How to go from 0 to 43k followers on Instagram (without cheating)

I’m a full-time freelance artist who figured out how to drop the word “starving” from my title. I grew my following on Instagram from pure obscurity to 43,000 in two years, and as a result have seen my yearly revenue grow by over 50%. No, I didn’t buy followers, and I have spent a total of $0 on advertising.

How? Generous content, a data-driven strategy, and staying one step ahead of my audience.

(This post focuses on Instagram, as this is the best channel I’ve found for sharing artwork, but I believe the concepts here apply to any social channel)

Let’s talk about content

Good content is generous, valuable, and has a clear objective. I like to share three flavors of content with my audience:

1. Brand Building:

Who am I?

My brand voice is transparent, pure honesty. I talk about what artists usually don’t talk about: business. In my posts, I discuss my experience with the ups and downs of getting my business off the ground, pitching myself to wholesalers, battling burnout, and creative block. By sharing the dark side of being an artist, my goal is to make art seem a bit less mysterious, less pretentious, and more accessible to everyone.

2. Valuable & Engaging:

It’s not all about me, it’s about you, too.

I’m always searching for ways to involve my audience, because an involved audience is an engaged audience. The objective is to create content that’s sharable and promotes conversation. I’ve tried and failed to get a few hashtags off the ground, but my most successful idea thus far has been to interview artists on my blog in my weekly “Makers to Know” series. I ask them questions beyond their artwork and look deeper into their experience with navigating the world of self-employment. This has created camaraderie as we realize that although no two paths are the same, the struggles certainly are. These posts are so successful because not only do they provide valuable advice, but they create an open dialogue within the community.

3. Promotional

By the way, you can purchase my artwork here.

Once or twice a week I will post about a shop update — no more than that! People hate to be sold to and can sniff out a sales pitch from a mile away. Instead, get people invested in your story, your process, what you stand for, and build relationships with them. This builds trust, loyalty, and ultimately revenue.

Data is your friend

As a former chemist, I’m a huge nerd and will always look at everything with a critical eye and ask…but why? How? As I started my shop and blog, I wanted to quantify exactly how well (or poorly) it was performing over time.

The difference between a flash in the pan and long term success is the ability to repeat (and scale) your results. Unfortunately, “luck” isn’t repeatable, so you need a good strategy in place to understand how everything is performing.

The scientific method has been drilled into me for years, and believe it or not, it’s a great way to approach a marketing strategy. Let’s review:

This methodical, data-driven approach is a great way to think about achieving your business goals. Setting up Google Analytics on every page of your site will give you the data you need to measure against your objectives. The capabilities of Google Analytics are seemingly endless with customizable data filters, goals, and reporting, so do some research to make sure that the data you collect is relevant to your objectives.

Let’s walk through an example:

You notice that although 60% of the visitors to your e-commerce site are returning users, only 5% of your customers are repeat customers. Your business objective is to capitalize on your loyal returning visitors, and increase the number of repeat customers by 20% over the next three months — always give yourself a timeframe and a benchmark to work towards.

Your hypothesis is, by retargeting existing customers and offering them free shipping on their next order, they will be more likely to make a second purchase.

To test this hypothesis, you include the free shipping coupon with every order confirmation email over the next three months, with a link to your shop in the call to action. You’re smart and use Google’s URL builder to track this link in Google Analytics.

After three months have passed, you analyze the data in Google Analytics and notice that repeat customers have only increased by 5%. Your conclusion is that the click through rate wasn’t great, and your coupon wasn’t as successful as you’d hoped.

At this time you can refine your process and find areas for improvement.

Ask questions like:

• Was the CTA too weak?
• Was the email subject line clear & did it mention the promotion?
• Is the goal too high? What’s the industry benchmark?
• Is the timeframe off? What’s the average length of time before people usually convert again?
• Should we send additional emails about this promotion after purchase?
• What does the landing page look like?
• Are there any drop offs in the user flow?
• Is everything mobile-friendly?

Then pick one area to refine and re-test your experiment! It’s important to pick a focus as you move on to your next test to methodically draw conclusions about what works and what doesn’t work. If you change everything at once, how will you know which piece is a success?

Stay ahead of your audience

Lastly, it’s important to never stay too comfortable in your current strategy. Comfort is easy, but boring, and can result in a slip in engagement.

Collaborating with influencers is a great way to change things up. If done right, you can grow your network, solidify your credibility, and draw attention to that fabulous content you’ve been working so hard on.

Let’s take a look at that Instagram audience growth chart again, and overlay points in time that I collaborated with influencers:

The first major event was when A Beautiful Mess, a DIY & design blog with over 400,000 Instagram followers, reposted a photo of mine tagged with #ABMlifeiscolorful (one of many hashtags created by the blog). I received thousands of followers in a single day, but kept those followers around with a constant stream of valuable content. If you have a very niche brand, seek out like-minded influencers and participate in any of their user generated content that fits your voice; it can be a great way to get your name out there.

The second event was a collaboration with Craftsposure, a small business blog with over 200,000 Instagram followers. I created artwork for the inside covers of their 2016 small business planner, and I agreed to the project because Craftsposure’s audience of self-employed makers was a perfect fit for the brand I was building.

The third major event was the installations that I created for West Elm in Boston. It gave me great credibility that a large brand like West Elm trusted me to work with them, and gave me a boost in local followers who discovered my work in store.

Most recently, I collaborated with Ambivalently Yours, an anonymous feminist illustrator with 27,000 followers. The collaborative artwork we created allowed both of our audiences to see us work in a new way. This fresh perspective, followed up by an interview with the anonymous artist on my blog, benefited both of us.

Collaborating with people who are successful in your field can give you a fresh perspective, and if done correctly, can benefit everyone involved.

Abstract art isn’t a traditionally lucrative or popular product (it’s not like I’m selling ironic t-shirts) but, with the right content strategy and the power of social media, I was able to make it work.

I hope this post gave you some ideas! If you’d like to talk more, or if you have any questions, feel free to reach out anytime.