How To Get Your First 1,000 Instagram Followers For Artists

It is hard work growing your account

It is hard to get Instagram followers! Especially when you are shooting in the dark and do not have a specific strategy behind it. In this article I want to show you exactly what to do to get your first 1,000 IG followers. I know it works because it is exactly what I did to grow my account. There really is no secret formula beyond hard work, but there are specific things that can definitely help to accelerate your growth.

The Number ONE thing you can do to grow – Interact with other accounts

I cannot emphasize how effective the following actions are – it is exactly how I initially grew my account to 1,000. It is also this same method that IG influencer Hilary Rushford first grew her account to 10,000 in the early days of starting her business. She now has 230K followers.

So, how exactly should you interact with other accounts??

Lets say your niche is oil painting. Type oilpainting into the search bar on your IG app and click on the tag section. You will then see a list of hashtags pop up for the ‘subject’ you typed in. Click on #oilpainting.

Go to RECENT under your chosen hashtag

You will have either the choice of entering into ‘top’ or ‘recent’ under your chosen hashtag. I choose to go to the posts under the ‘recent’ tag because these are people who are in all likelihood on Instagram right now and are probably more likely going to interact. Go to the accounts of each one of these posts and like 3 images (if you actually like the image) and comment on one (if you love a post or find it interesting). Most people do not bother to leave comments. So, a comment typically captures the attention of the account owner and will often go over to your account and if they like what they see may even follow you.

Also, Go to large accounts of leaders in your specific niche

You will find people interested in what you are doing by going to large accounts of people in your niche and clicking on ‘followers’ under their account name. A list of all of their followers will appear. You can go into each of these accounts just like explained above and leave likes and comments.

Do not make generic comments like “great’, but try to have more content to what you say. You do not need to write a lot, but you also want to capture the attention of the account. Try to do this for at least 45 minutes a day. In a podcast interview with artists helping artists artist Julia Powell (@Juliaspowellart) said that she spent two hours each day comment and liking other peoples posts for over a year in order to build her account! That is a LOT of dedication. Today she has nearly 100K followers.

DO NOT post on other peoples accounts asking them to follow you. This is an immediate turn off. It will end up being a waste of time for you. Also, do not copy and paste the same message to multiple different accounts. This could be a trigger to IG that you are spamming and could get you locked out!! So, definitely try to avoid getting your account put into IG jail.

Commenting and liking other peoples posts is a super effective way to grow your account but it will take a LOT of time and effort. However, there really is no way around it if you want to grow a genuine and organic following. Try to fit it into your lunch break, or wake up a little early in the morning.

But, there are some things you can do to help yourself along the way…

Attract others to WANT to follow your account

So, before you spend a lot of time leaving likes and comments on peoples accounts who are posting in the same niche as you you want to make sure your own account looks great. Would you follow your account if you saw it? Have at least nine squares on your account. This will help you to look active and will be much more appealing to others. Put your best work up for your posts and have them be most reflective of what your account is all about. People will not know that they want to follow you unless they see what you are all about. So, put your best foot forward, put up your best work, the people who love what you do will follow you. Do not mind the people who do not, you would not want them to follow you anyway.

Keeping your followers – Use Stories

Once you start getting followers you of course then also want to keep them. Stories is a great way to interact with your people and show your everyday process. If you are a painter that would mean showing you mixing your paints and putting color onto the canvas, or gessoing boards. If you are a quilter it would mean showing the you sewing squares together. In short, stories allows you to give others short snippets of YOUR daily life and make a story out of it. It is a much less edited version of what your posts are. If people are interested in your account they will love to get a peek at your daily life and process.

Try however to keep it within your subject area. It is ok to add in a little bit of your personal life. However, if people are following you because of your art, they will probably not care to see what you are eating for lunch every day.

More Resources

If you want more help with promoting your work online check out Pinterest For Artists >>