Tales from a Selfie Experiment

Several months ago, an acquaintance gave me some social media advice. He has more than 500K Instagram followers and about 1.2 million YouTube subscribers, so he knows a thing or two about social media engagement! Basically, he said, “post a bunch of photos of yourself and you’ll get a lot of followers.” So, taking his advice, I set out on a #60in60 selfie challenge. Post a selfie a day for two months on Instagram and track the results.

I started strong.

And very soon I had to get creative to have something to post every day. As I passed ideas through my “is this newsworthy?” filter, I started to realize that I live a pretty routine life. So I dug into old photos, used hashtags like #wcw (woman crush Wednesday), #tbt (throwback Thursday), etc.

In the end, what was supposed to be 60 consecutive days of selfies (photos of myself for you selfie purists), turned into 23. #fail

I learned a few things that will help individuals and brands keep up a strong social media presence:

Plan in advance! If you are somewhere fun or interesting, take more than one photo! Think about what you’re doing next week to have an idea of what you’ll post.
Use existing hashtags! Relying on the #wcw or #tbt was helpful because it gave me a guide in what to post.
Selfies with animals perform really well! My most likes included cats or a peacock.
Don’t give up! Stay consistent with the posts. Or at least hire someone who can be consistent.
Track what is working (for me, selfies with cats) and give the people what they want!

Through this, I now have a new found respect for individuals like Brodie Smith or the guys at Dude Perfect who make a living by generating social content. It’s hard work, but can generate great opportunities if done well and consistently.