In December 2023, every social media platform gifted their users some new features. Instagram experimented with their Notes, essentially digital post-it notes that mutual followers can see in their inboxes. Their parent company Meta continued to roll out new generative AI tools for image creation and AI-generated responses, reducing human users’ workload. Basically, the chances of the next caption you read being written by a computer are very high. LinkedIn also continued to embrace artificial intelligence, mostly to enhance LinkedIn Learning’s functionality. Without a doubt, AI will continue to make its presence known in 2024, providing social media users with new instruments to play with.
For December, we expected a modest decrease in our social media numbers assuming that people’s holiday plans would include a general reduction in screen time. We were dead wrong.
We reached 10,324 accounts on Instagram, a 27.7% increase compared to November. In addition, impressions rose by 7% to 44,907 while we added 76 new followers. Looks like less time spent at work means more time spent on social media. The substantial gains in reach can be attributed to the following:
The only thing better than a holiday-themed post could be a portrait of Shaquille O’Neal. His photo, taken by Rayne, Louisiana-based Jamie Orillion, took last month’s top honors, reaching 2,504 people.
A close second was a post featuring the work of St. Louis-based Kelly Pratt & Ian Kreidich of Pratt + Kreidich, which reached 2,234 people. It focused on their personal project, Dancers & Dogs, a six-year partnership with the St. Louis Ballet and the Stray Rescue of St. Louis to help shelter dogs find their forever homes.
Pinterest is a visual discovery platform where users can collect ideas on various trending topics. We use it as a virtual mood board where we organize our members’ photos by specialty and collect examples of all the main types of marketing materials photographers use to promote themselves (including logos, bios, email promotions, print promotions, and PDF portfolios).
We periodically select new content from our photographers’ websites (and also consider the work they send directly to us) to keep the platform fresh for our audience. Though Pinterest is not always top of mind for photographers, we’ve found that our Pinterest page gets a significant amount of views.
In December, we reached a total audience of 242.53k (21% increase compared to November) and generated 398.12k impressions (16% increase). We also garnered 16.87k engagements (40% increase).
The top pin created last month featured Philadelphia-based Dave Moser’s celebrity photography, which received 75 impressions.
However, some much older pins generated quite a bit of interest thanks to the holiday season. Houston-based Shannon O’Hara’s photos for A Year of Gingerbread Houses from several years back generated 99.26k impressions.
The top-performing board, as usual, was Photographer Specialties, which acquired 60.92k impressions, 1.76k engagements, and 1.36k pin clicks.
Though Facebook is mostly used to connect users with their friends and family (and their algorithm favors that content), we’ve found that it’s also effective at connecting photographers with clients. Our Facebook account mirrors our Instagram feed and we also share a selection of Photographer Spotlight articles from our Published Blog.
We reached 2,689 people on Facebook with the top-performing post belonging to Portland, Maine-based Winky Lewis looking at her personal project, The Good Fortune Collection. It reached 155 people.
LinkedIn is the only major social media platform dedicated specifically to professional networking. This makes it a good place to share the stories of our photographers and their creative problem-solving skills. We post once or twice a week, sharing our Photographer Spotlight articles and photos from our Creative in Place email campaigns — where we pick a very specific creative brief and show clients how our extensive network of photographers can deliver on that particular theme.
In December we registered 586 page views, a 12% increase compared to November. We also witnessed a 13.2% increase in unique visitors.
The best-performing post featured Chicago-based Nathanael Filbert’s ongoing partnership with Belle Tire. It generated 510 impressions and 65 clicks.
Twitter, or X, is a microblogging platform that enables users to post short messages (formerly known as tweets). It is commonly used for sharing information, expressing opinions, and staying updated on current events.
We try to post on this platform about once a week, sharing photographer news, compact galleries, and articles featuring our member photographers.
In December, we had a total of 1.1K impressions. The tweet that received the most attention looked at Chuk Nowak’s assignment for Hour Detroit Magazine looking at the city’s James Beard Foundation Awards nominees.
The faces behind Detroit's culinary excellence photographed by @chuknowakphoto for @Hour_Detroit. 9 of the city’s finest were nominated for @beardfoundation awards.#photography #portraitphotography pic.twitter.com/4tshq416ce
— Wonderful Machine (@wonderflmachine) December 7, 2023
We use our YouTube channel to host a wide range of content, including behind-the-scenes videos, photography compilations, motion reels, print portfolios, Member Open House presentations, and much more. Users can subscribe to our channels, comment on videos, and share with others.
We post once or twice per week and use two types of formats — vertical shorts and horizontal motion reels.
December brought 662 views, an 83% increase from October, while the total watch time figure came in at 8.2 hours.
Stay tuned for more content on our Social Media platforms. Keep tagging us and, of course, let us know if you have any tips and ideas for us!
Have questions about how we promote our photographers? Check out our Membership page. Want to know how you can get the most out of your Wonderful Machine membership? Check out our Jumpstart page or just reach out!