#3, August 2020
Contents:
- Promote THE ARTIST!
- Insta Top Tip: on Using the RIGHT HASHTAGS
- MASTERS art content of the Week
As always:
- We appreciate you sharing our community with other artists!
- We welcome new ideas on how to make the community better!
GROUP FEATURE: HELP PROMOTE THIS ARTIST!
Every week we will choose one artist the whole group can promote, from the artists that posted in the group that week! Participating is good for you (you create content for your followers to interact with, which Instagram loves!) and is of course great for the artist!
Our panel of judges has selected @tiago_palma as the winner this week. Tiago seems to be a creative demon across different styles and art mediums, including music! We are proud to have you in the group, Tiago, keep inspiring us please!
PLEASE support your fellow SWB member by publishing ONE SIMPLE STORY with their work on your instagram page. It can be as simple as this one here:
And finally a BIG THANK YOU to the panel that is helping to select which artist to feature this month! They are big contributors to group posts and very helpful to the SWB community. Check out their work!
Rad: @radrad
Chedi: @chedi_mhenni
Shivika: @artbyshivika
INSTAGRAM TOP TIP: USING THE RIGHT HASHTAGS
I mentioned hashtags in the Instagram for Artists Podcast with Dot Lung. If your feed is your personal art gallery, then Hashtags are like sending out invitations with directions. If you aren’t using the right ones, new potential followers will never find your work!
Did you know that you can follow a # just like you follow a regular account? If you follow #storieswithoutboundaries for example, your feed will sometimes show you posts that use that #!
Millions of people follow #art and #illustration, so FORGET ABOUT USING THOSE unless you have 100k+ followers. WHY? Because popular # are used many times per second by many accounts, and the algorithm will prioritise large accounts over yours, so your post will not be seen by people following that #.
Here is a cheat sheet to check you are doing the right things. It is a GREAT INVESTMENT of an hour of your time!
1. CREATE A MASTER LIST OF # FOR YOURSELF
1.1. Write a general list of Keywords that describe your page or content style.
E.g. watercolor, art student, procreate tutorial, amigurumi, clay art
1.2. On IG’s search box, type each Keywords and click “Tags”; you’ll see a list of long-tail hashtags that are of smaller size.
1.3. Click on a few that have a range of 50k to 500k posts. You’ll see a line showing “Related” #s: E.g. #watercolor_blog, #watercolor_planet, #watercolor_gallery, #watercolour_learn
These are likely to be your core list of workable #s.
Click on each one and go to the Recent Posts section.
o How often is a new post coming out? Low frequency means more visibility
o How many followers do the people who post with it have? Is it comparable to yours?
Select a few that “fit well”: this is now your MASTER # LIST.
1.4. For each of your master #s, check the Top Posts. What other #s appear in those top posts? Analyse them as in Step 2 and add any good ones to your list.
1.5. Check what # other grammers (similar in number of followers and content to yours) are using and add these to your list; analyse as in Step 2.
2. You will quickly build up a list of workable #s which you should split into different lists – say 5. Every time you post, take a new list. When you get to the end, start again.
3. You can have up to 30 # in one post. Personally I think 15 clearly different hashtags per post is more than enough. Do not use #animeart, #anime_art, #animearts, #anime.art etc all in the same post – Instagram will consider this SPAM and block your hashtags for that post.
4. Use hastags of different sizes (number of posts in the hashtag):
1-2 HUGE # (<1m posts) – to get a few quick likes
4 BIG # (100k-1m)
4 Medium # (50-100k)
4 Small # (0-50k)
1-2 Branded # (I use #storieswithoutboundaries and when people use it it immediately attracts my attention).
5. Follow the #s you use and interact with the people who use them; you share an interest and will gain followers this way.
6. Test and repeat with different groups and see which ones work best for you. Update your list as your followers grow!
GIVE. IT. TIME. You need a good 15-20 posts to understand which lists work best for you. Be patient. You’ll get there!
Tell a friend who uses terrible #s… and get them to join the SWB family!
MASTERS ART CONTENT OF THE WEEK
Have you heard of Mikhail Sadovnikov? Neither had I. But the visual effects this man achieves with wet clay spinning on a potter's wheel is mindblowing. Is it performance? Is it art? Decide for yourselves.
THANK YOU AND TOODLELOO
Please continue to send us your suggestions, support and artist friends, and we will continue to work to make this group a valuable resource for you!
Keep in touch, and keep creating.
- Dario
Comments