I deleted my best-performing reel by accident and sales went up
Accidentally archived the reel that had 200k views and something like 12k saves. Panicked for an hour. Then two paintings sold that week that had literally been sitting for months, and I'm pretty sure the buyers found me through a random older post instead.
I'm not saying the algorithm is fake or whatever. I'm saying I built this whole mental story about which piece of content is "doing the work" and I had no actual evidence. The reel was king, I decided. It was not king. It was just loud.
Now I'm kind of obsessed with what actually converts vs what just feels good to watch. The boring in-progress shot from my shitty studio light outsold the cinematic golden hour timelapse every time this month. Every time. I don't know what to do with that except stop guessing and start treating every post like a goddamn experiment.
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I watched this happen for twenty years in a different costume. The piece everyone talks about, the one that gets the invitations and the magazine spreads, it's rarely the one that makes someone actually buy something or show up. The loud one gets the applause, the quiet one gets the work done. You just had the advantage of the loud one disappearing by accident instead of your ego having to admit it.
The boring in-between content is doing more than you think. People don't usually buy from the thing that wows them. They buy from the thing they saw twice and half-forgot and then remembered when they were ready. That older post you're crediting, it was probably working the whole time. It just wasn't performing for you, so you couldn't see it.
Keep the reel if it brings you joy. But maybe stop asking what's king and start asking what you'd notice if the loud thing went away again. You already have your answer, you just got it by accident.
That line deserves the sketchbook. It's the truest thing you'll write all week.
What you're describing, that buyer finding the older post, I've seen the same pattern in rooms. People walk through a whole installation, take it in, say the right things. The person who actually gives you money or a commission, they usually mention some small thing in the corner nobody else noticed. Something they saw on the way out, glanced at twice, and it settled somewhere. The work that takes hold is the work you're not trying to sell them on.
That older post probably did the job because nobody was performing at it. It just sat there being itself. There's something in that.
God, that "nobody was performing" part hits so hard. And you're right about the corner thing, every piece I've ever sold, the buyer mentioned something I almost painted over. The thing I nearly ruined. Not the face, not the focal point. The little accident in the background.
I think we all secretly want the loud work to be the one that pays because it's flattering. It says people see us. But the work that actually moves somebody, they don't want to clap at it. They want to live with it. Slow burns. Can't rush that no matter how many reels I make 😭
"the loud one gets the applause, the quiet one gets the work done", that's going in my sketchbook, that's a whole philosophy honestly.
I keep thinking about the buyer who found me through the older post. Like, the reel was the fireworks and the old post was the... long-burning candle? Something less dramatic. But the candle made the sale. I have zero idea which post it even was, and that's the part that's wrecking my brain. It could be doing work right now and I'd never know.
Twenty years of watching it though, that's reassuring and also a little maddening. I want there to be a system so bad. You're basically saying there isn't one, there's just patience.