Nick Granville it happened on yt. I think it happens on soundcloud and twitter, but yeah honestly instagram is where it happens the most. I don‘t mind it too much though I actually like it when a good account does follow unfollow, because I might have never found some accounts.
Wholeheartedly agree! I want people to follow mw because they like what I do, my pics and my music. If it's just a few or even just one, that's totally worth it as long as I can touch them with my content!
That's so true Gary but sadly there are many persons who still don't know what makes a good picture. Instead they're drawn to images which are IMHO overly processed with no real subject or even depth.
The problem is that you need followers to get likes. There are photos on instagram that are 10 times worse than your pictures but they get 1000 times more likes. Being good just isn't good enough. You need the marketing.
@@butchjohnson9736 being a successful artist isn't about how well your talent is, but rather how well you market. That is the sad truth. There are thousands of amazing artists, they are a dime a dozen.
Instagram is really losing the things that attracted me at first, most accounts are just "sharing" accounts with the same kind of pictures. Agree with follow/unfollow being the worst, Instagram should not allow to unfollow in 1 month after you follow someone :D
Oh man, I hate those accounts that manage to get famous by sharing other people's work. I do know however that very few companies do collaborations with them and they rely on other instagrammers to pay them for publicity or affiliate links.
Haha you're rigtht!! I follow a few accounts that do that. "Follow this guy, he has amazing photography and no followers! :C " You check it out and the guy has 100k followers, and i'm sitting here with 1k with better photos.
The biggest b.s. about Instagram is those "tag us for a feature" when in reality they'll only feature people who have like 50 thousand plus followers already.
@@codyrobichaudofficial I have 1400 followers and get featured a lot by lots of tourism related pages. However, i get NOTHING out of it, other than having my pictures stolen. It's not worth the hassle anymore. Now i only use generic hashtags, like Landscape, Seascape, Canon, Colors, Mountains, stuff like that. Tagging accounts to get features does more harm than good if you have good photos that could be licensed.
i think photographers get frustrated with Instagram because they (we) don't understand that although images are the face of the platform, which is supposedly what we do well, it really is no different from twitter, FB etc.. the image/photograph is only 2nd to the social/marketing part of it. maybe having no public stats on likes would change the way people use the platform
I think the issue is how saturated Instagram has become. Unless you're lucky or find a way to go completely viral, it is very difficult to grow "organically". What saddens me the most is that most videos from big photographers on "How to grow on Instagram" say the same thing: post consistently, use good hashtags, have a common theme. It's complete horseshit, and they know it is, they only say that because they don't want any competition. Having other people grow on Instagram is competition for them, and why would they want that? That being said, look forward to your video on how to grow on Instagram, you've earned yourself a sub buddy. :)
@@MarkHadjHamou My ig profile has 283k followers, and the only thing I did was upload every day, and follow a common theme, it took me 2 years tho, but that advice is not horse shit.
Marc D Well if it worked for you that’s great, but I can list you hundreds of amazing creators for who this hasn’t and doesn’t work, and that deserve a lot more visibility than they are getting.
Just graduated from Instagram. No more time wasted. Inspirations needs to come from within, not features. Instagram is a cesspool of creative inbreeding.
That just makes me sad. I know likes and followers don't define the quality of photography. And as a hobbyist photographer I shouldn't even care about that. But I still find me being disappointed when I don't get the recognition I hoped for. Then I see other people doing these stunts. Specially seeing people I admire doing these things is just sad.
I'm surprised if you have mediocre photography skills your engagement isn't through the roof. I've noticed mediorce wins over excellent photography on instagram lol.
Here in Argentina I've seen it a lot the pod group thing. When I used to tag pictures of places, cities or landscapes in here wanting a feature, and it frustrated me a lot, seeing what people posted (great pics), and what picture they featured, which was basically a crappy pic from a friend of the group! . So now I only use hashtags from accounts that i can tell, as i have no friends or anything in common with them, and they honestly check pictures, and select them for what they are. I hate the follow and unfollow thing, so i almost NEVER follow accounts with LOTS of followers as i KNOW in 2 days they'll unfollow me, lol. I've been posting pictures on IG since 2013, I only have 800 something followers, and even when I try hard to make my pictures better, upgrading cameras, learning and editing better, still, the pictures that get more than 50/60 likes, are my portraits that my friend (who's a photographer) takes of me, or occasional selfies... Sometimes even without using hashtags I'd get 100 likes or more... It seems people ONLY want to see women's pics or idk really. Fitness or models... I'm not saying my photography is great, at all, it's something i enjoy and share in case someone else enjoys seeing them, but I know some pictures might deserve at least the same amount of likes and comments as my... "Face" (Which is not even that good lol) :/ But anyways. Great video! I often discuss this topic with my boyfriend, so it's good to know more about it! Thanks and regards!
Melina86 Same here, I almost never follow back accounts with a high follower/followed ratio because what you say is exactly what happens most of the time. And when I follow back one of those accounts, I make a note of their handle and come back to check in a few days. Most of the times they have unfollowed me, so I gladly reciprocate :)
@@uateva same, yes. If i followed them because of their pictures, unless they're AMAZING, i unfollow too. And block them. Because some would do the same over and over! :/
Totally agree. I check other people's likes for their awesome photos and their likes are much much lower than I would have expected. And the number of female IG "models" keeps growing. It's changing.
@@JadeRabbit I don't want to spam it, or look like I want followers or anything. I have two. One only photograph (or what i consider the best ones) and a personal one. I'll see if i can send them privately if you wish to see them. Regards.
Ig should do a cleanup like RU-vid just did and delete all the fake accounts. They should also delete all the accounts that reposts other ppls photos. Putting a name in the tag doesnt make it legit and is, in my opinion, counterfeiting someone else's work. I know legally it's not if they got the rights from the originator but it just saturates all of ig with the same photos. I do travel photography and I swear when I see one new picture, I see that same picture over and over for the next week.
This is one of, if not the best video on Insta out there. Nice job giving REAL, GENUINE explanations to questions that are on a lot of people's minds! Subbed!
Photographers also copy each others style, to the point where the explore page is almost the same photo or same type of photograph. We're all inspired but how many photos with colored smoke in the field do we need? How many feet dangling from a building or skyline reflecting from a puddle do we need? In the end, quality will speak. I spoke with a company (lens) and they said IG Influencers mean virtually nothing to them. They know it's all fake. They're looking at influential people, not influencers anymore. BTW this was a great video.
It's a good thing I don't care about building a ton of followers on IG. I've got three feeds (one digital, one 35mm film & one medium/large/instant format) and have limited numbers of followers, but the ones I have are apparently truly interested in my work for the most part. I don't shoot for money any more so I don't care about monetizing my feeds. I guess that makes me the odd duck, but I don't care. I see feeds with nine images and thousands of followers & all I can do is laugh.
Instagram has killed photography in a sense. Lots of good pictures that don't receive exposure against 'nice' looking pictures that gain more exposure because the public can't tell that the picture is technically bad. Lots of INSTAGRAMERS claim they're 'photographers' when realistically all they have done is chucked a preset on every image so their feed looks consistent.
Once in a while you run into a video on RU-vid that explains it like no others. Love your style. Straightforward, no frills, no confusion. The rest of your channel: ditto. Thanks.
I enjoyed watching this video. I have heard of a couple of these tricks although I wasn't aware about some of them. I am personally not a fan of any of these because they lose the authenticity of an Instagram account. I have never used any of these tricks, and although I haven't earned many followers in the past couple years, it makes me proud to earn followers by sharing my pictures of my travels and engaging with others. I definitely should try to engage more in Instagram as I don't do that enough. Also, it is disappointing to see people follow my Instagram due to these hacks and not because they enjoy my content. I follow people on Instagram because I like the photos they produce and I like supporting them. I agree with you that having some hack do the following for you defeats the community aspect of Instagram. Great job with the video! I can't wait to see the next Instagram video you have planned!
Honest and worth watching. That’s why I love your videos. Strong opinions and warnings for people where to be carefull, without judging at the same time.
Had no idea all this was happening. My husband (who is on a ladder doing something while we listen) and I would like to thank you for not compromising (anymore). That's awesome. Thanks for pushing through the technical issues and doing the video.
Every day is a school day 😁 Now I understand why people suddenly follow me then un follow. I agree with you, they should have an insta shower to cleanse themselves.
Hey Brendan, I'd love to see you giving some of your Instagram followers some exposure every now and then like the Heat did a while ago (oh. what happened to that by the way?). Maybe every couple of weeks. Maybe whenever you find something you like. That would be pretty nice.
I find your honesty very refreshing. Thank you. I’ve seen your videos but never subscribed, I will now. I think there should be an instagram like app where there are no followers just photos to be found and liked.... that’s it’s. I personally don’t follow very many people, instead I follow mostly the accounts that users submit photos to, that way the photos find me and I get to ignore the noise.
Here in India, buying followers on Instagram is a trend now. You would see many influencers doing so and even the brands support them by giving paid campaigns.
the problem with India is it happens to be the source of a LOT of fake social media accounts. So the fake and legit followers tend to look the same. Now on a US or Canada based account, it's easy to spot. But India, much harder. We've had to deal with this a lot in our influencer vetting process for clients.
@@Minoritynomad all you do is look at analytics of the account? Any company that is sponsoring based on followers are doomed for failure just because it shows whoever is running the marketing is unintelligent.
@@Minoritynomad There's also a way to spot fake accounts just check any account with 10k+ followers and has only 14-15 likes on every posts. Also, a genuine account usually posts only 1-5 posts a day.
I only recently started my instagram account & the follow unfollow thing was the 1st thing I noticed. I had a bunch of people follow me today but they didn't like any of my photos, I looked at their account and found some photos that I thought was pretty good & double tapped but didn't follow back because I know what their doing. I usually look at the accounts of people who like my photos and if I find pictures that I really like I hit the like button. Even though I've been on instagram for a short time probably after this video was published I've found that engagement is more important than followers. I have followers who don't use their accounts or are businesses or hardly ever look at my posts, so I went public with my account and decided to share my photos with everybody. I don't care about followers I care more about how many people see and like my photos, engagement as they say. I'm an amateur photographer at this point and every day I learn something new. They say I should stick to a niche and shoot one thing but that's just not in my nature, I shoot almost everything that looks good to me (no nudes or playboy type pictures), probably can't grow that way but its ok I'd rather stay true to myself than change my nature. There was this other thing I came across that said it was going to give me followers, I thought it was a marketing company or something but it just added a whole bunch of fake accounts to my followers list, I said nope and backed out before verifying. Now I just post photos I like and polish my skills as a photographer & soon to be film maker. I hope to be a real Pro Photographer & movie director one day. I'm currently using my Samsung Galaxy S7 and my Lumix GH5 but I've got my eyes set on the New Nikon Z7 Full Frame Mirror less Camera for photography, its just out of my price range right now.
I absolutely LOVE regrams where they don't even credit you or tag you or even let you know they regrammed you via DM. I love it, it's the main reason i'm not tagging my pictures anymore. they get stolen all the time, it's so ridiculous.
Great video! I'm sick to death of the photographers cheating and having 70k followers, and they're just frauds. But they're so full of themselves because they have so many followers.
I think once you follow someone you should be stuck following that person for at least 30 days before you can unfollow him. That could make it better, maybe....I dont know :)
I think Instagram is broken, they have done almost everything wrong, so sad about that, because there is a lack of a good photography platform on social media.
For one of those reasons that's why i use follow cop app. Everytime i go to that app it gives me the option to check of who unfollow. And its so sweet to unfollow back.. Sounds childish but it is what it is.
Couldn’t agree with you more on some of the questionable methods. Then again it’s all about what’s your goal and what lines are you willing to cross in order to reach that goal. I’m quite grateful that landscape photography isn’t my living as this dictates a lot how I approach my strategy and how I overall sell my work on social media. I can understand someone that relies on their photography income to live would become a bit more desperate. I see both sides or at least try to. Definitely a tricky subject. Thanks for the honesty and sharing.
Great video man. I think the pods and follow/unfollow are just terrible tactics. I find no purpose in bots. And I’ve seen a big difference in share accounts engagement too. I’d get a lot of new followers when a big account would share my photo. Now I get maybe 5-10 followers depending on the share account. It’s definitely not worth it. I’ve had big accounts approach me to pay them to share, but I don’t feel it’s worth it anymore.
I'm with you on this one completely. I had an idea when I sold up and went travelling to get a blog and IG account to help fund the travels. I didn't want to make actual money but I thought if I could get enough followers then I could blag myself some free gear, or a quick free stay, maybe an upgrade on car parts or something. This never happened because I refused to buy followers and I was lacking in either signal (at the time) and ability (quality of images). That was 4 years ago when I left and I only knew of bots and buying, just went to school watching this video. A year and a half in and I sold my car that had seen me good for 40.000km's in Australia, a lot of it off road and I sold it to an English couple, young, good looking and on the hunt for a deal. They started their IG account after buying my 4wd and I followed to keep tabs on a car I had taken and transformed from run into the ground to a good, solid off roader, within 2 months they had over 10k followers and were hosting competitions etc for free nights in hostels or tourist trips. Engagement was extremely low to say the least. I still maintain to this day I won't buy anything for followers and fund my travels with actual work. My photography has improved a lot and I am now going to open up an IG account just for photography only, not for money or free things but to separate travel fun images with my love of woodland and landscape photography, just to share it and nothing more.
Thanks, Brendan! I didn't really know the games but I have seen it and watched and started noticing something going on. I constantly get follows from companies of products that are photo related that I've never seen . The follow/unfollow game is running amuck out there. I use Instagram primarily as entertainment and inspiration so I don't work on my account very much, nor do I care to have lots of followers UNLESS they share the same common elements that I have. This video really opened my eyes to what's really going on.
I'm always interested to hear that people are more likely to follow people with a high follower count than a low follower count. I'm actually the complete opposite. I'm more likely to follow an amazing photographer with under 100 followers than one with 100k, because the one with 100 is more likely to engage and appreciate my engagement.
Ha.. I put my IG into Hype Auditor and I think I actually heard someone laugh. "You don't even have 1000 followers, puny human!" So.. is it bad if I used a bot enough to get my numbers high enough to audit? LOL.
Carlos Chavez this is probably not a discussion Brendan expected to have on his channel but you bring up a good point. I suppose if someone is willing to work for that amount of money then they have the freedom to do so.
I would say FORCING someone to work for $2 an hour is unethical. Offering $2 an hour and having someone willingly take you up on it is their decision and your good business fortune.
I wonder what would happen if likes/followers were changed to be anonymous. Would that take away from the social aspect of the platform? Not necessarily, there's still comments. Oh, make those comments at least 100 chars long to avoid the "grate pictcha" train.
The number one "problem" with Instagram is lack of "sharing" (easily anyway) so in order for your photos to be seen are people hearing about you through other media types, or getting on the main page, or people subscribing to hashtags. I still end up using hashtags even though I know I'm going to get more bots. I don't mind the idea of pods so much, provided that your comments aren't just a heart or something else "bot-ish". I wouldn't pay for a shoutout, but those can be helpful if you tag some or hashtag them.
I never realised the huge accounts with thousands of likes and comments were likely not genuine, makes me feel better about my small account now. Great video as always!
I can't say I am knowledgeable enough to say I know what you're saying in this video is the truth. But from what I *think* I know and what I've seen, this video is absolutely on-point. I really do appreciate the legit content. And you have a great screen presence man...keep it up. Subscribing.
I think the topic is redundant to a point, there are so many facets to tricking social media, but what truely makes this an excellent video is the honesty mate. Insights from someone like you in the industry and your experiences growing on IG. I guess... that’s the social aspect .... 😁 Good stuff mate 👍
Thank you for taking time to create this video, appreciated! So much misconception out there about Instagram followers, people need to understand how these big accounts are made, it's a marketing tool, they run ads. Instagram should thank all authentic creators out there feeding quality contents for free.
Saying that using an assistant or using a software is unethic is like saying photography is unethical cause you use a software to pop colors, retouch skin..., it’s like saying I don’t look at any commercial/ad cause 99% are not true. It’s like saying I don’t watch movies cause they use effects, filters...
No, it's like editing photos and telling people you don't edit them. See how that works? It's honesty. Tell people you are using a VA or Bot and sure it's ethical. Tell someone you don't edit or Photoshop images when you do IS unethical.
So should everyone caption there post with "This selfie has been edit (Im not that good looking)", should ads say "This product doesn't really help you", should movies say...., I see your point of view and what you will like to achieve, but for that the entire humanity has to be 100% honest on every industry. #trueethical
Yes, actually the FDA would require a product that doesn't work to have that disclaimer. I mean, this is just business ethics 101. I get that you think it's semantics, but any time something is dishonest in anyway it is unethical. It's really that clear. And, if I alter an image by removing, or adding something that's not there, I do state that. Otherwise it's a misrepresentation of my work.
the shout out thing still works, just depends on the niche. I didn't get a ton of followers (I got a notable amount though) but it was a positive ROI for boostin sales more importantly
Instagram should get a special application just for photographers and related to photography, different from all the crap we see everyday. It's sad to see people using bots or robots to make themselves noted. It shows how empty the humans are becoming. I'm proud of my 400 followers.
The follow/unfollow explains why a bunch of people follow me when the only reason I can think of is that I followed someone else. I don't keep track of what they do later. It's nice if they like my photos, but on Instagram, I mostly have everyday things. I only follow those that show things I'm interested in. Even begging can't make me follow if I don't like it.
Engagement is always the problem... really hard to find people who care about your stuff enough to engage unless they come across it themselves and decide they like your account enough to follow it
Man I have just started an Instagram account to share pictures and if possible get genuine feedbacks and now I am going to be suspicious of anyone liking my posts or following me... bummer... Thanks a lot for your videos btw, I really enjoy following you.
Unfortunately in this day and age, people do not understand or even care about what is ethical and what isn't. I am really looking forward to seeing your next video on this topic. And looking forward to seeing more of your photos..... you really give me inspiration on getting out there more often and not getting disillusioned when my shots don't come out as I imagined or hoped
I have a few hundred followers and don't mind tbh. Instagram doesn't phase me. The photographers I'm friends with chat with me on there but I won't do any games/bots/etc. to try and increase my followers.
I think that's the big thing. Those playing the games are so busy playing the games they forget about he personal connections. That's the real beauty of the platform.
About time someone made a real vid on this. The sad thing is though that the majority won't care about authenticity as people are obsessed with numbers over actual quality
Great Vid. It always amazes me how these platforms can be gamed. I see people with more likes on their photos than they have followers and wondered how they got so many likes.
Great video - I think growth of one's Instagram account ought to based on quality of image , or at least related to someone's interests. Anything else is utterly lousy - and I don't think we should be reluctant to judge that. Finally, I'm puzzled at your distinction between 'dishonest' and 'unethical': I'd put those together. Thanks for this video, though, it's really interesting and useful. Peace!
As someone that is new to Instagram this video is a real eye opener. Are Instagrams own promotions and boosts counted as ethical? I have used these a couple of times and had good results from them.
Thanks Brendan for this video - I used Hype Auditor and discovered less than 4% of my followers were engaging in my posts. What a colossal waste of time. I had 1200 followers, and less than 50 actually see my posts.
The funny thing is that 4% engagement is actually good. People engage with your comment in other ways, just by seeing it. Instagram average engagement is like 2%.
Thanks B - I wrote that before I finished your vid and then saw the report you gave at the end. I'll get the crowbar for my foot in a while - appreciate your efforts - your vids rock and as a fellow Canadian, wish you all success.
Because it's on your niche, but the title should be "How everyone grows on Instagram by cheating". Great video Brendan, I think I was making a mistake thinking Photographers were different.
Agree with everything except the part where "normal people follow about 300 people"...I follow close to 1000 people from photography to surfing to cycling to hiking :)
Um... its not cheating, its people being clever and knowing how to grow their accounts...but thanks for the tutorial, i'll make sure to get this up and running asap!
There are people even making money "teaching" this "techniques" to grow their accounts, basically cheating. I tryed that follow/unfollow technique and it works, but at what cost? I doesn´t worth it...great video. I want to see nextone.
I followed well over a thousand people for a long time and I wasn’t playing a game I just love having a new feed every 15 seconds 😂 this was a really awesome video thank you!!
I've seen a bot post on someone's instagram that recently died. Everyone saying RIP and then you just have this random comment saying love it with a smiley face -_-
Don’t necessarily agree with your stance on the use of Virtual Assistants. It’s common for firms to have someone dedicated to social media. As well, it’s good business to outsource work thus allowing you to focus on higher priorities. That being said, this is assuming that they are ethically and authentically engaging.
If you think by doing none of those spammy tactics and try grow “totally honest and organic” it just won’t happen no one will find your profile no one will notice your posts no matter how amazing the content
I don't know why people question how people grow Instagram accounts. Large business' have marketing departments, they hire advertising agencies to grow their business. Business target their customers just like Instagramers. If im watching a car program on TV, its 100% certain that the show will have several car commercials.
Let’s play a drinking game...every time he says gaming the system (or instagram) everyone you’re with has to drink. DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for how violently drunk you get during this game
I gave up on IG, im happy to just show the pictures to my friend. Hate all the people that I know, who only talk about community to join to share likes, comment, bot etc
The follow unfollow game is just annoying. Follow someone that you actually want to follow. And ppl just need to allow ppl to find your account and see if its worth following you back.
Ah, I remember the days when I was naive and didn't know about follow/unfollow and got excited every time a big account followed me. These people suck. Also, I follow over 700 people, and I want to see the posts of every one of those people.
Great video. So true abouth the shoutout/repost thing. I do animals photos, and back then, when a big page reposted my photos I'd get 300-400 followers, now, even when a 1mi plus page repost my work I get like 12 new followers
