As it approaches the one-year mark for my blog we’re also coming up to other exciting milestones. One that I’m particularly proud of is the end of my first year on Instagram. So I wanted to share the success I’ve had with Instagram this year.
To start with I want to make sure I’m very clear about a few things. Instagram has never been my main focus. I haven’t been posting on anything you could consider a regular basis. I went through some tough times this year and have had to shift my focus in life quite a bit.
I started out on Instagram not to share my photos, but to promote my blog. Along the way, I discovered that I really enjoy sharing my photos online. This article is filled with my favorite Instagram posts from the last year. When I stopped using it as a promotional tool I found a lot more joy in using it. Now it compliments my blog, offers people the chance to go to my blog. But I view them as independent from each other. This works well for me, it may not be the same experience you have.
In the last year, I’ve posted 60 photos, only 2 of them have been cat photos! This isn’t representative of all the photos I’ve taken this year if it were then it would be at least 90% my cat.
I have photos from Ireland, Malta, Germany, Scotland, and Italy.
I’m following 617 people and there are as of writing this 407 people following me! I reached the 400 mark just a couple days ago.
My favorite find on Instagram has been the #JJCommunity. They’re an awesome group who run daily photo themes. They also encourage you to interact with the community. They also hold events in the real world like the free photo trip from Dublin that they did for St. Patrick’s Day. I found out about it too late, but I hope they do it again next year because I am so there if they do.
My goals for Instagram in year 2 are pretty straight forward. I’d love to go past the 1,000 follower mark. I want to try to go for posting 3 times a week and making it a regular part of my routine. I definitely have a back catalog of photos to do it with. Plus, I’m moving to a new place I’m taking a lot of photos of my favorite places around where I live now. Once we’re all settled in and we start exploring our new town I’ll have even more! I get to play tourist in a new town as I get to know it. I think that may be the best thing about moving.
I also really want to step up my photography game. So far I’ve only been using the Instagram filters to make changes to my photos. But I do have Lightroom now so I’m going to be learning how to edit my photos. With luck I’ll feel confident enough in my work to start trying to sell my photos, wouldn’t that be amazing?
My thoughts about the year? It went really well. I’m excited for my next year on Instagram! I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look at my first year on Instagram. If you aren’t already following me I would love it if you would!
Be sure to check back next week for my look back at the first year of In Search of Mexican. It will take a look at what I had hoped to do with the blog, what I have done with it, and where I want to take it in year two.
