Through the latest years, Instagram has become a place where artists can share their works, get engagement and new customers. This is a perfect gallery and marketplace to sell digital and traditional art. So, people are using this platform for getting recognition. Many magazines, publishers, decorators and game developing corporations are looking for new talents on Instagram, so it is a good chance to get a job. You can find practically every genre of digital art on Instagram: book illustrators, commercials and fashion, landscapers, food photographers, character creators, anime and manga… And naturally comes the question, how to squeeze into the community and create an account that will attract many people and help you monetize your art. Some might think that all you need is to leave the link to your Patreon and get a bunch of cheap Instagram likes. Well, partly it is true, but there are hacks and tricks to get the maximum effect. This is the article that will give you some insights on it.
Divide and Conquer
This is one of absolute must-do’s if you want to become a successful artist on Insta and get likes and attention. You need to have a separate page that will serve as your portfolio. Let your private life remain private.
This will also make you look professional, as your viewers can concentrate their attention on what you produce, rather than your persona. Some artists do mix work and life images on their profiles, although they usually do it to highlight a certain event or period in their life, e. g. health or family issues, trips, childbirth… In other words, these posts are often a warning or explanation as to why they won’t take commissions or be active on the profile.
Mix The Content
Instagram is a social media, which means that if you want to gain popularity and profit on this platform, you have to be interesting to people so they leave likes on your posts. Constantly. One of the methods to keep the crowds’ attention is to show different kinds of content on your work page. Beautiful pics cannot engage all by themselves, so here are some tips for what to add to your account:
- Behind-the-scenes. Before in this text, we recommended you to keep your life down and away from your art profile. But you still can share the details of the working process. It can also drive the interest of brands and companies too, who can see the way you work.
- This format is known as one of the most popular among people. Even if a viewer had never held a stylus in his hands, the render and process of creation is an interesting thing to watch and tend to get lots of likes.
- Create a series. Unite your art into groups that will be constantly updating on your profile. That would secure the chance that the occasional viewer will become your follower to see further production.
The Art of Hashtags
This instrument of growth is vital to artists, as they can drive their portfolio from zero to hero in a short time. For starters, you must define the most relevant hashtags that would be more or less unique to your art to collect likes and fans. Then you must add some hashtags with 10 to 30 thousand related posts. The next step is researching the relevant hashtags which have around 30 to 50 thousand posts, and at last, find some tags with 50 to 100 thousand posts. Mix it all up and do not copy-paste all the bunch to each post of yours. Divide your tags into groups and change them from picture to picture to get more likes. This will allow you to gain attention to your portfolio even if you do not have a big audience yet.
Now, let’s look closer to the special hashtags that are popular within the artistic community, and have illustrators as an example.
Artists Supporting Artists
This tag is very important and very helpful to get more likes and followers to your post. To make it work, first of all, you must find illustrators who support this hashtag and have gained a big audience. Find the post with this hashtag and introduce yourself in the comments. Sometimes more famous artists are reposting the works they like, or offer collaborations to promote a newcomer.
Draw This In Your Style Challenge
This particular Instagram challenge is one of the best working ways not only to dilute your portfolio but to increase your stats quickly and effectively. The sense of Draw This In Your Style is that you upload an original picture and offer your followers to redraw it as they see it. Due to the fact that the artists are often followed by other enthusiasts of this industry and huge amount of likes, the possibility to participate in such an event is a great way to promote your art within the audience of more popular illustrators, as it is common to share the results of DTIYS in Stories or otherwise. Some illustrators make a contest out of it, with interesting prizes and special collaborations. You can settle your own challenge but remember that it requires a certain level of growth, likes and other engagement on your blog. DTIYS is often dedicated to hitting a particular point in your development.
Six Fanarts Challenge
This is another sort of fun for artists on Instagram. To complete this challenge, you must pick six famous characters, and make a set of drawings. This method can help you to get some engagement higher as usually illustrators ask their followers to suggest characters for the challenge.
Conclusion
Instagram is a big platform that uncovers many talents. And there cannot be any strict rules for setting up your portfolio, but you still must keep it neat and professional. Avoid revealing your personal life, but do share your skills in your art. This will help you to find support, appreciation, likes, followers, and profit for your work. Get in touch with top representatives in your niche and watch carefully how they manage their page. Get this experience to inspire you. And never forget the main rule of success for any business on any social media platform – deliver high-quality content.
