Marketing or Technique in Social Media?

Many photographers, models, and other artists will post to social media as a means of self promotion. It is almost like a pat on the back when one receives 'likes' or 'positive comments' on an image. But are people liking the image, or it there more to it?

Often an image may be placed on a social media platform by a casual artist with a few hundred followers. The artist may go events one or two per month but has a more subdued personality. The image(s) may be outstanding in terms of technical quality, however this person may only receive a relatively small amount of attention or "Likes" on the image.

Now take a more popular person who may go to many more events during a month and have a more outgoing personality or even appear 'attractive' to some.  This person may indeed have many more followers on social media.  The followers may be much more engaged with the more social artist who happens to post the EXACT same image that the casual artist posted.  Perhaps the casual artist had even photographed the more social artist.  In most, if not all cases, that the more social artist will receive many more likes that that of the more casual artist who posted the same image.

While the number of followers may play some part in this process, it is likely that the more social person have either deliberately or by chance developed a large number of engaged followers.  The more social artist has developed a very effective marketing following.  What one may see is that the more social artist may post an image that is of average quality, yet receives a large number of likes or positive comments relating to that image. This may put the more casual or subdued artist at somewhat of a disadvantage even though he or she may be producing excellent quality work. 

Now lets say a local artist who has a reasonably good marketing strategy has posted an portrait of a relatively unknown person. The number of comments or 'likes' will likely be much less than expected even though the image is technically good.  Taking this one step further, lets say a nationally known artist posts a very similar image onto social media (subject is unknown to most people). The nationally known artist may have many more followers who are actively interest in his or her images and thus will receive much more attention to that post.

The reality is that Effective marketing and popularity plays a major role in how an image is received on various social media platforms. One may be very technically proficient, but without an effective marketing plan (and essentially gain popularity) success may be more difficult to achieve. Certainly there is no lack of guidance to marketing from a vast array of sources, but each individual must one the system that best suits their personality, resources, and time commitment.