Sunday Mailbag: Using Instagram?

Q: I wanted to follow up on something you mentioned a short while ago about “getting yourself out there” as a caricaturist – with the aim of getting commissions/studio work. You had said to use social media “especially Instagram.” Would you mind elaborating on that point? How would one go about that? Beyond posting a lot and liking others work, I mean. I set up a business page, but, unless I’m doing something wrong, I don’t see how that’s much different than a personal one. Is it all about the hashtags? Getting likes?

A: I think having a strong social media presence is a must in today’s illustration world, and that includes caricature artists looking to do commissions and studio work. Of all the social media platforms, Instragram makes the most sense for visual artists as it is a purely visual platform. Unfortunately Instagram followed Facebook’s lead with Facebook’s 2018 revamping of their “algorithm” that changed priority of posts on your feed from chronological to “what’s most important to you” (or that’s my understanding of it anyway). That change caused a drastic drop in “organic reach” to your followers and to reaching new followers.

That doesn’t mean Instagram is no longer a good way to improve the reach of your “brand”. It just means you need to work a little smarter to get your posts in front of people who follow you, and reach new people. Here’s the most common popular advice:

1. Smart Use of Hashtags– Add a handful hashtags to every post. 9 appears to be the magic number, but up to 15 is common. Be creative. Don’t just use “#caricature”… if it’s a caricature of a celebrity, hashtag their name, the movie or TV show or team or whatever they are in, descriptive terms like “#satire”, etc. Try to avoid using the same ones over and over. You want to reach new people and you don’t want people who follow a hashtag to click “Don’t show for this hashtag” in their options because they are tired of seeing your posts there.
2. Eye catching images– You want to post often but avoid posting just anything to get a post up. Keep it to good stuff that people will want to click “like” on. Your goals are to get likes and shares, because getting a lot of these bumps your posts up on the algorithm hierarchy and gets your posts on more people’s feeds, thus leading to more likes and shares, and more followers.
3. Post stories– This one I have yet to do as it seems redundant, and stories disappear after a time unlike posts which remain on your profile. However when you post a story you appear at the top of your follower’s Instagram feed and that’s valuable real estate that generates a lot of clicks and engagement. When you do a post, also do a “story” with the image.
4. Post Videos– Instragram claims video is not prioritized over static images, but as they autoplay when gone by on a person’s feed they almost always catch the eye, and that is a big asset. Process stuff can be fun to do as videos.
5. Post during peak engagement hours– Research shows peak hours of engagement on Instagram are (no surprise here) 9am-5pm Mon-Fri. Saturday is lighter and Sunday is the worst.

The bottom line is it takes a long time to build an audience in any social media platform. Some of it is being smart about how, what, and when you post, but MOST of it is about posting content people want to look at and like.

Thanks to Jerry Shippee for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!