Hey photographer friends! Welcome back to our Photography Blog, Mastering the Wedding Photography Biz with Hunter and Sarah! If you feel chained to your social media accounts for hours a day, just because you’re a photographer, we promise there’s a better way. It’s no secret that social media can have a negative impact on our mental health. So if you want a better way to use Instagram for photographers, check out some advice that we often give our students here in this post.

 

 

Instagram for Photographers and Our Mental Health

At the end of the day, social media is a tool, just like your website or your camera. It’s something you can use to help yourself and your business, or to harm yourself and your business. But most of us don’t think that critically about social media, and it can end up running our lives and negatively impacting our mental health.

 

We’re pretty sure that we’re not the only ones who have found ourselves mindlessly scrolling through social media, and slowly feeling more and more crummy about ourselves, our lives, and our business. Especially for women, the pressure to be the perfect business-owner and the perfect wife and have the perfect body and perfect skin and perfect everything can be suffocating at times.

 

And even if social media isn’t negatively impacting your mental health, it can still be a huge sink where you waste a ton of your time — time that you could spend improving your business, or doing things you actually love like spending time with loved ones, getting out into nature, or exploring your hobbies.

 

And while putting a time limit on how much time you allow yourself to spend on social media can be healthy, it can often be hard to enforce on ourselves when we just want to keep scrolling. So today, we’re going to focus on the 4 kinds of people you should be following on social media, and the 4 kinds of people you should unfollow RIGHT AWAY.

 

 

The 4 Kinds of Accounts You Should Be Following on Instagram (for Photographers)

In our opinion, there are really only four kinds of people or accounts that you should be following on Instagram.

 

1. People You Actually Care About

The first kind of person you should follow is the most obvious. These are people you actually care about, and whose life updates bring you joy. This is the most obvious category, because these are your close friends and family. These are the people whose vacation photos and pictures of their pets or kids or home projects make you smile.

 

This is social media at its best — allowing us to stay connected with friends and family who we otherwise wouldn’t see very often. That way, when we do see them again at a wedding or over the holidays, we’re not totally out of the loop on what’s going on in their lives. Plus, the occasional comment or reply to their post reminds them that we’re still part of their lives!

 

2. Potential Ideal Clients

The second kind of person you should follow are people who you identify as your ideal client, and you could end up photographing one day. So maybe you don’t really see yourself hanging out with that group of high school friend again, and you haven’t talked with them in years. But if half of them are in serious relationships and you’re a wedding photographer, it might be worth keeping up with them.

 

In our Marketing and Advertising for Photographers Workshop, we talked a lot about how your personal network can be really powerful for your business. Likewise, if you’re a family photographer, it might make sense to continue following and interacting with a group of people who you might not otherwise be that close with, but who all have families and seem like they’d fit with your ideal client.

 

3. High-End Photographers (for Inspo)

The third kind of account you should follow are high-end photographers who you look to for inspiration. If you went and got a degree in photography from an art school, you’d spend 80% of your time doing two things: looking at famous photographers who are way better than you, and getting out and practicing yourself.

 

We’re not (AT ALL) saying that scrolling Instagram is a replacement for formal training, but we can at least bootleg the same principal: looking to people who are better than us at our craft is a great way to find inspiration for our own work. And we don’t mean follow that photographer in your town who charges $500 more than you. We mean find a list of the best photographers in the world and go follow them. Pay attention to what others are doing at the highest caliber, and think about how you can incorporate that into your own work.

 

4. Local Wedding Vendors

And finally, the fourth kind of person you should follow on social media are other local vendors you want to network with. Network marketing was another strategy that we cover in our Marketing and Advertising workshop, and it usually starts on social media. This not only will help you stay on top of what’s happening in your local market, but will give you an opportunity to get and stay on the radar of other local wedding vendors who you want to network with.

 

 

The 4 Kinds of Accounts You Should Unfollow TODAY on Instagram (for Photographers)

Now let’s pivot a bit and talk about — from a mental health standpoint — which accounts you should strongly consider unfollowing right away.

 

1. Other Photographers (Who Make You Envious)

The first are photographers who are right around your own level, who aren’t so far ahead of you that you’re going to learn a ton by following them, but who are good enough that your heart fills with envy or sadness when you see them succeeding.

 

Sure, it would be awesome if we could all look at our peers and celebrate their success. But especially when we’re in a challenging season ourselves, our worst human nature of bitterness and envy and jealousy can rear their ugly heads, ruining our day every time that one photographer in our town who charges the same as us is out shooting a beautiful session or wedding day.

 

2. People You Don’t Really Care About

The next kind of person you should unfollow are all of the acquaintances who you just don’t care that much about. Sure, that may sound callous, but how important is it really that you get life updates from that old friend from middle school, or that coworker from that job you left years ago?

 

If you don’t see them as a potential ideal client for you, it might be best to clean up your feed by unfollowing them. And this goes double if they frequently post content that makes you upset, even if it’s just because you find their content annoying or you disagree with what they post. It doesn’t matter — it’s your social media feeds, and there’s no point in filling it with people you don’t like.

 

3. Anyone Who Makes You Feel Bad About Yourself

The third kind of account that you should unfollow is ~literally~ anyone who makes you feel bad about yourself when you see them. We all have those accounts we follow whose perfect lives or perfect health or perfect bodies just make us feel like garbage. And even if one of those people fall into those categories we talked about before (like a close friend or potential ideal client) — if they make you feel like garbage, unfollow them.

 

4. Most “Influencers”

And finally, we’d recommend unfollowing any “influencers” who aren’t actually making your life better. Because ultimately, all influencers are trying to sell you something.

 

Notice that we didn’t say you should unfollow all influencers. If you follow some who post great content that you enjoy seeing, or who helps you find products or services that actually benefit your life or business, then that’s totally fine! But we know that that’s definitely not all influencers.

 

 

Hopefully this quick post has given you the excuse you needed to clean up your feed, and make what time you do spend on social media a more pleasant experience. But if you feel like you’re still struggling with your mindset as a photographer, we’d encourage you to check out our workshop, Overcoming Your Greatest Enemy: How your own beliefs and expectations might be holding you back.

 

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