Professional Practice - Instagram Growth

As part of the Professional Practice brief, it states that you will need to produce an online presence -  for example a blog or website that promotes you within the creative industries. I have created this website and a blog within it to document and evidence how I am "critically engaging with pertinent research material, along with your developments and choices."

As stated in the brief, many Illustrators choose to have multiple platforms. Instagram is an increasingly popular platform for Illustrators to disseminate their work. I have a personal Instagram account and I have had a separate art account since 2016, but I have never developed it.

As my new year's resolution, I decided to post every day on Instagram. I knew that I wouldn't have enough artwork to post every day, so I decided to restart my account as an art and photography account. I went with the word art instead of illustration as it is shorter, more catchy and memorable. It also went with my username. I also changed my username on January 1st, from @serenart17 to @serenart_equine as it was at this point that I decided to specialise in equine illustration.

This blog page documents the growth of my Instagram account. I took a screenshot at each milestone and made a note of how many followers I had at the end of each month. I started the year with 64 followers, with a target of getting 1000 followers by the time I handed in my degree.

This screenshot was taken on the 15th January. Most of the people following me at this point were friends, family or people from the Portsmouth Illustration course.

This screenshot was taken on the 23rd January. By the end of January, I had 555 followers. I targeted my audience to horse riders at Quob Stables where the majority of my photos (that I had uploaded so far) were taken. I have become good friends with two of the girls from there, both of whom I have created illustrations for.

This screenshot was taken on the 29th February. By the end of February I had 709 followers. I posted my first few drawings in this month and I had a couple of nice comments about them.

This screenshot was taken on the 26th March. By the end of March I had 1045 followers. This was such an achievement for me! My target was to reach 1000 followers by the time I handed my project in and then to reach 1,500 for the whole year. I started taking part in 'gain posts' where you comment on a post that you follow back, return likes etc and that was a good way to meet new people. I only took part in equestrian-related gain posts to keep my audience relevant. I had also posted 3 more of my horse illustrations, one of which was shared by @flaxenpony who has 80,000 followers. I definitely gained followers from this and was very grateful for her sharing my work. You can also see that I changed my profile picture to show off my work to people that don't follow me. I originally used a photo of myself and a horse as my profile picture as I have seen a lot of equestrian photographers do this, but I wanted something more recognisable.

This screenshot was taken on the 30th April. By the end of April I had 1811 followers. This was a massive gain for me! I started posting photos from Sparsholt Equine Centre but unfortunately couldn't find many people from there to follow on Instagram. Thankfully I had become good friends with some of the people from Quob Stables and they were very supportive. I also have some people from the University of Portsmouth Equestrian Club following me who were the subject of most of my pictures. I asked permission before I pictures of people to comply with GDPR. You can see that I have changed my profile picture again. The pale pink wasn't standing out enough for me. I felt that the background colour of the new one was bold, contrasted well to the white drawing and the horse fitted a circle format perfectly. This is much more striking and recognisable. You can also see I changed my highlight covers to match the style of my profile picture. I also tidied up my bio to make it look more smart and professional.

This screenshot was taken on the 7th May. This was a massive milestone for me! After I reached 1000 and then 1500, I decided to change my targets. I wanted to get 2000 by the time I handed in my project and 2500 by June! I started posting photos from the Loxwood Joust after people voted between gymkhana photos and joust photos. This helped me reach a new audience within the equestrian community. I was also added to several small group chats with other equestrians where we send our recent posts to and everyone in the group chat likes and comments on your post to make sure your recent posts are active. This also helps posts to overcome Instagrams ever-changing algorithm.

This screenshot was taken on the 26th May. To celebrate reaching 2500 followers, I decided that I was going to host a giveaway. I will talk more about this in another blog post. I also started posting photos from my trip to Prague as due to lockdown I couldn't get out and take more photos as planned. I had some photos of horses from Prague but I also let people vote on my story for whether they wanted me to post photos from the zoo and/or of architecture as well. In the end, I decided to post architecture on my personal account and horses and zoo photos on my professional account.

This screenshot was taken on the 29th May. By the end of May I had 2874 followers. I have been added to more group chats, but with people with bigger accounts and who do more in the way of interacting with followers. I am hosting a giveaway with a group of 6 people. We messaged lots of companies asking if they wished to donate anything and we received lots of items such as from discount codes to a bridle! Once this giveaway ends, we will host another one! This is a great way to gain new followers as people entering the giveaway have to follow all of the hosts. I have also met lots of new people and have made some great friends, many of whom are interested in commissions from me!