Gray’s Anatomy – Like my golf, are my follower numbers on the slide?
Unbelievably Friday has come around again so quickly and of course that means just one thing at theappwhisperer.com HQ, Richard Gray and his awesome humorous Gray’s Anatomy column, just perfect to get you in the right mood for the weekend.
This time Richard laments his ‘peak’ at least in regards to Instagram followers, I don’t think he has anything to worry about, from personal experience, I would advise, slow down, don’t be impatient, the followers will return, you haven’t ‘peaked’ yet 😉 Don’t miss this… (foreword by Joanne Carter).
© Richard Gray – ‘On an inevitable slide: did this photo mark the peak of my follower numbers?’
As I turned in for bed on Sunday night, I had a quick check of my Instagram stream (I’d posted a couple of what I thought were quite good photos from my round of golf during the day) and with a slight resigned sadness, I noticed my follower numbers tick downward below 2,600. Statigram tells me my follower growth in the last month is minus 5. I’m wondering if I’ve hit my follower peak and, like many other parts of my life (my golf handicap is nudging up too), am now on an inevitable slide.
I’d seen lists of tips on how to get more followers. Did any of them list "Don’t post any photos"? It seems my two photos that day had reminded some of my followers of my existence. And they unfollowed. I’m not a super user by any stretch of the imagination but I don’t want to follow more than 300 or so people (because I do like to interact with the people I follow but I want to keep on top of the paperwork), so inevitably I don’t follow back a large chunk of my 2,600 (now slightly fewer) followers. And one of the tips on many of those lists is "Follow people, as many of them will follow back". I’m not one of those people.
Of course, as I’ve mentioned here, you can only get big follower numbers if you’re on a suggested user list. The main one is Instagram’s suggested user list which pretty much guarantees 5- or 6-digit numbers, however good your photos are. But there are others. My heyday of follower growth was when I was briefly on a suggested user list somewhere in India until I said something slightly derogatory about Instagram in my blog and was removed.
There’s a guy in New York called @arnold_daniel on Instagram. Until recently his profile picture was a middle finger. He never replies to any comments and he has a website called whentosaynothing.com. Needless to say he doesn’t follow me back. Why do I follow him? Because he takes great street photos and is a real inspiration. Personally, I like getting comments from other people on Instagram (and replying to them) but, at the end of the day, isn’t it mainly about the photos?
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
