebook needs many programmers, servers, offices, employees ... to keep it up and running.  Yet, I refuse to spend a single dollar on advertising to increase my follower count - or even to get 100% of my followers to see the posts that they indicated they want to see. 

Remember when Donald Trump was caught when almost half of his 31M Twitter followers turned out to be fake accounts and bots?  Right.  What's the point - other than becoming president - of paying for followers anyway if 1. ninety percent never get to see your posts anyway and 2. them seeing / liking your posts doesn't provide much (or any) ROI?

Remember, being a photographer isn't cheap.  You need funds to fill your camera bag.  No, a smart phone isn't going to cut it.  One of your big prime telephoto lenses alone will cost more than your first car.  You need funds to travel to the few places where wildlife roam in such numbers and without hunters scaring / scarring them to avoid humans at all cost so that they allow you to take a decent picture of them.  

Great, you finally have the experience, knowledge and equipment to have a publish-worthy picture.  Go ahead and share it with 10% of your followers.

Fish Eggs

Fellow photographers asked me why on earth I didn't have an Instagram account yet.  Why would I spend even more time on social media without seeing a single extra dollar in my bank account?  Good question.

Turns out, I like Instagram.

Instagram doesn't care much about "followers".  Instagram has a very simple yet ingenious system of tags.  Even if you're just starting out and have no followers - like me - Instagram allows you to tag your posts.  For instance, the above picture of a brown bear devouring a female chum salmon with its eggs showing, garnered almost 500 likes.  Not bad I thought, since I barely had a handful of followers.

Tags allow you to categorize a posting so that anyone who is interested in that category potentially gets to see your image.

An encouraging difference from Facebook's system of hiding your posts from your followers.

So far, I'm digging Instagram and have been posting every few days since a few weeks.  Almost 150 followers so far.  No dollar spent.  Great.

What does it buy me at the end of the day?  Not so sure.

Why does Instagram allow me to get my work out in front of MORE people than just my followers?  Not so sure.  Oh, wait, Instagram is owned by ... Facebook which doesn't bode well for the Instagram future of people like me.  

To be continued ...

Golden Elk