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For some, it’s a simple way to interact with friends and show their images off. For others, it’s a valuable marketing tool. Whether you are just beginning in photography or a seasoned pro, social media is a valuable and useful place for photographers.
Not only is it a place to display and show off your work, but its many different specialist groups can be great places to learn, interact, and solve issues with your gear or photography. However, some social media platforms are much better places to be than others as photographers. There is also the danger that we might use social media as a way of validating our skills.
Today we are going to take a look at some of the top social media platforms for photographers in 2025. We will look at how they can help our photographic journeys rather than as a marketing tool.
We are going to kick off with the granddaddy of photographic social media platforms, Instagram.
Is Instagram Still The Place For Photographers?
The short answer is no, the long answer is, it’s complicated. Instagram has evolved from a platform where all images were displayed at a fixed resolution and image ratio, to a multimedia platform where short form video is king.
As a photographer wishing to show off purely their photography work, Instagram is a busted flush. It’s very hard to build a following and engagement, simply by posting images these days.
There is the argument that Instagram reels are a good place for learning photography, but personally I see a lot of engagement bait and very generic photography “lesson” reels. Instagram’s algorithm seems to favour uniformity and conformity these days so many of the reels are the same advice wrapped up in slightly different ways. Often that advice is also quite poor.
As a marketing tool, if you have time and/or a team, posting behind the scenes reels as well as images, can build a following and get you noticed; however, unless you are a fairly successful professional, it’s probably not worth investing a huge amount of time in Insta
The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter
Twitter used to be a decent place for showing off your images if you had a decent enough following. These days X, is still a reasonable place so long as you stay within the photography genre. Step outside, just for a moment, and the algorithm will ambush you.
The photography community in X is still pretty friendly. Lots of sharing of images, people willing to give advice, and even the potential to sell a print or two. I have built a decent, engaged following on X by doing a daily showcase. I invite people to post images to my daily theme, then retweet them. I also do an honest critique post once a month, where followers can have an image critiqued by me or other followers. It has proved popular and people enjoy getting real, constructive feedback on their photos.
As a marketing tool, X is pretty limited. Like many platforms these days, external links get heavily demoted, however you can get some engagement by posting a photo to the first comment and a link to the second.
What You Should Know About BlueSky And Threads
I have put these two together as they are both new kids on the block, relatively speaking, and both competitors to X. Bluesky is very similar to the Twitter of old, with very good reason; it was created by Jack Dorsey, the original creator of Twitter.
As a photographer’s platform, it falls into the showing category more than the learning. However, the photography community is well-engaged and very friendly. The odd thing I find about Bluesky is that images get lots of likes but very few comments.
The reverse seems true of Threads, which, for photographers, behaves in a similar way. It is again a displaying platform rather than learning, but there does seem to be more commentary, often very useful, compared to Bluesky. The main issue for the photography community on Threads seems to be the infestation of rage bait subjects (this is common across all subjects on Threads). A lot of photographers seem to post “controversial” takes in order to boost engagement. The irony of this approach is that these posts get lots of engagement but don’t pick up many followers.
On both Bluesky and Threads, I have built over 1.2K followers, simply by posting good images, at least once per day. However, I don’t find them particularly useful as photographers’ platforms.
This might surprise you, but I think Facebook is probably the best social media platform for photographers in 2025. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that you can create and post as a page, a completely separate entity from your personal timeline. The second is the sheer number of highly specialised photography groups. If you can think of a sub-genre, there will be multiple groups in it.
Creating your own Facebook page is a great way to build a following that is there just for your photography. Many groups allow you to join and post as a page , and if people like your work, you can invite them to join your page.
You don’t need to be a business or professional to have a page. Anyone can create their own photography page and tailor it to their own genre.
Photography groups on FB can be incredibly helpful, both to new photographers and advanced enthusiasts alike. Whilst the biggest groups can get toxic, the smaller, very specific groups are full of great photographers who are happy to give advice. Local groups are a great way to show off your local photography and build a local following.
Don’t Sleep on YouTube
Whilst there is always an ongoing debate as to whether YouTube is a social media platform, there is absolutely no doubt that it’s a fantastic learning resource for photographers. Whether you are looking to buy some new gear, learn a new photographic genre, or up your editing game, there will be multiple videos available.
As on any social media platform, there can be bad advice, but the bigger photography channels got there by creating engaging and factually useful videos, and in general will be giving out very good advice.
There is a caveat, and that is gear reviews. There are a number of larger channels that predominantly do photography gear reviews. They are often given new equipment before release and put out videos on the day of release. Whilst these videos can be useful in understanding the capabilities of a new piece of photography gear, they can be shills for the manufacturer.
In my opinion, the best gear reviews come from the smaller channels where they have bought it to fit into their own photographic workflows. They are much more likely to give impartial opinions.
For experienced photographers, YouTube can also be a great place to showcase and impart your own knowledge to others. Creating your own photography videos is a good way to give back to the photographic community and gives you an extra creative outlet.
There are a number of other social media platforms. Vero, Glass, and Foto are specifically tailored to the photographer, but none of them really have the pull and power of the bigger platforms. They are good for showing work to your peers but not to a wider demographic.
TikTok and Snapchat both have short-form video photographic tutorials, but like Instagram reels, they tend to be very generic and often misleading.
An often underrated platform for photography is Reddit. There are a number of Reddit photography communities, and they are well-moderated and very useful. One of the great things about Reddit is that it often shows up high on Google searches for specific photography topics, making it a useful go-to for advice.
Social media is not to everyone’s taste. However, as both a learning resource and a place to meet and engage with like-minded photographers, it is invaluable. In my opinion, despite potential toxicity and endless adverts, Facebook is the best place to be for new and enthusiast photographers. The fact that you can create a page dedicated to your own photography is a great way of building up a dedicated following of people who enjoy your work.
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