Reddit increased my Instagram followers by over 10K

I love Reddit, by Reddit terms I guess I’m still new to it. Having only been on it for two years. But within a couple of months of usage by pure chance, I ended up with over 4000 new followers on Instagram.

I use Reddit to browse cute cat photos, funny videos, see interesting science/medical articles and I avidly follow Witches Vs Patriarchy now for all things awesome. I did not intend it to grow my audience whatsoever. I actually used to share a funny cat video (My cat Trevor went viral for a short time) or photo here and there of my own fur-babies. I didn’t post my own work for a fair while.

Photo to the left is the first ‘photography’ photo I shared and the obligatory cat tax to the right

But then I posted an actual photo of mine that I was really pleased with and my Reddit notifications suddenly blew up, someone else on Reddit shared my Instagram handle and then suddenly my Instagram was pinging non-stop. Overnight I had an extra 4000 followers and I was stunned.

I honestly couldn’t believe I had been missing out on this amazing platform and why it had never occurred to me to use it before. I spoke to a fellow photographer on Instagram as I had put a friendly story welcoming my fellow Redditors and we got into a discussion about Reddit. She had been actively reporting her images that appeared on Reddit (she’s well known and takes enchanting photos of the UK) and tried actively to have them taken down, despite often being correctly tagged and linked too. I asked why and she felt they had been stolen, she mused that may be in fact Reddit would be a good platform for her work but she couldn’t stand the comments of some so decided against it, but she no longer reports them.

Now, this doesn’t happen with every photo I post on Reddit of course, but it’s now happened with 20 photos I’ve shared over the two years. By this I mean each one of those shared photos has had over 1000 upvotes.

My top one being over 59,900 upvotes with over 1,700 comments. I had a hell of a lot of traction with this.

Still my highest upvoted image to date. It was on the front page of Reddit that day also.

Now I try to share at least once a month or every few months. I am known to some on Reddit as ‘Narnia lady’ as I often post fantasy type images in the fog and snow. Which is fine by me!

If I share often they don’t seem to gain as much traction hence why I just post every now and then. But I can honestly say it grew my following massively and they are genuine people who really enjoy my work and are ‘active followers’ which is wonderful.

A range of some of my highest upvoted photos

I can thoroughly recommend sharing your photography on Reddit but be prepared, Reddit can give a hefty dose of criticism and not everyone will like your work but if you can handle shitty comments now and then then you could increase your fans significantly.