Instagram: Builiding a Following in Niche Audiences and Captivating Strangers Utilizing Visual Social Media

Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, are used by advertisers to create brand identity and connect with consumers on a personal level. With the invention of Instagram however, fashion enthusiasts have been able to create their own visual accounts and build a following within a niche community. They don’t have to represent a specific brand or be sponsored, yet they are followed by many because of the quality of their content and by utilizing certain Instagram conventions. There is no known formula about how these accounts become so popular. These “Instafamous” accounts resonate deeply with their followers and are trusted, something that large brands on Instagram are lacking. I set out to discover the process that a creative social media platform, like an Instagram account, takes in building an engaged following. My capstone Instagram account, MaiTakeOnStyle, was constantly a work in progress and evolved and changed through both creativity and trial and error. I continually worked to adapt my social media account in an attempt to be found in a sea of over 300 million users. Social media was a unique medium to utilize because my creativity was immediately judged by my following, which in turn was reflected in likes and comments. The medium is unusual in the sense that creative success can quickly be reflected in numerical data and can guide the account holder in making different creative decisions in order to gain popularity. Through my account, I produced over 80 images and learned more about the challenges and time commitment needed in order to captivate strangers and build a following. My project can be viewed in these two locations: https://instagram.com/maitakeonstyle/ (Image posts only, original Instagram medium