5 Ways to Increase Your Following on Instagram
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5 Ways to Increase Your Following on Instagram
I have never really liked Instagram or enjoyed using it. I am however, trying to embrace it and put more posts out for my 9100 or so followers who have been kind enough to follow me even though I don’t post very often. I am currently doing a 30 day experiment by posting everyday to see how many followers I will pick up during that period. I am using Creator Studio to schedule all 30 posts ahead of time.
Even though I don’t post very often, I’ve sold quite a few paintings from Instagram, and I am a keen observer of what other people do or don’t do which effects their success on the platform. I have also taken a few courses over the years that have taught me how to increase my followers and engagement. Given that the average poster on Instagram has 150, and I have a few more than that, I must be doing something right now and then at least.
Here are my Top 5 ways to get more followers on IG:
Make sure your feed is public, not private. All the time I see artists feeds which are private - meaning people that want to follow them must send a request to be approved to follow. A private account is great if you only want to have friends and family among your followers. Otherwise it’s not a good idea and will keep you from gaining followers and you will not have a feed that gets your art into the world.
Be Consistent. This one has two parts: Consistency in posting and consistency in the look and feel of your work. Consistency in posting is critical to gain followers. You want to make sure you are putting enough posts out there for your followers to consume, and enough to interest potential followers.
Consistency in the look and feel of your work is equally important to help build a following for what you do. There are many artists who don’t agree with this and who don’t believe it. By and large the data is on my side. The artists who consistently produce work that has a similar look and feel are more successful and have greater sales than those who don’t.
If the title of your page/feed has the word “art” in it, for example mine is #davidmkesslerfineart, then you should be posting ART. This may be the most important of the 5 things to do, and is the one I see most people getting wrong. When you get this one wrong you either won’t get many followers, or the ones you have will begin to leave you. If you are telling people through the title or a hashtag that your page is about art, but you post vacation pictures, selfies and other unrelated pictures in your feed, there is a disconnect with your followers. I have observed this phenomenon mostly with the feeds of young women. Forget the selfies and focus on the art. And please, no more pictures on your hands with paint on them - that’s played already!
Engage with your followers. This means responding to ALL comments. It also means asking questions in your posts to help followers respond to your posts. This increases engagement with your audience.
Use the link in your profile to go to the page where you sell your art. This one is extremely important. If you are serious about selling your art you already have a great website with a shopping cart and payment system so that people can purchase right from the website. If you’re trying to sell art on Instagram, then the link in your profile should go to that website. It’s the only “hot” link that Instagram provides, so use it wisely.
There you have it, my top 5 list. I hope it was helpful and that you can utilize these strategies to increase yur number of followers and your sales.
If you'd like to learn about abstract painting and making your own authentic work, then please join me for a painting workshop: (You can view a list of remaining 2020 workshops HERE)
May 30-31 Greenville, SC, Greenville Center for Creative Arts. Contact: Liz Rundorff Smith, Email: liz@artcentergreenville.org. For information and registration Click Here.
July 10-11 Art Alliance of Greensboro, Greensboro, NC. For information and registration email Liz Busch: artalliancegso@gmail.com.
July 15-17 David M. Kessler Fine Art Studio, Winston-Salem, NC. For information and registration Click Here. Only 3 Seats Left!
August 20-22 Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL. For information and registration Click Here.
September 9-11 David M. Kessler Fine Art Studio, Winston-Salem, NC. For information and registration Click Here.
September 18-20 Santa Fe Artist Getaway, Santa Fe, NM. For information and registration Click Here.
As always, thanks for your support!
David
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