How to Make Your Instagram Accounts Grow

Like with any business page, a collective of ideas, a style of art or simply publishing creative content of any sort, a means of advertising your work or communicating it to an audience is crucial.

Luckily for us, it’s much simpler and easier these days to do all the above and more by the mere touch of a phone. Instagram in the recent years has revolutionised the way everyone from celebrities, big brands, companies, newspapers, radios right down to the undiscovered artists, freelancers and non-mainstream culture work.

For many, an ‘Instagram theme’ is crucial. Posts on Instagram for many notable celebrities is a great source of income. Big brands receive advertisement from the people who are endorsing their products by simply tagging their accounts on photos or mentioning them in the captions. @SelenaGomez, the queen of instagram, ought to know a thing or two about that!

But this is where less notable people like you and me also come in. @Tea_mice’s Instagram is a personal favourite of mine because of her creativity and originality. Instagram showcases a great deal of variety but for this blog post, I want to concentrate on my Instagram journey for my art account and how I made my account grow. So here are a few of my elaborated tips on how to make your Instagram grow.

Despite following all the tips in the world however, never lose touch with what’s most important. Loving and enjoying the art you make.

1. Add a watermark that doesn’t stretch across your entire picture but is still visible enough to stop your work being plagiarised.

When I first started out, I had no idea of how to go about anything. My feed was a mess and I was posting really low quality pictures with a ridiculously sized and fonted watermark that completely ruined the pictures. Plagiarism became an issue for me very early on and I soon realised to cleverly place my watermarks in places that would be more difficult to cross out. For example, on the drawing instead of in the background.

2. Tag other accounts in your posts and using hashtags in your captions.

I quickly found out that tagging people in your pictures almost always gained their attention but if you were after a broader audience, tags in your captions were the way to go. I was lucky in that I had the support of a brilliant fandom behind me which meant my followings started to grow quite quickly.

3. Make sure your account looks clean and approachable.

I studied other people’s Instagrams and realised non-grainy pictures and a clean look generally made people more likely to click on your account than if it was very messy and disorientated looking. I saw a few accounts who infused their personal pictures with their art. I’m personally wasn’t a fan of that purely because I didn’t think I would ever have the time to co-ordinate pictures of my Starbucks drink with a sketch I did. But by all means, if that is what works for you, go ahead and give it a go.

@Tayst’s account is a particular favourite of mine when it comes to the use of colour and coordination.

4. Don’t be afraid to try different themes till you find one that sticks.

I then slowly began trying different things that I felt might work with my account. There is no harm in trying different themes and ideas for your account till you find the one that suits you. I mixed and matched a lot of the colours I was using. My style of drawing started to improve over the months with my taste in my feed.

5. Interact with your followers, people you follow and make sure to be nice.

I managed to make some excellent friends who regularly reposted my work and helped spread the word of my art. One thing I found out was people were much more likely to do ‘shoutouts’ or mention your work if you genuinely meant what you asked them. A lot of people I’ve known have simply spammed accounts or left tons of direct messages demanding ‘shoutouts’. Arrogance like that never works. Not in the real world and certainly not on the internet. Very much like advertising in the real world, you have to be nice to truthfully work your way up.