Tiffany Dean Cosplay instagram.com/tiffanydeancosplay
Tiff is onoe of our cosplay editors and has worked hard building a following across multiple social media sites. Her Facebook sits at around 10,000 and has been her main social media platform for some time, but with changes to the algorithm she’s now begun building her Instagram following with 2,500 so far. 1. I place my IG in the same place as my FB re marketing. They’re unfortunately all I have and as IG is now owned by FB, neither are great for marketing. IG can be easier to gain a following, however followers are removed faster than you get them. I’m aiming to become active on YouTube and have IG as a secondary thing. IG however is a great booster during things like Conventions (for cosplayers) as people are generally looking for people they may have taken a photo of.
2. The most effective ways to grow IG are to try and keep posts relevant to what your main focus is. For example, as a cosplayer I gain more followers if I post a cosplay of something that is current as it’s what is ‘trending.’ Hashtags are imperative to grow your IG as they are what people search for it’s how people can find you. Also networking with others is helpful. Some Instagram pages focus on sharing others work - if you can be shared on a page with a good following it’s a great way for your follower number to increase. 3. The first 500 I actually found easier than the rest, namely as at that time, Instagram didn’t go and boot followers. The first 500 tend to include a lot of friends and family too which helps you reach that number faster.
4. Re hashtags I just realized that the best way to go is to make them relevant. For example if I post a photo of me in cosplay, I’m not going to go and hashtag something like gourmet meal (unless it’s relevant lol). I also try and do a few hashtags but not have 30 of them. It’s a fine line between too little and too many. It’s also random and IG works much like FB now in that you could hashtag the same things for different photos and get 300 likes on one photo and 30 on another. It’s important to just see hashtags as a way to tag relevant search words so people can find your photo. 5. I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve not had too many negatives on my own page. I’ve been called fat and all sorts of things on pages with so called ‘fans’ of certain things. In those cases I tend to ignore it, but in this case I kindly made them aware that people may have gone through a difficult time and that the focus should be on the costume, not a persons weight. I also thought it important to speak up for the sake of young people who might develop eating disorders if slim people are being called fat. In most cases I either ignore or just delete. I only respond if I can correct someone respectfully and kindly. If it all goes to pot I just delete or block lol.
145