I have been an active user of photo sharing sites ever since I started taking photos with my iPod touch and then my iPhone. I wasn't among the first users of Instagram, yet I did start using it about 6 weeks after it launched. At first I used it sparingly but once I started doing a photo a day it become one of my main platforms to share my images. I have resisted the urge to chase followers instead trying to build a community of people whose work I like and they like mine back.
I have done this with other sites and have had a variety of results. Currently there are 6 other sites that I share to and each has it's own distinctive community. I find that I am more active on some then others, but I post the same images to each so I can see what the variety of responses are like. I'm going to list them here and a quick over view how I see each.
Instagram As mentioned before, the first site that I started sharing to. Currently I have 980 followers and am following 678. I have found that only about 4% to 8% of ones Instagram followers will like the photo's of those they are following.
Tadaa I adopted this site shortly after it launched. I have found this community to be the most active as to responding to images I share. I have 336 followers although here I follow 407. There is a more international flair to this group and I have found a number of incredible photographers here, thus the reason I seem to follow more then I am followed. However I also know that with this community I will average between 15% and 25% responding and with re-sharing of images I occasionally get 50% liking my image.
Streamzoo Came on line about the same time as Tadaa and I joined it at that time. At first it was a lot of fun and a good community. Some changes to the structure took away some of the community element and that effected my activity,I still posted but did not view as much as the changes made it less friendly. This seems to have changed lately and I am becoming more active.
The next 4 are recent additions that I joined roughly at the same time.
Mobli Another fairly international group and kind of fun to share to. Viewers tend not to become followers and it is less friendly in finding like minded photographers. More of a selfi / personal photo site but still there is some nice work when you find the right people.
EyeEm A much smaller community but one that seems to be more open minded. Tends not to be to censor oriented so you see a lot more experimental work. The few I have connected with and follow seem to enjoy my work back.
Pheed Probably the hardest to get a handle on. A lot of good photography is shared, but it is not always the creation of those posting. Most are pretty good in saying where the work came from and there are a number of very original photographers but you have to look for them. This site also tends to have more written about the photo's then others.
Tuding This looks to be the Chinese version of Instagram and I seem to be one of the few westerners to be using it. Still getting a handle on the community but it is a little tough as the writing tends to be in Chinese and there is no translation function. Fun to share my North American work with this audience.
I will now share my photo's from these past three days and will show how each were received on the different sites.
August 9 Luke by window light
Intagram 18 likes Tadaa 18 likes Streamzoo 7 likes Mobli 4 likes (317 views) EyeEm 3 likes Pheed 5 likes Tuding 3 likes
August 10 Visiting friends in Coral Springs I took these two quick snaps with my my iPhone.
This photo of the row boats on the beach showed how one never knows how a community or site will go with an image. Most of the time if you look at the numbers I have shared on all these images you will se they are pretty consistent. However note the numbers for Mobli. They share views as well as likes and I am usually consistent in the views. However this image hit the popular page and took off ( I have had three other photo's do the same on this site but this has been the most popular to date).
Intagram 21 likes Tadaa 23 likes Streamzoo 14 likes Mobli 79 likes (11,832 views) EyeEm 4 likes Pheed 2 likes Tuding 4 likes
Intagram 24 likes Tadaa 28 likes Streamzoo 7 likes Mobli 5 likes (208 views) EyeEm 4 likes Pheed 3 likes Tuding 3 likes
August 11. This rabbit was sitting eating the clover in our front yard. I was able to grab a number of shots with the Canon 7D, 70-200 f2.8 at f 7.1, 1/250 at 500 ISO. As I was in the process of sharing this photo I have no data on the last two sites as of this posting.
Intagram 18 likes Tadaa 4 likes Streamzoo 11 likes Mobli 3 likes (80 views) EyeEm 2 likes Pheed (just shared) Tuding Just shared.
I share this info so you can get a feel of each site/app. As stated at the begining, I have not chased after followers thus my numbers are low. Even if I had lot's of followers the ratio of likes/views would be about the same and each seems to be consistent over a long time period.