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To stay on top of the game, you have to understand the direction of the market. In fact, you have the ability to predict and catch the momentum before you lose it.
But how can one predict the future? Is that even possible?
The answer is yes, and no.
The trick is to learn how to adapt quickly in a vastly rapid and unpredictable world.
Ivan Wong, a profoundly influential photographer shares his 5 fundamental tips to thrive in an age of social media as a professional or aspiring photographer. Ivan (@ivvnwong) has amassed 135K+ followers on Instagram by creating and posting content that have garnered reposts and gone viral over the 3 years that he has been active in photography.
Filtering your Feed
Adjusting how you filter the information is the main key to understanding the influence on social platforms.
Identifying the platforms that hold the most influence is the first step to understanding the direction of the industry.
You want to be able to appeal to your audience with the most reach.
By understanding what appeals to your audience, you can tap into their appeal to benefit your marketing strategies.
One of the best ways to catch the traffic is to go on the large social platforms like Instagram to find trends and catch them while they’re coming. As of April 2019, 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram per day. Over 40 billion photos and videos have been shared on the Instagram platform since its conception There’s many gems to be found in this abundance of photos, but finding the valuable ones will take time.
If you’re lucky, you can open the app and immediately identify something that you think will be the next hit. Otherwise, it can take hours scrolling and filtering on countless images to spot a growing trend. Look for popular hashtags with your theme where photographers big and small are using. Look for small accounts with big engagement on a photo (be it likes or comments).
Look for photos of places, photography techniques, and themes that are feed stoppers. Did someone shoot a perspective never before seen? Can you do the same? Can you carry over the themes to your images? Can you replicate a technique that people are excited about?
Be careful with trends that are seemingly popular, but are however “tacky” or “gimmicky,” called fads. They may be popular now, but will die quickly and won’t help you evolve as a photographer.
Expand Your Field of Vision
Expanding the content of your expertise is a great way to reach a larger audience given that there are interests that are often beyond the scope of our own interests.
Trends often circulate through different platforms and different audiences even within a platform.
By expanding your knowledge through other categories across platforms you can share concepts, colors, and aesthetics that respond well upon different categories.
Using similar colors, design patterns and other aesthetics from different groups can help you bridge ideas and familiarity to your own craft.
For example, being a landscape photographer doesn’t mean that you have to stick to finding trends from landscape photography groups. Look outside these groups for more inspiration.
Maybe lifestyle bloggers are going to specific places that are becoming popular with them that could be interesting for you. Maybe the fashion industry has identified certain patterns or textures that are being taken notice and you can find the same in nature.
Repetition
Identify patterns and trends.
See what catches people’s attention, why it catches their attention and refine your content to match these patterns while the trend is circulating and reaching its highest potential.
This is a great way to boost exposure and create a movement that is beyond your personal agenda.
Drawing the attention of like-minded individuals is a powerful tool that you can use in your favor.
By repeating this pattern, you can create a new trend that follows similar patterns that will receive massive circulation due to the response of popularity and familiarity.
Own It
Treading on new terrain can be a scary step for many people. There’s plenty of room to make mistakes, and there’s an uncomfortable feeling that treading into unknown territory can lead to negative responses or brand degradation if implemented improperly.
Own it.
By believing in the influence you hold, you can manifest great feedback and support of your ideas simply by believing and executing. Being a pioneer is difficult and obviously some ideas may not work, but it’s the spirit of experimenting and learning that’s also part of the photography journey and a method of growth.
By doing, not just thinking, you can test your limits, what you’re comfortable with, what you’re willing to break into, and who you want to become as a photographer.
Don’t confuse this with being conceited, but instead believing in the purpose of your ambition.
Recalibrate Your Mentality
Trends come and go. Don’t hold on to a trend after it’s begun to die down.
Learn to train yourself to move on and persist with surfacing content and allow the natural momentum to carry you instead of riding an old wave.
Trends tend to circulate very quickly and can easily become saturated. You don’t want to be caught at the tail end because it adds no real brand potential. You may end up looking “gimmicky” and a “follower,” not a leader.
Once a trend has become saturated, you would have already started the next one.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
Using Ivan Wong’s tips, you’ll be surprised how quickly you can turn a failing dream into a growing entrepreneurial journey.
In fact, simply by understanding these rules you’ll find that the world can move in your favor as long as remain aware and actively working on your dreams.
Learning to use the tides in your favor is better than fighting the current for your own personal agenda.
Some people have negative connotations about following trends, arguing that work should be timeless.
True, sometimes it’s worthwhile to stick with the basics of photography, but I would argue that without taking risks and experimenting with a new style, creating new trends, you won’t be pioneering the future of photography. Annie Leibovitz is famous for pioneering engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, often featuring them in intimate settings and poses.
Josh Rossi is famous for turning photos of children into superheroes and inspiring other children photographers to do the same.
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