>>4021784Fuck, it's taken me over three years and I still can't stay above 90 followers. It has been a depressing grind to even get that far.
I post local street photography within my city; hashtag main streets, areas and descriptors. Over 1,800 photos. Fucking worst 'reach' ever.
I am lucky to get double digits. Only a handful ever went over 20. My best was 58 a couple of months back and it had zero effect on later posts. Many of my followers don't like and many likers don't follow. I'd hoped that I could build a following in my local area, nothing crazy, but it never happened.
I went from posting ridiculous amounts of photos (yes, I probably tripped a spam black-list) to posting a few photos every three weeks. A random church photo of mine was taken off and it was never the same. I tried switching to a business account and the engagement was even worse.
I get some IRL praise for my photos, but it seems that no-one else cares. Another local photo account praised me for months, then suddenly did not engage anymore. Perhaps it's just as well that the analytics sites were all fucked up, or taken over, so I can't see how poor it has gotten.
As is typical, I get better with experience, though this is not having any effect on my reach. I now play around a lot more with aspect ratios, but I realize it is pretty limited on IG; 4:5 and 1:1 are the best ratios for that platform. Wider ones are wasted.
I was also highly encouraged to start my own website to sell my photos late last year, but it failed hard. As an otherwise hopeless aspie asocial NEET, this particularly fucking sickened me. I also cross-post from IG to Twitter (which finally show image previews) and the reach is still utter shit. Occasionally, I post ultrawide images on Twitter and though that format suits better than on IG, the reach is, again, crap.
So I have to accept that I will never make it on social media, or financially, so I take photos for the enjoyment of it and see no point in pushing it.
