Growing an online following is something many photographers dream to do. Some do it to have a moment in the spotlight while others do it as a way to grow their business or connect with like-minded people.
There are lots of advice on how you can get followers on Instagram. Some are legit and some are not. Growing a healthy and organic following isn’t done overnight, though; that’s something most agree on.
One of the most common questions about growing an online presence is how often you should post images. Should you post daily? Multiple a day? Weekly? There are a lot of different theories out there but most of them conclude that you should post regularly but few specify what that means.
I’ve asked 4 landscape photographers with a significant online following whether they believe quality or quantity is the key ingredient to growing an online following and how regular they post new content.
Mikko Lagerstedt
Mikko Lagerstedt is a Finnish landscape photographer with over 900.000 followers on Facebook and close to 200.000 on Instagram. He’s well-known for his atmospheric and dreamy images and his work has been featured in various publications around the globe. Here’s what he has to say about growing an online presence.
1. What do you think is most important to grow a healthy online following: Quality or Quantity?
For me, quality with intention is the way to go. The question is why do you post online? Is it because you like to share your work? Is it because you want to inspire people? I share because I feel the urge to inspire people.
2. How often do you publish a new image?
I post twice a month these days but I would prefer to publish at least once a week. It’s something I struggle with.
It all depends on how you feel what is your unique process to create work. If you want to share work daily and it’s your way to work, by all means, do that. But a fair warning that it’s easy to fall into the trap of more content means more followers and more followers equal success. With my experience, this cycle will destroy your creativity if you are someone like me who overthinks and tries to put out work that is unique. I believe that if you create with intent, the rest will follow.
William Patino
Australian, now New Zealand based, landscape photographer William Patino has built a big name for himself during the last several years. As of speaking, he has more than 160.000 followers on Instagram.
1. What do you think is most important to grow a healthy online following: Quality or Quantity?Â
Social media, and particularly Instagram, has changed so much over the years. Over 6 years I’ve organically built up my online followings, mainly through maintaining my highest quality of work and actively engaging.
Unfortunately, Instagram is big business now and people have developed dishonest methods to engage and grow accounts, mainly using automated services to like and comment on your behalf. It’s much harder to grow organically, particularly when you’re essentially fighting against bots and of course the algorithm which was also recently introduced.
Despite this, the means of growing organically is still the same; consistent high-quality work and a semi-regular level of engagement.
2. How often do you publish a new image?Â
For the past year, I’ve changed my workflow and now publish a collection of new images maybe 4 times through the year. This allows me more time to concentrate on my photography, post-processing and being out in nature.
Every 3 months I’ll put my new work (usually 12-15 images) on my website along with captions and names. These images will then be slowly uploaded to social media across many weeks and occasionally I’ll post an older photo as well.
I kind of think of this method being like a musician who works on an album. Instead of trying to put out a new song each week, I’m going away and working on a full production before sharing it with the world. My approach to photography has changed a lot over the years and it’s harder for me to create something I’m personally happy with, so this method works well for me.
Enrico Fossati
Italian landscape photographer Enrico Fossati is well-known for his dark and moody images and has over 68.000 followers on Instagram and 23.000 on Facebook. His video tutorials are amongst the best sellers here on CaptureLandscapes and his work has been featured in various publications worldwide.
1. What do you think is most important to grow a healthy online following: Quality or Quantity?Â
I certainly answer quality. I am a landscape photographer and my works are characterized by a very specific processing, this means inspiration a picture that is suitable to be processed in a certain way and on the right day of doing it. I know this can sound weird to people who are not living in the world of landscape photography but is true.
You can travel for one week take 1000-1500 pictures and then publish 4 or 5 shots. My production can’t sustain the rhythm of Instagram that you must “feed the beast” 3 times a day and unfortunately, I am not so social, I am not enjoying so much the new advertising techniques like stories and live videos.
When I am in the field, I am totally focused on what I am doing and sometimes I forgot everything even the business. Obviously, to be in the market you must exploit the socials that are the fastest and direct ways to reach the people but I absolutely believe that the best way is to produce high-quality work and maybe support them with quality contents like articles.
Personally, I have little time and I prefer to invest some money in paying advertisement campaigns to reach more people. Honestly, this crazy run to the followers and to the likes is damaging the medium quality. In my opinion the level of quality is decreasing compared to 5 years ago and a lot of good photographers are publishing crap simply to be online almost every day. There’s a lot of pictures of them standing in the landscape with some quick Lightroom presets applied. For me, this is not too different from the selfies made by teenagers. For me, photography is a form of art and behind a picture, there is a concept and a message. For me, photography is crafting and feeling emotions and this takes time and reflection.
I have periods where I don’t have pictures to publish or simply have them in my hard drive but don’t find them ready to be released. Today I published a picture two years after I shot it.
My suggestion for beginners is to produce quality photographs and thinking about the meaning of them, not at the number of likes or followers you’re able to collect.
In my opinion, producing high-quality work is essential to be successful. Maybe you’ll have fewer followers than other photographers but your works will remain in the memories of the people. I can remember works of various artists after years but I am talking about of killer works and these guys are not publishing pictures every day, maybe once a month or less.
2. How often do you publish a new image?
This depends on the period of the year. Usually, I post one picture every 2 or 3 weeks depending on my inspiration and due to my free time, I am unable to process more that one picture a day.
Usually, after I capture some pictures I start to browse them on my computer and I watch them on the full screen trying to find flaws and to make some quick draft of the processing. After this pre-process I take one and I start to work slowly until I am happy, then I keep it one or two days on my desktop and I watch it at various times of the day, after this test the picture is ready.
Marco Grassi
Marco Grassi is an Italian landscape and travel photographer. With close to 100.000 followers on Instagram and over 20.000 on 500px, he is by many considered a quickly rising star on Social Media.
1. What do you think is most important to grow a healthy online following: Quality or Quantity?
For me, it’s definitely quality. By sharing quality work, over time you will build a niche of people that love your photography and, at the same time, you will make a name for yourself in the industry.
But it isn’t just about quality, it’s also about trying to differentiate ourselves among an endless amount of amazing images that the viewers are seeing every day. So how do we do that? Something that could make a difference is to put yourself in front of the camera and let people get to know you and follow you both for your work and personality. Or you could push your creativity and try to do something different.
There are an endless amount of pictures that have been taken over and over again so if you do something different you will put your work in a spotlight. My advice is to get out there and look for something you have never seen instead of hunting the trophy shots, be yourself and be consistent, rewards will come at a certain point.
2. How often do you publish a new image?
When I was starting out I was afraid to be forgotten by my followers if I wasn’t going to share daily on Facebook or 500px. I wasn’t on Instagram back then.
Right now I’m more relaxed and I’m probably sharing less than a shot per week on FB and 500px, I’ve realized that I prefer to occupy all that time to develop and work on other projects instead because at the end of the day social medias are just a part of the business and it is not wise to focus all my energy on them.
Unfortunately, for IG the story is slightly different and I’ve seen an incredible difference by being active and sharing daily or sharing once a week. For this reason per normal routine, when internet connection/schedule allows it, I try to share something there every day. My advice here is, if you take few photography trips per year, once you’ve chosen the best pictures, it is better not to publish everything at the same time but to follow a schedule and publish those shots every now and then instead. This way your quality material will last more.
