Is Instagram worth it for artists? Why I'm moving from Instagram

hey welcome back and if you're new here my name is Christina Kent and I'm an artist based out of San Francisco now this year I switched to being a full-time artist and I started my art career actually building it on Instagram back in 2020 during the pandemic I grew my following from about 300 followers to over 70,000 today I've made countless posts I've grown a wide audience and I've experienced a lot of benefits from the platform and I get a lot of people asking me um how I grew my following on Instagram but more and

more I'm starting to ask myself is it even worth it and when people ask me how to grow their following on Instagram my first question to them is why why do you want more followers and if you're drawn to this video because you have the same question please just take a moment to really think about it why do you want more followers on Instagram and you might think that this is a trivial question like of course you would want more followers on Instagram as an artist but I don't think it's so simple because I think

sometimes we can set goals for ourselves um we can say that we want something not because we want the actual thing but because what we we've made assumptions on what we think that thing will get us cuz let's be real no one is spending hours and hours just to see a number go up on their account they're watching that they want the number to go up because of what they think that number means what they think that number will get them so what does the number of followers mean to you more money more Fame more

impact it's worth thinking about because maybe there are better ways to get to that outcome when my Instagram account started gaining traction and I started to think well maybe I could be a full-time artist I saw increasing my follower account as the way to to get to that goal I thought oh if I increase the number of followers I have then my art sales are going to go up and I'm going to be able to pursue art full-time and it seemed to be working at first I noticed as my follower account was increasing I was

also selling a lot more paintings but I realized that this trend wasn't linear at some point some of my reels went viral and I started getting a lot of followers but I wasn't seeing my painting sales increase by nearly as much I was spending hours and hours on Instagram I had developed a pretty large following and yet I still wasn't seeing the income growth that I thought was going to materialize meanwhile I also saw a lot of artists who had relatively modest followings and who were making great careers in art this brought me to realize

that having a large quantity of followers wasn't the same as having a lot of collectors who wanted to buy my paintings I think a lot of my followers just enjoyed my reel and wanted to watch a fun video but they didn't want to buy my art and honestly a lot of them could be Bots I don't actually know at the same time I also noticed two other big headwinds from Instagram first they were changing the algorithm a lot and I think over time at least from my experience and other artists on Instagram I've spoken to

it seems like it's becoming a lot harder to grow an audience and reach a really wide broad audience on Instagram and second Instagram's promise is a little too good to be true they promise that you can get a lot of exposure for your work they make it really easy all you have to do is make a post and it can go viral and you can get tons of followers but really that doesn't often happen and the major caveat is that even if you do get a lot of followers you are still beholden to the platform

cuz here's the thing my audience on my Instagram isn't my own it belongs to Instagram and if they change the algorithm they can decide whether any of those people actually see my work that means if I'm wholly dependent on Instagram my career is completely tied to the whims of the algorithm and that's really difficult so that led me to think what are some other ways that artists can grow their following can grow their impact can make sales and build a career outside of Instagram or social media and this has led me to building Quality Connections

with collectors and other artists for collectors I've shifted more to in-person events where I can actually meet people and get to know them because if I'm building relationships with people that's something that no change in the algorithm can take away this means having Open studio events where collectors can come and visit my studio it also means showing my work at Galleries and going to Gallery openings where I'm actually meeting and talking to people it's not as easy as connecting with someone over Instagram but it's a much stronger connection I've also started building an email newsletter

which you can sign up for if you want to get latest updates on my art but the cool thing about my email newsletter is that I can send updates to my collectors on a regular basis and it's through email I have my customers emails and contact information and if I send an email to them it's pretty likely that they're going to see it compare that to an Instagram post of mine which may only be seen by 5% of my followers and I'm also pursuing platforms like YouTube where I can make stronger connections with other artists

and people who want to get into art I think YouTube still has some of of the issues that Instagram has and it's not my own platform but I've noticed that the conversations I have with people here on YouTube and the longer form content I can make it just seems to cultivate higher Quality Connections so my thoughts around Instagram have been shifting in this way and still like now that I've built my large following on Instagram I definitely don't want to just throw it away and I'm still posting I'm still making reals I'm still trying to

maintain it but it's not my total focus and I think if I were starting off today I'm not not sure if I would have gone down this route if I were starting today I would still post to Instagram and try to connect with other artists and galleries because I think that it is it is kind of the main social network for the art world but I would definitely put more of my focus in creating in-person connections doing in-person events um or sharing sharing content that's like longer form and more in-depth in places like YouTube so

if you're an artist and you want to start or grow your Instagram by all means do it I still think it's a great way to connect with artists and Galleries and to see what's going on in the general art world but if you want to sell your work and you really want to provide value to people I would not focus wholly on Instagram instead I would focus more on building Quality Connections with supporters whether it's through in-person Gallery events or Open Studios or it's by creating content that's more in-depth and long form like what I

do on YouTube anyway those are my thoughts on Instagram um I would love to hear if things that I've said resonated with you or if you have any questions please post them in the comments and as always I want to give a huge shout out to my supporters on patreon thank you guys so so much for supporting this Channel and making these videos happen if you like my art if you like my videos and you want to help me make more check out my patreon at the link thanks again for watching and I'll see you

next time by