Looking at artist/potter Henry Moore (pot_punk), he has built up a very strong following on Instagram with over 13k followers.
He appeared on a TV programme, The Great British Pottery Throwdown.
He creates posts, videos, stories, to keep his brand seen.
Henry agreed to an interview with me:
- Hi Henry, how long have you been on social media with your art practise
I have been on Instagram since January 2020
- How have you built up such a strong following?
Being on telly helped my presence on social media, also sharing social media posts from my business account to my personal account helped bring up subscriber numbers. Keeping my personal and business account separate and not merging them as one was important to have more of a professional image.
- Do you take much notice of algorithms and analytics?
It is useful to grow an account, looking at when the best time of day to post would be etc but I think it really only makes a significant difference if you have a huge following, say 1million.
Instagram are pushing reels at the moment so if you make 2/3 of these a week you will be doing well. But the most important thing in my opinion is to make sure they are quality reels. I may make one a week, it takes about an hour to
make a reel and I am conscious that its time I need to be making orders for my customers. So having a balance is key, and the quality of your posts/reels etc are priority, not the amount you make, if your content quality is not great because you are posting so many, you may lose followers and not gain them overall.
- What are the positives and negatives of being on social media?
Positives – I have a really nice community of followers, they like to share their work with me and even friendships have been made through people meeting via commenting on my posts!
I am interested in what others in the community are making and looking to find a way that I can share this with others via my account, possibly a weekly art group and sharing peoples work on my account.
Negatives – I sometimes receive dms that are very negative and judgemental of my work, I don’t let it affect what I continue to make, I make what I enjoy, I like to have fun on my account but I am aware that others who are new to Instagram and may take comments like I sometimes get personally and find it traumatic.
- What would your top tips be to improve social media presence for a newcomer?
Focus on content, post what you want to post, not what you think Instagram wants you to post, keep it real and make sure what you post is the best you can make it. Because if it’s not getting the attention you want, you can rule out firstly that it wasn’t because you had a poor-quality photo etc so then you can look at other areas of what you can improve on.
Reply to Dm’s and comments that people make about your work.
I would suggest using about 20 hashtags for each post, I have mine saved as a file, so I can copy and paste, saves so much time!
Thank you, Henry!
Beautiful work by Henry
