Tips for growing an Instagram art page from Sara Tepes and her META partner

Freelance illustrator Sara Tepes (IG | YT) has just shared some tips she learned from her META partner on growing an Instagram art page.

META in case you don't know is actually the parent company of Facebook, and META owns Instagram.

You can watch the video above to learn all the tips. What I've written below are just my opiniions.

Just like what Sara Tepes said, there's nothing new to the strategies involved in promoting yourself on Instagram. Actually the stratgies mentioned are not specific to any niche. That's to say that you're actually playing to the algorithmn than anything else. The video is about marketing for content creation and not for art creation.

Posting consistently

Posting consistently with a regular schedule has many benefits.

The most obvious benefit you always have new work to show and it's more likely for people to see your work. And your followers will know that you're still around and making art.

It's said that the algorithm will push the content out for those who post consistently.

What you can do is choose a specific day to post and stick to the schedule. This will also help your followers get used to your schedule. It's like how people tuned in to their weekly TV shows or daily news with habit.

Posting daily is not necessary. Consistency is key.

Carousell, reels, normal post does not matter

The type of content you post is not important. What's important is you post something, and hopefully it's something that's engaging.

An Instagram carousel is a post containing more than one photo or video, which users can view by swiping left on a post through the phone app.Carousell are for followers who happen to be online. Know when your audience is active to get peak engagement.

Hashtags

Hashtags are not promoted by the algorithm.

Hashtags are just for organising your content, and it allows people to search for your content.

Doesn't matter whether the hashtag is in the captions or comments.

You can use location hashtags to set yourself apart which can be good for looking for local jobs or freelance assignment.

Reels

The best practice is not to repost reels.

People may be upset to see the same content again. If you really want to repost, you can have a new take, e.g. change captions, new music, new edits, new topic.

Reposting YT shorts to Instagram may not work due to different expectations from the audience of different platforms. People expect more information on Youtube and Instagram has more distraction. People want to see and scroll down on Instagram.

Stories

Post several times a day instead of all at once.

You can share your studio workspace. You can have question boxes, ask questions, sliding scale, polls. Anything that's interactive will show algorithm audience is interacting.

Live

It does not have to be live drawing and can be a Q&A.

The more people watching livestreams, the more the livestream will get noticed, and the more the algorithm will push them out.

Interaction and engagement is valued by the algorithm.

Don't use copyrighted music

This is straightforward. If you need copyright-free music, get them from Youtube Audio Library within Youtube Studio.

Apply for verification

You can get more support from META but from what I've read, getting verified doesn't give you much benefits.

To help with verification, you can look for sources online or in print that mentions your name.

Posting a picture as a reel

This is prohibited by algorithm and will be penalised.

Algorithm

The Algorithm is always changing. Keeping up with the changes is honestly tiring. And since the algorithm isn't published, you can't know for sure which strategies will work.

Anything with interaction, like, shares, comments will be distributed more.

Lastly, Sara Tepes added that her Instagram didn't really grow in the last two months because she was too busy and did not post to Instagram.

My final thoughts

It is a lot of work managing all these social media platform with their ever changing algorithm. So the question is do you want to spend more time creating art or on internet marketing?

I personally haven't been posting consistently on Instagram and as a result, my Instagram follower count doesn't really grow. That's alright for me since my focus is not on Instagram. My focus is on creating content on my blog and Youtube channel where people can still look for my work in the future. Posting art on Instagram or Facebook to me feels like posting art into a black hole. You have to keep up, post regularly, or else you will be forgotten. The work that you have already created is not going help you as much compared to the work you put on your blog or Youtube channel.