Going from 300 to 20.000 REAL followers on Insta in 3 months time! | Tips on How to Grow on Instagram!

Hi guys! Today I’m sharing something that I hope can help and inspire you and perhaps give you some insight on how to get REAL followers (in a short amount of time) on Instagram. I know, I know, there's ALOT of blogs and videos out there from people who are in the business and marketing world telling you all the tips and tricks. And although my tips are pretty similar to theirs (just because it worked) this is coming from an artist (maybe just like you) who had a very minimal following of 345 followers for 3 years long. I suck at the business part of what I do. I know very little about marketing strategies and public relations... I'm literally just an artist who wants to create art and nothing else ha!

That being said let's dive into HOW I made it happen. Like I just said, I had a following of 345 people on Instagram for about 3 years. I would randomly share a drawing, add a few tags and hope that it would gain me some followers who'd appreciate what I did. People would always tell me: ‘You're so good at drawing, you really deserve to be seen, your work is unique' etc.. but that would also frustrate me because I wasn't being seen and I desperately wanted to share my art with the world. So, after I started to do the things that I will share with you in a moment, I saw my account grow from 345 to 20.000 in three months time. Right now almost a year later I’m at 42K and although my growth has slowed down, I’m still gaining followers each day. I realize this will be different for everyone but once you hit that algorytm... you're pretty much good to go. You just really gotta keep it up!

Let’s dive into my tips!

1. Research your target market. Ok, let’s be honest: I didn’t spend ALLL this time doing market research but just think about who you want to reach and what you want to accomplish with your art when you reach these people. What is your message with the art you create? Are you an illustrator making funny cartoons? Are you a fine-art landscape artist? Or do you want to go for commissioning real life portrait drawings of people? What is your goal and what do you want to accomplish. For me it was to reach women's emotional innerworld with my sad, melancholic surreal portraits of women, and letting them know that sadness is not something to hide or be afraid of. It's a natural part of life and we need it to even know how happiness feels. But ... I was struggling with this for awhile because I love creating a lot of different things and I couldn't choose what I wanted to focus on. Eventually I just followed my heart, and the rest came naturally.

2. Create a consistent, clean looking feed.
Take nice, clear photos of your work, and be consistent in your edits and the overall look of your feed. You want people to recognize your style, remember your work, and remember you as an artist. If you share too many random things, your "brand" won't come across right. Occasionally sharing a selfie is fun but the majority of your posts should be your work, not that delicious lunch you had the other day, or the cute doggie you saw on the street. Stay consistent.

3. Find and save lists of hashtags.
I spend probably a few hours looking up all the possible hashtags there are that would relate to my art. I copied and pasted these in my google notes so I could easily grab them and copy and paste them back into my posts. I have about 20 different blocks of 30 hashtags each and I switch them off as much as I can. I ALWAYS use 30 hashtags (the limit) for each post.

4. Use the right hashtags.
This can can be a bit time consuming but it's definitely worth it. You must use the hashtags that aren’t overused or underused. If you're using a hashtag that has been used 1 million times or more, you will never be seen. Your post will disappear in the big pile of others using the same tag at that moment. Instead look for the smaller accounts. Anywhere from 10.000-200.000 is good. Don't go lower than 5000, it won't be worth it. But definitely don't go higher as your post will just vanish. So find those good hashtags and look for the amount of times it has been used by other users.

5. Post every day!
Once I had all the above figured out, I started creating art every day and posting every day. It is very important to do this so people get excited about your account and all that you have to share. If you don't post for weeks or months at a time, people might start forgetting you and unfollow you because it's not interesting enough to them.

6. Post at the right time!
I spend a week posting at different times to find the "perfect time" to post. I live in the Netherlands and I wanted to reach the whole world not just my country. I noticed after looking at my analytics that the best time for me to post so I would reach the most people across the globe was around 7-8 PM European Standard time. I did post at other times as well just to see, and there would be a significant difference in the amount of views I would get. Find YOUR perfect time to post.

7. Interact with others!
In the beginning I spend a lot of time searching for other artists that I liked, following them, liking their posts, and commenting on their work every other time. Be humble and sincere about it because nothing is more annoying than fake followers that follow you just to try to get a follow back. You want to create real, honest connections! Always try to like a comment from someone, and if you can, comment back. Especially when it's still doable. Once you have a following of 40.000 it gets a little tricky hahaha! I still try my hardest and I always show my appreciation for my loyal following.

8. Try to do a few collabs.
I’ve had a lot of fun working together with a few other artists by creating a post in which we would both share our work and ideas, and perhaps gain some followers. I did a collab once with a girl who writes poems. I created an illustration based on one of her poems and we shared the final result on our accounts. Valentina Petrik, a doll maker in Spain sent me a doll she made inspired by my art. We ended up creating an entire moody doll collection view here ! So much fun! It’s amazing the things that can come from it! I also did a few free commissions and although it was fun at the time, I soon realized this wasn't worth my time and had to focus on my own art.

9. Do giveaways!
Followers love giveaways so as soon as you reach a nice following, do a giveaway to show them your appreciation. I think I did my first giveaway at 2500 followers and it was very succesful.

Well, guys, I hope this helped a bit. Definitely let me know if this worked for you and feel free to share your success stories with me!