7 Things We Learned By Creating Our Dog an Instagram Account

A little over a year about we brought Navy home. Shortly after, she made her Instagram debut. Initially, we started her account for fun. Instagram was an easy outlet to share all of Navy’s puppy photos with our friends and family without flooding our personal accounts. We certainly did not think anything would come of us posting her photos online. Nevertheless, over 365 days of posting to Navy’s Instagram our audience grew to over 41,000 online friends!

“I wish I knew that before I started!” Okay, who has not thought that before? We decided to take a look back and discuss a few things we wish we would have known before we started Navy’s Instagram account.

1. There will be haters, ignore them. Haters!? Who would ever hate a dog? Surprise! There are HUMANS behind the Instagram pet accounts you follow. Wait what? You are telling me DOGS don’t post their own photos? hahaha. In all seriousness, please remember that yes, there are humans running your favorite Instagram pet accounts. Though you will most likely not see that human on the Instagram feed itself, they are the ones who ultimately click that “post” button. With that being said, remember that these humans have their own opinions and their own feelings. Try to not take it personally if someone does not like how you choose to raise your dog. 

2. WATERMARK YOUR PHOTOS. Okay this is probably the biggest mistake we made/still make. Navy was a pretty unique puppy. When Navy was only a few months, old we had about 3-4 photos of her stolen and posted all over the internet. A few months later we found out that these photos were being used in a string of scams. People were using Navy’s puppy photos in an attempt to scam buyers into thinking they were buying a blue merle corgi puppy. We know for a fact that several people have been scammed out of hundreds of dollars. We do not want to get into the details… but we really did everything we could to stop it and prevent it from happening again. Unfortunately there is no going back in time to remove those images to prevent scams from occuring. 

3. Don’t accept every product offered to you. Oooh I know it is tempting. Nothing sounds better than FREE right? This was another one of our biggest mistakes starting out. Companies would reach out to us and offer to send us free products in exchange for a post on Navy’s Instagram. Mom has a hard time saying NO to FREE. We got caught up in accepting too many complimentary products and found it very overwhelming to keep up with sponsored posts.

4. Quality > Quantity.  This is a double edged sword. We used to be a big proponent of posting every single day. With that, we would pump out post after post of Navy, even though the photos weren’t really that great (in our opinion). Posting frequently is a great way to gain a following. Because of that we felt like so many of our photos were forced. We found that the forced photos did not score as well with our followers. Now, we focus on posting what we want WHEN we want. However, due to Instagram’s ever changing algorithm, we do try to not go more than a couple days without posting. 

5. Find an editing style and stick to it. Going off the previous tip, do not try to over edit a photo into looking good and fitting on your feed. Nothing bothers me more than looking back through our feed and seeing how drastically our editing styles have changed over time. Though many people may not see it, if you scroll down and look at some of our older posts you may notice these photos are darker and have cooler tones.

6. You follower count DOES NOT matter. I don’t know what the obsession is with gaining followers. I mean, yeah it is kind of cool when we check our phone and see that Navy hit a new social media milestone. I think many people believe that a high follower account will make companies want to work with them. Your brand, your engagement, and your overall activity on Instagram is what really matters when partnering with companies.

7. You are NOT going to get rich. Now, we knew this before we started Navy’s account, but you would be surprised at the amount of people who think that followers=$. A common misconception is that a high follower count automatically means money in the bank. Unlike YouTube, Instagram does not have a feature where views/comments/likes/followers generates revenue. Most money made on Instagram is through collaborations or partnerships with brands.

Have any questions about starting an Instagram for your pet? Comment below in the question box and we will be glad to answer them!