When it comes to Instagram I actually have three accounts. One that is personal for friends and family, one more work-related (stevi.mcneill), and one that’s a collaborative project (Dust + Grit) . The latter I post to every so often, as I feel no rush to build a large audience there.
When it comes to my stevi.mcneill account I go back and forth with keeping it up to date and posting nowadays. At one time I felt I had a strategy, knew the best time to post each day, kept an eye on my stats (hashtags, etc.), and had a focused goal of growing my audience. However, I found I was spending far too much time on there and started "shooting just for likes’’. And honestly, this just wasn't the kind of work that I truly wanted to share. After taking a step away from the platform I feel I'm now able to come back to it with a better, more intentional focus on what I actually want to share. My follower count and engagement rate have gone down in that time spent away, but I also found that I now have a consistent set of followers that do engage with the images that I really want to show. To me, that is far more rewarding than an audience number consisting of real or fake users or arbitrary likes on a photo.
I've found that if I do want to broaden my audience with more substantial content and users who are more engaged in my work that I needed to adjust my strategy I had before, the hashtags I use, and my patience/expectations. This approach has been working for the outcome I want, but definitely takes more time. Additionally, I do find that posting to stories and saving to highlights helps with engagement, and by posting more video content it allows me to take my time and be really be particular about what I post to my feed.
