The new year was off to an unexpectedly good start as far as Wonderful Machine’s social media pages were concerned. January 2024 brought strong gains across our main platforms, while each rolled out new features for the year. Instagram continued experimenting with privacy-enhancing options, allowing users to create an alternative profile with a limited audience of close friends and family. Elsewhere, Facebook continues to add more new users without going the way of the dinosaur. Currently, the platform boasts 3 billion active users every month. And if you’re interested in seeing how 2024 will unfold, check out the Pinterest Predicts Agency Insights Guide for 2024. There’s a treasure trove of data that’ll be useful to brands, agencies, publications, and photographers. And since Pinterest has had its predictions come true 80% of the time over the past four years, you might as well pay attention.
We didn’t think it was possible, but we topped the Instagram high of December 2023. In January, we reached 13,084 accounts (26.7% increase) and 8,707 of those accounts were non-followers (61.2% increase from December). Our strategy of posting daily continues to be effective, and tagging the relevant clients and production teams of our photographers’ projects increases the likelihood of posts being shared more often. January also brought on 45,397 impressions.
The best-performing post of the month belongs to Vancouver-based Erich Saide. His portraits of the cast, host, and judges of the upcoming show “The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down” reached 2,623 accounts. We have a feeling that Seth Rogen had something to do with that.
This is also a good time to mention our second Instagram account, Wonderful at Work, which features the projects handled by our producers and consultants. In January, we crossed the 1,000-follower mark with most of our producers’ Pricing & Negotiating case studies becoming viral sensations.
A post sharing a multi-stage estimate build by Bryan Sheffield, for instance, reached 1,231 accounts and generated 180 saves.
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 also 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 January, we reached a total audience of 158.78k and generated 257.8k impressions. We also generated 6.67k engagements.
The top-performing pin created in January belongs to San Antonio-based Josh Huskin, featuring his Sports/Fitness Photography. It generated 100 impressions.
And similar to the previous month, some of our older pins continued to gain traction. One such pin featuring the work of Chicago-based Kirsten Miccoli garnered 50.62k impressions.
There are no surprises as far as the best-performing board is concerned. Photographer Specialties had 104.22k impressions and 2.78k engagements.
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.
In January, we reached 3,900 accounts (46% increase from December) and the best-performing post went to New Albany, Indiana-based Jonathon Chi. It featured his work for Renshoku Ramen and reached 177 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.
January saw us bring in 322 unique visitors and 598 page views.
Portland-based Jay Fram’s work for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation received the most attention, with 735 impressions and 64 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.
In January, we adjusted our content strategy on X. Previously, we would share our Spotlight articles and Creative in Place campaigns on the platform, similar to our approach on LinkedIn.
To make Twitter/X its own unique space for Wonderful Machine, we now use the platform as an archive for the photos featured on our homepage every day. This approach led to 2.6k impressions for January, roughly double the number for December 2023.
The top tweet focused on a photo by Chicago-based Zoe Rain of the singer Machine Gun Kelly in concert. It received 374 impressions.
Our homepage is hitting all the right notes today.
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📸 Zoe Rain // @ZoeRain
📌 Chicago, Illinois
.@machinegunkelly
.#MachineGunKelly #PhotoOfTheDay pic.twitter.com/8XSZAMB4cb— Wonderful Machine (@wonderflmachine) January 31, 2024
We use our YouTube channel to host a wide range of content, including behind-the-scenes, 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.
January’s numbers were similar to its predecessor’s, with 691 views and 7.1 hours in watch time.
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!