Is photography niche so difficult?

Hello. I am reading this forum for months and it's just very helpful! Great job.

I registered to receive and to give help (if I can).

I am a proffesional photographer and I have an instagram profile since a year. The last 2 months I am trying to make it bigger to advertise my work.

I had 700 followers and I bought the FL in order to gain more. Since a month, I follow/unfollow every day 400/400 users, scraped from popular hashtags like #moodygrams etc and from the followers of those big accounts.

I am posting every 2-3 days my personal work and using hashtags from big photography hubs I mentioned. I have good engagement with my standard followings (I follow arround 500 people which are friends and colleagues and other 400 which follow/unfollow via FL). I also participate to 2 niche specific engagement groups with automated rounds.

The result is to gain 20-25 followers per day and now struggling with just only 2.3k followers. Every photo I upload gains around 500-600 likes (i think is a good engagement level for amount of followers I have) and about 20-25 comments.

I am reading people in other niches who have gained 100k+ followers in some months by posting others photos and I am asking why I can't make it happen? Is that niche more difficult? Why I can't hit the explore (I suppose)? Anybody in this niche who can give me some tips or something?

Thank you!

instax said:

I am reading people in other niches who have gained 100k+ followers in some months by posting others photos and I am asking why I can't make it happen? Is that niche more difficult? Why I can't hit the explore (I suppose)? Anybody in this niche who can give me some tips or something?

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Because 99% of those who grow 100k per month are reposters. Only viral content counts.

For you as a photographer its just not possible to create viral content continuesly.

VapeMonkey said:

Because 99% of those who grow 100k per month are reposters. Only viral content counts.

For you as a photographer its just not possible to create viral content continuesly.

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So, with what way original content (pro like) goes viral in instagram? I know that there is no straight answer for achieving that but I am trying to understand the whole thing in that specific niche to grow my account more rapidly.

i deal in the automotive photography niche on Ig, but it sounds like you need to refine your bot more to get better targeting.
those people that groups super quick do so with the help of engagement groups or their own private IG network

-refine and speed up your bot

-consider joining engagement groups or buy an engagement service (power likes) to grow quickly

-get shoutouts from other pages
many photography pages give out free shoutouts to photographers in that niche (which is something I do) or pay for shoutouts.

the downsides to engagement groups and increasing your botting can mean the interactions with your account go down although not for certain.


photography niche isnt that difficult.

Can you dm me your page? Maybe I have some tips and possibly give you a shoutout on my page

datsunguy said:

i deal in the automotive photography niche on Ig, but it sounds like you need to refine your bot more to get better targeting.
those people that groups super quick do so with the help of engagement groups or their own private IG network

-refine and speed up your bot

-consider joining engagement groups or buy an engagement service (power likes) to grow quickly

-get shoutouts from other pages
many photography pages give out free shoutouts to photographers in that niche (which is something I do) or pay for shoutouts.

the downsides to engagement groups and increasing your botting can mean the interactions with your account go down although not for certain.


photography niche isnt that difficult.

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When I follow 400 users and have 40 max follow-backs I think it has to do more with targeting than with speed. But I have spend many hours to understand which is the best targeting with no luck.

MightyMu said:

Can you dm me your page? Maybe I have some tips and possibly give you a shoutout on my page

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As a new member I can't send you a pm message through forum. Send me a pm with your instagram or telegram to reach you. Or just send me a pm here to reply (I think I can). It would be much appreciated.

you can double the amount of people you follow per day for starters (increase slowly) and how many comments and likes do you do per day?
remember to also add sleep times and random breaks when running your bot so it emulates a human.
40 follow backs out of 400 is not bad at all, but sometimes changing a setting or two can make all the diffrence.

what is your main focus in photography?

and definitely look into getting more free shoutouts from other pages that offer this (there are a tn that do so) i've seen other photographers get features pretty much everyday on big account.
also are you using hashtags from big accounts (as a form of submission for a chance at a feature) and tagging them in your photos?

Personally, I think you're doing well. Keep following, liking, reposting and posting your own content. Since you're getting good engagement once you reach around 5-10 thousand followers, make a dropshipping store with photography equipment and put the link in bio. Keep doing FL and start earning good money. Later on make a blog within the store and work on the SEO and give out photography tip posts. Later on write a photography tips and tricks eBook and that would be some great success then.

Good luck!

Alright,
One problem - DON'T use big hashtags in your niche - think - you are invisible there because the giants hit 2-3k likes in 30 mins and you don't.
You need to research the hashtags and search for low competition/used hashtags until you grow your account. This is what i always do for success.

datsunguy said:

you can double the amount of people you follow per day for starters (increase slowly) and how many comments and likes do you do per day?
remember to also add sleep times and random breaks when running your bot so it emulates a human.
40 follow backs out of 400 is not bad at all, but sometimes changing a setting or two can make all the diffrence.

what is your main focus in photography?

and definitely look into getting more free shoutouts from other pages that offer this (there are a tn that do so) i've seen other photographers get features pretty much everyday on big account.
also are you using hashtags from big accounts (as a form of submission for a chance at a feature) and tagging them in your photos?

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Well I have read for all the random thing with FL. I am using it only 5-6 hours a day which I am not sleeping (to monitor and understand all of this thing).

I capture landscapes and portraits in nature (not studio photography yet).

Also I don't know how to find free shoutouts from big well-known accounts (I am afraid in investing money in paid services yet because I don't know if they truly help me in this specific time frame).

nmehic said:

Personally, I think you're doing well. Keep following, liking, reposting and posting your own content. Since you're getting good engagement once you reach around 5-10 thousand followers, make a dropshipping store with photography equipment and put the link in bio. Keep doing FL and start earning good money. Later on make a blog within the store and work on the SEO and give out photography tip posts. Later on write a photography tips and tricks eBook and that would be some great success then.

Good luck!

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Well that's a big and distant target for me. I hope I reach this target and share it... Thank you!

lorentzo said:

Alright,
One problem - DON'T use big hashtags in your niche - think - you are invisible there because the giants hit 2-3k likes in 30 mins and you don't.
You need to research the hashtags and search for low competition/used hashtags until you grow your account. This is what i always do for success.

Click to expand...

You have a point. You must be experienced to find those low-to-mid hashtags regarding popularity for small IGs like mine. However, you are right, I have to change all those hashtags...

instax said:

Well I have read for all the random thing with FL. I am using it only 5-6 hours a day which I am not sleeping (to monitor and understand all of this thing).

I capture landscapes and portraits in nature (not studio photography yet).

Also I don't know how to find free shoutouts from big well-known accounts (I am afraid in investing money in paid services yet because I don't know if they truly help me in this specific time frame).

Click to expand...

alright you can definitely increase those hours too, from lets say when you wake up until you go to bed. stick within the limits of max 60 follows an hour and 60 likes an hour and work with that.

that's quite a popular niche and you can work alot with that. just spend a while to search for pages offer free shoutouts to photographers and travel pages too (since you do landscape photography)
there are tons of pages doing this, here are a couple to get started:

@pocket_allnature
@quest_4_magic
@somewhere.onearth
@naturelover_gr

those took less than a minute too find, so use their hashtag or send them a message asking for a feature, these are all free too and i suggest you dont pay for shoutouts just get free ones.