How I Got My First 250 Instagram Followers As A Beginner Artist

Jul 5

250 is not a lot of Instagram followers by most people’s standards or even by my own. But at the same time it’s 250 people who have chosen to be interested in my art, and for a small artist that’s quite cool.

There are lots of posts out there about big, successful accounts and the epic story of how they got there, but today I wanted to focus on the little guys (ie. me) to provide some insight to people who are starting new accounts at 0 and want to make consistent, organic growth toward small milestones.

You won’t find any overnight success tactics here, just organic growth advice that’s worked for me so far.

Instagram is great for artists because it’s a visual platform. It’s full of people who are there to look at nice things, and chances are that if you’re an artist then you’re making things that are nice to look at (yes, even if you think you aren’t very good).

Here’s the timeline of my follower growth from 0 to 250:

I started my Instagram account on September 30th, 2019 because I wanted to give myself a kick up the bum with drawing and had decided to join the Inktober challenge. I didn’t have a strong direction or purpose for my account, I just started it to join a challenge and be accountable.

I posted daily during Inktober and gained 1-2 followers everyday, which is slow but steady growth and since I wasn’t looking for followers anyway I just thought it was great that anyone at all was interested in what I was doing!

Once the month of Inktober finished, I intended to keep up with the posting...but didn’t. I posted twice in November, and then not at all until May. That’s a 6 month gap, and not surprisingly, I didn’t see any growth at all and lost a few followers in my absence.

When I decided to start posting again in May 2020 and start taking my account seriously, I had about 47 followers. I first posted on May 18th, and one month later on June 18th I had 185 followers. That’s an average of 4.5 followers every day, which for someone who was just starting out felt like quite a lot of people.

During that time I was posting 6 days a week and engaging almost every day with other artists.

Since then I’ve started using Later for posting and can now view more analytics, so here you can see my graph of 185-250 followers over 13 days.

So here’s what I did to gain followers organically and consistently:

Post regularly

I think that being consistent helps your audience know what to expect from you and helps Instagram know that you’re serious about growth. I set myself the challenge to post illustrations Monday to Friday, but also like to provide some extra value most weekends with a post about art advice or some news. That means I’m posting 6 days a week with a few Instagram stories as well. You might not be able to commit to that much content, and that’s ok! Just commit to what you know you can maintain.

Introduce myself

If you want people to follow along with your journey, let them know who they’re following! I’ve had a story highlight on my page since early on that introduces a bit about who I am and what I’m doing. I also have my bio filled in to tell people what they can expect from my account and what value I might be able to provide to them.

Provide value

The more value you can provide your audience, the more likely they are to follow you. Art on its own provides value by giving joy or inspiration, but if you can find other ways to provide value on top of that, then even better!

I realised that I needed to focus on providing value to people to both be motivated to post and engage more organically, and that’s also the reason I started my blog and YouTube channel. I’m trying to share as much of my creative journey as possible to help other artists who are starting out, and that helps gain followers because I have something to offer people.

*I like to provide additional value with process videos on YouTube*

Engage with the community

Participating in art challenges has given a big boost to my follower count. I try to do one every week, because they’re a great way to engage with other artists and support the community. Other artists are actively engaged with those hashtags so it increases reach to a really relevant audience.

Support others

Give out the support to others that you want to get back. I spend a lot of time offering words of encouragement and compliments to other artists because a) I love their art so why not tell them, and b) if I want to receive support for my own work I need to be willing to give out just as much as I receive. I don’t follow to unfollow, and I don’t engage unless it feels genuine.

I think it’s important to celebrate milestones however small they may seem, because they’re all a step in the right direction. I’d love to know what milestones you’re celebrating!