Instagram is an amazing platform for artists. If you play your cards right, it can greatly benefit your art career.
On the other hand, there are a couple of things that can completely destroy your small art business on the platform.
As someone who has worked with hundreds of artists, I have a fair idea of such ‘sins’ that you should absolutely avoid. In this guide, we will explore things that can potentially ruin your growth on the platform.
You must have heard strategies like “follow-for-follow”.
This strategy involves randomly following as many users as possible in the hopes of getting them to follow you back.
The problem with this strategy is that the algorithm can detect mass following and may action block your account.
If you still continue to perform such actions, your account may get flagged as spam.
Also, the people who do follow you back may not be interested in your content at all and won’t bother to engage with your posts.
That’s why it’s best to avoid such shady tactics.
If you are looking for actionable tips & strategies that can boost your growth then you should read our eBook - The Art Of Growing On Instagram
It covers everything from correctly setting up your profile, hashtags research, organic growth strategies, art presentation & much more!
Yes, you are an artist and you can paint whatever you want.
But if you’re serious about growing on Instagram then you have to choose a niche & stick to it.
For example, if your content mainly revolves around nature landscape paintings, keep posting such paintings only.
Take a look at the image below.
Here, the artist has posted artworks from various niches (landscape painting, fruit illustrations, portraits, abstract, etc)
Avoid posting art from multiple niches like abstract paintings, human portraits, etc.
The reason being - the Instagram algorithm analyzes your content and tries to understand what it is all about.
After figuring that out, it starts showing your content to the relevant people (via the explore page).
So the key here is to make the algorithm understand the context of your account.
But if you keep jumping on different niches, the algorithm may get confused & won’t push out your content.
Publishing posts and hoping that people will find your account is a huge mistake.
Instagram is a social media platform where users & creators come to socialize. If you do not interact with others, they won’t interact with you.
That’s why it’s a good idea to engage with your followers and other accounts in your niche.
To do this, simply follow your favorite creators and once they post you can start engaging.
For example - you could like their posts, leave thoughtful comments, share their content on your stories, etc.
Your goal here should be building an active community.
That way, your audience will genuinely care about you and your content.
Stories can be a great way to reach a new audience and connect with the existing one.
That is because when you post relatable or informative content on your Stories, it may get shared across the platform by users.
For example - we posted this meme on our stories and it was an instant hit!
It’s a simple yet super relatable meme and resonated well with our audience.
People shared it like crazy and that tripled our organic reach on Stories.
If you don’t post stories often, you won’t get good organic reach over there.
On a side note: we have been using a secret trick to boost story views.
It works flawlessly and has been working great on @creativityexplode!
We have mentioned it in “Chapter 5: Instagram Organic Growth Hacks” of our eBook - The Art Of Growing On Instagram
Instagram takes various factors into consideration when ranking feed posts.
One of those factors is the time at which the post was published.
Posting when your audience isn’t active may hurt the engagement rate. As a result, the algorithm won’t promote your posts on the Explore page or in the hashtag section.
Fortunately, Instagram insights can show you an estimate of when the majority of your audience is active.
Head over to the Instagram app > Go to your profile > Tap the three lines on the top right > Select Insights > Tap on Total followers > Scroll down to find ‘Most Active Times’.
Use this data to publish posts and maximize your reach.
Several websites have popped up on the Internet promising that they can get you thousands of ‘real’ Instagram followers for a couple of bucks.
They also mention that getting followers from their website is safe but it’s all a big fat lie.
In reality, these services are often scams that can put your account at risk of being flagged or banned by Instagram.
These followers are not real people and won’t engage with your content. They can also harm your account’s overall engagement and credibility on the platform.
Instagram’s algorithm is designed to prioritize accounts with high levels of engagement, so having a large number of fake followers can actually hurt your visibility.
Consistency is the key.
You might have heard this a million times before and yes, it’s true.
It’s hard to deny that consistently putting out new content can have a positive impact on your organic reach.
First off, it signals the algorithm that you are an active user.
Second, you can experiment with different types of content and find out what’s working for you.
Third, the algorithm can get a better understanding of your account and hence recommend your posts to relevant people.
Now, I’m not saying that you should post every single day. If you are comfortable posting twice a week then go for it.
Just make sure to religiously follow your posting schedule.
Now that you know what to avoid on Instagram, you can take steps to grow your art page.
If you are serious about building an engaged following around your art, you should check out our eBook!
It has all the actionable tips & strategies that we used for growing our account @creativityexplode to 300K+ followers.
Based on our 5+ years of experience in art marketing, It’s a must-read for all artists on Instagram.
It is available to download instantly upon purchase - The Art Of Growing On Instagram