How to Instagram
Instagram is a great app for visual artists as it allows us to showcase our imagery in a gallery format and interact with followers and potential buyers.
Please read through this document for advice, helpful links, and suggestions.
Multiple accounts
It is highly recommended that you have a dedicated instagram account for your artwork.
This account will be ‘public’ meaning that anyone can see and follow your work.
Pictures of your family, holidays or other personal images are better kept on a separate ‘private’ account, where people can request to follow you and you get to choose to let them in.
The button below shows a short video on how to set up multiple accounts and switch between them.
When you are using the instagram app you don’t have to keep logging in and out you can just toggle between the two.
Your ‘handle’
This is your username on instagram and it is how people will find you and ‘tag’ you. A handle is very important so have a good think about it. It is unique to you. It is possible that the handle you want is already taken but rather than default to something random try a few variations
E.g. firstnamelastname, firstnamelastnameart, firstnamelastnameartist.
If you are creating a new account for your art, remember that username will become your handle. There is an option to change your handle but you can only change it a limited number of times.
Setting up your ‘bio’
Your bio is a sentence that sums up you and your work. It is also possible to link to a website from your bio. Your bio shows how many followers you have and is also where you can change your profile picture.
Your ‘grid’
Your grid is essentially your gallery. When you post a picture it will show up on your grid. You can find your grid by clicking on your profile picture (the little circular image in your bio) or by clicking on your username. When people follow you they will be able to see your grid and any new content you put up will show up on their ‘feed’.
Your ‘feed’
Your feed is what you choose to follow and changes constantly. When you press the home button in instagram it brings you to your feed. These are the posts of all the accounts you follow. If you see something you don’t like there is an option to block or unfollow that account.
Instagram lingo
Putting up a picture or video - ‘Content’
Instagram has many options for you when it comes to how you want to showcase your work.
Post
This is the most simple version of putting an image on Instagram. You can choose to put up to 10 images in a single post. The first image will be become the thumbnail image on your grid.
Story
Stories only stay up for 24 hours. Good for announcements and events or sharing other people's work.
Reel
A reel is a longer video that will stay on your grid like a post. There are more powerful editing capabilities within Instagram for creating interesting reels. You can add music, edit and stitch multiple clips together
Live
You can go live on instagram and you are literally broadcasting to anyone who is watching you at the time. A notification goes out to your followers that you have gone live.
Great for demos and behind the scenes. Lives can be significantly longer than reels. Once your live stream has finished you will be prompted to add a caption and choose a thumbnail to represent your live which will subsequently appear on your feed and can be watched again.
Captions
The caption is the description of your post and is an opportunity to share your thoughts.
Tagging and hashtags
If you are mentioning a person or company with an Instagram account you ‘tag’ them. This means you use the @ symbol followed by their handle.
@dubartsociety
They will subsequently be notified that you mentioned them.
In order to draw more like-minded people to your content you use hashtags (the # symbol) to guide search-engines. Use hashtags wisely. Search engine algorithms are clever and will dock marks if you misuse them.
Examples of hashtags you may use are #painting #irishartist #oilpaint #watercolour etc.
Comments and direct messages
If your account is public you will find people may comment on your content.
You will receive notifications of this and of people liking your posts giving you the opportunity to reply to them publicly.
Direct messages are private even on a public account.
We hope this helps you to navigate the app. Instagram is a free app and is often updated or changed without prior notice. These changes generally benefit the users and do not affect your content. As with anything, use a strong unique password to avoid susceptibility to hackers.