As you may know, Wonderful Machine’s main Instagram was down for a short time in October. We’re a little embarrassed to admit it, but we were the victims of a phishing scheme where hackers got ahold of our login and held our account hostage until we paid a small ransom. We have now implemented two-factor authentication (2FA) and we’re no longer using a public email address as part of our login. We recommend you implement these safety measures yourself if you’re not already doing that!
Now that our IG account is back up and running, and we’re ready to make a comeback. In comparison to recent months, Facebook and LinkedIn experienced more positive results, possibly due to our implementation of hashtags on these platforms. Twitter and YouTube, on the other hand, have not had the same outcome, and are in need of more content in the coming months. Through it all, Pinterest has remained steady.
Our Instagram account was out of commission for a little over a week. This absence no doubt contributed to our -3.2% decline of 16.2K impressions. We also experienced a -4.3% drop in reach, with a total page reach of about 5K. Engagement increased, but it was a mere +6%, bringing a total of only 368.
Our top post came from commercial photographer Ionut Macri, who is based in Bucharest, Romania. Ionut specializes in sports and fitness photography, aerial photography, food/drink photography, and more. His image gained 772 impressions and a reach of 763.
Our top-performing reel came from Matthew Coughlin, who’s based in Gulph Breeze, Florida. His chance encounter with a stranger at a veterinarian’s office turned into a portrait photo shoot. The reel earned over 2.9k plays, a reach of nearly 2.8K, and 115 interactions.
Our Pinterest impressions and total audience each grew +13% in October, with 209K impressions and a total audience of 130K. The total audience refers to the number of people who either saw or engaged with our Pins. Speaking of engagement, we experienced a +21% increase with an engagement of 6.8K.
Our top Pin with 175 impressions came from Miami-based photographer George Kamper, who captured portraits of polo player Hope Arellano for Equestrian Living Magazine. Along with portraiture, George specializes in lifestyle photography, sports/fitness photography, food/drink photography, and more.
In October, Facebook saw a +39% growth in page reach, totaling 1.5K. We also experienced a 5.1% gain of 143 page visits. While we’re glad to see some progress, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Last month, we decided to incorporate our Instagram reels on Facebook. We hope to see more interest in them as they become more regular on our feed.
Our top Facebook post in October featured Katelin Kinney‘s Unpublished project called Meltdown. Katelin is a Tucson, Arizona-based commercial photographer specializing in lifestyle photography, conceptual photography, and still life/product photography. The post earned a reach of 263.
Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn experienced slight improvements with an +18.4% increase of 335 page views. Our implementation of hashtags continues to benefit the page with 179 unique visitors, a +27% spike that reflects how many LinkedIn users viewed our page for the first time. Of those users, we gained 22 new followers, which was the same for September. In total, we experienced nearly 1.1K impressions.
Our top post with 627 impressions, 12 clicks, and 26 reactions was Shoot Production: Milan Design Week For Kohler. The post also had a 6% engagement rate.
With only ten tweets in October, Twitter gained 1.4K impressions and 846 profile visits. We hope to improve these numbers in the coming months as we continue to share Wonderful Machine News, Photographer Spotlights, Shoot Production articles, and Evergreen articles.
The top tweet this month introduced a new Wonderful Machine feature that allows visitors to view a gallery of photos from each of our photographers. The article, titled New Feature: Browse Photographers, earned 100 impressions.
New Feature: Browse Photographers 🔍📸
Now visitors can view a gallery of photos from each of our photographers. Read more ⬇️https://t.co/UIaG9pPBC0#wonderfulmachine #news #findwhatyourlookingfor #findyourphotographer #browse #gallery #newfeature#photographers pic.twitter.com/Kc0hpmsxu0
— Wonderful Machine (@wonderflmachine) October 5, 2022
In October, 26% of traffic came from the YouTube search bar. We experienced 7.9K impressions (a -22% decrease compared to September), with a CTR (click-through rate) of 3.2%. There was a -6% drop in views as well, with 426 views altogether, and a watch time of 6.6 hours. Posting more videos each month can help improve these numbers — if you have any motion reels or print portfolio videos, feel free to send them over!
Our top video this month came from commercial photographer Jiří Lízler. Jiří, who is based in Prague, specializes in architecture photography, hospitality photography, home/garden photography, travel photography, and more! His behind-the-scenes video of a hospitality photo shoot earned 395 impressions with a CTR of 4.6%.
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!