Professional Practice Blog

As I have been using hashtags for a long time on my posts, this is something that I didn’t really think about when I posted my first new post.

The idea of hashtags is (according to an article from Hootsuite):

“Hashtags are a great way to connect with like-minded people, and they can be used for just about anything.” Macready, H. (2022)

This means that when you create a post, you use hashtags related to the post that you have made to reach other platform users who have an interest in what you are posting about. Therefore, when I posted my last post, I used the hashtags:

#Activist #ActivistPortrait #ActivistInterview #Climate#ClimateCrisis #DigitalDrawing #DigitalArt

all of which are hashtags which relate to the content that I have created, and therefore make it more likely that my work will be seen by like-minded accounts, and will also get a larger audience, due to the post being grouped in with other related posts which are also using that hashtag.

On reflection however, I should also have used more art related hashtags, including:

#Art #Artist #ArtStudent #Drawing #Procreate #Draw

These are all related hashtags to the post, which would have possibly resulted in a higher engagement with the post from other users on Instagram.

Having done some additional research, I came across this list of hashtags on best-hashtags.com, which are all related to the hashtag “#Art”, and some of which I will try using in later posts, particularly: #art #artist #love #drawing #artwork #artistsoninstagram #beautiful #illustration #digitalart #artoftheday as these are the most relevant to what I am posting about and my practice as an artist.

I also make sure to capitalise all ‘starting letters’ in hashtags, as this makes it more accessible to disabled users on the platform, as the hashtags are easier to understand and discern that way, rather than being a long list of seemingly unrelated letters – which they can appear to be.

Sources:

1. Macready, H. (2022) How to Use Hashtags in 2022. Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-use-hashtags/
2. best-hashtags.com (2022) Hashtags for #Art. Available at: https://best-hashtags.com/hashtag/art/

As my first post on my ‘rebranded’ instagram account, I have decided to post one of the activist drawing videos that I made – specifically the one of Lucie Morauw.

I have decided to go with this video first, as it is the only one with subtitles or closed-captions, which is something that I will go through and add to my other activist interview videos in order to make them more accessible for the viewer.

It also works nicely, as the last post on my account was the portrait that I drew of Lucie, which means that they are now situated next to each other and share that connection. I shall also emulate this connection in the order that I post the rest of the videos, posting them in ‘reverse’ order as:

1. Lucie
2. Jada
3. Mitzi
4. Isabelle
5. Mikaela
6. Elijah
7. Dominique

Overall, I am pleased with the post – it looks very effective and provides a good point to work from. I am not expecting this to be the most successful post that I make, as I haven’t posted for a while. However, as I post more, I should achieve a larger number of likes and interactions with my posts.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to work in collaboration with Wild Card campaign team, who are working campaigns to rewild Royal, Oxbridge and Church land. I originally contacted them about potentially working alongside them on my rewilding project.

However, after a call with them a few weeks ago, we decided to do a collaborative project in celebration of the Jubilee, to work with their Rewild Royal Land campaign. This decision came about after they had looked at my artist website and seen the work that I did last year, creating digital portraits with videos and interviews of activists from Fridays For Future. They really liked my portraits and the concept of the video, and felt there Wass an opportunity for me to create a video and drawing of the Queen in time for the Jubilee for them to share via Social Media, with an audio (which will congratulate the Queen on her Jubilee, but also ask how she and the crown estate intend to move on with rewilding their land in the next 70 years) read by a celebrity that they have contact with.

This is a really great opportunity for me and promoting my practice, as due to the celebrity involvement, it will hopefully get a wide audience, as well as opening up new doors and opportunities for me as an artist – including continuing to work in collaboration with Wild Card.

As we all know, Instagram can be a fickle place to share your work. This is largely due to the algorithm and the way that it decides whether posts are interesting or not.

One way to make sure that your work will get the biggest possible platform however, is by posting a certain times, which can be worked out using the Instagram insights on your account. The above set of screenshots are from my own insights and show in a clear bar-graph the best times for me to post, according to when my followers are most active on the app. From this, I can tell that not only (on average) is 18:00 or 6pm the best time to post for me, but Thursdays, Saturdays and Mondays are the best times for me to post, as those are the days and times when the highest number of my followers are active on Instagram. Therefore, I should schedule posts to be posted at 6pm on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays for the best results, although 3pm on any other day should also get a decent amount of interaction.

These findings on my own Instagram insights also tie in perfectly with this graph that I found on Influencer Marketing Hub:

This graph shows that:

Thursdays are the best days to post in general. And the best time to post is between 2pm and 3pm. (Geyser. W, (2022))

Although the graph doesn’t actually show any spikes of particular activity on Thursdays between 2 and 3pm, these are the times where there is the most average activity, meaning that there is likely to be much more activity then, overall, than at other times.

I will cross-reference this graph with my own Insights, establishing that Thursdays at 6pm is the best time to post, although if I need to post more, Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm are also good times to post.

Source: https://influencermarketinghub.com/how-instagram-algorithm-works/

Now that I have got my instagram page cleaned up and looking professional and how I want it, I have decided to start ‘un-archiving’ the posts that I archived before I started the ‘remodel’. However, I have decided to be very selective, and only ‘un-archive’ the posts that most closely relate to my current work, or which have a particular significance for me.

As the posts you select go back onto your account in exactly the same order as when you initially posted them, I have also had to exclude some posts which I would later like to include, which I will have to actually post anew, in order not to interrupt the order of the posts that I  have chosen to have on my account.

The below screenshots show the posts that I have chosen to ‘un-archive’  (in reverse order):

The very first coloured pencil portraits I did represent my first proper exploration of drawing in this way, and finding something that I am adept at but also really enjoy. It was also the start of my fixation with making my work as realistic as possible – plus a few of the portraits have been acknowledged by the sitters themselves (including the first one of Maddie Holliday, who still has a copy of my drawing on her own instagram profile). The second ‘set’ of posts is largely made up of my Activist drawing series – which I plan to post the videos for very soon.

I think this selection of posts shows my practice and journey to this point well, and provides an effective point from which to share the direction my practice is moving in at the moment.

These posts also all have a fairly consistent ‘style’ to them – usually showing the work in the centre with the plain white colour of the page as the background. This makes a consistent style which I hope to continue with throughout my use of the app, and which is especially easy to achieve when I am drawing digitally using my iPad, as the colours are always perfectly balanced and I can achieve a very clean look to my works and posts, similar to those of @polina.bright or @francescaapage.