Building your Instagram Following

    Instagram can become a ‘gallery’ for your work.

• Like a gallery experience, you need to engage people in both IMAGES and WORDS. Take the time to make it a worthwhile experience for your audience.
• Consider who is your tribe/ideal client? Consider your client’s needs and interests. Your Instagram should actually be mostly about THEM! What are they getting out of following you? Inspiration? Education?
• Think ‘how can I help’? Perhaps your art ‘lifts the spirits’ or ‘adds colour to their life’, ‘brings beauty to their life’. This is where images of your work insitu* can be very useful. *You can download different apps to insert your images into perfectly styled insitu‘s

Your Bio (this needs to be about your tribe)

• Include your location. Just like in real life, location can be a way for people to connect. They think, ‘I used to live there’, ‘I remember our holiday there’, ‘oh I love .’
• Add a statement about what they get from being on your page, for example; ‘finding beauty in everyday objects’ ‘filling your life with art’
• Add a direct link to a website that they can purchase your work. If using Art Lovers Australia make sure you direct them to your shop and not the general website. Copy and paste the URL. You want the path to buy clear and simple.
• If you are struggling to write something about your work, think about including a quote from a famous artist or philosopher that resonates with you and your work.

Your Posts (become a story teller)

• Remember to connect with IMAGES and WORDS. Instead of randomly posting pics, tell a story. Does it provide education or inspiration?
• You should have a designated page for your Art business, so keep your posts relevant.
• #tag to get found by new people. (eg. #artloversaustralia, #artforsale #australianartist#artoftheday #abstractart #landscapepainting #blue )

    Your Feed (consider this your snap shot)

• You need to consider both your loyal followers (who will be seeing one image at a time in their feed) and new followers who will see your whole page.
• For your loyal followers – Space out your posts. No one wants a barrage of posts. Let your audience breathe. Three posts per week is a good goal for most artists but if you have something special on you will probably post everyday to make the most of that opportunity.
• For a new follower the most recent 9 -12 posts become a one page collage as an overall impression.
• Connect with your Supporters (this can double your audience and sales)
• Use @mentions to link to your galleries and other promoters, for example an article published with you in it. Write something like “This work is available now on @artloversaustralia “
• On Instagram you can type “@artloversaustralia” (or “@artloversaustraliaau” on Facebook) to link us in when you are sharing work available on Art Lovers Australia. That way we will get notified. We will be keeping an eye out for the top posts to share on our social media.

• Find some of your work that you haven’t posted about for a while and repost it! You can delete your old post so your feed doesn’t end up with the same images over and over.Happy posting you might even see a REPOST of your work on our Instagram page.Connect with Art Lovers Australia : https://artloversaustralia.com.au