There are a lot of articles and blog posts out there about Instagram and how to use it. How I use Instagram is by posting photos that make me happy or that make me laugh or that show what I'm doing at the time or offer commentary on it, so I can't really help you on how best to use it to achieve Internets fame and I don't want to. When I'm reading those posts, I never see any of the reasons I personally really enjoy someone's Instagram, so I thought I'd list them here. I like your Instagram feed because...
1. There's color! I love photos that are a riot of color.
2. You show me your dogs, cats, and kids doing cute things. Not your dogs, cats, and kids doing cute things with very little difference between the photo you justthisminute posted and the photo you posted of your dog, cat, or kid doing that cute thing 30 seconds ago.
3. Your photo depicts what you're doing right now, not what you did last night or yesterday. Because it is INSTA-gram, not Sometime Later Whenever I Feel Like It-gram. This doesn't count if you're on vacation with no Wifi. By all means, latergram away once you get back in the zone. It obviously doesn't count for quotes and photos you're using to advertise a blog post or a sale or a charity event either.
4. You recognize vacations as a great opportunity to over-gram. I want to know if I might want to put your vacation spot on my places to go list. I can't know that if you don't show me what a great time you're having on vacation.
5. You don't gather a bunch of items together that are unrelated to each other or your caption, photograph them, and share them as if you have that stuff just laying around in proximity to you while you're taking a photo. I don't really have anything to follow this up with because I seriously don't get why this is being done.
6. You see value in landscapes. Deserts, beaches, open road, lakes, ponds, ocean, national parks, fields, mountains...just nature as you see it, whatever's in front of you. We had no cameras to shoot the landscape is no longer a thing. Show me the beautiful world around you and I will love you forever.
7. You keep the hashtags under 10. The unflattering term hashtag whore exists for a reason.
8. When you participate in throwback Thursday, you actually throw that shit back to years ago. Not like two weeks or six months ago.
9. You share urban scenes. Specifically street art or abandoned buildings or great viewpoints. I dig it.
10. You show me your real life. Not a life you think someone wants to see or a life that's curated or a life that will make you popular on the internet...but your actual life. Sometimes it's neat in the background and sometimes it's not. Sometimes you look smashing and sometimes you look like you just clawed your way through a bitch of a Tuesday. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's complain-y. The accounts I love best always reflect the personality of their owners.
What do you love to see on Instagram?
Happy birthday to my fabulous sister-in-law. Love you Aub!
Happy birthday to my fabulous sister-in-law. Love you Aub!
Yes, yes, yes. The staged photos including random things is so fake and more annoying that enjoyable. It takes the real life element out of things. This doesn't apply to food posts because I don't want to see a pile of slop so stage away. I don't have enough cityscape around me, or should I say when i do see it it's dark outside already but I love a good sunrise or sunset picture.
ReplyDeleteAll of this! I really enjoy Instagramming photos of nature, landscapes, etc. I just have this incessant urge to document the beauty of the world around me. ESPECIALLY a beautiful sunset/sunrise.
ReplyDeleteYes yes yea! This post is golden. I agree with April; I'm such a sucker for a sunrise or sunset. The colors... There's so much beauty in this chaotic world.
DeleteDogs. If you have dog pictures, we're good.
ReplyDeletei don't like staged photos (unless you're a business)! i like real life photos.
ReplyDeleteIf I see another picture of feet on a white blanket holding a cup of coffee or glass of wine with one hand I will stab my eyes out with a dull butter knife. Just stop. Sorry I hashtag way too much... I can't ever decide when to stop... ahhhhhh
ReplyDeleteThis is why I love so many instagram accounts, too!
ReplyDeleteI had a friend who would comment (to others...behind my back, never to my face of course) that she was judging me for posting photos while I was on vacation, and eluded to the fact that it must mean I was having a horrible time, or not connecting with my husband (or some other outlandish rational for her stupid judgments). Nope, actually I was enjoying it a ton and wanting to share. Thank you and BYE FELICIA! haha
The hashtags! I just can't when someone uses a million hashtags. It's uncalled for!
ReplyDeleteYou forgot one that I learned from you. You don't share every single picture on both Instagram and Facebook. I will see you on Facebook if that's the case no need to follow you on both. Happy Hump Day!
ReplyDeleteWell I think I do a lot of these things that you don't like- eek! But everyone is different and does what works for them! the hashtag thing works. if people are mad i'm using them, they should try it
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I love learning stuff like this. It is helpful to hear about the vacation photos. Sometimes I have SO many I want to share but I don't want to annoy people with my shots so I like hearing that it is okay to overshare sometimes : )
ReplyDeletewww.amemoryofus.com
Goodnight Saigon. What a beautiful song.
ReplyDeleteAll of these things make me a love an Instagram feed. You what doesn't? ONLY posting "inspirational" quotes or spammy stuff pointed to your blog. I'm okay with that sometimes--most of us do it--but not your whole feed. And I cannot stand all the staged photos. I know your desk and coffee and life aren't set on a white background. Knock that shit off.
Haha!
DeleteI adore #6, and can we please add white walls/marble countertops/brick walls to show off things that I normally wouldn't hold in front of those things to that bullet point? There are people who have bought white marble tiles at Home Depot for IG post backgrounds... talk about a lack of "insta," right?
ReplyDeleteBut that was negative. I love to see someone's actual life. I love a good food pic and I like seeing what people bought or thought of buying, especially if said item is easily available at a national retailer because I hate shopping so just taking an IG suggestion is way easier.
YES! I hate curated pictures with perfectly placed items and pristine work spaces. I also prefer under five hashtags. I'm glad you appreciate a messy house because that's always in the background around here! I hate when a throwback is "to that time I looked super cute or had perfect hair!" Just show me your awkward junior high photos already!
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way - give me what's real. I dont get how people prep for some of the pictures they do - thats gotta be exhausting. I love real life. & of course, fur babies ALWAYS draws me in :)
ReplyDeleteI'm guilty of later gram. Because I'm too drunk to properly load a photo at 11 pm. Yeah I said it, it's true.
ReplyDeleteBut I know you like my instagram, it's almost all Hawkeye all the time! And my TBT are of college or earlier. And college was JESUS CHRIST 10 years ago. Time flies.
I completely and totally agree with you on every one of these! although i'm guilty of latergraming. if i'm at an event i have a tendency to feel like a turd (and honestly my fiance makes fun of me) if i'm spending a lot of time uploading a pic to Instagram instead of enjoying what's actually going on. if I have a break in action and can upload a pic i'll do it, but if it would take away from my experience then I save it for later. also, #tbt pics from a week ago are brutal. like no, that's not a TBT, go away.
ReplyDeleteYes girl! Preach it! Instagram is so boring to scroll through most days because it is the same damn picture with the marble tile background, a vase with flowers, a gold sea urchin, a coffee cup and some sunglasses. Who has all those things around at the same time???? And why bother "staging it" to look like every other basic bitches photo?? I understand that if you are reviewing a product you might stage it....but other than that...give me life!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI want to start using the phrase "a riot of color"! That's awesome. And yes to #4. I read a lot of things about people getting upset when people post too much on vacaton. Um, I LOVE vacation posters. Makes me excited to travel in the future, planned trip or not. And I agree with real life pics, they are the best. Though I do follow this Paris Fashion IG and it's so curated and fabricated and I just can't get enough! ha.PS I love all your dog pics.
ReplyDeletePerfection! Bright colors, real-life, vacations, nature- AMEN.
ReplyDeleteI could honestly deal with less pets, but I love pretty, well-composed photos, and photos of people with other people. And obvi, food porn. ALL the food porn.
ReplyDeleteLOVE this post and agree with it all. I wish I had some landscapes to post more pictures of, but I definitely over-gram when I'm on holiday. Sometimes I read those how to posts about instagram and I'm like that's all good and fine for YOU but I don't want instagram or internet fame. I just want to post pretty pictures. I don't need no white background or similar objects that weren't actually together 5 seconds ago. i don't post things for like a week at a time because I don't really do anything worth sharing, I'd rather that than forced pictures every day. But that's just me.
ReplyDeleteps. i kind of hate hashtags. i used a few for a little bit, but now i use like one or two because lazy.
I want to see what people are doing and love the vaca overload because it makes me want to go there...or not, lol. I do like the white backgrounds to show off an item, but not every picture!!
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely guilty of over-gramming on vacations and then I go silent for like a month! lol I like the real life posts too and not all these staged photos that are flooding the feeds.
ReplyDeleteHahaha love this, but I'm also guilty of some of the bad stuff. Still the main reason I'm ever on instagram is to look at dog pictures. Thank you for helping fulfill that purpose for me!
ReplyDeleteYes, yes to all of these! Food pics and ones of people reaching their goals or earning achievements also get liked. IG is my favorite social media platform, but I like it for entertainment purposes, so I don't like emo-type posts or too many "inspirational" quotes. I'm definitely guilty of the later-gram though, because I don't like posting more than one pic a day, and I get annoyed when others post like, 6 in a row.
ReplyDeleteAgreed with ALL of these. I love looking at pretty, colorful things. I hate when people clearly do NOT have a 'good eye' and post either nonsensical pics or ones that are insanely poor quality. The whole "look at how fabulous my life is" ones irritate me too; so does a barrage of inspirational quotes. I CANT WITH THE QUOTES.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing everybody's pictures from vacations on Instagram! It gives me some major jealousy and wanderlust, but it's just beautiful I just can't help but look! I have to admit, I'm totally one of those Hashtag Whores, but I try to comment with the additional hashtags so it doesn't look too intense...
ReplyDeleteI confess, I #latergram, because I like to edit photos (brightening, cropping, basic stuff like that) and I don't necessary do it when I'm spending with others, like kids, friends, family, etc. That said, I don't mind the latergrams but like you, I don't need the same photo over and over and over again and I don't like over-hashtagging.
ReplyDeleteRepeat ads. Same pictures over and over because they are ads ! I like to follow my life on Instagram ! Love the travel pics and animal pics. Things I would never see of not for Instagram. Love. Your. Momma.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely guilty of over-gramming on vacation and I love love love insta-stalking others while they're on vacay. Like you I want to see if it's a destination I'd like to add to my list for a future trip. So please oh please overgram the sh*t out of your South Africa trip pretty please :-D
ReplyDeleteI love REAL photos so much more than the fake, stiff, staged ones. You can always tell the difference. Also, that picture of your dog yesterday with the toy was so cute! My MIL used to have a pug and I don't know what it is about them tilting their head but it's so cute when they do it!
ReplyDeleteI love your take on it. I don't mind staged photos if they are pretty to look at. Instagram is by far my favorite social media. I love seeing life, places, people and things and skipping the captions if I want to :)
ReplyDeleteI think you know what I like to see on Instagram. I'm pretty obvious about it.
ReplyDeletePreach.
ReplyDeleteI like a mix - vacay, pets, kids, scenery, food, books, hobbies, a random quote - just mix it up, and I'm happy.
I don't like try-hards or anything disingenuous.
It's Thursday, and my tbt posts have been lacking lately. Going to post something with big hair now.....
I've unfollowed so many people on Instagram in the last year because I can't get over the fakeness of some of it. I mean, of course, I edit or adjust my photos, crop out things that don't need to be there, etc. But that's because I like to take a good photo and sometimes a stray crumpled up napkin or something makes its way into the frame. But the bleached-white photos of rooms that cannot possibly be that bright from natural light, or the random roundups always with a hand sitting uselessly on a desk, or photos of a thing where only like a third of that thing is actually in the frame...I could do without all that. Save that for your blog or photo portfolio, I guess. This is a social media site. Be a human.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of this. My favorite Instagram pictures are the real life random pictures (though I honestly don't mind if someone posts something later), vacation pictures, and pet pictures. I also really like food and book pictures, which are sometimes staged ... But that's okay.
ReplyDeleteI think my biggest issue with Instagram is when someone's feed is always completely perfect and weirdly random. (Like pictures of a desk with a bunch of random shit that doesn't really go together but somehow is placed in such a way that it kind of looks like it goes together, but I'm still looking at it in confusion and thinking, "What the fuck IS this?") I can appreciate beautiful images, but that just seems strange to me. I may stage my books so they're neatly stacked or crop something out that doesn't belong (like Alyssa mentioned above) or use a filter sometimes ... But they're still pictures of my life. I'm going to read that stack of books. I'm going to eat that cupcake. I don't just gather a bunch of random objects together and think, "Hmmm ... This will obviously make a great Instagram photo!" Haha.
I do use hashtags, but I try to avoid using them excessively. I like that they serve a purpose and that my photos will probably show up when someone searches for something specific ... But I'm also way too lazy to label my shit with 90 hashtags. And honestly? I wouldn't really want to. It just seems like too much.
I've only posted on Instagram once so far (I think) in 2016. I actually really like Instagram, but I don't always do things that allow for an interesting or pretty picture. I'm boring, I guess. Haha.