# Can someone explain this?



## DGMPhotography (Jun 24, 2017)

Dude I follow only has 180 followers on Instagram, and yet... each photo receives 200+ likes. I'm lucky to break 100 likes, and I have 1200+ followers.

Is he buying likes?

@lefthandedphoto • Instagram photos and videos

Don't get me wrong, he has great work. Much better than mine, but the numbers don't add up.


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## JonA_CT (Jun 24, 2017)

I'm not an instagram pro, but you can get a lot of likes based just on the hashtags, and that might not necessarily translate into follows.


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 24, 2017)

JonA_CT said:


> I'm not an instagram pro, but you can get a lot of likes based just on the hashtags, and that might not necessarily translate into follows.



That would make sense if his posts didn't have only like 5 hashtags each. All of my photos are almost maxed out with the hashtags.


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## paigew (Jun 24, 2017)

That is odd...he doesn't even use very good hashtags.  He could be asking for likes on various fb groups 


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 24, 2017)

paigew said:


> That is odd...he doesn't even use very good hashtags.  He could be asking for likes on various fb groups
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



Exactly, and yeah.. that's possible. Just strange that none of those are translating to 'follows' especially with how consistent he hits 200+ likes.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 24, 2017)

Who the heck cares?? lol do you want to be a photographer or popular on Instagram??  

Do you know how I got an opportunity to shoot for marketing for a local team? by learning by hanging out at practices and taking pictures during warmups etc. etc. and spending hours and hours practicing til I got good enough to be able to do it when the opportunity came about. Do you know how much fun it was the first few times to get to go out on the ice and take pictures of the ceremonial pregame festivities and the intermissions with giant fake cardboard check presentations and hope I didn't fall on my butt in front of a few thousand people?? damn fun!! lol 

OK I'm off my soap box, but while social media can be effective for marketing yourself, if you aren't (yet) as good as the other guy, that maybe ought to be telling you something. (Like get out and get in some practice!)


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## paigew (Jun 24, 2017)

vintagesnaps said:


> Who the heck cares?? lol do you want to be a photographer or popular on Instagram??
> 
> Do you know how I got an opportunity to shoot for marketing for a local team? by learning by hanging out at practices and taking pictures during warmups etc. etc. and spending hours and hours practicing til I got good enough to be able to do it when the opportunity came about. Do you know how much fun it was the first few times to get to go out on the ice and take pictures of the ceremonial pregame festivities and the intermissions with giant fake cardboard check presentations and hope I didn't fall on my butt in front of a few thousand people?? damn fun!! lol
> 
> OK I'm off my soap box, but while social media can be effective for marketing yourself, if you aren't (yet) as good as the other guy, that maybe ought to be telling you something. (Like get out and get in some practice!)



But the other guys isn't incredibly great, that's why it's interesting. I love getting ig likes, it makes me feel like people are seeing me/my work. I communicate to the world around me via photography....It's like a journal for me. That said, I don't think I've booked a job/client yet off social media. To me, social media is just about sharing your passion and being encouraged. 


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 24, 2017)

vintagesnaps said:


> Who the heck cares?? lol do you want to be a photographer or popular on Instagram??
> 
> Do you know how I got an opportunity to shoot for marketing for a local team? by learning by hanging out at practices and taking pictures during warmups etc. etc. and spending hours and hours practicing til I got good enough to be able to do it when the opportunity came about. Do you know how much fun it was the first few times to get to go out on the ice and take pictures of the ceremonial pregame festivities and the intermissions with giant fake cardboard check presentations and hope I didn't fall on my butt in front of a few thousand people?? damn fun!! lol
> 
> OK I'm off my soap box, but while social media can be effective for marketing yourself, if you aren't (yet) as good as the other guy, that maybe ought to be telling you something. (Like get out and get in some practice!)



With all due respect, it may be a generational thing, and for us social media is a very crucial component of one's marketing endeavors. It's not that important to me that he's getting more likes than me, I'm just wondering how he does it. I don't think it's solely due to the quality of his work. My work is good (and always improving), and it would be a disservice to myself to not care about marketing (and social media).


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## paigew (Jun 24, 2017)

It also just doesn't make sense how he would get that many likes based on his amount of followers. The way you get people to see your work who don't follow you is through hashtags. And the ones he uses aren't popular ones or ones that others would likely search for. 


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## Derrel (Jun 24, 2017)

paigew said:


> It also just doesn't make sense how he would get that many likes based on his amount of followers. The way you get people to see your work who don't follow you is through hashtags. And the ones he uses aren't popular ones or ones that others would likely search for.



Indeed...seems kind of weird: his hashtags are LAME!!! None of them that I know are even in the top "like-getter" lists I've seen. But the thing is, Instagram is now referring its users to people who they might possibly like at such a pace that I suspect he gets a lot of Likes from one-time referrals of his constant stream of sexy girl / modelly-type images!

Also: it's a waste of time to Follow somebody who is only an average-to-middling model shooter: IG is FULL of top-level shooters posting very,very good work. His shots are not consistently in the upper level of model-type shots, so, yeah...the likes/follower ratio does seem a bit askew, at least based on the "old model" of IG where lots of followers are needed to generate many Likes: but again...that People You Might Like thing IG does is now hitting up a LOT of people's IG pages!


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## tecboy (Jun 24, 2017)

Why are you jealous based on someone else's works?  He works on instagram is pretty good.


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## Light Guru (Jun 24, 2017)

You are wasting your time worrying about Instagram likes. Put that energy toward your own photos.


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 25, 2017)

Light Guru said:


> You are wasting your time worrying about Instagram likes. Put that energy toward your own photos.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



That's a very black and white way of thinking. A business is full of grayscale. Again, my question wasn't "should I care about Instagram likes?"

My op was asking for suggestions on how this guy is doing it. You brought up a good point, Derrel. Though if that is the case, I wish that system would be a bit kinder to me lol.


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## snowbear (Jun 25, 2017)

Maybe ask him?


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## MSnowy (Jun 25, 2017)

Maybe he's a member of a photography forum and he wined about not getting enough likes on his pictures. So his forum friends go and like his pictures to make him feel better about himself.


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## Derrel (Jun 25, 2017)

DGMPhotography said:


> Light Guru said:
> 
> 
> > You are wasting your time worrying about Instagram likes. Put that energy toward your own photos.
> ...



I have an IG account that I've let go dormant. But I have read some articles on maximizing Likes on the platform, and leaving comments and Liking the work of other people is an essential aspect of building a following. But as far as garnering Likes, straight out: hashtagging photos with current, popular, frequently-searched and frequently-hit hashtags makes a HUGE difference in the Likes a photo can get. Maybe 18 months ago, I spent a week hashtagging a few posts; my Like numbers went up about 20-fold on average, even with my tiny number of followers. So...hashtagging works. But the guy you pointed us to? Lame hastags, not popular hashtags, and not  long,long strings of popular hashtags, so....I dunno....you know my theory from earlier.

It's interesting to see how virulent so many older folks are when the subject of social media comes up. It's almost like those old folks who railed against ,"_These danged computer printer machines, they'll never replace darkrooms! _", or "_This infernal digital photography--it's a fad, I tell ya', just a fad!_"


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## Karma_Eleon (Jun 25, 2017)

Does it matter how he does it?

I do think that a follower-base that builds itself up slowly and gradually is a base that actually DOES like your work and the likes actually mean something! 

My numbers vary daily, I get followers who are just trying to bait me into following them back and if I don't oblige, they unfollow. I also notice that if I post a meh picture, I get meh results... from which I conclude that the people following me actually take an interest and give me honest feedback.

And I agree: good hashtags work. Very popular ones though? You sink down on the list and into anonymity fast because of the sheer number of posts using it.... (let's remember short attention spans and the unwillingness to scroll past the last few posts...)


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## paigew (Jun 25, 2017)

Karma_Eleon said:


> Does it matter how he does it?



It "matters" because he doesn't have even 200 followers, yet he has over 200 likes on his photos. What the OP is asking, is how he gets people to view his photo and in return gaining likes. His hashtags are only linked to maybe 5-10 photos so it just doesn't make any sense based on what I know about instagram that he would have those likes. Unless like mentioned before he is asking for them on different social media platforms.


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## Vtec44 (Jun 25, 2017)

Gereally 2% is a good interaction rate.  This guy is doing something right lol


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 25, 2017)

Derrel said:


> It's interesting to see how virulent so many older folks are when the subject of social media comes up. It's almost like those old folks who railed against ,"_These danged computer printer machines, they'll never replace darkrooms! _", or "_This infernal digital photography--it's a fad, I tell ya', just a fad!_"



I've noticed that a lot here, too. Haha, I think it's kind of funny.


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## nerwin (Jun 25, 2017)

I know someone on YouTube who has 15,000 subs and his videos only get 90-150 views. Tell me that isn't strange? He clearly bought subscibers. 

People have on Instagram too. Twitter as well. 

So he could simply just be really good at the Instagram game or he bought likes/followers. 

I have under 300 followers on Instagram and most of my photos get 60-100 likes. I dunno. Id rather have followers who enjoy seeing my content instead of having more followers and likes.


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## DGMPhotography (Jun 25, 2017)

nerwin said:


> I know someone on YouTube who has 15,000 subs and his videos only get 90-150 views. Tell me that isn't strange? He clearly bought subscibers.
> 
> People have on Instagram too. Twitter as well.
> 
> ...



I agree, quality is better than quantity.


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## nerwin (Jun 25, 2017)

DGMPhotography said:


> nerwin said:
> 
> 
> > I know someone on YouTube who has 15,000 subs and his videos only get 90-150 views. Tell me that isn't strange? He clearly bought subscibers.
> ...



And I'm not saying my photos are top notch quality like Peter McKinnon (his photos on instagram gets like 18,000 likes)...it's just I want REAL people following me, not bots. I hate bots!!


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