Recently I was asked, “how come you don't have a lot of Instagram followers on your coaching account?” My response probably surprised them. Instead of feeling embarrassed by my 500+ followers, I was able to clearly reply, “because I don’t need to”.
I went on to explain that my calendar is full of clients, I’m earning the income that I want, and I know where my leads come from. Instead of focusing solely on my follower count, it’s more effective for me to be in conversation with my Instagram community who wants to hear from and engage with me.
Are You Earning The Income You Want?
Even more important than the number of followers on my Instagram account is having my calendar filled with clients. This allows me to earn an income doing what I love every day.
If I were to go to the bank today and ask for a loan by telling them I have a million Instagram followers, I’d probably get laughed at. Whereas clients and other business assets carry a lot more weight and impact on the success of my practice.
I know artists who’ve gone through a program of sorts to grow their followers, maybe even buy them. They now have a HUGE 10k+ following YET they’re still not making the sales they want. This is because they’re not quality followers who are fans of their art.
Did you know that the average person only has 150 Instagram followers? Some of the things that Sprout Social recommends to gain more followers in a healthy way, include:
Optimize your bio and profile link.
Keep a regular posting schedule.
Get partners and brand advocates to post your content.
Showcase your Instagram everywhere.
Respond to comments and questions.
Find and use hashtags that are not too populated.
As an artist, you are not a big box store moving thousands of products each day. You create originals, prints, and limited editions as part of your art practice. You don’t need a huge audience to have a great income.
Having a huge following isn’t bad. It can be great. Notice how easy it is to get caught up in the vanity metric of your follower count. And know that you don’t have to.
Where Do Your Buyers Come From?
I know where my leads and customers come from. It’s taken time to learn this but after a while of noting where each interested buyer has come from has made a huge difference. This knowledge allows me to focus on the activities that I know generate income.
Generally speaking, my leads come from four areas:
Google
Word-of-Mouth
Social media and groups
My email list
This means I write blog posts to improve my SEO and I send newsletters to my mailing list. I also connect with real humans and invite them to purchase my offers only when it makes sense. Knowing this information also shows me that I don’t have to have a huge following but I do need to show up and be helpful as well as make offers.
Here’s how you can figure out where your leads come from and help you decide where to focus your outreach efforts. You can also use it as a guide to decide how many followers you really need or want to have on Instagram.
Look at your past art sales if you’ve made them.
Where have those buyers come from?
When did you first meet them?
How long did you know them before they purchased your art?
Use this information to better understand your audience and how to reach them based on how buyers have found you in the past.
If you haven’t had any sales yet, think about where you’d most like to meet people interested in the kind of art you make. Maybe it’s somewhere you’re already hanging out. Think about the kinds of people you click with most. This can help to guide you in deciding and testing where to find your potential collectors.
Grow Your Community
I recommend you focus on connecting with quality followers and building a highly engaged community.
Consider entering a room with over 10,000 people. Would you really be able to have conversations with all of them? What this means for you is that you don't need a lot of followers. You need quality followers.
A better metric to consider than your number of followers is how much outreach are you actually doing? Are you so concerned about your number of followers that you’re not meeting with people and letting them know what you do? Don’t underestimate these powerful, personal connections.
It’s great to have followers and pull them into your community but you want them to be engaged and interested in what you’re doing.
Remove the fake or inactive followers. You can identify them as having random numbered account names, a faceless profile, following a lot of people, or it’s a private account with little to no posts. These types of accounts drain your reach and prevent those who want to see your posts from seeing you because the algorithm doesn’t promote what isn’t getting engagement. It assumes nobody is interested.
Previously Instagram was set up to give accounts with over 10k followers features that other accounts did not have. For example, the “swipe-up feature” on stories that would take viewers to a live link. Now there’s a link “sticker” for that available to all accounts, regardless of their size.
Ultimately, I’m more interested in helping the community that wants to hear from and engage with me and I recommend you consider doing the same because it works.
What Does This Mean For You?
If you focus your efforts on sharing quality content and building a strong community, you’ll inevitably grow your followers by default, and those that do follow you will be highly engaged and are the fans who want to be there.
Want to create a plan to engage with the right people on Instagram? Book a free consultation with me to learn how I can help you create quality followers over quantity. You can stop stressing about needing a huge following to be successful.