Strategy report · Updated Jul 23, 2026
What's working for @thomasfalkenstedt on Instagram.
Thomas Falkenstedt
60.5K followers · 909 posts
“📍: Stockholm 🎓: Communications Manager & Photographer 💻: @hedvigeleonorakyrka 📸: @falkenstedtphoto”
Engagement rate
0.07%
Per post, last 90 days
Posts per week
0.2
Niche avg 3.0
Average likes
6
39 avg comments
Post mix
Last 90 days · 909 posts indexed
01
Top-performing posts
The three posts pulling the most engagement in the last 90 days.
image 0.17% engagedWhen life gives me lemons, I don’t make lemonade. I fake happiness, and I don’t always show my vulnerability. My pain lingers like a forgotten scent in a closed room — invisible, yet still there. When I’m not feeling well, I grow quiet. The silence is my thin veil; it keeps me from breaking. In that silence, I turn to work. This autumn, I’ve worked more than I ever have. The silence speaks, too. When I go quiet, the world around me grows quieter. If you’re not seen, you begin to disappear from people’s lives — and it’s a two-way deal, I know. Not everyone’s. A few reach out, and they are the keepers. The rest drift away. This account is mostly a projection — a surface. But behind it is a person: still here, still feeling, still grateful for those who truly see me, despite the fact that I am silent. Still here, whether you are or not.
carousel 0.13% engagedParis in July - Day I Paris greeted Mom and me in a golden haze, 33°C, and humming with life. We wandered through streets where children laughed by fountains, where a man in a wide-brimmed hat exchanged quiet words with a monk on a shaded bench. These are the things you don’t plan; they appear. Coffee at Ralph’s Paris, where time felt suspended in the courtyard breeze. Lunch at Armani is refined yet restful. And then more cafés, because in Paris, one is never enough. The day moved slowly and that was exactly how we wanted it.
image 0.11% engagedThis is one of my favorite photos from 2025. A girl doing a yoga pose at the top of Roy’s Peak near Wañaka, New Zealand. I have submitted this, and a couple of other images to Sony World Photography Awards. Winners will be announced a couple of months from now. Fingers crossed!
02
Content pillars
AI-clustered themes the account posts about, with example posts pulled live from Instagram.
03
Posting rhythm
Cadence and timing patterns over the last 12 weeks.
0.2 posts/week
Niche benchmark · 3.0/week
Best days
Monday · Wednesday · Sunday
Best hours
7-9am · 6-8pm
04
Signature hooks
Caption patterns the account reuses across high-performing posts.
[City/Country] [evocative one-line descriptor of first impression]
Used 9×
Jakarta, Indonesia 🇮🇩 My flight home changed, and suddenly I was given a great excuse to add to my country count
Budapest, Hungary 🇭🇺 Budapest was our annual Christmas trip, my mother's and mine.
Bangkok, Thailand 🇹🇭 From Jakarta I landed in Bangkok, a city I had only ever seen on film
[Place] wasn't just [expected thing]. It became [unexpected thing].
Used 4×
Wānaka in New Zealand wasn't just a place I travelled to. It became a place I travelled into.
I realized, somewhere along the way, that Melbourne was never really about the sights for me. It was a feeling.
I began [physical challenge] long before dawn... and then [payoff].
Used 3×
I began the climb to Roy's Peak long before dawn, in complete darkness at 4 AM... and then sunrise.
I was high above the fjords, standing on Klakkur's windswept ridge, the horizon opening endlessly in every direction.
When life gives me [X], I [subverted response] — [honest confession].
Used 2×
When life gives me lemons, I don't make lemonade. I fake happiness, and I don't always show my vulnerability.
Stepping into late summer and slowly drifting toward fall, work has been hectic, and that well-rested summer feeling still lingers
If I could bottle one [timeframe] from this trip, it would be [specific moment].
Used 2×
If I could bottle one day from this trip, it would probably be this one.
The Faroe Islands opened something within me I didn't know was there
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Strategy summary
What's working, what to fix, and what to ship next.
TL;DR
Thomas has a real editorial voice that a 60K audience has already chosen to follow, but the account is running on fumes at 0.2 posts per week, roughly 10x below the 3-per-week benchmark for travel storytelling accounts in this tier. That posting gap is the single biggest leak. The good news is that the audience is genuinely engaged on a comment basis: post 12 pulled 98 comments, post 11 pulled 54, and post 6 pulled 51, numbers that suggest a loyal reader base rather than a passive scroll audience. Likes are uniformly flat across almost every post, which points to an audience that prefers to talk, not double-tap.
The content split is healthy in concept but too slow in execution. The long-form travel pillar (posts 4, 8, 15, 21) consistently earns the most conversation. The vulnerability posts (post 12, 20) punch above their weight relative to frequency. Brand content (posts 7, 9, 17) performs adequately but is not a growth engine. The photography pillar (posts 1, 10) is underdeveloped given that Thomas is actively submitting to Sony World Photography Awards.
Working
4- Long-form destination carousels with literary captions reliably generate 30 to 74 comments, far above what the like count suggests.
- Vulnerability posts like post 12 (98 comments) drive the deepest audience responses and reset trust after brand content.
- The mother-and-son travel thread (Budapest, Paris) creates a recurring character arc that readers clearly follow and respond to.
- Destination-specific flag emoji in the first line acts as an instant content signal and aids discoverability in search.
Risks
4- Posting cadence of 0.2 per week will stall follower growth regardless of content quality. A floor of 2 to 3 posts per week is the minimum viable frequency.
- Likes are near-zero on most posts, suggesting the content rarely reaches beyond existing followers. Hashtag and collab strategy needs a full audit.
- The photography pillar is mentioned in captions but has no consistent visual identity in the feed, making it hard for new visitors to read Thomas as a photographer.
- Captions sometimes bury the emotional hook after two or three descriptive sentences, which risks losing readers who do not expand the caption.
Ship next
5- Commit to a minimum of 2 posts per week by batching: one destination carousel and one shorter lifestyle or reflection post per week.
- Move the strongest emotional sentence in each caption to line one so it appears before the 'more' cut-off.
- Create a dedicated highlight or recurring caption tag for the mother-and-son travel series to build a recognizable content franchise.
- Post one photography-focused reel or carousel per month that showcases behind-the-scenes shooting process to activate the photographer audience.
- Test posting on Wednesday and Sunday mornings between 7 and 9am local time for four weeks and compare comment velocity to current patterns.
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