Social Media Trends

The giant that is social media and the psychological effect it has on us all.

As a photographer sharing my work means everything. If I capture a beautiful moment or create an amazing piece than I want the world to see it for it’s innate beauty, and because I want to bring attention to my work. I’m sure that a lot of generations older than I am feel a bit disturbed with social media’s influences on the creative vision of our work. Let’s face it; we’ve all been caught up in trends at one point or another and photography is no different.

A few years ago the craze was HDR or high dynamic range. That sudden spike in over-processed images, which I have to say I was definitely a part of, has decreased. I am proud to say that a more realistic, but mechanically sound HDR process has taken over part of my workflow. There were trends in filter media such as analog efex from NIK, Topaz Labs, and VSCO filmpacks. You can not go a few images on Instagram without running into a VSCO-edited image anymore. The low contrast, high fade, and grainy filters are a huge success that allows them to stay competitive with the filters that come free with Instagram.

VSCO film- Great Smoky Mountains National Park

My payday follows the trends in photography through the use of social media. You want to make some dough selling stock or licensing images than be prepared to stay current with social media trends such as VSCO film packs. This article is for photographers like myself who work full-time elsewhere and fall back on photography as a means of fun and hobby. With that being said I’m not a full-time photographer, and I can barely call myself a part-time photographer, but I do write articles and take photographs. I don’t mind making some cash or taking in some royalties here and there. It’s a sense of accomplishment that someone is willing to pay for your work to use on their project. I don’t have to run through why selling and making money off your photography is great, but it does lead to a greater sense of what you could be doing to make more money. And let’s face the facts; money buys White Castles at 2 in the morning. To stay ahead of or with the trends you have to be active in the latest trending social media monster as well. If you would have been on Flickr seven or eight years ago you would have been killing it, but as we all know they missed their ticket when Yahoo! bought them over. Sites like 500px and Smugmug followed with great success for serious hobbyist and professional photographers, but again they are focused on the PC end of the spectrum. And rightfully so, they’re great sites to use for portfolios. However; all those sites lack the tenacity that Instagram has on their mobile platform. Instagram continues to grow because it’s clientele are young and current. They are the demographic that our businesses strive to influence because most of their purchases are vision based. It’s not quality or quantity with the young demographic. It’s vision-based. Does it look cool? Would I be cool if I had it?

I am on Instagram. I am not very popular. I did not write this because I’m angry or distinctively calling out other photographers, but I am here to say that your social media presence does influence the way people see your work. The more you like and comment the more another use will reciprocate. Your work isn’t being followed as much as your networking and communication skills are being followed. It’s not a bad thing! In fact; it’s quite genius. You see, the more users that follow you on any of these sites turns into more users sharing or talking about your work to friends, colleagues, and family members. The larger the network, the better chance of someone finding your work to purchase or license. And after all, that’s why we go out of our way to communicate back and forth with one another. Payday. Whether you like to admit it or not; a little bit of extra spending cash goes along way these days.

So get out there and start shooting. Start liking. And start making friends.