gonna rant about how shit instagram’s algorithim is ESPECIALLY for newer artists.
So backstory, I started an art account on Instagram in 2017, didn’t really get anywhere until 2019-2020 where my posts were getting around 80-100 likes (yes don’t value your art on engagement yada yada) and I could see the change in algorithm in those years I was on Instagram. They promoted artists more in 2017, especially if you were a new artist, your art was sure to reach some random account. 2020 was when I noticed all the different things I had to do in order to get my art out there and that’s when Instagram started promoting art less. From what I remember, your post had to have at least 30 tags so the algorithm would acknowledge it, engagement within the first hour of the post was crucial as it would determine the reach of the post past that first hour, posts had to be posted a consistent schedule or else the algorithm will fuck you over (i believe they still do this honestly), and art was also one of the things that Instagram would promote less (they relied more on photography and other things which I forgot). So in 2020, for an artist to grow on the platform, it was best if they did thing art trends; downside of this was that the art for that trend had to be completed in time before a new trend popped up. Though difficult, it was still possible to get a new account to grow because Instagram actually promoted newer accounts more, it was just a matter of maintaining it. I got burnt out from doing all of this, I also wasn’t in a good mental space so I abandoned my art account and archived everything.
Flash forward to this year, I decided to start up a completely new account and Reels are a thing now. I post art that’s been sitting in my photos for awhile and…nothing. No reach at all, only people who saw it were my mutuals but whatever, it’s fine. I try again and it’s the same thing. No matter how many hashtags are put onto the post, it will not reach people for some reason, completely negates the use of hashtags.
It took me months to figure out that Instagram promoted reels more. An app that was initially dedicated to photos is now dedicated to promoting short form videos in order to compete with TikTok, isn’t that fucking amazing? Obviously, this is my case as an artist who started up from scratch on the app. Bigger artists with an already established fanbase still get a lot of engagement on their photos. But man, if this is what it takes for an artist to grow on the damn app, it just discourages them more because now they have to think about the video content they have to make in order to grow their account which will lead to them burning out faster as they not only have to think about the art they’re going to create, but the videos they’re going to make with it too.
Honestly, fuck Instagram.
