How’s everyone doing? This has already been a crazy year and with all of this COVID-19 stuff currently taking place, we could all use a bit of positivity. I know one thing that makes me extremely happy is getting more followers to my site and my Instagram. In order to achieve this goal, I have been experimenting a bit with videos. Specifically, I was wondering which would draw more attention and followers, Pictures or Videos. So far, I have seen a few trends and will have to give you a more definitive update over the next few months but for now, let’s see what has been happening!
For starters, I posted my first official convention or cosplay video on January 27 (Seen Above). It was a compilation video from ICHIBANCON and covered several cosplayers. Today, the video has 199 views which is certainly one of my highest viewed posts. I’m not sure if this is due to the fact that so many people were in the video or because Instagram showed it to more individuals. Either way, it was definitely a great start and piqued my interest in making cosplay videos. Also, it was a nice break from taking photos.
Now let’s compare this videos view count to a few of the pictures I uploaded from the convention. Naturally, I make sure to use the appropriate hashtags along with tagging several cosplay and anime pages that I hope will eventually share my work. On average, it seemed that I received somewhere between 30 and 45 likes on most of my pictures. The image shown above was a huge outlier and actually received 218 likes. Not sure why this photo was so popular other than the fact that the cosplayer was amazing. Shout out to @divinekitsune_creations for posing for this picture.
The next video I uploaded was of my friends (clintstagram_cosplay) cable cosplay. This video received the usual 30 or so likes and was a huge shock considering the last video had received so many likes. I once again believe this is because the post was very specific and only targeted one cosplayer. Similarly, the video is more so tailored to cosplayers that enjoy X-men. I forgot to mention that I had also posted a picture of him prior to this video in his RONIN cosplay and had received around 38 views.
Now let’s FastForward to February 19. This was when I released the AVENGERS COSPLAY video and it started my Katsucon video set. Surprisingly, this video received a shocking 213 likes. I know for many this is not a huge amount but for me, it was monumental considering the fact that it was only my third cosplay video. Another huge factor that likely promoted this video was the recent release of Avengers Endgame. So if I took anything away from this video’s success its that I need to of course release content that is up to date with the most current movies, animes and cosplays. Although I already knew this was a huge factor, I had never seen it so pronounced as with this video.
At Katsucon, I didn’t take many photos and opted to only do videos but I did do a photoshoot with @COCOASUGARCOSPLAY. So far, this is my only comparison and though it was only posted a day ago it has already received 60 likes. Her video, on the other hand, has received 82 likes. My follower count is very low so naturally, I do not receive as many likes as individuals with higher followers. But I still think comparing these two videos has helped me grasp what I need to do for my account in the future.
Based on all of the information I have gathered and presented I have decided a few things. One, videos overall get more views than pictures. This may be because we are moving more towards an age that enjoys videos and YouTube rather than still images. Second, although videos do overall tend to do better than pictures, a combination of the two seems to be greater than just posting tons of videos alone. Third, convention videos receive a lot more views initially but are not revisited as much as personal videos.
Now, all of this information may be contrary or separate from the things you have noticed but it seems to be rather consistent for my account. On a more personal level and data aside, I simply enjoy making personalized videos a bit more. Sure, it’s nice seeing tons of cosplayers in a video but not many of us are watching a 3-minute convention recap video. 30 Sec and 1-minute videos are much more focused and can capture all of the hard work and poses one cosplayer wishes to demonstrate.
You can’t exactly post a 30-sec clip of a cosplayer inside of a 3-minute convention recap video. I hope my random rambling has helped some of you in some manner. The basic takeaway is that videos appear to do better than Pics and posts about current shows do best. I will hopefully have another update for you following my next convention but given the coronavirus situation I am not sure when that will be. Thanks so much again to everyone that posed in my pics and videos and for those still waiting, I’m working as fast as I can.
That’s going to be everything for today! If you have not checked out my podcast feel free to click HERE! The same goes for my blog which contains all things anime, click HERE! Until next time, stay BOUNDLESS!!!
