More Followers Doesn’t Always Mean More Income
If you’re like me, then you’ve probably at one point gotten wrapped up in the unspoken race to see who can get the most instagram followers.
Having a lot of followers can be exciting and look good from the outside, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have a successful business.
If you want to level up your art career then you need to focus on connecting with highly targeted followers that are willing to support you financially.
Whether you want people to buy your art or you want people to commission you, connecting with the right people is what you need to focus on.
Do you know your Top Fans?
Before going any further I strongly encourage you to read this article by Kevin Kelly entitled 1000 True Fans.
You want to know exactly in your audience who are the top fans.
Your 1,000 true fans, as Kevin Kelly says, are those people who will fly to see you on a moment’s notice, who will drive hundreds of miles to watch your concert, or who will buy anything and everything that you come out with before even reading the sales page.
Those are your 1,000 true fans, the people who if they were to each support you with $100 a year, you would have your six-figure income. And these are really important people to find.
The best way to get people to become true fans is to interact with them and ask them questions about how you can better help them. It will help you stand out from everybody else in your niche who’s not doing that. But more than that, it’s going help you empathize with your audience and learn and hear from, in their own voice, what you can do to better serve them.
How To Laser Target Potential True Fans on Instagram
When I was growing my instagram from 10k to 20k followers, I spent about 30 minutes each night connecting with and creating raving fans of my work.
At the height of my Instagram Growth Campaign I was getting 80 to 100 new followers a day, and 7 to 10 new commission requests every week!
Here is exactly what I did.
- Find an instagram account that posts content very similar to the kind of work that you post.
- Dig through their content and identify 3 to 5 posts that seriously resonate with your work and your brand.
- On each of the posts, look at the comments to see if anyone is left positive feedback.
- Go to the profile of the person that left a positive comment, like a few of their pictures, and leave a genuine comment on some of their posts.
Roughly 90% of the profiles I commented on ended up following me. Many of them left great feedback on my posts and messaged me as well!
So here is where things start to heat up.
The Instagram algorithm uses engagement and direct messages to determine what posts to feature on suggested-posts page.
When you are consistently engaging with people in comments and messages, you begin to see a lot of organic traffic coming to your account because your content shows up on their suggested-posts page.
Try this out and leave a comment letting me know how it works for you 🙂
Cheers!
-Brandon
After receiving a ton of requests from my Instagram audience, I’ve decided to start creating an Instagram marketing course for artists.
If you want to be updated on the progress of the course then sign up for my email list below. You’ll also get my free video series on how to get more clients for your art on Instagram.