Instagram is an excellent social media network to grow your online presence. The platform has roughly around over 1 billion users, and continues to grow exponentially on a monthly basis. As a social media marketing company, we receive a lot inquires regarding Instagram marketing for business. Recently, however, we’ve received hundreds of calls from Instagram artists looking to leverage the online platform.  Now Instagram for artists presents different challenges  than for a business, but we feel slight variations on previously tested strategies are applicable. Allow us to explain in further detail below.

Consistency

With any social media campaign, whether it be a business, organization or artist, consistency is key. This means creating and sharing high quality content on daily basis. (or at the very least 5 times a week). The more you post, the more likely you are to generate buzz online. Just be sure to not go overboard, though. We’ve encountered clients who post far too often and then go days without sharing anything. This is precisely why a social media manager is so beneficial. Having a detailed strategy is key, and keeps you on track throughout your marketing campaign. 

Experiment with Hashtags

Hashtags are a very effective method for attracting more followers to your Instagram feed. We’ve managed to expand various clients’ Instagram presence simply by hitting the right hashtag at the right time. We’d like to note, however, that this is slightly more difficult for an artist, as an over use of hashtags may come across as spam-y. This might actually succeed to disengage your current fanbase rather than expand it. We’ve noticed that artists only use hashtags when they are extremely pertinent and they’ll only use one to two per post.  Introducing hashtags, at the very least, will get your page in front of a wider, more diverse audience. 

Photo by Oliver Dumoulin on Unsplash

Instagram Ads

Instagram (and Facebook) uses a highly sophisticated ads manager that allows one to reach highly specified demographics. In the past we’ve worked with clients who simply need us to manage their online ads and budget. Though as artists, an excess of ads — like hashtags — could succeed in actually turning off your audience. This is a two way street:  Ads will undoubtedly grow your online presence; More people will see your page, but you also run the risk potentially alienating long time followers. In short, Ads are a highly effective way to reach a lot of people fast, but you don’t want to solely come to rely on them.

Photo by Oliver Dumoulin

Leverage Influencers and Mentions

Leveraging influencers on Instagram is another effective way for attracting audiences to your page. In addition, taking full advantage of any mentions and tags you receive can bolster you digital presence.  Conversely, you can mention or tag any connections that you have within your industry. Posting photos with influencers in your field can also help, too. We’ve seen posts go viral simply because somebody tagged or mentioned someone within the post. In our opinion, this is a easy way to take a strong Instagram presence to the next level.

Link Instagram to Twitter

When you post a photo to Instagram, you are asked if you’d like to share the photo to Twitter as well. Often we see businesses and artists both using Twitter to link back to their Instagram feed. While this may not be a huge boost to your Instagram presence, it will increase your Instagram’s visibility. Effectively, fans will be able to access your feed through two different social networks, which is certainly a plus. Ultimately this is something that’s very easy to do, and it increases your chances of being discovered by more users.

Show your Followers the whole Scope of your Artistry

Instagram is great for giving your audience a “behind the scenes” look at your brand. This is true for not only businesses, but artists, too. Don’t just share the final product: Share the entire process, and steps taken to fully realize your work. The mark of any strong Instagram account is an engaging narrative: Show your fans the whole scope of your artistry; show them how and why it is you do what you do. This is a difficult end game to actualize, but we feel that this is key for any strong Instagram account.

We hope you’ll find this information useful. If you’re looking to take your Instagram presence to next level, the right way, contact us today for a consultation.