Dear Agony Aunt, I’m another visual artist member of Inner West Creative Network – love what you do! I'm struggling to get the most out of my social media accounts, where I seem to only get occasional new followers and not much engagement. I’ve been told I should concentrate my efforts on Instagram. Can you give me any pointers on how to grow my Instagram following? S M Noobi, Haberfield --- Dear S M Noobi, I sympathise as someone who has come relatively late to social media myself. You are absolutely right that the first step is choosing which platform is best suited to what you do and who you want to reach i.e. understand who is your audience or network. Gen Z social media users tend to use a combination of TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram, while older generations can be found more commonly on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. So one of the virtues of Instagram is that it reaches across different demographics. Plus it is an image-based platform, so probably best suited to you as a visual artist anyway. While Instagram started out as being largely about still images, it has gradually evolved to include plenty of video – and several years ago it rolled out ‘Reels’ (pinched fairly directly from the likes of TikTok and Snapchat), which puts video front and centre. Instagram also relatively recently rolled out a new app called Threads, which is very much like Twitter and was designed to capitalise on the fact that many people like Twitter's functionality but dislike what it has become under its newish owner, Elon Musk. Anyway, we can ignore Threads for now, because your main aim is to boost your followers and engagement on Instagram itself. Realistically you could aim for a following of say 2,000 for starters and then build from there. Assuming you’re a real newbie, here’s some advice on best practice to begin building your following:

• make a lot of engaging content. This is key. Your content must be made interesting for your target audience. A good rule of thumb is if it isn't interesting to you it won't be to your audience either;
• use good quality compelling images. This seems obvious, but a lot of people get this wrong;
• post regularly. I know it’s time consuming and may seem like a chore, but you should aim to post at least two to three times every week;
• map out all the content you want to post over the course of a week then pre-create your posts to be released at certain times. Choosing the best times of day that your audience engages best is likely to be a bit of a trial-and-error thing, e.g. if you want to reach an overseas audience, you should post when they are awake;
• try to suss out and keep abreast of what the algorithm is prioritising. Every social media platform's algorithm prioritises certain content over others, but this changes all the time. Google for info to find out the latest trends;
• research hashtags commonly associated with your kind of work. Use keywords that are likely to connect to content that followers are interested in;
• as a starting point maybe try using around 10 hash tags with every post;
• follow others doing similar things so they will follow you, and interact with them in a way that is real. Ask them questions, compliment their work. And link with people you know and/or respect and it is likely they would reciprocate;
• learn from other people’s success. If you see something that you think works well, give it a whirl yourself;
• ask any influencers or galleries or brands you know or have worked with to post about you.

If people who already have a following post about you, it’s a great way to have your work reach a wider audience;

• when using Instagram, link to your main website and profile. And link to your own store in your profile description. Instagram doesn't allow hyperlinks in posts, so the best way to have people reach you is via a link on your profile itself.

The main thing is to be inventive and try to make your use of Instagram fun rather than a chore. If you look as though you are enjoying it and interested in publishing to Instagram, that will come across in your posts. You could also consider running a competition and give away, say, a piece of your work to a random person who has responded in the best way to your content i.e. shared and commented on it. Another strategy is to do a deal with people or businesses that have some kind of reach to get them to post about you to their network. A writer and book illustrator I know made a deal with her local bookshop to paint a mural on their internal wall in exchange for them promoting her recent children’s publication to their wide network of subscribers. I know this sounds like a lot but you’ll learn what works best for you simply by doing it – not to mention from seeing what others do and giving it a go yourself. Good luck and let me know how it goes.