We had a death in the family this week, as my brother-in-law Michael Stroud passed away, after a three-week hospital stint.
There are many parts of the grieving process, of course, and one big one is revisiting memories, with photos and video.
Instagram now lets you follow hashtags, testing “recommended posts” feature
A few weeks ago, Instagram began testing a new feature that would let you follow hashtags. As of today, this feature is officially available. In addition to Instagram users you like, you can now also follow hashtags that reflect your interests and passions.
In addition to introducing a new feature, Instagram is testing another one. They may soon roll out the “Recommended for You” section, which will be a major change for Instagram.
Illegal! Think Twice About Metadata and How You Tag Your Photos Online
The internet is a strange and wonderful place. As creative professionals we’re all working hard, creating cool stuff and sharing it online with the world.
But behind this land of chocolate are not all smiles and sunshine.
There are legions of trolls and cyber-vigilantes laying in wait to cause $hit for fun or just to fight their own personal versions of injustice.
A recent incident with a cyber-vigilante made me realize how important it is to really think twice about what I share online, what someone can glean from metadata and how I tag my photos.
In this article, I will share the lessons I learned and some tips for avoiding similar problems.
Quality over quantity – does Instagram care?
Last week I took a gamble on the idea of quality over quantity. My Instagram was sitting at 6.6k followers, a number I’ve worked my butt off for.
To my frustration, I realized that my girlfriend was getting double my likes at a third of my following. After some more routing around, friends of mine were all getting 2,3 sometimes even 4 or 5 times my amount of likes with similar followers or less.
It’s not the likes that are important, but the engagement.
Tips for photographers on Instagram – How small pictures can make a big difference in a mobile driven world
Quite often other photographers tell me “I don’t have time for another social network and I don’t need Instagram”. Yet they spend hours posting on Facebook, 500px and Flickr where almost zero potential clients will see their work. They’re basically getting followers, likes and comments coming from other photographers.
Instagram can be useful in ways you might not have thought of before, and it shouldn’t take you too much time to build a presence on it.
In this article I’ll try to share a bit of my experience on this social network as a photographer (@zellersamuel 12k followers) and how it benefit my work.
Use this simple new tool to help figure out your Instagram hashtags
These days, you can’t really expect any kind of decent exposure for your work on Instagram if you don’t use hashtags. It’s just become the nature of the beast.
But where do you begin to determine what hashtags to use? Well, Reddit user Nick Smith has come up with a tool to at least get you started, suggesting hashtags based on your subject and location.
Hashtags on Instagram: Use them properly
I’ve seen a lot of threads and questions in /r/photography regarding how to increase an Instagram following and get more traffic. There are plenty of great articles online explaining various techniques (i.e. posting times, consistency, engagement, etc.) but I haven’t seen a lesson on hashtags.
What little I have seen on the topic clearly indicates that there’s a widespread misunderstanding of the use of hashtags and how to use them to your benefit.
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