Social Media

I had a very enlightening nail appointment with my nail technician this past Friday. 
Kathe Vo taught me a thing or two about the power of social media. Kathe has 5341 followers on her Instagram account that shows off her nail talent.
She is very talented. I love my nails.  
Talent for nails is not what's gotten Kathe so many followers, though. Partially I'm sure, but I got some valuable marketing information from my nail girl, who I'm convinced should be in Public Relations.
She let me in on a little secret, or it was a secret to me. When you have a public Instagram account, many people are able to see your pictures. Some of these good natured people will like your photo. I must say that I have posted some pictures of my art and hair I've done as a hairdresser, and I've gotten random likes. I didn't think any more about it. Evidently, when a random likes your stuff, you are supposed to like some of their posts back. You spread the wealth, or likes, around amongst each other. The purpose of this is for the likelihood that the more likes a photo has the greater chances that the photo will circulate more. The more this is done the more followers you can accumulate. Now Kathe's over 5000 followers makes sense.
It also makes sense in how she's marketed her nail Instagram account. Kathe keeps her personal account separate from her business account. So, the people who are only interested in nails, and not what she had for dinner, are more likely to keep following her.
To say the least, my nail appointment was very insightful. I learned a lot. Immediately after leaving the salon, I tested the strategy. I went back to the people who liked my sunflower painting, and liked several of their works. I did this for three different artists, and a few for a couple of my hair posts. One artist immediately returned the favor and liked a four more of my photos. I didn't get an incredible response, but it was better than what I had. As for Kathe, I didn't ask her how long she's been navigating Instagram, but I'm guessing for a while by the 568 posts she has.
I love instances like this, when I get to learn from people in the least expected of places. It's one of the reasons why I want to be a professional journalist.